gjohnson

Yeah Bogarde was there before him and basically said the money was so good he didn't care if he played or not. He sounds like an average person and not a footballer in that respect....if I could be paid 50k a week to turn up for a few hours training a couple of days a week with no pressure to actually perform or contribute I'd do the same. Chelsea probably have about 20 with the same mindset at the minute though. If you can be made a millionaire multiple times over in a few weeks, why would anyone want to leave

Would immediately lose loyalty bonus

Went to get tickets for this Sela cup and it was showing the Newcastle games as sold out, so we got Fiorentina/Nice. It'll be his first time watching a match in the flesh

Guess it's not that they don't like it here there just hasn't been a huge amount of them....could easily say the same about German players. We have had a disproportionate amount of French, or French speaking players coming to this league. And of course Wolves bringing most of Portugal over

Usually against us

I'd always assumed his dad was a Colombian toon fan and his mother was a Ukrainian who settled in England and found love

Their stuff has been absolutely bilge recently, and at present we probably would just get templates until we've had a few years of relative success

Well we've got no-one at left back with the quality of Trippier, and have been relying on Burn(who has done a great job there) but he's always been just doing the job. We need a left footed Trippier, as it obvious Dummet can't do it any more, and EH really doesn't seem to like Targett that much.

Well 23m in the bank up front for us could buy 2 or 3 40/50m players if we did the usual route of spreading payments.

The fee is ridiculously low considering a lot of the recent moves and demands. Either PIF are going out of their way to look like they're not favouring us, or we've got most of this fee upfront(tbf, sky are reporting £30m). The only way this is good for us is if the entire fee is upfront and liberates us from FFP shackles to a degree. If it's spread like a usual transfer then we've been bent over a barrel and been Marcellus Wallaced. I've no hope for pif supporting us in any financial way any more other that better management, better commercial dealings and sensible self generated transfers. Were not going to get the Chelsea/City boost for instant success, and are now just part of the PIF big picture for all sport

I confidently predict that we'll finish somewhere in the top twenty.

That fee is shocking no matter who we get it from. It's bordering on insulting that it's coming from a club controlled by our own owners especially when they're paying double that for our rivals deadwood.

Maybe but it would put a leash on teams like Chelsea that are buying players that they genuinely can't afford and gaming the system with huge length contracts, which will ultimately bite them in the arse in a few years time, when they've got millions in liabilities for salary and no way to get out of it

Far too complicated all this accounting stuff. Should be simply no staggered payments allowed. If the club has the cold hard cash available they can spend it however they like. If the pots empty the pots empty. Would instantly stop teams bending the rules to get players they shouldn't realistically be able to get. Kind of agree with fair market value on sponsorships, but it could be based on last year's results rather than 'historic value'

Throw enough s***, some sticks

There does come a point where new players have take over. Can't hang on to squad members who can't contribute forever just cos they are good leaders in the dressing room. If we could half the 95/96 team would still be lurking around As motivational as Lacelles may be now, when he first came in, he looked and played like a scared youth team player. His change to a leader should be used as an example to the squad and how it's possible to make that step up

Now? Remember Alan Smith?

Would be so much better if clubs weren't allowed to spread payments and had to do everything up front. Would make FFP so much simpler and harder to dodge just by having a decent accountant/lawyer Guess that would violate about a million trade laws though

So Wimbledon make a Wimbledon kit, and release it as a 3rd kit? Theyve gone maximum effort in being s*** houses to their fans

Well this can't be true because FFP. Everyone knows we haven't got a pot to p*** in ?

Not even remotely, but I do doubt he'd have even heard of Al-Nassr without the attention our takeover brought to PIF and KSA. I couldn't have even named a single Saudi team without the media s*** storm that went with our takeover

This is what I was banging on about last night and being shot down all over the place. Either they really haven't got a clue what they're doing, or there's some master plan that isn't obvious yet....I think the latter and it is to make KSA the football overlords above FiFA, the various continental associations, and ultimately everyone including me, you, the CEO invited on hospitality, and the fan that scapes all year for a ticket to a single match. It is starting to look like we were just the 'in' to get access to better players that would never have even considered their league even with the vast sums being offered as salaries. Either way, we are still being ran infinitely better than we have been since about 2004, so might as well just enjoy the journey and hope we can continue to compete and be the best we can

If this goes ahead it reminds me a bit of when Gary Speed signed....everyone knew objectively he was a good player, but he wasn't fancy, continental, or an 'elite' player so most were a underwhelmed, especially after a relatively poor season having been stuck at left wing, but was a fairly integral part of a team that went from also-rans to almost title challengers

I get that, but don't understand why they would want to risk making one of their own investments relatively weaker to said investments competition....it's like them having their Disney stake then pouring money to Netflix to take viewers away from Disney. Maybe they just want the lot ?

They are paying fees for Chelsea reserves that Chelsea would never get from teams in Europe