TheBrownBottle

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.

Yep. Only need a two-thirds majority.

It also means that this season will need to record c£13m profit in FFP terms. There’s no give at all in the numbers.

They’ve broke away before - that’s why there is a premier league. It wouldn’t be the strongest argument.

It would be tricky to challenge a legal exclusion order from the act tbf

I didn’t say they exempt generally - they received an exclusion order under the act for broadcasting. An independent regulator would need powers to be of any use. edit: sorry FM replied to the wrong post!

The govt announced an independent regulator in the last King’s speech, so the intention is to legislate. It is worth bearing in mind that the govt can allow exemptions to the Competition Act (and has before for football). An independent regulator would likely have govt leverage to ensure that the regs are also lawful.

I still think Leicester would have fallen back to earth tbh - Brighton will do likewise in the near future. Every so often a well-run club does so, but cannot survive transfer mistakes etc even without FFP Just my take of course

They are, and they aren’t at the same time Leicester aren’t a big club, nor are they potentially a big club - even without FFP, it is unlikely that their position was sustainable. In their case, return to the mean - ie being a yo-yo club - was always likely at some point. Their achievements were spectacular in any context of course. But you’re spot on re what FFP does - it limits transfer failures to clubs already at the top. Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City etc could have absorbed a Tonali; it would have been irritating, but hardly catastrophic. For us, it was catastrophic - we can’t afford that sort of misstep (I know many think he’ll come good, and I hope he does, but for now that transfer was a disaster in the present). I suspect much greater circumspection will be paid to high-cost ‘bargains’ - particularly from overseas. I don’t anticipate a general change to our policy - buy young to sell high - we’ve bought similar to Ashley’s requirements for a reason (preferring under-25s etc). The plan will be to sell for big profits.

Proof of funding wouldn’t be enough - negative externalities are caused by inflation all the way down the pyramid.

The desire to reduce inflationary pressures in football is reasonable - Chelsea in particular caused problems, and so did Man City. Personally, I’ve no issue with FFP as a concept - but not as it exists at present. I wouldn’t want to see PIF come in and spend a billion quid on transfers in one season

Yeah, I know, and you’re right - though while the club only publishes in the following year, they’ll be across where they sit atm.

CL money is in this year’s accounts, not next year’s. edit: to be clear, CL revenue is in 23/24 season. Adidas is 24/25. Both are roughly the same value. So the any increase from 23/24 to 24/25 isn’t likely to be dramatic.

The PL was built on this mate. Short term thinking and smaller clubs fucking everyone else over. When the PL breakaway occurred in 1992, the top flight was meant to reduce from 22 clubs to 18 - which would of course mean that four space would go and that wouldn’t be a risk to the ‘Big Five’ (or ‘ITV five’ - Liverpool, Man Utd, Everton, Arsenal, Spurs). It was the smaller clubs who wanted the Sky money cash-grab that created this situation. Oldham, Notts County, QPR, Wimbledon, Coventry etc. You’d think smaller clubs would look at them (they all voted for the Sky breakaway) and think ‘yeah, perhaps this short-term thinking doesn’t help’.