Keegans Export

I'm impressed there's still someone there at 9pm answering emails tbf

Because our owners are exceptionally wealthy but are prevented just pumping cash in by FFP. So they can spend loads on something not covered by FFP (stadium) to raise something that will count towards our FFP income (match day revenue) There's also part of me that thinks the Saudi's will ultimately want a best-in-class stadium which I don't think is possible by renovating the current site (unless you demolish it) although that could just be me following the stereotype.

It's not really about seats (not entirely anyway) it's about corporate. Think about The Barracks for example, that's the cheapest hospitality option I think and someone sitting there at £200ish a pop is earning you four or five times as much as someone sat in L7.

Great first touch, receives the ball at pace and smashes it across his body. Not good at football obviously.

Like 25-30k season ticket holders for example? I can totally understand the frustration from any fan who may well get into SJP fewer times this season than they did last (I'm probably one of them) but I think a fair counter point would be - what's better for the club and the supporter base as a whole - two fans getting to see ten games each, or ten fans getting to see two games each? The previous system locked out (or reduced the odds) for people who didn't realise there was going to be a cap on membership (unsurprising seeing as it wasn't mentioned at the time). It also heavily favoured people who could sit in front of a computer for an hour or so, debit card in hand, waiting to get to the front of a virtual queue (or knew people who could). Personally I think the more fans that get to experience a live game at St James Park this season, the better. Maybe a few of them will be happy-clappy day-trippers, but there'll also be plenty who are going to be ready to go mental for 90mins because they know how fortunate they are to be sat there.

So you're saying you'd be disappointed with our transfer activity?

I don't think "the plan" is just about this coming season. If he is their #1 long-term target to replace Trippier why not make the move now when Southampton have been relegated and there is a chance to get a jump on potential rivals with concers about his knee? The Gordon move was the same, planned for the summer, brought forward to January because the opportunity was there. The owners have been telling us that this is a long-term project, we need to start viewing our transfer business as such.

Along with a cap on Membership numbers?

Dam Ashworth said its going to take three summers to get the squad where we want it, assuming we bring in a RCB then bring in a LB and a RW next summer he's going to be pretty much right. Obviously we're still going to be miles off Man City but this squad, plua another season of experience for Botman/Isak/Bruno, plus RCB, RW and LB and we're not far off a top-four quality squad imo.

Those viewing figures given by Silverstone in that Podcast will tell you as much. Massive increase in viewership of NUFC games vs league average.

I know that generally all parties are looking for the best deal financially and that arranging something like this with an entire season of football to be played doesn't seem like a particularly sensible idea when we consider the wide range of possible outcomes that we could see this season.

Not calling you out here but why would either party agree to a deal presumably to start next season before this season has even started?

Seems a really odd time to sign a deal with a kit manufacturer

Of course they do, and that's why we're trying to compete at every possible level we can. It takes a long time to build the overseas draw, it takes a lot less to ramp up the Membership & ticket prices. To repeat myself, I think they've gone too far with the price rises this season. But I do believe it's the same idea (in principle) as the Keegan/Shearer thing, the aim is to increase revenue to improve the playing squad rather than to line the pockets of the owners.

50,000 members at £37 is just under £2m/year. That £35k/week should cover Bruno's new contract. I always try to think of Keegan's speech at Shearer's unveiling "That's your season tickets, the money you spend at the club shop...etc". We can debate whether this is all too much too soon (and in my opinion the price increases this season are too much) but I can at least believe that they're doing it with the genuine intention of increasing revenue to improve the club, specifically the playing squad (which, due to FFP, we can't do without increasing revenue).

My question about whether it was "opportunistic" or not was in response to a post about the ballot vs the virtual queue rather than ticket/membership prices.

I'm not sure opportunistic is the right word - what are they gaining from this? They're still going to be selling the same number of tickets at the same prices whether it's this system or the old one.

Either they didn't realise how much of an issue this would cause people (which isn't a good sign) or they did realise but they couldn't do much about it (eg archaic ticketing systems, software at the Box Office whatever) in which case they really should have got ahead of this thing and warned people that there would be major compromises for however long until they can get everything set up how they need it.

Plus Villa sold Grealish for £100m which strengthens their FFP position (up to this season anyway)

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

It's pretty shit now. I'm sure when I was younger (35 now so talking mid-90s) you could buy literally anything with the club crest on. And we did. I'm sure it'll be in the club's plans sooner rather than later.

He's not really one injury away from being at 6 though is he? He's at best joint-sixth choice CM (along with Anderson) If Bruno is crippled, Longstaff or Tonali will go there and you'll have Willock, Joelinton & Longstaff/Tonali playing the other two CM spots with Anderson in reserve/rotation.

I was just about to ask anyone who has watched us regularly in pre-season, do Miley & Anderson have enough between them to cover the 6th CM spot

The new Pilgrim St one is more of a permanent structure based on the Stack concept rather than being the containers. That's how I understand it anyway.

You do but it sometimes takes quite a long time to come through