SteV

I would assume so. You can’t amortise a fee over the length of a contract that doesn’t exist. The amount Villa are paying for Disasi seems ridiculous. Obviously if he contributes to them qualifying for the CL again, or going really deep in it this year, you can argue it’s worth it, but…

The game having to stop 17 times for medical emergencies in the East Stand.

I suspect there probably is the demand for boxes, so they could ramp up the numbers there in any new stadium quite significantly. Where there’s question marks is the individual premium match hospitality areas, your Rooftops and Wings, that rarely seem to sell out quickly.

The thing is, as shown in this thread, what makes a stadium ‘good’, at least design-wise, is subjective. Spurs stadium is widely regarded within the industry to be the best of the best, yet some people in here believe it to be shite. So whatever they come up with (if that’s the route we’re going down), it’ll split opinion, at least to some degree.

I don’t think it’s that bad either tbh. If he hadn’t mentioned scoring four or five (which given the context doesn’t seem that bad) no one would give it a second thought.

That is true. There was a lot of ‘fucking hell man lads’ in the minutes after Kane scored 😂 I mentioned the Southampton game last week, and others have echoed exactly the same thing. However, thinking about it more, I’m now coming round to thinking that the fact we’re playing a very good team will actually help. Sometimes when we’re playing teams that we’re (probably) better than, there’s a bit of ‘howay man, we can’t lose to these’, but when we’re playing against quality, I think there’s a realisation/acceptance that they will have the ball a bit and probably create chances, so the crowd aren’t spooked into nervousness by a single chance or period of pressure. Having said that, it often comes down to just taking chances one way or the other. If Dembele’s cross-shot had gone just inside instead of just outside the post for PSG that night…

Aye, loans with obligations aren’t really loans. They’re just permanent transfers with a bit of PSR manipulation to suit either or both sides.

Enough to reduce the wages to turnover ratio by 25%+, despite the wage bill presumably increasing? Obviously none of us know the actual answer to that. And you are right, in that it’s more fun to concentrate on the actual football rather than all this malarkey.

At 96% wages to turnover ratio. Bringing in players on higher wages than the ones you’re selling. Obviously the money from this seasons CL will help enormously, and you have to assume the people in charge aren’t being completely reckless - but I’m very intrigued to see how they get anywhere near the 70% that’s supposed to be needed going forward.

Feels like they’re gambling the house on getting back into CL. Not sure that’s too clever…

What’s that, somewhere in the region of £100k - £150k per game, plus wages? Wow.

FFS, who’s given him a semi final man?

‘Legitimate’ as in according to the PSR rule book, obviously not by any normal, sensible measure.

Well the Greek keeper shenanigans was sailing fairly close to the wind (obv not the only club doing that kind of thing) so if that wasn’t a ‘loophole’ as such, it wasn’t far off.

Hopefully everyone else has ran out of hotels then.

It was legitimate, and they’ve had to amend the rules as a result. But that was on the PL not Chelsea. If we found a valid loophole such as that, I would expect us to use it.

There’s a difference between ignoring the rules and finding legitimate ways round them though, which is what Chelsea have done. And tbf, the whole signing of the Greek keeper was a massive dodge round the rules by us.

Agreed on Schar, not sure he’ll be that bothered about Dubs come the summer if we get a new keeper (Trafford) in. Doubt Dubs would want to sign an extension if that were the case tbh.

If he’s that good why’s he not really getting into an average Brighton team?

Armstrong ending up at Sunderland only ends one way, and everybody, hopefully him included, knows exactly what that would be.

Depends when you want to class us getting Hall. As we actually paid for him in the most recent summer window.

They’re not just good they’re exceptional. Obviously it’s probably down to Burnley’s defensive structure as much as him, but there’s no way he can have the glaring faults some seem to think he has, and yet concede so few goals.

Yeah, I hope so too. But I can guarantee you that if we’re 1-0 (3-0) up and they were to pull one back with a reasonable bit of time left, the nerves would spread throughout the crowd like a descending fog. It’s mad really, you sit there as an individual, trying to encourage the lads so they don’t get nervous, and you see plenty others doing it too, but that nervousness just sweeps across everything and there’s nothing you can do about it. Having said all that, I’d hope having had a very recent experience of being in this situation will help everyone. Players, management, fans. As Eddie said, “calm, calm, calm”.

Hmmm. We scored twice against Southampton to go 3-0 on aggregate, and all it took was a goal out of nothing for them to turn the stadium into an absolute bag of nerves.