TheBrownBottle

I never bother looking at the table until around the end of September tbh. Doesn’t mean owt at this stage.

I’m going for 3-2 to NUFC. Can’t see us keeping a clean sheet with that back line, but can see our midfield and forwards clicking for the first big challenge of the season

Any questioning of Ashworth’s genius was slapped down pretty relentlessly tbf

Agreed, though I've never understood why PIF doesn't have full time board representation - I know NUFC is relatively small as an investment vehicle, but the visibility outstrips most of their usual investments. There are some embarrassing questions now circulating in the national press (some of which the owners have invited with big statements of intent ...)

Definitely. Latter stage Ashley contracts were fantastically stupid - handing out six and seven year deals on PL wages to complete mediocrities was absolutely nuts. We're still living with the consequences of Ashley's stupidity. But there are more saleable assets who've we've failed to 'recycle'. We seem to cling to players rather than cashing in at peak value - this includes some players who many wouldn't be necessarily happy about losing, but with PSR regs would have made perfect sense.

100%. I thought they were my favourite board, having paid money for Wood, Shelvey and daft money for Anderson; then they upset me with their 20m for Ulysses nonsense (FFP chicanery or not). With turning down 50m for Elanga, they're right back on top again

I don’t rate Elanga at all - absolutely bizarre panic bids if true

Agreed on that rabble (admittedly harsh on Hayden) - but we’ve also failed to offload some of those closer to the first team when either offers are made or we’ve been looking to sell (Almiron, Targett etc).

We are terrible sellers, mind. Though if that Jamaal Lewis to Sao Paolo story is true, I’m happy to amend to that to poor sellers

The signings of Tonali, Livramento, Barnes are what caused the mess. It doesn’t sound like they understood what the consequences were until late, rather than it being a calculated gamble

Craig Hope is the cunt. The others have been varying degrees of responsible for a mess.

Yeah I’m afraid I completely agree - even Hope’s sympathetic piece (in terms of AS & MG) pretty much states that they got carried away and blew past what they could / had agreed to spend in each window, and then didn’t follow up with any sales. Eales doesn’t come across well, but Hope’s piece in particular feels like a hit piece against someone who probably has tried to be the adult in the room with some of this. If Eales has understood the numbers, then he’s known for some time we’re in bother. AS was the voice of the club - she should’ve been the one in January talking about us needing to shift players out. Doing the nice and easy stuff is … easy.

While I agree that dropping out in the groups would have caused a dip in projections, we were so far short (£60m) of meeting the regs that winning the Champions League wouldn’t have brought in the additional revenues required This was outright negligence tbh

That’s true at any club in fairness - they probably need to grow up a wee bit on that front. You could sign Haaland from Man City - provided you stump up the cash.

Definitely - not at all a great look for any of the current nor former leadership of the club.

I can remember when questions were being raised re FFP compliance that the defence was as often ‘the people running the club are business experts / know the numbers / know what they’re doing’ Those articles really don’t support that, tbh. It looks like they didn’t really understand until far too late.

No-one said it is, but a chronicle of ongoing mismanagement at the club should be of concern to all of us

My guess (all I can offer) would be that Eales and Mitchell really did make a pig’s ear of much of it - and also Staveley is briefing her favourite members of the local press at the same time. The issues didn’t begin after 11 July would be my view, but it looks like Eales and Mitchell have compounded them.

Yep, while apparently Parish held Eales completely accountable for the botched approach for Freedman. Guess who was still at the club when this approach failed? Again, I’m not doubting the veracity of a lot of the stories, and we should be collectively grateful for what Staveley did - but this does feel a lot like point-scoring from a certain party.

Hope is. Was always close - probably too close, given that the Emery story was leaked through Hope.

The Hope article talks about her genius in negotiating the Minteh transfer - which is no longer a cock-up under AS’s watch, but proof of her brilliance as an executive. The article also wonders whether AS & MG also ‘would have got the Guehi transfer done’, which strikes me as a bit of an odd statement all things considered. Hmmm ….

Yep, you could see how she drove things - and her skills as a ‘deal maker’ clearly transferred into football pretty well. I’m just uncomfortable if there is a load of briefing of favoured journalists out of petty revenge - and Eales was her hire. But I suspect Eales’s time as a karaoke lounge lizard are likely at a close for now - I doubt that he’ll get a smiling reception from the entire crowd in the Stack if he does it again.

Said it on another thread, but I agree. My suspicion at this point is that: 1) there is truth in those articles 2) Staveley has been on the blower to her favourite journos to get a bit of revenge (how exactly would Hope know what the European head of PIF and Eales discussed?) Unimpressed by pretty much all of them at this point, tired of the club being a basketcase

Aye, a positive way to look at the shambles is that it might leave us in a position to strengthen in January - something we definitely could have done with during the injury crisis in January gone. I’m trying to be ‘glass half full’, but bloody hell this club doesn’t make that easy

Aye, agreed. I read Hope’s article and it’s an assassination of Eales like Caulkin and Hope always seemed to be closer to Staveley and Ghoudoussi than any other journalist. If they feel they’ve been pushed out, there’s a good chance that some briefing has taken place to client journalists …