WilliamPS

Gerard got a standing ovation from sections of the crowd in 2009. Personally I couldn’t bring myself to join in but fair enough to those that did.

If he participated in the second half of the season and scored say 8 goals would people not even give him a one year deal on 20k? He will have virtually zero PSR impact or cost. His transfer value is zero on January, and was probably zero over the summer too. Can’t undo the decisions from 1-2 years ago now.

Don’t believe for a second the club blocked his exit when Howe is doing everything he can to avoid having to play him, especially not at that money

Signed Osula. It’s more that the Osula transfer didn’t come off (or hasn’t yet)

They are not going to build an 80k stadium for hundreds of millions to sell a load of concessionary season tickets at reasonable prices, like £300. The economics just don’t work. Any new build or extension would cap out at 70k max, and you’ll still be forecast in the business plan to spend £300 on taking each kid per season, but the plan is for that to cover 3 visits at £100 each. You’ll get a scarf and a programme chucked in though.

This was always the risk with not getting a CB over the summer. Teams can fall to bits without two CBs starting so fingers crossed Schar, Burn and Kelly stay fit and suspension free…

If his surgeon and physios have said he’s ready to play be mental to randomly decide not to play him regularly until next season. The club always said 9 months, and December/January is ~9months post surgery. So far his recovery is all going to plan - course he may pick up niggles which delay him. Hes now back in training but my guess is he won’t be doing the full contact sessions yet, hence it’s another 2 months

Barnes is a great asset for the team, but yes increasingly difficult to justify having 3 options at LW and none at RW. It’s a bit of a depressing sign of how FFP constricts everything if he goes, as Chelsea have about 12 RWs and NUFC can’t afford to have a single spot on the team with genuine top level competition Howe seems to have gone totally off Miggy so he’s a goner. I think people need to set reasonable expectations for January. It’s a better time to buy potential (as those players are less likely to be integral parts of competitive teams). There are exceptions, but I’m not sure if a RW of sufficient quality will be available

Big test of the away form. One of the oddities of the fixture list is pre Christmas are all of the ‘easy’ away games, and it’s been a poor return so far. After Xmas have Arsenal, Villa, Brighton, city, spurs and Liverpool away, so it’s quite possible the second half of the season will end up with a lower points tally than the first Need to get a good se rod results from the next five away

Back to the future with this team. Aim will be for Joelinton to be a physical presence down the left and to beat them through sheer graft. Barnes and Tonali give something off the bench too. However my critique is it shows how the team hasn’t really evolved successfully over the past two years. Fine for today, but then IMO time for a rejig to build a midfield partnership of Tonali/Bruno. I’ve not been a fan of the 4231 calls but after midweek I think it’s time. Not for this game and not for today though.

Based on what? Wilson has always been fully committed, he’s just incredibly injury prone

Takes out an attacker when the problem currently is goal scoring

Well if Tuchel was in before Greece then fair enough Greece couldn’t be a factor Am not sure Carsley would get the Germany job for example though, Nagelsmann and Flick both came from Bayern. Low was assistant but had a history before that. I get Klinsman is the only one plucked out? Italy hire very experienced mangers: Spalletti, Mancini, Conte etc. Spain hired their youth coach but he’s much more experienced than Carsley, and before that they had Luis Enrique, and their glory days it was Aragones and Del Bosque

Why I think it cost him is that one of Englands biggest problems during the ‘golden generation’ and during the summer is the manager not being bigger than the players and making the big calls, any sign of that happening was fatal to his candidacy. The folk memory of Lampard and Gerard is just too strong. Had he done some other wacky experiment and lost he might have got away with it.

Carsley blew it by going weak at the knees when he needed to make the big calls on Foden, Bellingham and Palmer

Salary caps are used in America to help the owners get rich. In the PL it’s the players who get the cash. Seems fairer when they are the talent

Mental for so many reasons. Think he’s going to tie Bruno’s shoelaces together on derby day?

Boring article. PIF are the sovereign wealth fund with fingers in loads of pies, we all know that. Be a bit weird if a football club was their number one priority, vs. Much bigger investments in stuff like Uber, or the crazy city they are building in the desert. Boxing and golf are also not number one priority- doesn’t mean the Saudi s aren’t bothered about those

Man City say yes, the PL says no. Be another legal scrap before we know who is right

Yep, you are totally right. A fair value loan for Everton is going to have a much higher rate than one for Arsenal.

Sorry this is nonsense. Doing it with any other method would be a legal minefield as there is an established way of assessing market value. Assessing fair value of sponsorship deals is going to be very hard, as how do you assess accurately what it’s worth. But loans are incredibly easy, if a commercial bank would give you the rate it’s a market rate- as it’s literally available on the market. By the way, corporates do it that way as HMRC accept that the bank quotes will give the market value, and there is a body of case law behind that. It isn’t for “internal purposes” it’s for legal compliance with tax law.

Everton wouldn’t be bankrupt as PSR accounts aren’t the real accounts. The owners would still be giving the money interest free in the real world, so it wouldn’t bankrupt the club. Just it would reduce Everton’s spending power under PSR, and probably reduce it by >£20m a season. Everton would have to sell players or incur another points deduction.

Well this explains the different journos takes - depends on who he briefed them. In summary, PL position is the rules were confirmed but with a bit of a tidy up on loans and speed at which things are done City position is the rules were unlawful due to the loans and speed stuff and are therefore entirely null and void. Pretty big difference! If City are right then get the Saudis on the phone and get the deals done before new rules come in, they can’t be retroactive (as Chelsea showed with the 8 year contracts trick)

For loans they would just get quotes from banks at market rates. It really wouldn’t be a big deal. Banks already do this for big corporate clients that need to show arms length terms for internal loans to meet transfer pricing requirements.

No, he could do a dividend to release equity which doesn’t touch the club ownership The reasons for loans is it’s more tax efficient for him personally, as this would incur tax.