TheBrownBottle

I think it was @Yorkie who in the past has pointed out that he thinks Postecoglu is just a PFM type, a blowhard who is full of shite. He’s spot on.

If the manager doesn’t think he’s ready, then he isn’t ready tbf. It looked like an odd purchase at the time, given his awful stats playing for Sheff Utd, but the lad definitely needs time.

Tbf they’re 4th and we’re 5th, so if my mackematics are correct, they’re better than us.

Definitely. Clubs are community institutions and should be protected from stupid and careless ownership. But money poured into the coffers from sponsors should be the business of those two parties.

Trafford is surely cup-tied for the League Cup SF - which is my only worry re the Dubravka sale. We’ve had GK issues for the last stages of the League Cup before, haven’t we ..

Much more confident if Botman’s starting.

Except I wasn’t referring to the year you’re referring to - I said after this year. This year includes the new adidas deal.

Yep. It’s important to remember that our commercial revenue when Ashley sold was less than it was when he bought the club. That sort of commercial mismanagement is unheard of in football - there’s nothing spectacular about our commercial performance to date. Just allowing for inflation alone, if our commercials had stood still since 2007 they would be sat at c.£42m; and football’s commercial revenues have exploded since then. NUFC having £60m+ commercials isn’t impressive; it’s about par if the club had been run in a mediocre fashion, never mind mismanaged. What would be impressive would be to get that well above what would normally be possible. I hope they can.

Except the biggest commercial deals - kit manufacturer, shirt sponsors - are now tied up for a few years. Growth at the beginning was always likely to be at a high pace - particularly given where the Ashley regime had left the commercials. There isn’t any sort of realistic chance of growth continuing at that pace, particularly given the likely wait for a new stadium.

https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/11/clubs-agree-to-cap-spending-on-players-as-part-of-premier-league-psr-reform

Sport isn’t any other business, though. It never has been. Other businesses don’t ‘own’ their employees’ registrations to work and pay extravagant sums to buy those registrations. The ‘Super League’ ruling vs UEFA shows what might happen - that clubs will be ruled as having the right to enter any competition that they want to, making being in the PL a choice - and therefore it isn’t anti-competitive if you willingly sign up to it. NB the PL’s clubs voted unanimously for the new FFP rules.

Yep, it’s pressure on no-one. Yesterday’s headlines etc. It would fill up an hour’s discussion on talkSHITE, then be immediately forgotten about. Few would really care; and realistically, if say West Ham missed out because they kept hold of, say, Bowen who’d been bid for by Liverpool - how many on here would really, genuinely give a shite? You know, beyond a few ‘tuts’ and ‘tsks’. We wouldn’t. Most football fans ultimately don’t give a shite for the wider game, only their own club.

Score draw is what I reckon for this. I’d take it, too.

For me I’d try to cling on to the squad this month, unless we get a mental offer for Longstaff or something. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Almiron go plus another squad player, with a young squad player brought in - a bit of wheeler-dealing. Can’t see us splashing out though. Due to the way that amortisation works, unless contract extensions are signed then you don’t really open up more headroom unless income is increased and/or players are sold. And I’m guessing that if the likes of Isak are here past this summer then it won’t be on the same contract terms they have at the moment, further reducing headroom. Increasing income is key - if we were to make CL this season, then that would open up significant headroom again. It would also be nice if the commercial team could land some low-hanging fruit sponsorships too.

I can only guess at this of course, but at this point the inflated fees we pay would make it even harder to claw back for FFP. Also, our league position feels like it is in flux - the league is very, very tight.

I always think that what often gets lost in all of this is that FFP does protect football clubs. Or I should say, football club owners. It passes the costs of football almost in their entirety to the supporters. Clubs can only spend against their income - which comes from ticket and merchandising sales and TV subscriptions and catering and commercials etc. Even sponsorships are controlled so that the size of a club’s consumer base is a key factor in the size of those deals. And the owners are capped as to how much they need to put in. It is a racket designed to squeeze every last penny out of the support. This is why all clubs large and small - with a couple of exceptions - back it now and will back it forever. It reduces investor risk. Why would they change it? Because of the PL’s ‘status’? The PL was the highest earning league when our teams were being knocked out of Europe by clubs from the old Eastern bloc on a regular basis. The ‘status’ or ‘standing’ of the PL hasn’t ever made that much of a difference to income in the past. I’m just not seeing any reason for them to change any of the rules.

We’d have sold before 30 June, just like last season; we didn’t have the money to buy Tonali, Livramento, Barnes and Hall, either.

Our income for last season likely will be around that number, and the same again this season. Our amortisation currently stands at c.£200m and salaries at c.£100m. So there isn’t exactly a lot of wriggle room.

Yes. It was the same in the summer; if we’d bought Guehi we’d have needed to sell before 30 June We do, though. The accounts are published publicly, and last season’s plus this season’s can be reasonably accurately forecast. There’s nothing in the FFP pot, and the new rules (which make it even harder) kick in next season.

He’d played as a central striker regularly for Monaco and played in the 1998 World Cup semi final as a centre forward. He was pushed onto the wing by Juventus. Henry was always going to be a striker.

Yeah, I’d forgotten how good it feels to keep winning during this period!

Haven’t seen it mentioned, but Howe has turned it round during the Xmas / New Year period, which for NUFC is a historical achievement in itself, because we’re usually utter shite during that period. 01/02 still sticks in the memory (mainly for me because I was at Highbury and Elland Road for two epic matches), but this has to be right up there, and we are pretty much always shite during this period.

For me, my only concern would be Botman being rushed back before he’s ready. Kelly makes me nervous, mind

Yep - Howe started out playing 5-3-2 (Bruce was playing 4-1-4-1 towards the end)

100%. Yes, of course in the long run there’s nothing wrong with him switching to his preferred tactics and building the personnel in the squad around that. But to do what he’s doing just makes him look like a one-trick pony. It’s Mike Bassett and ‘we’re playing four four fucking two’ all over.