TheBrownBottle

Milan had agreed a lower fee with Como in the same window we bought him.

Overpaid on both

https://www.cafonline.com/media/bl2lhb3v/bm58fa2qjh76asriri5s.pdf page 36

They have indeed - ctrl+c From the AFCON website …

Because purchases are amortised over several seasons. So Wissa’s fee costs us about £14m per season for the length of his contract - that isn’t offset in a single season. The amortised fees and wages are sat on the books for a while - and we’re pretty much out of headroom financially. Last summer cripples us, frankly - we need to replace a lot of players and we’re going to need to do something we haven’t done well for a while - shop in the bargain bin. Not even the likely impending sales of Tonali and Livramento will provide enough. edit: I’d argue that not one of the signings last summer were worth what we paid. Not one.

It’s an absolute shambles - but the regs were clear and they’d been breached. Though nowt says more about how well put together said rules are than the fact they contain misspellings and seem to have been put through an AI translator: ARTICLE 82 If, for any reason whatsoever, a team withdraws from the competition or does not report for a match, or refuses to play or leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorisation of the referee, it shall be considered looser and shall be eliminated for good from the current competition. The same shall apply for the teams previously disqualified by decision of CAF. ARTICLE 83 A team that shall not be present on the ground, dressed to play at the time fixed for kick-off or at most 15 minutes later, shall forfeit the match. The referee shall register the absence of the team and shall write it in his report. The Organising Committee shall take the final decision in this respect. ARTICLE 84 The team which contravenes the provisions of articles 82 and 83 shall be eliminated for good from the competition. This team will lose its match by 3-0 unless the opponent has scored a more advantageous result at the time when the match was interrupted, in this case this score will be maintained. The Organising Committee may adopt further measures.

‘Its European masters’ - i.e. the ones who pay the players their insane salaries. What would make more sense to me would be for European clubs to refuse to release players during the ridiculous AFCON timing and schedule. It’s been a longstanding pisstake, and international football has always been utterly self-serving.

I don’t think Hall is off in the summer, but Lee Clark joined Sunderland from us; owt is possible

Welease Wodewick!

He’ll drop that deep soon enough

It’s an implied attitude problem to me - and the same goes for Gordon and Isak (Isak was pretty much borne out I’d say). If it was a form issue, Wissa would be in amongst it, missing chances.

Haha maybe you’re right! It just all feels very ‘final big payday’ to me. It happens with players sometimes - Winston Bogarde is the one who always sticks out in my head in terms of that. Wonder if Howe has had a chat with his scouting team over the Sunday family dinner table?

About £120k was what was cited at the time. No idea if that’s the case.

100%. Howe will know what bad signings can result in for managers. The likes of Wissa put his position into question. I’m pleased he’s called the lad out - it sometimes feels like being gaslit when managers go on like they can see something we can’t. Football isn’t rocket science - it’s usually patently obvious when there is something more than a loss of form occurring.

Being unfit = potential docking of wages. Being disinterested on the pitch doesn’t. Howe’s just said that the lad is fit and needs to buck his ideas up - the only defence for him previously was a lack of fitness. Howe isn’t the type to call players out in public, so he must be steaming.

It absolutely does line up with it - his lack of movement isn’t a fitness issue, it’s a ‘I can’t be arsed’ issue. I’ve never seen Howe talk like that about one of his players.

Yep - Woltemade seems like an all round good lad, decent footballer, just a bad fit. I get the impression that Wissa is a wrang’un

Won’t make a blind bit of difference next season then

Yeah, that would have been my rankings as well.

I’ve never been in doubt that he’s the finest football ‘thinker’ we’ve ever appointed as manager

The ‘he didn’t get the players he wanted’ line is absolutely baffling to me. I bet he’d want Mbappe if he could sign him as well - it doesn’t excuse spunking a massive sum on dross.

Made by the players around him and the system as much as anything - we all loved Cole at the time, but the fact he never managed to score 20 league goals in a season for that Man Utd side tells a story of how good finisher he really was. He wouldn’t be close to my all time XI in terms of talent; and if we’re talking favourites, he wouldn’t get ahead of his two predecessors in terms of sentiment (acting the cunt at Wembley, like a less talented Isak)

Didn’t Batty win The Mag’s player of the season award that year despite signing in March? He was our best player in the run-in. We’d started falling apart well before he signed. Loved Clarky, but Batty was comfortably a better footballer.

Updated in a 4-4-2 for me: Pope (pre-2025) Trippier Woodgate Burn Hall Beardsley Lee Bruno Robert Shearer Isak (with appropriate trigger warning) Five subs (nee keepers, so risking a Pope brain fart): Botman (pre-2025) Cabaye Batty HBA (pre-2013) Wilson

Which is all fair enough I think - they’re a bigger club with more resources, I think we played well tonight, and I also think we play multiple matches each season against sides with similar resources and don’t think it miraculous when we put in a performance. I do find it much harder to romanticise these games than I used to.