Keegans Export

If it's two teams we hope to be competing with, I always hope for the draw, let them both drop points

The difference between the two is quite striking. When we lose, whether you agree with what he says or not, you can tell Eddie is trying to work out what went wrong, what we could do better etc. Arteta just complains, makes back-handed compliments, reels off excuses and looks like he's about to cry.

Some great choices today - pace of Livramento to keep Martinelli in check, Longstaff putting a shift in, Willock offering support to Isak.

Would have preferred Tonali in there obviously, can only assume he's not 100% because we've got over a week before the next game. Burn presumably in there to counter the set-piece threat but thought Kelly had done enough to get the nod. Like Willock/Joelinton on the left though.

I'm assuming he'd be on mega money at PSG therefore out of reach even at £45m

Unless we end up in the Champions League places, I'm 95% sure we'll be selling one or more "purples" this coming summer regardless of our PSR position. The issue is that if we have to sell before the PSR deadline, we're putting ourselves in a weaker negotiating position.

Let's hope he will reach the heights of Haris Vuckic, Fabio Zamblera and Wesley Ngo Baheng. We can but dream.

In isolation, Mbeumo = yes please. The problem is that if a "big money signing" means we're going to have to shift someone before 30th June again we're leaving ourselves open to having the piss taken out of us. I've made peace with the fact that at least one of the big guns is going to have to be moved on so we can refresh the squad ahead of 2025/26, but I at least want to be able to sell on our terms, rather than accepting a miserly bid ahead of an artificial (PSR) deadline. This is where a Sporting Director needs to take the lead a bit. Of course Howe is going to want tried and tested, proven players because his job is on the line. I imagine the mindset is "Let's finish as high as we can this season and we'll work out what to do in the summer if/when we get there", basically exactly what happened leading up to 30th June this year.

He should check up on them every so often. The door might have a sign saying "Do not disturb, set piece analysis in progress" but they're actually just playing poker or something.

So they're going to be looking at 20% of $930bn rather than 30%? That's still $185bn, so enough to build 115 Mercedez-Benz Stadiums and still have a billion or so left over... Football always sounds like an expensive business with tens of millions being flung around, but on a global scale it really isn't.

Might as well wear it when he's sat on the bench. Snuggle up with a nice mug of coffee and a Sudoku.

An interesting first test of the "best in class" criteria.

Hasn't Southgate said he wants a year off? They'll know they have to get this one right, even if that means paying the money for someone in work. My guess is Thomas Frank or some promising young coach from the Bundesliga.

Agreed. If you look at the £420m we've spent since the takeover, could that have been used better, to give us a more flexible, balanced squad?

That's true but whatever we think as fans, managers are going to be judged on results. Let's say you're right, Gordon puts that penalty at Everton away and Isak squares it today so we're 8th on 16 points. That's fine, but we still haven't played well have we? We've had games where we've had good spells certainly but it's not anything close to 22/23 in terms of defensive solidity, creating chances, having a clear identity. I said it a lot towards the end of last season but Howe still has loads of time to change the narrative. He did it (mostly) last season, finishing just outside of European qualification and just behind teams you'd expect us to be around. However, if we end up behind the likes of Forest, Fulham, Bournemouth after 20 games or so, questions are going to be asked by the decision makers.

Numerous other PL clubs would agree, judging by how desperate they were to plug that "loophole" Obviously it didn't pass in the end but there was clearly concern amongst some of our rivals.

That's why the push back against Mitchell for being critical of our transfer activity surprised me. We got ourselves into a position where we were scrabbling about trying to sell, making daft deals with Forest to avoid what that club apparently thought could be a 10pt deduction. Despite running things that close, we still seem to have such a poorly balanced squad, lacking quality in key areas and seemingly devoid of any flexibility from a tactical point of view. If Mitchell pissed anyone at the club off by pointing that out then maybe they should have a look at themselves first.

I'm 99% sure they've released those before but they sold out pretty quickly

The original white paper did have a few bits and bobs about not discouraging investment and the possibility of using owner guarantees as a way of demonstrating financial sustainability. From what NDM is saying, they're basically going to leave the financial rules/controls to the Premier League/EFL which seems a contradiction so presumably something has changed since the original publication?

I only mentioned Ratcliffe because it's recent and I'd heard of him/Ineos. But you've got Everton going through a sale, Palace owned by a Private Equity fund, Bournemouth have an American Fortune 500 company behind them. Wolves, Ipswich, Fulham. They don't have the brand value, fanbase or revenue of any of the big boys (or us for that matter) but someone (or a group) with a lot of money decided to buy them. Why? Seeing as I don't think many of us could name the companies or individuals in question we can assume it isn't sportswashing so presumably people who are used to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on stuff have decided they could make money from those clubs?

Why didn't Ratcliffe do that with his £1bn rather than buy part of Man Utd? Perhaps the Friedkin Group would be better off sticking their £500m in stocks instead? I don't think any of them will make a profit day-to-day but I assume they're hoping to have a considerably more valuable asset than they bought once it comes time to sell up. Otherwise what are all these American companies doing? They can't be accused of sportswashing.

As a short-term investment you're absolutely right but why do you think so many American hedge funds are buying (or trying to buy) PL clubs? They're not in it for sportswashing, they're banking on the value of their investments ultimately going up well ahead of inflation. Flipping us now would be daft and as you say your ROI would be minimal, if anything at all. But in 10+ years?

I don't think it's silly to speculate, this is a football forum after all. We know what the decision makers at the club want - European qualification. Early days of course but as it stands we're outside of those places. It'd be incredibly head-in-the-sand to suggest that Howe isn't under a little bit of pressure now, certainly more than he has been previously.

If we think the solution to our creative problems is to push Bruno further forwards then, with what we have available, we could do worse than get Longstaff sitting and giving Bruno more licence. We had some success with Shelvey in there so lack of mobility shouldn't be an issue, although Shelvey's quality and range of passing was vastly superior.