Abacus

Here's how to myself look stupid - don't rate Haaland at the moment. Stick Isak in this same City team instead and he'd be having a field day.

You're going to relegated to watching the mackems if you carry on like this

Having read the article, which is self serving drivel and has the cheek to talk about the need to maintain "competitive balance", I couldn't agree more every bit of criticism that comes Masters way. He is the problem, which is exactly what the most recommended comment on there says. Keep politics out of the game? It's already in it, as he well knows. I'm also not sure about a government regulator, but I do think a bit of light into the backroom politics of the PL, however that is done, is the only way.

It was rumoured by one journalist, with the fines being described as a "luxury tax". Other journalists have since come out to say there probably will still be points deductions. It may be that these were all options being discussed, but the short of it is that while the rules are likely to change, it doesn't sound like anyone is sure what to.

I'm sure they'll be watching their own game - that's proper football. Pringles for goalposts and all that.

Aye, to be fair, you're snookered at the minute in defence. Can only see tomorrow's game going one way, the Chelsea game was madness. It's also madness that I'd probably want to hang to Dummet right now and not take that deal

Deal, Sir Ratcliffe

We should get Chris Tarrant on VAR to stroke his chin and take his time deciding if it's a goal or not. Thought that was a soft VAR decision, not the clear and obvious it was supposed to be. That said, I'd have taken it the other way round

Yes, it's looking more like it's being reported differently and maybe the original article was what some clubs were expecting/ hoping rather than what's been agreed. We'll see, including how this is linked to the anchoring proposals - i.e. a fixed limit on salaries compared to the bottom clubs, which has problems of it's own. A clearer explanation of the rules and exact penalties, maybe a lifting of the £105m loss limit wouldn't be the end of the world IF there's a loosening of the related parties rules. The main problem I can see is that a fixed set of points penalties could equally lead to gaming of the system. Happy to take a 4 point penalty to allow an overspend? Then how many clubs would take that option deliberately, and how much of the league table would be dotted with an asterisk?

I take it back, Froggy watch back on. What a game, though

Think he'll be fine

Those are my thoughts, there's so much more to be done with international branding and marketing etc that we've neglected. But you still need a USP, which is a unique stadium which still has an atmosphere in a pretty unique city, rather than creating a corporate megadome a mile or two away, which could in the long run become a white elephant unless you move all the hedge funds, banking and international travel from London here too. Can see it now; a remake of cash converters and a full takeover of the airport. And we'll claim to have invented Shakespeare too.

I thought match day revenue included the price of tickets, pints, corporate boxes etc. Could be wrong, though. Commercial income would include sponsorships (which you could still do with a suitably rebuilt stadium), concerts (likewise), hotels and all the 50ps earnt from go-karting. A different stadium in the same city doesn't mean you have access to the same concerts, the same hotel traffic, the same business events as you do in London. I think it's a false argument to say you could match the income from the Spurs stadium here, but maybe that's for another thread

Meanwhile, Ashworth considers whether turnips or carrots should be his main winter crop.

Just goes to show how little matchday income is the main factor - it's all on broadcast and (mainly) commercial income

Haven't seen it myself (yet), just people re-reporting the Mail

Some lovely grizzling on RTG about football is now ruined forever and will become a closed shop. Conveniently forgetting that it already is, and besides that they were bankrolled by Short well above their means for years as well. Now it's state ownership that's the problem, rather than who has the biggest most spendthrift billionaire (foreign or otherwise) as if that makes any difference at all to the argument. Ah well, it's all very sad. In fairness though, no matter who you support, I can't see a good outcome from any set of either restrictive or unrestrictive rules. If anything, there should have always been more rules about owners who actively try to rinse a club instead, as if it was OK to exploit a club instead of putting your money in.

If the related parties rule goes re sponsorships as well though, the revenue part of it could be less of an issue.

I'd imagine various other forums from clubs wanting to cherry pick our players will be taking this proposal well. So, for a balanced and unbiased opinion, I'm off to skim RTG.

I want us to be able to keep the talent we took a risk on and brought here, and to strengthen the places we've needed to and then compete with the might of clubs with the income of Man U, or the attractiveness of London, and to stop the talent farming/ having to sell home grown players that the rules have caused to happen. Liverpool and Leicester to a lesser extent have both shown that it doesn't make the league a foregone conclusion with the right combinations of scouting and management. Longer term, yes it's not the right answer either. But then the ambitions of the Man City (and our) owners can change, as can everything. For instance, IF there was such dominance, I don't think global interest in the league would carry on growing as it has, and that itself could be a factor in what some owners want from it. In the meantime, I'd await the crying of certain owners who you could argue have treated the league as a cash point to be monetised and protected with a certain amount of glee as well.

Let's not count our chickens but, I think if true the rules were snookered anyway in two ways. First, everyone can see the ridiculous consequences of PSR on certain clubs, that it's going to mean years of appeals and legal challenges and which they must also suspect they might lose. Secondly, there's us. If forced to sell some of our better players this year, we'd only use the money to reinvest and keep coming back stronger. If six clubs were really trying to hold us back, perhaps the penny has dropped with enough of them that it's only a matter of time and they're going to have to accept financial reality and deal with it, so might as well bite the bullet now.

I think part of the trouble is that, in most cases, we wouldn't really be happy with doing a Man City or a Chelsea either. Well, maybe just for a bit There's an always going to be an element of "well, other clubs were allowed to do it, so where's our moment in the sun?" for us. Whilst, in the back of our minds also thinking that two wrongs don't make a right etc and getting into a pointless tit-for-tat with other historic wrongs about fairness in the sport. For me, in this thread, the argument has always been more about how you stop other more devious forms of controlling the league, in which FFP, coefficients, etc are causing intended or unintended impacts on clubs and more importantly their fans. It's a right old mess and can, at times, make you forget the actual football and concentrate on (temporary) owners and incompetence in the rules instead, which is a fun old way to live when it's supposed to be an escape. But I'm sounding like a broken record as most of us vaguely think the same and it's probably been expressed better by others, so I'm going into the chat thread to read about people's awful pints of Guinness instead.

Nah, of course there'll be people listening when you make valid points. Think we're all a bit narked with a draw today as well like you must be too. I have no problem at all with Spurs building the way they have, or reaping the benefits of that. Ideally, it's how everyone would do it IF everyone was starting from a level playing field, which they aren't. I have no idea either how you cope with an owner that plays by the rules but hinders you in the long run which applies to a lot of clubs. But then, I can never personally forget that in a different example of bad ownership that Spurs were quite happy to join the ESL, wreck the entire league permanently and entrench a non-competitive advantage for themselves when they thought they could, showing the reality of it, and at that point the moral high ground argument about doing things the right way is sunk. You sub-human scum .

Out of all of it, and there's a lot that does, it's the coefficients that bother me most. Get into the champions league against the odds and try to break into the big time? Well hard cheese, you'll get put into the toughest group and get less money as well for no sporting merit reasons but just BECAUSE.

I'm thinking our medical team should stop checking reflexes by hitting players' knees with hammers. But, bad luck Jamaal, you surprised me with how good you were when needed this season.