Keegans Export

£300k/week is probably a reasonable starting point for him/his agent to start with. As @TheBrownBottle has previously worked out, we can probably add an extra £100k/week without making any impact on our PSR position so that would take him to somewhere around the £220k/week range and that would be a fair place for us to start imo. Obviously he holds most of the cards but we're not completely helpless. He still has three years on his current salary and seemingly no release clause, so "I could earn £300k/week somewhere else" only holds true if someone gives us what we want. Hopefully something around the £250k/week range would be doable.

100% There are too many clubs who just want to increase the gap between themselves and those below. The "Big 6" want to make sure the likes of us, Villa, Forest are hamstrung, the lower-midtable want to start every season with a huge financial advantage over the promoted teams. PSR in it's current form achieves that.

"I can reinvigorate our recruitment with a data led strategy" "That's good!" "It led us to sign Rasmus Hojlund" "That's bad" "But we sold him for a huge profit" "That's good!" "But....Rasmus Hojlund" ... "...that's bad"

Little dweeb better get his Laptop out, pronto

That's appalling if true. We've been in a few times and it always seemed to cater for families, celebrating special occasions or whatever. The idea of the whole area for the entire season being bought up by "Business Club" members is sickening.

I can't see any scenario where this benefits us directly eg. loosening of PSR

Making some assumptions if we added another three years I think we'd be able to offer an extra £90k/week and "break even" as far as PSR goes. Anything less and it's improving our immediate financial position.

Just checked now - some in Wings

My dad, my brother and I usually do a couple of games in the Barracks each year but it doesn't seem to be an option for any of the games? £400+ per person will be a bit much for us!

I don't know if we ever actually bid for those players but I'm sure some discussions were had and if we'd been able to get them on terms we were happy with we would have gone for it, like we did with Elanga. Ekitike was probably the same and Trafford may go that way too. I don't have an issue with all the names in the above post being our top targets and I don't have an issue with missing out on those players, most of which have gone to rivals with considerably more prestige and money. What matters now is our plan B and how quickly and successfully we pivot to that. If we are flexible, able to move onto our "B List" and bring in the three or four we need then the window will most likely end up being a success. However if we're still sticking with the "small pool of players" and that means we're short this coming season then we'll pay the price for it.

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Im just delighted that after nearly 15 years we finally have an answer to the question "Where's the Carroll money?"

Thanks Google

Clearly a made up name. Move on.

A lot to agree with in this post but this especially. Aim high, absolutely, but I really hope we have multiple alternatives that we can move to. I could be misremembering but isn't that what happened with Burn? We spent most of that first window chasing Botman, asking price went up every time we made a bid. Eventually we pulled the plug and made the deal for Burn quite quickly. We want 20-24 year-olds who can potentially come straight into the team but we also have to be willing to look at players who don't tick all the boxes - a few years older, maybe coming off a poorer season or have had injury trouble. It's what got us Burn, Tino, Isak. We brought in Bruno when others hesitated. Trust the scouts that identified those players.

You mean "we"....right?

How much room to facilitate "no impact on PSR at all"? Is that what you're asking? All you need to work out amortisation is how much the player was signed for and how long the contract is, plus any extensions. It's not degree-level accounting just a basic understanding of how amortisation works.

Fair enough In that case the only extra cost is how much more we're giving him. Plus, in all likelihood he's off in a 12 months anyway so we don't have to worry about it beyond year one!

I'm probably misunderstanding but where are you getting £70m from?

Sorry, what I mean is that extending/increasing Isak's contract doesn't necessarily have to have any substantial impact on the current expenditure on the accounts. Obviously new players are going to add to the expenditure, but if the net cost of extending Isak's contract is close to zero then it would have minimal impact on our incoming transfer business. Players wanting rises themselves is a different issue but one that we're going to have to deal with regardless. Isak is widely regarded as one of the best in the world and has two seasons of consistent production. Once we see that from the others then we can talk about parity. Having said that, assuming Isak is off next summer then that naturally creates some room in terms of wages and PSR.

Depends how much "decent" is but if we add an extra (for eg) two years as part of the deal, his amortisation cost comes down which will negate some of that. The advantage (to him) of having that release clause locked in is that it guarantees we can't start shifting the goalposts once we get to next summer. Edit - very, very quick estimates but I think we could give him +2 extra years, +£100k per week and the cost of the wage increase would be cancelled out by the drop in amortisation by spreading it over two additional years

I also wonder whether he might think about the potential options next summer too. Take a decent wage rise from us, have another productive year in the PL and Champions League, if his release clause is in the £100-120m range there could be a bidding war between numerous elite clubs which means potentially more money in his pocket.

These are the sorts of deals we should be considering, and I'd like to think we are. Are they absolutely optimal in terms of age? Not really. But in the same way we spent a period chasing Botman in that first January window then quickly moved onto Burn when we got priced out, we should be willing to be flexible. Plus, as you say, the Saudi "Get Out of Jail Free" card is there in the future. Would be a fantastic addition imo, at the right sort of price.

That's exactly it. They've set the market value with their deals for Wirtz and now Ekitike - two hugely talented players but totally unproven in the Premier League.

Really? £150k/week is £7.8m - we got more than that for Longstaff. Plus if we extend it reduces his amortisation on the accounts