TheBrownBottle

I’ve seen Birmingham, Leeds, Blackburn & Middlesbrough all win major trophies mind

Absolutely. It’s only thanks to the brilliance of Howe & his coaching staff that a silk purse was made of out of sow’s ear of a squad. He made Joelinton, Almiron, Longstaff, Schar etc into much, much better players than they were previously.

There’s not a chance a decent PL club takes a gamble on Clarke - and he’d be worth £15-20m at an absolute push. I suspect that the Mackems would accept a bid for less than that if it came in. That would power the stadium generator for yonks

Only if you don’t have any sellable assets in your squad - which of course was our issue. The whole ‘Ashley actually helped NUFC for FFP’ was always complete bollocks. The squad was borderline worthless - very few assets worth significant money, lots on stupid wages & ludicrously long contracts.

Tbf Teddy you made mention of their fees as a point of comparison - those three players are considerably more valuable than Jack Clarke. You’re right, I can easily see a Burnley or a Forest buying him - particularly as he’d be risk-free for a relegation.

Leazes Terrace isn’t the biggest issue. It’s the terrace on St James St next to it - that completely limits the footprint of the stand. You can’t make the East Stand footprint any bigger than it already is in any real sense.

I would if the bricks were the same size as a house brick. But they’re much, much bigger - far less time removing the mortar. edit: when I was on a project in the NE replacing sandstone facade blocks, the total labour time per m2 was around 16 hrs/m2

That’s just the facade, and that’s only the demolition of the facade. And labour costs are not the only cost in terms of that demolition. Its also listed so it’s a non-starter.

I’m a quantity surveyor. I actually worked on a renovation in the North East where a sandstone brick facade replaced in sections. The cost would be mind-blowing; yes, the materials wouldn’t be as expensive given most are recycled, but all the finishes would need to be done. If you’re demolishing a sandstone facade by hand, and you’d need to number the blocks etc as they come out, then I’d allow 50% additional time for everything that goes with that. Say 4 hours per m2 of labour - comfortably. For comparison, a two brick thick wall (very thick) takes about 2.5 hours to demolish per m2 - but those walls are likely less thick than those sandstone blocks, you’d need to be a lot less careful, and the removed blocks would need to be carefully enumerated and stored. The costs would be insane.

He did, yeah. They were at least playing in fairness - Atkinson paid over a million quid for a bloke he was sharing a studio with

The gamble is that you can keep up the revenue increases to match future FFP requirements - buying top rank footballers gives you a greater chance of success and more commercial revenues. The danger is if you buy flops, it becomes difficult to claw back from your overcommitted FFP position. This is where Chelsea could run into trouble in the next couple of years.

Bruno’s FFP would be £14m remaining amortisation - it is by FY, not half years. £120k pw is £6m per year, not £30m. If you meant £12m, then that’s £230k pw, which is more than £50k more than our highest earner. In terms of selling Bruno, there would be a profit of £86m, and c.£10m off the wage bill. So £100m in that year. Transfers are amortised, so say you buy three players for £80m over a five year contract. That’s £48m in fees per year. Plus wages of say £200k pw all in - each. That’s £31.5m. So with the sale of Bruno you could buy three £80m players. The sale of one big player goes a looong way.

Sometimes managers do buy managers off the backs of WCs tbf. Remember when Ron Atkinson was your manager and went to the USA WC as a pundit - he overpaid for a centre forward because of it. Alright, John Fashanu was also there as a pundit rather than as a player, but you know, Big Ron liked him. And Fashanu probably wasn’t in the room for the off-air commentary.

Haha yep, though you might have saved yourself a couple of decades of stress There used to be a lot of Norwegian fans who came across on ferries in the ‘90s - early ‘00s. They were often shocked at how liberal the entertainment was in the pubs of Newcastle when I would sometimes talk to them.

If Bruno went for £100m, then yes, comfortably - it would mean a net of around £80m in that financial year, so allowing for £20m added to the wage bill, you’re be looking at three Isak-costing signings able to made at a minimum. The problem comes in future years; due to amortisation, your income has to keep up with costs in future years. So you either sell for big money again (a la Spurs) or you need to grow revenue year on year.

It always was for me - despite my handle (which is named after Tyneside's only comic-book superhero, the Brown Bottle; a mild-mannered accountant who gets his powers when he's pissed on Broon Ale - in the below making battle with his arch-nemesis, Cider Woman)

Almost, but not quite. Football is lopsided and broken because of the PL, etc etc. Yep, I agree. But then he adds this: 'I genuinely would have been gutted after Saturday 10 years ago, but I shrugged, & put the Xmas Dec's in the garage' So in 2014 he'd have been gutted. The PL breakaway occurred 22 years before this, but somehow he missed that the 1992 breakaway was also about unfettered greed. It is only now that football is broken. Aye, alright Exile, you massive weapon

That's an excellent name for a dog mate Yeah, Brown Ale was often called 'a bottle of dog' on Tyneside. That's less common these days, tbf.

If the club are successful then the plastic glory-seekers will outnumber us all. It isn't something which should be looked forward to, just an inevitability. NUFC's international supporter contingent will become less interesting and more plastic. I like reading about why some poor sod elsewhere hitched themselves to this club - it is always interesting. Sometimes its a player (Shearer etc), sometimes they saw an actually good NUFC side play, sometimes its the atmosphere which the club has reputation for - sometimes like @McDog it is because they actually liked drinking Brown Ale despite it giving people a hangover before they've finished the bottle (I wonder if @McDog knows that Brown Ale is traditionally known as 'dog' on Tyneside - perhaps that's the source of the handle on here?). But the 'Penaldo' brigade will outnumber us all - the weird dick-measuring twats you see on twitter going on about 'small club' and 'oil club' and which trophies count and all that shite. It all just seems far less interesting, and it is everything wrong with football, and at this point little can be done about it.

I think we'll spend north of 100m - but it'll be supported by sales

Just make sure that it is clear that 'will deliver' is your guarantee of service - I wouldn't want you being sued for breach of contract for promising that Ryan Fraser delivers

Clarke is 24 this year - he's not that young; in fact he's approaching his prime - and still hasn't played a minute of top flight football, despite Spurs previously paying an eight-figure sum for him. The lad might end up doing well in the PL, but he'd still be a punt. I don't see anyone paying 20m+ for him. Tonali is an Italian international who was playing in a CL semi final for them last year; Botman is a Dutch international CB who was also being chased by Maldini at AC; Gordon was subject to a 60m offer from Chelsea in 2022, and was player of the tournament at the U-21 Euros. Jack Clarke has done well in the English second division. There is a difference.

Need to put Isaac Hayden on Craigslist or something

We need to start selling some players is the crux of it.

It still is - the fees aren’t split over the rolling three years, they’re split over the length of the contract. So if we’ve spend £440m on players and they’re on 5 year deals, and next year is year 4, then £88m will sit in next year’s FFP accounts for amortised transfers.