Abacus

Let's not be hasty, now.

In this case, he probably can.

Assuming they did get the upper end of those guesstimate valuations, they'd need to completely rebuild their squad - it probably needs some major surgery anyway, and I don't see much appetite from their current owners to gamble in that way. Was wondering how much their whole club was worth - I'd guess maybe £100m? That's for a club treading water and making losses, where an extended period out of the PL makes you fall off the face of the earth media-coverage wise, and where their upper limits in my lifetime were the Peter Reid days. Which was still unsustainable, in an area generally in decline and without the money in the fanbase to increase gates to the level they can compete with. Not to mention the dreaded North sea. They seem locked into where they are right now, like a lot of other similar clubs. And with the barriers to getting that high again seemingly so huge, I'm not sure it's worth anyone pumping money in. A huge reliance on their academy then, and maybe a couple of lucky play-offs, to get them a season or two in the PL with the hope of parachute money to give them a chance of being a perennial yo-yo club. Pretty dispiriting really. I don't think I'm being overly negative towards them there either.

Yes, I suppose in marginal calls such as these, that's where I should err. Cheers.

Yes, probably would have been better in the managerial-merry-go-round thread, but there we go. But then, it's also a joke about Ashworth. So after much deliberation, I put it here.

Let's have the concept of time itself sponsored.

Waiting for the tantrum where Ratcliffe claims he's heard that ten Hag is the best in the business at gardening, so it's absolutely ridiculous he has to pay £20m to stop him leaving and to keep him cooped up in the manager's office instead.

I'm not sure if that was overt, but the reports were that they certainly said it was anti-competitive. Can you hear the noise of pennies dropping?

Re legal challenges, the PL are about to be in a whole world of them you'd imagine as everyone fights like cats in a sack. What a mess they've made

Yeah, that's why I said "on the face of it". And I agree with you - I think that's exactly what's happened to them. They've hit the glass ceiling and realised that. But if we'd done it, can you imagine the noise?

The more you look at it, the more sensibly we seem to have played it - playing nice while the rules blow up on their own, and no longer being billy-no-mates in the playground.

On the face of it, it's quite a reasonable request by Villa given it hasn't increased by inflation for years. But since those rules drop away in 25/26 (I think), it suggests Villa might be quite close or over the limit now, so are susceptible to being raided. They'll also be in the CL next season and so must realise they need to strengthen and are hemmed in like we were. And at the same time makes a complete mess of the current points deduction farago that's happened.

They do make the point that after the collapse of the ESL all the traditional voting blocks in the sky 6 have broken up - they all want different things. So, at least we've disrupted all that, meaning the anchoring vote was actually quite clever by us, I reckon.

They say it's believed to be Man City.

In terms of whether he should actually go on loan or not though, I can see the argument for it. A year away whilst he finishes developing, regularly playing competitive football and ready to come back the next year, I can see that. He did seem to play more minutes this year than would be ideal for him due to our injuries, but then again he did take his chance. I suppose it depends how and whether we strengthen the midfield with more first team hardened players, as he'd probably feel like he'd gone backwards with what could well then be fewer first team minutes. I'd have been tempted to keep him here personally, but that's heart rather than head and logically a good season in say the championship, might be the right thing.

Yeah man, I'm sure no offence was meant by anyone.

Everyone knows you're supposed to start at school with a compass and green ink, writing "Mam" and "Dad" on your elbow first. Send him on loan.

That BBC article doesn't seem right. For one thing, it's claiming us and Villa would benefit from it. Who was one of the three to vote against it? Oh yes, Villa

Those are the current rules, clarified earlier this year https://www.sportindustry.biz/news-categories/news/new-premier-league-rules-faces-opposition/

Yup. Scrutinised more, anyway.

Which, in turn, gives us a bargaining chip of sorts. Think I read something that these rules on multiples are, magically, exactly about the amount Man City currently overspend compared to the bottom club now. Be funny if an absolutely potless club gets promoted in future, maths fans.

85%, 70% is the UEFA rule. And yes, the two go together. So, we could spend 5 times that of the bottom clubs, but only up to 85% of our turnover. Which means, we couldn't spend 5 times that at all, but all the big boys still could as their revenue is so much greater than everyone else's.

I don't think the anchoring would make any real difference in isolation. If a club can still spend 5 times as much as another, what's the point? It doesn't fix competitive balance at all. And I actually agree with the points made by the objectors - it hobbles the PL in Europe. From our point of view, get rid of some of the other rules and then we're cooking, but I don't think this change would do any of that. Unless there's some sort of pact to protect the 'smallest' clubs with this change first so the other rules go too, since we or anyone else then couldn't just run away with it, as has happened before.

Could give Milan a game, this lot.