TheBrownBottle

Dubravka still hasn’t had to make a save

Christ make some changes you utter fraud

The FA has to take full blame for this. How this man has been given tournament after tournament. This has been in the pipeline. Not even a shot on target

He’s bringing Eze on because he knows the entire country thinks Gordon should be on.

Hilariously it’ll be at a PL club as well. Middlesbrough still haven’t recovered from this man being in charge.

Does Kane shut his eyes when heading?

Bellingham just falls over and loses the ball

Where’s the press?

They go out here and this is comfortably the worst performance at a tournament by an England team in my lifetime.

Gareth Southgate uniting the nation

I’m becoming convinced this lot don’t even want to be there.

Almost punished for the half arsed, arrogant, lackadaisical attitude this lot have shown all tournament, all filtering down from that berk in the suit

Looks off to me

Yeah true enough

It must be upsetting to learn that a winger on our books who has never kicked a ball for us just went for three times what they hope Jack Clarke is worth …

This season will not include the adidas deal

I meant others Kaka, honestly

I took them to the transfer market I don’t why but I had to start it somewhere - so it started, there I said ‘ we have to pretend that we’ve got no money’ And they just laughed and said ‘you’re so funny’ I said ‘aye - but I can’t see anyone else smiling in here’

You know when Champ Man isn’t going well, so you create a second manager profile and overpay for a reserve so that you’ve got money again - then retire the second profile? Aye, that (Of course, no self-respecting Champ Man player would even contemplate such a thing …)

Yes - and I think that the club’s approach to this has been reasonable. I think it was worth the gamble in January to see if we could qualify for Europe - and we only narrowly missed out. There was some dismissive comments re UEFA cup / Conference League qualification, but ultimately they bring in revenues. And as many have pointed out, a club triggering Bruno’s clause would have meant no other sales were required. No-one did, so the club had to sell to others to meet PSR requirements. So they sold a kid they’d signed for that exact purpose, and a lad who is sixth choice for what seems to be his primary position. Doesn’t seem that bad an outcome to me.

Fraser we probably can get off the books - I’m sure Soton would take him for most. The likes of Hayden are a problem, because we’d either need to buy his contract out - which doesn’t resolve the problem - or subsidise his wages - which is less of a problem, but means those outgoings are still there. Building an academy which produces both saleable players and competent young players who can cover for the first team is another way around it - and the club does seem to be making big strides in that direction (though again, I sort of expected that a new training ground / academy would have been in the planning stage at least by now).

We’d be in an even tougher position. We’d only be able to spend 70% of our income on players (transfers, signing on fees, wages etc). Allowing for our income being what it is now - somewhere between £300-330m - that means we would be limited to £230m on wages and salaries. (Edit - our current spend on this is c.£300m) Of course a big sale quickly offsets that difference - so this year, allowing for say £40m from Minteh and Anderson, as well as ASM and Wood, would mean that we would have been just about ok. But we’d need to do that every season just to maintain current outgoings. Of course, increasing income in other ways lifts that pressure. But it really is hard to see how NUFC gets above £400m per season without something dramatic occurring. edit: this is also why - unless the rules change - selling ‘big name’ players is likely in the not too distant future. We’re unlikely to hold on to most of the players we sign. Best not to get too attached!

The new rules to come in next year bring all of that to a close - linking outgoings to income.

Not quite - it’s not 5x spending. The problem has existed for some time - we’ve got around £100m of amortisation and £200m of wages on the books, with a likely income just above that. The new adidas deal will only offset the loss of CL money next season - and it isn’t clear that there is a lot of easy growth to come; some of us have bleated on for a while that the club is moving at a glacial pace re some of the low-hanging commercial fruit (training ground & kit sponsorships, for example). We’re nearing our ‘natural’ income ceiling at this point - so something needs to give if further growth is achievable. Lots of folks appear to get very upset at one obvious route - a new stadium. Otherwise, something needs to happen re the PL rules re related sponsorships etc, or were basically reaching the edge of what is ‘naturally’ achievable.

Happily were getting closer to the point when we have sellable reserve players - that squad looks ok to me (allowing for new additions)