TheBrownBottle

We’ve got the accounts - they did go to the club in the main tbf. The commercials shrank but there is a paper trail for costs. Not sure where the land valuation comes from either tbh

Oof, that looks a wee bit high to me - he definitely coined it, but I don’t think he made those sort of numbers - due to his own incompetence mind

Plenty enough did. I can understand it to an extent - there is the social element to going to the match. Me, I bailed early on the Ashley years (though I have to be honest, when I stopped in 2008 I never thought it would be thirteen more years! He put the club ‘up for sale’ after the Bolton home game that year, my last match. If I’d known it would be that long, I can’t honestly answer if I’d have jacked at that point).

We’d have got more if someone was willing to pay it

It’s incredible, isn’t it? There are still clowns who think he ‘steadied the ship’. He had to cut costs because our income dropped. The club was incompetently run by the fat fucker

I’m glad he doesn’t look as terrible as he did at the start, but he’s still not in Pope’s class as a keeper. We’re conceding at two and a quarter times the rate with Dubravka in nets - and while context as ever is applicable, the difference is still clear.

We don’t know what the punishment would be, ultimately, because the harshness will likely be determined by how far over a club goes

It’s his scalpel hand too - big blow for the lad

It might have without the PL breakaway. But the PL broke away so that the benefits would not be shared with the lower leagues, which now reap the ‘rewards’ of football inflation with very little increase in revenue. PL greed has done enough damage to English football’s pyramid for me. A form of FFP is a good and sensible thing, the current set up needs adjustment. NB tbf I don’t give two shites about the PL being the ‘world’s best league’ or owt, so this should qualify what I’ve said. If others do, that’s up to them. It has no relevance to NUFC nor to the health of English football generally.

Yep, it’s a point that is easy to forget. I don’t like that clubs are now businesses - for most of football history profits weren’t allowed to be paid to shareholders etc, weren’t allowed to be on the stock market ( @leffe186 - all Irving Scholar’s fault - Spurs brought all this trouble down on football ). But if they are to be treated and are businesses to be run for profit, that does make restriction of trade more of a sticky situation.

You’re 100% right - as long as revenue continues to grow, then the threat of having to sell players etc reduces. The problem would be if the current season continues on its path then it impacts this year and next season too. Hopefully we can turn it round and grab a Euro spot - any competition is worth tens of millions next season.

I agree, though we were the first team to finish 4th and qualify (2002) - we were also the first to finish 2nd and qualify

Bionic leg. Obvious, really. And he’d suit being a cyborg

Abramovich’s Chelsea hurt NUFC far more than Spurs. We were the ones competing with Liverpool, Leeds and Chelsea for the other CL places etc. No-one thought of Spurs as a top club in the early ‘00s.

It all adds up though. C.£450m worth of transfer fees being amortised over five years (even without counting the Ashley years) and rising. That’s at least £90m in transfer fees which will be amortised for 24/25 before Hall signs permanently. You run out of room eventually.

His style has evolved over recent years as well. I can’t picture Howe making dramatic changes tbf - but I still think he’ll be smart enough to identify the tweaks he’ll need to make during the summer.

Yeah, I’m not sure that repeating something until it works always pays off. If we’re in Europe again next season and no lessons are learned then it will happen again.

I agreed that this is part of the problem, but that gap between DF and MF is an also a problem which isn’t to do with freshness, and Guardiola clearly spotted how wide it had become. Bringing on Lascelles and pushing Schar just in front of the back four doesn’t seem that crazy an option

I still think a lot of that is due to their own failure to understand it. The Ronny Gill’s patter has been borderline delusional until last week - that young tit who does the podcast with John Gibson going on about needing to sign a centre forward this window. Don’t know what planet some of them are on. I think it’s embarrassing how little they understood how hampered we are by FFP, and they’ve sold a false narrative to the support.

We’re in a perfect taildive at the moment. The further we drop down the table and the more injuries we have making it more unlikely that we’ll get a big bounce back, the less the club will be willing to push in terms of FFP. The prize money difference alone between 4th and 14th is £25m. The potential lack of European football next year also damages next season’s finances. I’m becoming convinced no-one will be coming in, including on loan. Hope I’m wrong.

Fucks sake. If true, the ‘bad luck’ just keeps rumbling on

Sorry, was only kidding. The MF is incredibly flat without the ball - but I don’t know if that is by design or a lack of discipline. Villa first really exploited it late last season - the back four’s lack of pace and lack of cover in front of them. Willock/Joelinton and Longstaff/Almiron(or Murphy) offered a lot of cover, but if a combination of those players didn’t start then we looked incredibly exposed. The gaps between DF and MF are often huge, and we’re being caught game after game now. The loss of Pope to play ‘sweeper keeper’ has pushed the back four even further back, opening up even more space.

Glad someone’s had a chat to Eddie. Otherwise this is just a guess

Link?

We have actually been playing a player at DM all season - he just lacks the discipline to play in his favoured position, and leaves gaping holes between DF and MF It’s probably safer to just say something negative about Longstaff mind.