ponsaelius

This couldn't have gone any worse for me. Not only can I now now not go, but I have a ticket for Luton Vs Oxford that night so won't even be able to watch it

They have a fixture next midweek, then we have two weeks with international break, then they have another midweek game. Then it's the next round. Can't see how it gets played even if they moved the venue tbh. Only solution I'd say would probably be postpone their league game against Morecambe on 22nd October I guess.

Ffs. That's a lot to re-organise. Do we have any idea when it'll be postponed to?

You wouldn't think their wagebill was 4x Atalanta's.

I remember getting chatting to a professional ticket tout when I was travelling, I think in Russia. This would have been 10 years ago. He was a digital nomad who just worked entirely from his laptop targeting any event where it would be perceived that demand would far outstrip supply. They increase their odds of getting them with multiple accounts and bots, then flog them once it's sold out. They're doing this as a full time job - they're better at it than any regular punter and the odds are in their favour. Clubs can easily massively cut down on it overnight. You just get rid of digital tickets completely - no PDFs, no eWallets. Postage close to the game or collect in person from the ground - no other options needed. Suddenly only locals can feasibly tout tickets - not faceless people on the other side of the world doing it along with hundreds of other events. But the clubs don't care about this entire market because they get more money from multiple memberships, and because often those likely to pay big £ for a one off game are also more likely to spend at the ground.

We probably have 100k sold memberships and more than half of them will be touts with multiple accounts. That's why everybody has such limited chance IMO. You're not in a fair game.

I was open minded to giving the new CL format a go (and i'm sure there will be some drama for the end fixtures) but my initial impression is that it is shite. There's simply too many games being played and hard to keep track of it all. Big sides playing each other too early in the competition will dilute the profile of these games. Empty seats in some matches showing that too with the prices being charged. I was at Milan-Venezia at the weekend and they had a bigger crowd for that than for the Liverpool game. I think this will be ditched within 4-5 years.

4th tier. But yes you'd think so.

He's not good enough to be a starter for us really and that's a problem if it remains as such but he's a fine backup/rotation player. It is also vital that we don't let any decent academy graduates walk away for free considering PSR - so hopefully they get a new deal signed.

It is actually going to involve some of the Moor, as part of the new application there likely a need/demand for better access/pedestrian links across the Moor as a gateway (as this is used as the main and logical pedestrian access, rather than the northern end of the site). But yes the built development is only on the student blocks.

It's interesting to note that it's our best start to a season since 2011/12 season. Obviously the team is much better, as is the club, but this season has reminded me quite a bit of that year so far. We started with a string of good results without ever really looking particularly good in any of them, after malcontent during the summer.

Marske away with Whitley today after a nice afternoon in Saltburn. Best performance of their season from what I've seen, got a lucky OG to win it 3-2 right at the end but overall well deserved I'd say. Marske 'ultras' managed to get the game delayed for about 5 minutes when their flare set their own flag alight

Found it, re-uploaded here:

Think it got taken down. Somebody else reuploaded it somewhere. I'll try and find it mate as I might still have it on computer.

My opinion on this whole thing is that the club have been stung massively by FFP and that has led a significant fallout, contributing to the departure of A&M, and now the club has made the decision to tilt the recruitment model more towards the Brighton approach (recruit broader and with aggressive buy and sell to navigate FFP) as the best way to progress the club forward while we grow bigger revenue streams. In theory I don't disagree with this. Overall our first team recruitment has been pretty good but it lacks dynamism and variety in terms of markets we look at, and is definitely too pally with the same pool of agents. We have ultimately backed ourselves into a corner by targeting a specific market and being risk averse - which came to a head this summer. If you could have an expansive and flexible recruitment model allied with Howe's ability to coach and develop players working in tandem we'd be onto a winner. Whether that will happen or not is a big question mark - and at the moment I fear we're heading towards a collision course that will ultimately see the end of Eddie unfortunately.

Gutted. I was at their game on Saturday right behind the dugout. Missed a chance to stot him with a turnip.

Kazim Richards played for Turkey but is a London lad in reality.

Aye. Close this fucking thread

I'm sure Cherki signed a new deal today

Always felt he would end up there. They've absolutely done us.

We really clowning at this point

That geezer from TalkSport already deleted his tweet saying it's likely to be done

Not convinced by him personally but he's a good age and has attributes.

The one thing I will say about our determination to let perfect be the enemy of good, is it did ultimately get us Isak instead of Ekitike/João Pedro. That was a deal that eventually appeared right at the end of the window. There's no doubt that signing and what went before it sticks in the club's decision making processes.

Indeed. I absolutely think we were sort of banking on one of them, probably Bruno, going for a massive fee. But obviously the thing that makes us need to sell (PSR), is also the exact thing that stops others also spending mega money to get us out of our PSR issues. It's an unavoidable vicious cycle. We have to be far more savvy going forward and have a clear and more effective strategy. With all the players out of contract out next year I'd be fine with us going for 5-6 younger players that we've scouted and picked at a lower pricepoint (£10-20 million) if that was our strategy. But I also think the club are somewhat concerned regarding optics/PR in needing to be seen to be ambitious and get 'marquee' signings in. So we seem to be aiming for big first XI signings, and keeping our FFP punts strictly at youth level. The issue is we've now not delivered a direct first XI signing in over 12 months