Hughesy

First goal is still a strange one, even after multiple views. Manquillo starts off doing a decent job, but doesn't get quite tight enough as Gabbiadini moves away from goal. Atsu runs back to nominally help out but seems to get in Manquillo's way and allow Gabbiadini that extra yard of room he needs and then Elliot gets wrong footed and reacts too slowly. Just a bit of a sloppy goal. Frustrating how much better we'd be with a quality goalkeeper, number 10 and number 9.

Was listening to it while falling asleep, but wasn't there also some mention of the Communist Party investment 'conference' happening next week at which internal and external investment guidelines are set? The outcome of that will govern whether or not external investment can be made and in what amounts. He seemed to strongly indicate that Chinese investors were interested in us.

I don't think that entirely true to be honest - pretty sure he had fairly average season for Bournemouth the year before he came to us. Part of the reason they agreed to sell him. Bit of both wasn't it. he had an OK season, they wanted to keep him but he was desperate to come and we offered a decent price. Ok season might be a fairer assessment - can't remember the stats re goals and assists but I think he was a fair way off an excellent season.

I don't think that entirely true to be honest - pretty sure he had fairly average season for Bournemouth the year before he came to us. Part of the reason they agreed to sell him.

Not saying he's a great manager, but think Hodgson is a better manager than people are suggesting. He's certainly capable of keeping them up.

Not really sure how he was ever going to get the ball that way though? Would take a pretty strange set of events for him to win the ball that way.

Really needs to be consistency in the way the media (both tv and newspapers) analyse challenges - they absolutely go to town on Ritchie's challenge, yet they completely ignore Kachunga on Mbemba? If you're going to have post match analysis that clearly ends up flagging things up for the FA, you've got to be even handed about it and actually review all incidents.

John Richardson saying Rafa had lined up deals for Sturridge and/or Dzeko to join us?

No matter how often this happens, each transfer window seems to offer a small glimmer of hope. Not sure why I bother engaging with this farce at all.

Get a Rafa approved replacement in and have no problems with this at all. Something doesn't seem quite right with Gayle and there are obviously question marks about how well he'll do in the PL.

Should save some pretty significant wages if we have shifted Sels, Riviere, Colback, de Jong, Lazaar and Hanley by the end of the window.

This suggests perhaps not - https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/loic-remy/leistungsdaten/spieler/45121/plus/0?saison=2016 In my mind, being injured and your legs going are two different things. Might have the same end result though..

I'm not necessarily disputing it, but what evidence do we actually have that Remy's 'legs have gone' at 30? I'd be massively disappointed if he is the best we can do, but he might have something left.

Yep - god knows who people thought we'd be able to buy in the Championship.

Please explain what is loan from club owner and why it has increased to 129m term loan + 33m further loan = 164m as per latest account A loan is money owed (to Ashley), which needs to be paid back at some stage and is interest bearing (we pay for it in free advertising). It is not the same as putting money in and expecting nothing in return. The debt was 70m when he bought us (mainly related to late 90's stadium extension as a 57m mortgage which had to be repaid in the event of a change in ownership). He then added 29m to pay off existing player transfer fees that were spread out in one go, another 29m as the cost of the first relegation (his mistake) and another 33m after the second relegation (again his mistake). He also profits from this loan fiscally as he offsets it in his holding company, hence paying less tax over his profits. So in short: no, a loan is entirely different to putting his own money in (as most other club owners have done by the way). I'll never ever get the Ashley line about not knowing about the repayment of the debt to fund the stadium. Change of control provision is included in pretty much every loan agreement - even if you did no due diligence at all, you would expect there to be one. In any event, it's relatively common to speak to a bank and ask them to continue to provide the loan.

It is meaningless in accrual accounting sense. Not sure what your point is here - we have a guaranteed income that is due at various stages over the season. It makes perfect sense to borrow against guaranteed income streams. The income is unearned. Guaranteed future income in accrual accounting sense is not in the book yet. You are basically spending before receiving in accrual accounting sense. Even if Ashley showing "ambition", how about next year? Cut back spending or continue to spend the next year revenue? On top of that, I assume it's 3% interest cost per annum, so it's close to 3m interest cost. Not sure why the accounting treatment is particularly important to be honest. It's quite common to borrow against future income. As for future years, you continue to borrow against that particular year's money. You're going to receive it, so there's no reason not to spend some of it. Given the situation we are in where we absolutely have to stay up this season, now is not the time to not spend.

Thing is though - it doesn't really make sense from a business perspective. Lots of businesses have uneven income streams over the course of a year, but will still require funds to carry out day to day tasks which they will invariably need to borrow. Of course, but the ideal scenario is that you always have enough free cash to do whatever you want without having to borrow any more. We're seemingly trying to run that model at all times but the current context is completely unsuitable for it. This isn't meant to be patronising and apologies if I've misunderstood, but I'm not sure I know of many companies (if any) (including FTSE 100 companies) that won't borrow money. Debt isn't an issue - in many ways, with debt as cheap as it is, it's a sensible business decision.

It would probably be cheaper to get out a loan for the debt that is owed to Ashley, pay interest on it and then get Ashley to actually pay market value for the free advertising.

A. charney quoted in annual account that the loss of central distributed revenue after relegation is 30m. I believe the so called central distributed revenue includes prize money, tv broadcast revenue and parachute payment. Bit odd if it's not the case. B. We just receive it once as we promoted back immediately. No more 40m this summer. I don't wish to appear pedantic, however ,90 million more than offsets 40 million like That's future revenue which is unearned in accounting sense, I guarantee you won't see this 90m in next account, if you mean the EPL TV broadcast rights income. Whether this amount is spendable is judgemental - but the cash has not yet received so if the club has to spend it NOW it has to be FINANCED by Ashley own money. Practically speaking, Ashley has to sell his shares to generate 90M cash and provide to Rafa, interest free, and he can only get it back 1 year later. It is complicated, probably, to those who don't know accounting and financing. It doesn't need to be financed by Ashley - the club will no doubt have a revolving credit facility that it can draw funds under to finance ongoing business costs or the club could securitise the guaranteed sums and spend the cash now.

Thing is though - it doesn't really make sense from a business perspective. Lots of businesses have uneven income streams over the course of a year, but will still require funds to carry out day to day tasks which they will invariably need to borrow.

It is meaningless in accrual accounting sense. Not sure what your point is here - we have a guaranteed income that is due at various stages over the season. It makes perfect sense to borrow against guaranteed income streams.

Absolutely no reason whatsoever why we can't spend the tv money that is guaranteed to us. Complete and utter horseshit that it somehow needs to be in our bank account before spending it.

yeah - I didn't see a problem with Hayden's performance at all.

That Everton team is slow.

From my Dennis Wise scouting, this guy looks quite decent. At that price, I think he'd be worth a punt ourselves.