Keegans Export

I think it's great that the two best teams in the country last season can both spend more than anyone else this season and be the only ones not at risk of breaching the financial rules.

Yeah, UEFA said they'd class it as a "swap" with Ramsey

I haven't been paying too much attention to UEFAs rules (and they're too complicated for me anyway...) but I do know that Villa's lack of activity this summer was at least partly down to UEFA giving them both a fine and dropping their squad cost limit as punishment. They did breach both the Earnings Rule and the Squad Cost Rules so hopefully if we're just in breach of the former and that will just be a fine.

I'm only up to the point where they discuss Eddie/Emery and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks there's a lot of waffle, non-answers and re-writing of history! She's so much better when she's just speaking truthfully, emotionally etc. She's still an absolute superstar mind and I hope history doesn't forget what she did for our club.

Presumably his agent has had word that Real Madrid are considering a move in January...

We could but generally we haven't given up many chances. I know xG isn't the be all and end all but we've had 0.2, 0.69, 0.69 and 0.50 against us respectively this season so if anything the three we've conceded is more than our defensive play has deserved.

Would be due back after the next International break then, Brighton on the 18th October Edit - that's three PL games between now and then

I was going to say that's a different school but they've obviously used the same source for today's game as that other lot used for Barca.

He didn't rupture it initially though. It was deemed not serious enough that he could just rehab it, then it went completely after he came back.

PSR is a massive stumbling block no doubt. But I've also not seen any evidence that we are doing everything within the current rules to maximise our income. Could we spend take-the-piss level money on the women's team for example? Drop £20m on new players (consider the world record is <£2m), lock in promotion to the WSL at the first time of asking. With that level of investment we could reasonably value the team at something over Villa's £55m, sell 10-20% of it to ourselves like Chelsea/Villa have every time we need a boost? We could have done that last year and didn't. We could have done it this year and while we've invested in the women's team the performance at the weekend suggests that promotion is still far from a lock. How much have we left on the table with various sponsorship opportunities? Presumably there's a plan there but even a few million here and there can allow us to invest further in the first team squad which = more success on the pitch = justifying higher value sponsorships within PSR. Every year we continue to drag our feet on the new training ground is robbing us of the opportunity to cash in on a "Your Business Name Here for £XXm" Training Complex. Just a couple of examples, I assume cleverer minds than mine can conjure up more creative ways to boost the top line.

Growing "organically" isn't going to close the gap though - our rivals to be "number 1" aren't standing still. From 21/22 to 23/24 our revenue grew £140m. Impressive obviously but in the same time frame Man City were +£102m and Arsenal were +£247m. Liverpool were only +£20m but even at the rate of £140m increase per year, we'd only catch up with their £600m+ turnover sometime in 2026/27. Let's see if our latest accounts show anything like a £140m jump. The current ownership have achieved amazing things & if you'd offered me anything close to what we've had in the past few years back in 2021 (or any of the years prior tbf) I'd have snapped your hand off. But we aren't going to be number 1 by growing "organically" so we either need to reign in the ambition (which if that is now regular European football and competing for domestic cups then that's fine with me) or we need to change how we operate in terms of revenue generation.

If someone is vehemently against a new stadium on Leazes Park then they won't care whether the capacity is 65,000 or 6,500

Think Joelinton is fit so I'd go; Pope; Trips, Schar, Botman, Hall; Bruno, Tonali, Joelinton, Ramsey; Elanga, Woltemade, Barnes; Wissa

Plus his overarching point - that we won't dare say a word because we are "cowards" and "terrified" of upsetting the club - is also absolute garbage. There's been a substantial backlash about it, including from the Trust.

Source?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean - are you saying that we now have the extra headroom from the Isak sale so we can just think "That's enough" and leave additional sponsorship for future seasons? I can't see any of our rivals thinking their current turnover is fine and sit twiddling their thumbs for two years. In fact, they seem to be trying to find every available opportunity to increase revenue, every loophole, whatever it takes.

We have evidence of this through our Adidas deal. With the historical link between Adidas and us, a sponsorship deal with NUFC was always going to be worth more to Adidas than it would be to Nike, Umbro etc. who don't have that history to call on. The ruling doesn't seem to be a slam-dunk, rip up the rules and go crazy etc. but the door has been opened to us extracting more value from the Saudi and wider Middle East market. Let's see if that is something we plan to take advantage of or not...

Presumably they're currently quite comfortable with what they can invest and are happy enough with performances on & off the field?

Is it just a coincidence that our shiny new CEO's main strength is in developing commercial partnerships? Perhaps there's a feeling at the top of the club that the commercial side needs work beyond the standard high-ticket items? Personally I think that's more likely than this all being some masterplan to wait for the outcome of Man City's case or just not having found the "right partner"

Well if we were waiting on the result of the various Man City hearings before committing to some sponsorship opportunities, we should be making progress very soon...

tbf the people we need him to influence - inside and outside of the club - lap all that corporate shit up, as proven by his success elsewhere. I'm sure we'd all love him to crack on like the lovechild of Brian Johnson and sober Gazza but that isn't necessarily conducive to making multimillion pound deals.

Assuming, like most remaining sponsorship opportunities, we'll be waiting for Man City's case to blow apart PSR/APT (🙄) so we won't be naming after a sponsor until sometime after 2045 so... Leazes Park Stadium makes sense. Just calling it Castle Leazes would be great. I don't feel we have anyone iconic enough to name a whole stadium after, although the Carl Serrant MegaDome has a nice ring to it.

BBC - London City break transfer record Firstly, this is a good indication as to what it takes to make the step-up to WSL level. Secondly, it shows how wide-open the women's football 'loophole' is. Villa were valued at £55m so basic maths suggests that if the world record is under £1.5m the ROI in spending big on the women's team to increase it's value is substantial. We wouldn't even need to sell all of it. Get the value up to £50m, sell 10% and that £5m will cover a nice wage rise or two (for example). As the value increases, we can keep selling 10% here and there to cover any shortfalls. I don't agree with the principle of using the women's game like this but I also don't want us to be the only ones playing nice. This loophole will be closed sooner or later and we will regret it if we miss the boat due to our own inertia.

"So, David, how does it feel to be at St James Park after all these months" "You're fired"