Abacus

I thought I'd read Rashford had 'decided' to stay and fight for his place. And by decided, I mean him and his brother realised nobody else would pay his wages. What a mess he's making of his career.

Even at the time, that 10 year ambition freeze annoyed me. Not even keeping up with football inflation meant we were always going backwards on the pitch, yet it was applauded at the time by a lot in the press at the very least. And by a lot of fans to be fair. I would genuinely have rather paid more each year if it was reinvested in the team, not knowing back then that it never would have been anyway, and then less of a shock when they eventually went up. Point being, when prices go up drastically as they must, I wonder how many will walk away. I also wonder what our normal capacity would be in an average season once prices do get back to what they should have been.

Cheers. Still have a grudge against them from last season, so I can dream

I am quite looking forward to the PSG - City game, but I'm not really sure if I follow it. It seems there is some jeopardy but probably mainly for PSG. Simply put, if PSG lose are they basically out?

He hasn't looked that bad in the very brief time he's played. I do wonder if he really was happy to join here as 3rd choice keeper. You can't imagine his spot at Greek No1 would be entirely safe by never playing.

Think this is one of the first CL games I've watched this season - the seemingly endless format puts me right off. Anyway, I know they're losing, but Villa looks pretty well set to not get quite as knackered from these games compared to us last year- a far less frantic pressing style than we had in Europe. Then again, since I haven't watched their previous euro games, that may well be pure nonsense.

You'd better be pouring a pint of gravy all over your breakfast right now.

Haha

Wolves are so poor right now - can barely get the ball and messing around in defence or giving it away when they do.

Well, yes agreed. And of course the PL doesn't exist in a vacuum and are in danger of losing out to other leagues including the Saudi League etc. So I think all it really does is stifle the PL. Seems like a massive clash between US owners wanting returns and other owners wanting prestige. I think the whole league loses out by cutting out sustainable investment, and that also has a knock on to all clubs within it. I'm really not disagreeing, was just wondering how we'd feel if Leeds, say, had been bought by Qatar, we were still under Ashley and there were no rules at all.

Yeah agreed, but no easy answers, since I think a salary cap would be disputed as illegal. But, leaving legalities aside, practically it's probably the best way I'd agree, linked with an escrow type system to stop clubs going bust. I just kind of wish they weren't asleep at the wheel when Chelsea and Man City did it, and only woke up when there was a chance we might go further. You could go back before that to find other examples, like Blackburn etc as a point of principle, but I cite those two as when you started needing HUGE money to compete.

Aye. The Brown Bottle is right though that the one legitimate reason it is there for is to stop rampant cost inflation - since even with the escrow solution, wealthy owners could just put £1bn into escrow, and still blow everyone else out of the water. That's the bit that's hard to argue around, and where other fans could feel rightly aggrieved. And how we would feel in their shoes. So yeah, the way to fix that is a salary cap on everyone, which would also be legally dubious, even if fairer from a sporting point of view.

The other thing, and the next battle, is the revenue cap idea. I.e. you can spend a maximum of say 70% of revenue on wages and amortised transfer costs to replace PSR, if I have that right. Exactly what does that achieve? The remaining 30% goes on, presumably infrastructure or running costs. But how does that stop reckless spending if your running costs are 50% of revenue? And what if they are 10% of revenue? You waste the other 20%? Or you just bank it forever, essentially taking money from fans in perpetuity? This and PSR are all solutions in search of a problem in the real world. If there is no chance of a club going bust or mortgaging it's long term future, then what is the purpose of this interference? Hard to escape the idea that these are, and have only ever been, sporting sanctions, in reality. But anyway, it's pushing against an open door arguing that on here so I'll stop.

Nope. Sorry if my sarcasm wasn't as clear as I thought. I agree with you. Absolutely don't want to be the club known for being well run but never risking upsetting the apple cart, though that's the model of a "well run club" in this system.

Perfect example of a well run club in this world. I.e. a player farm who aren't going to frighten the horses. We should ALL be like that.