Abacus

I hear they are having to pay his wages in monthly installments.

£3m up front apparently. So, nothing much.

Are Chelsea thick or what? As good as he is, they've been played by Leicester here. Something tells me the new owners have been listening to Tuchel's over the top whingeing too much. With that kind of spend, they'll need a genuine title challenge this year, or a CL challenge.

Do you remember when the genuine "big" club announcements were that we'd dug a borehole at the training ground to save money on water bills?

I'm quite happy with our transfer business so far. In that, I think we can already look forward to comfortable mid-table and no chance of having to fire up the relegation-ometer. So anything we add from here on in is only going to be exciting and push us onwards and upwards. But as it is, I'm happy going in against Forest with what we've got. I think that first 11 should be more than enough to turn them over.

If Maddison doesn't come off (and there's still plenty of time), I wondered if it would be worth going back for him in January. Normally not a great time for buying and selling, but whatever happens with Fofana, in his case 6 more months of his contract would have ticked down. And time for both clubs to have sounded out alternatives in the meantime.

Well, I'd be surprised if we weren't also looking at multiple players simultaneously, in Europe and elsewhere given we now have the back office team to help with that. I doubt we're just going from one target to the next. Whether we get JM or not (and I'd love him to sign now too), don't forget this came out of a clear blue sky with no-one really knowing about it beforehand. Plus, we don't seem to mind coming back to deals later on (like with Botman - not sure there's much we could have done re Ekitike).

Yeah, thanks for the reply. I think we're probably hoping to go in a similar direction re the training ground and off field investment. And probably hampered in similar ways in the short term, despite having the funds to go faster, if allowed. Which is frustrating for a manager as they are judged on the here and now. But, I suppose, long term, is the only real way to grow the club. Interesting about the manager role maybe having too much influence. I'd always been dead against a DOF type role, but I can kind of see the advantages to putting a brake / being a corrective on the manager now.

Well, that's your view. The European leagues are nowhere as healthy as the PL financially speaking. It's why they're more of a seller's market, outside of the likes of PSG. As for Paqueta, he's a regular in the Brazil national team, Madison isn't (yet) for England. I doubt you can compare the two anyway, but I'd personally take all talk of what we have and haven't bid with caution and not worry about it either way. Whoever we get (in up to a month's time) will be an upgrade, and the transfer window madness means it's easy to fixate on one deal or another like it's the be all and end all. I've done it myself, but that way madness lies...

Nah, we pay what we think he's worth to us and then move on if not. It's a buyer's market, especially in the European leagues which struggled more than the PL. So far, there hasn't been a queue forming from the big clubs either. And that's not meant to be a dig at all, he's a really good player, and most fans here see Leicester as an enviable model to follow. Rodgers might want £60m, but he probably won't get that. That's if he even has any say in it anyway - to me, he is sounding a bit like a hostage who is making escape plans / getting his excuses in. What's your take on him? It seems like a real odd position to be in to be considering losing either him or Fofana, for example. I know the wage restrictions etc. But is that down to him, or the club, or just a bunch of bad luck?

With everyone going on about us buying Richard Madeley for one MILLION dollars, I hope we blindside everyone with a sucker punch transfer. That Sesko looks a real talent to me, would absolutely love it if we snuck in and bought him. (Although, for some reason, I have it in my head that it's pronounced Sexshow. It's certainly what I'd get printed on the back of my Saudi shirt anyway.)

Would be our new record signing, wouldn't it? Love a record signing, me. I remember the days of thinking £1.75m was a bit steep for Andy Cole...

Be a cracking Monday if this goes though, mind. And all because Shelvey pulled his hamstring.

They probably won't get any "bother" from Real Madrid or Barcelona fans either.

Also, we should be offering money in pounds. We'll get scammed at them airport booths.

I wouldn't trust the figures being bandied about in the press for one thing. With any kind of negotiation, it's brinkmanship and both sides need to be able to claim a 'win'. Besides, I think you need a reputation as being tough to deal with, and only paying what you think something is worth. Otherwise you end up with Will Grigg.

This squad 'refresh' that Rodgers is on about seems weird. Can't get rid of the dead wood, so be prepared to sell your better players and gamble on replacing them with better. Unless they've already lined up some exciting new talent, it seems a bit risky. Also, you'd have to wonder why Madison might be keen on the move - we're not a step up on Leicester at the minute. Mind you, that bit came from Luke so the likely source is whatever just came into his head that he thought would get most reaction.

Mind, I did like the bit that put Sunderland in the same bracket as Wigan and Hull

It's one big excuse for coming back into management after his cry-baby and overly well rewarded exit. No mention of the mess he left behind. He deserves no sympathy and pitiless criticism. Mind, it's pretty hilarious reading his list of non-achievements and the excuses he makes every single time. He's also typically inaccurate with the Lego headed dolt Arteta calling him the most important manager of the last 20 years. It was 100 years - even Bruce must know he was talking out of his arse there. And the West Brom bit at the end - mentioned their record low finish in 10th last season and his job being to change that, distancing himself from the fact he caused that finish in the first place. Best of all, his voice being hoarse from shouting in training (one-fawty two! one-fawty three!). Clearly stung by the correct criticism that his training is hopeless and trying to get his message out that he isn't just a lazy inept loafer. It's a disgraceful article that says nothing except defending a pal of the writer. Despite the subject of the article having never achieved anything and having nothing of interest to say.

And I'd been fretting whether they were ambitious enough to turn Barker & Stonehouse into a club shop.

Yes, I read it the same way. You're just describing a loan from the owner (or someone linked to them) and that would indeed be an associated party transaction. Nothing wrong with doing that, of course, and it wouldn't be stopped, but the loan would be assessed at open market value. If you made the loan interest free as many previous owners have done, under these new anti-NUFC rules, I suspect it would fall foul of that. So, they would assume an interest charge similar to if you'd got a loan on the open market. That notional interest charge would then count towards your profit and loss for FFP. So, in some ways, you might as well just get an actual loan as it makes no difference to FFP, and you might be able to sort it quicker and without the whole hassle. But I think you probably get all that already, apologies if so.

Yes, you're right, if it was a loan then no it wouldn't need to be matching. But the debate at that point was about investing through shares, so we're just slightly talking at cross purposes there.

What you're describing is a loan to the business. He was talking about investment through share capital rather than a loan. Where you can't just issue more equity to one party only without diluting the ownership percentage of the others, is all.

OK, some positive pure speculation then. In the early days of the takeover, the consortium were accused of being slow to act, with every decision needing to be signed off by the head of the giant PIF. But let's say you wanted access to potential funds fast, without bureaucracy or alerting people as to how much you had to spend via Companies House filings on loans or shares etc. You might set up a facility like that, to get commercially sensitive deals like transfers done fast, for example. Well, it's a thought anyway. Might just be a payday loan for washing those windows.

I think where he is absolutely right is that this is not some sly dodge around FFP. But also, that there are plenty of reasons you might set up such a facility instead of asking for an equity or shareholders loan. As has been said, it's common practice in terms of how clubs are run, and running us normally is what we've all wanted. I think that, to then go on to question the owners ability or willingness to fund the club is probably what some people are reacting to, because that part of it is not based on anything at all. I'm not all that fussed if it's a slow build, for what it's worth. But we have already spent a relative fortune on transfers, started to sort out our back office infrastructure and started looking at expensive training ground revamps for just three. Given all that tangible progress and spend, it seems a bit odd to then question the owners motives. Either way, keep going like this and however we choose to fund it, that's fine by me.