TheBrownBottle

I was at the Charlton game - in the Milburn paddock with my dad. Our goals were really well worked, and the ones we conceded were fucking ridiculous - worse than Sunday league stuff. Summed that season up.

Wonder if the Champions League is really good again, after last year when they would have beaten most of the teams in it, particularly PSG and Milan

Mike Ashley, the hard nosed businessman. Useless fucker

They were truly bleak times - I feel jealous of those who’ve never seen us at the foot of the second tier (though even then my dad used to tell me that the late ‘70s - early ‘80s were worse). Even the two sides relegated in the PL era were smattered with some excellent players and both sides bounced back as second division winners.

What sort of sell-on - is it a share of profit (less of a worry) or a share of the sale (classic Ashley incompetence)?

It hasn’t fucked them, crucially. The rest of the PL - (ie the daft cunts who voted for it) - definitely.

Bloody hell, forgot about Wilson. We had a couple of loan flops in that terrible season - I can remember getting Andy Walker from Celtic as well and in desperation it being exciting that we were signing a Scottish international (one who probably only played a handful of times and was shite in those games)

Mark Stimson is still the worst first team regular I’ve ever seen in B&W Fumaca is still the worst I’ve seen generally - poor sod was our Ali Dia. Like a rabbit in headlights

I tend to think the other way - he gets far more grief because he’s a local. Local players have often met with far more criticism - definitely at the ground, or have a look at that ‘worst players’ thread for example….

Was a better full back than Barton tbh. Barton was a massive weak link in 95/96, and we ludicrously overpaid for him. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a top gadgie, but Christ we wasted that £4.5m

Honestly, I think this is what folks have to do. I don’t think that the club would bid for expensive players if there wasn’t a plan - whether that’s selling players, or new commercial revenues (or a bit of both). I’d be amazed if we didn’t spend decent money this summer, regardless of how the books end up being balanced.

And tbf the only people who know if we’re signing these players aren’t on these boards either - we have no idea who the club is after and whether or not we’ll be signing them until it’s done. It’s all speculation.

That we hadn’t been selling until we were forced to do so. When talking about the £17m profit figure - what that implies is that if we spend £100m, we have to sell £117m. That’s not the case. It can be balanced via amortised costs. So if we sign two players for £50m each on £150k a week and £5m signing on, on five year contracts, then we’d need to sell players with a profit of c.£37m against their amortised values. So if we sold, say, Almiron for £20m and Murphy for £17m profits on their remaining fees (and I’m aware that there may not be many buyers), then we could spend £100m on two players and meet the profit / loss requirements on transfers (despite a £63m ‘loss’)

I know it won’t go down well with a few on here, but football finances aren’t really guesswork nor do they take an accountant to work out roughly what they are. Football clubs’ incomes are both a matter of public record and based on publicly-announced deals. So we know how much base revenue a club makes from the TV deal (the biggest revenue source for most clubs); we know what the commercial deals are (the value is usually discussed when announced and confirmed later); we know what the bonus payments are for league placing; we know what the match day revenues are likely to be (given that we have every season’s accounts). In terms of outgoings, we know how much amortisation sits on the books (until last season - and both contract lengths and transfer fees are usually a matter of public record; and while salaries are not, they are often speculated and I’m sure most are broadly in line with the speculation). We know what the salaries were before last season (see previous point). The unknowns are based upon cup runs (which can boost revenue by a few million - again, it is easy enough to calculate given that we know how much we make on the gate, and the broadcasters are open about payment for televised games) and league placing (which can be worked out easily in terms of how much for finishing in a certain position, but unknown until you do). And in NUFC’s case, any residual commercial deals (none of which are the ‘big ticket’ ones - kit manufacturer; main sponsor; sleeve sponsor) - there’s money left on the table but it’s hard to imagine it being more than a fraction of what is already in the door. I still feel very confident that the club will spend decent money this summer - but they’ll need to sell, too. Completely normal for most clubs. If the club is after Guehi, then I’m happy to trust that everything is in hand - and I can’t imagine Howe or Mitchell being unaware of any financial constraints. If this is who they want, then I hope we can get him. I think it would be a hell of a signing.

Not quite - we don’t need to make a profit in transfers; we need any new amortised spending to be offset by sales to the tune of more than £17m. We could spend vastly more than we bring in, though of course we’d need to keep that income level up in future years

This is what I'd put money on - we'll get players in first, then recoup afterwards. No idea why so many are shit scared of the club selling players.

The 300m did include CL money, which we don't have this season - so one offsets the other. There is no reason at all to think that revenues will be up this year

Fucking football fwend

Got me all excited now

Marc Hottiger was a really good PL right back at the time - but you never see his name mentioned during KK-era reminiscences

Don’t get me wrong, I can see how people can get rubbed up the wrong way. I get a bit concerned when it starts crossing over into bullying, though - just ignore the lad if it’s a bit much.

They’re still France’s biggest club to me - PSG’s position is a manufactured one which would end the moment the Qataris pull the plug

I’ll happily defend TCD, even while disagreeing with his assessment of Guehi. He doesn’t half take some flak on here for doing nowt more than expressing his opinion.

We counting the Mackems’ Papa Johns one too?

Krystallnackers