gjohnson

Release clauses used to be set at prices the club's thought no-one would ever pay to ensure the club's got a decent price if they did sell. Problem for the Spanish club's is they've not adjusted them and they are no longer out of reach for some club's to afford

Justification for an unprecedented massive sponsorship with Saudia

Only if the player is absolutely desperate to leave and is willing to sacrifice the 'loyalty' bonus.

This....there's 7 or 8 that come in and out of Durham/Tees every day, that Flightradar don't even pick up. I can't imagine there's too many smoggies that can run a learjet

I really hope Max Power is still with them. Because he's the man you'd love to touch, but you must not touch

Well lets be fair....out full strength team did just lose to L1 relegation candidates Cambridge However if the question was reversed i couldn't answer as I literally do not know any of their players anymore unless Will Grigg is still there

Exactly this....football is football, it's not like there's different rules in every other league. He should focus on how a player will integrate with the current lot and work as part of a team. PL experience does not mean good...Ciaran Clarke has PL experience, and we've all seen how well thats worked out

having watched that this is all i can think of....

Only because it wasn't them. When a big fat cheque comes their way they'll bend over like any two bit whore I'd say it would be Tottenham that would be the most un-co-operative, as they're the most likely to lose out when we get back to the top.

Deeney always has a field day against us no matter who we play

It's a sad state of affairs when we are looking for Dummet to be fit

How do you pronounce his name? Is it Ekeeteekee, Ekiteeke, Ekeetike? Genuiunely have no idea?

So there are ways an owner can funnel money into a club without drawing attention

Pretty sure Chelsea were on the verge of going in to administration before Roman bought them and then spent an amount on players that was unprecedented at the time. Yes they did buy success initially, but success breeds success and now they can survive without a billionaires help

If anyone ever watched Ideal, there's a great comment from Johnny Vegas on Burnley. "Burnley? What are you doing in Burnley? Hope you've had your jabs"

I would say he's rated exactly as he should be. At a certain point in time he had a good set of contacts and knowledge of players contracts which served us quite well. However this clearly was not permanent and becoming more and more apparent that it was due to being mates with certain agents

This is spot on. We live in times where 20M is now quite a small fee for a good player. We've had 14 years of conditioning to believe that 7M is still a big fee when in reality that would probably struggle to get you a backup Championship defender. Maybe it's a leftover from the Shearer signing that's just been ingrained to our support where anything more than 15M should be a superstar

Ultimately Carr lost his mistique/x-factor or whatever when he was put on the board. Yes he was still finding good players, Aubameyang/Lacazette (at the time), but was totally hamstrung by Barnes/Ashley refusing to pay, and the hidden gems no-one had really heard of dried up. Yes Cabaye had just won the league at the time we got him, but I seriously doubt anyone actually knew how good he was beyond the obsessives who insist on being football hipsters

Carr had his good moments, but clearly wasn't whiter than white given his Ashley association. Cabaye was probably the best move he ever made, and we probably could have got another 10M if JFK wasn't involved

Playing ASM up front was an obvious mistake immediately. It's the kind of thing FM experts try on the PC and big it up as a good idea, ignoring the reality that ASM doesn't have the awareness or shooting ability to be the main striker

Are they still clinging to the hope that Sartori is suddenly going to pour millions into them, and they can do a friendship thing with Monaco where they get first choice of the best players from there

well he might need some practice to show he can do it at Stoke on a cold Tuesday night? PFM Pundit requirement for a good player. Ignoring everything bar his Atletico time of course.

He wasn't wrong... Even driving from London to Middlesboro takes longer than driving from London to Newcastle.

Because they assume the Dreyfuss kid has access to the entire fortune, and not just the interest from the trust fund his mother allows him to have, while at the same time most of them not realising Donald still owns a significant part of their club (probably 49% given Dreyfuss refused to disclose that he had anything more than a controlling stake)