TheBrownBottle

I reckon that’s pretty well explained tbf

It's amortised, so it doesn't matter if you have a 100m transfer with the player on a five year contract and you've agreed to pay 10m upfront and 90m the year after - it is 20m each year over the five years which counts towards FFP

What about the one I saw Gazza play in? That was a side filled with mediocrities and a footballing genius. ASM is exciting in a shit team because he can beat a man. Playing in a shit team has potentially helped not hindered him - his worst excesses have not been curbed. If NUFC becomes the side we hope in the next couple of years he’ll have to either improve massively or be shipped off. ‘Bruce-ball’, if it has skewed anything, is to make people forget what really good footballers actually look like. ASM is more Ketsbaia with Twitter nous than a footballing genius.

Nowt to do with Bruce-ball whatsoever. The most naturally talented players I’ve seen in B&W - Beardsley, Ginola, Robert, HBA - didn’t hold on to the ball like ASM because all of those players had footballing intelligence. ASM, to date, has shown few signs that he has it - and I’m hoping some can coached in. Better players around you help, yes. No good team - or manager - would have put up with play that shite for any length of time.

Yeah, it’s really good that one. It feels borderline bad taste to say this, and there are of course far more important things to think about, but what a side Yugoslavia would have had in the ‘90s without the civil war and break-up. There is a really good chance they would have bagged a major tournament.

Make or break season to me - if the lad can look up more often and release the ball just a little earlier he’ll be a cracking footballer. I thought the last two or three games of last year were the best ‘all round’ games he’d played for us - if we can get a better player on the other flank to take the pressure off his side it could make a massive difference. Plus Howe has a full pre-season to work with him. If next season is all running down blind alleys and shooting tamely from ludicrous angles then that’ll be it.

He put it horrifically because he’s a cunt, and he’s lacking in self-awareness and forgets that Birmingham is a city that no fucker would ever willingly live in, but there is some truth to what he said. It would be a difficult sell, and there’s a premium attached to getting a footballer to live in a provincial city. If I’m Ekitike and I’m offered Paris or Newcastle, I know where I’m going. As would most people if we’re being honest.

I had genuinely forgot about the lad over the last few days. I think I sort of thought it wasn’t happening. Whether he signs or not, still think the YouTube clips are a bit ‘meh’ - there is a lot of the Ayoze about the lad; the finishing looked more luck than technique. He’s more than young enough to develop, and the clubs being linked are European heavyweights, so obviously there’s more to him than the clips suggest. I wouldn’t be excited by his signing nor disappointed by his non-signing to be honest - couldn’t say that for Bruno or Trippier.

I remember James Richardson saying that ‘Golaco’ was used because it sounded like ‘gol Lazio’ or ‘go Lazio’, because loads would have been watching just to see Gazza play for Lazio

Spot on. Remember getting thumped at home off Fulham under Souness, after he chucked on a load of forwards?

I completely agree that's where the bile comes from - personally, I just think he's an inoffensive but thoroughly mediocre manager. I like the fact he isn't a Allardyce-style wanker, and I think he's a positive force for good with his statements on issues like racism etc. Just think he's a bit crap at football management.

I wouldn't hold my breath based on the link below ... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jun/15/englands-drubbing-by-hungary-shows-risk-of-over-attacking-warns-southgate

Let's not forget that they managed to finish 8th in the Third Division in 2019-20. Their glorious play off triumph needs contextualised with this in mind. They finished 52nd in English football that season. Whatever happens next season, it will be their first 'top-half' finish in five years. Top half of the football league, that is of course - they've only managed three actual 'top-half' finishes in the top flight in the last 65 years. They're the biggest club in the second tier though, of that there can be no doubt* *this statement has some doubt attached

Yeah, a superb midfielder

Belgium are an excellent side at present - but they’re not traditional heavyweights. England knocked them out in the last 16 in Italy ‘90, of course - but other than Enzo Scifo that wasn’t a particularly strong Belgian side

I thought transfers were amortised for FFP - so paying in installments will make no difference, as the amortisation is based upon the length of the player's initial contract?

QF is par for England; history suggests that England are knocked out by the first really good side they play. And if the tournament is played outside England, this becomes a hard and fast rule. The second part didn’t change under Southgate - England had some fortune with the draws and home advantage at the Euros (not to be sniffed at - England haven’t beaten any major footballing nation in a knockout game played outside of England - and by major I mean Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal). There is no reason to think Qatar will be any different.

Filled the ‘English quota’ for me. Lampard was brilliant at one thing. We’ll have to agree to disagree

I never thought the likes of Terry or Lampard were top rank international class players - what they lacked was covered up at club level by playing with outstanding footballers. They were exposed at international level for their basic technical failings. Christ, the whole ‘Lampard and Gerrard can’t play together’ thing was treated like a tactical conundrum …. Calling for Southgate’s job is crackers to me - it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t done a decent job, and as you say the idea that anyone can just step in - not sure about that tbh.

It is a very talented England generation - it’s worth remembering that its only a few years ago England won the u17 and u20 WCs and u19 Euros in quick succession - lots of the current England squad were in those set-ups. So when people talk of Southgate squandering that opportunity, they do have a point - this is the most talented group in my lifetime; they’re all solid technically, more than the ‘superstars’ of the ‘golden generation’ etc. Southgate is a conservative coach who’s only club management experience ended in complete failure. He was far too defensive vs Italy after going 1-0 up. But he seems like a decent bloke, and sacking him months before a WC is crackers (as were the FA for extending his contract past the WC mind). Remember, if he wasn’t such a corrupt fucker the last two tournaments should’ve been Allardyce’s - and that con-man wouldn’t have got them near a semi or a final. One thing this does prove is that England have little strength in depth. I also don’t like Southgate’s little Englander tendencies in terms of treating the Nations League with contempt - that line-up was a pisstake.

The success and grandeur element is the sportswashing bit - it’s reputation laundering. The same for the boxing, F1, golf etc. I completely get where you’re coming from re it won’t make people forget the terrible abuses - but the idea is to have people think of success first, and then ‘oh that’s right, they give people lashes in public squares’ afterwards. Joe Public isn’t a member of Amnesty, and plenty don’t give a shite about human rights abuses; if everyone did care, Amnesty wouldn’t need to exist. It would’ve saved me a couple of decades worth of AI membership fees if they did. Doesn’t mean anyone should feel guilty about supporting the club, nor should they be made to feel guilty - we don’t govern the owner’s intent for the club.

Anyone who thinks that KSA is buying sports clubs because it makes economic sense would do well to look at the profit margins of top football clubs, and then compare it with other businesses in PIF’s portfolio. Even if NUFC became the world’s richest and most successful club it would represent the tiniest slither of money going back to the investors. It is all about perception - sportswashing isn’t about making people forget about human rights abuses, it is about that noise being drowned out. And no-one should kid themselves that owning an English football club is going to suddenly make one of the most vicious regimes on Earth suddenly start treating women or LGBTQI people better. It is still ‘our’ club and our city’s name on that badge, and we have no say in a billionaire selling to an effective trillionaire. But we don’t need to pretend it is anything other than what it is. Life is too short to give up one of its pleasures lightly - watching your football team of a weekend.

They do like a cinema ban. At least with Dr Strange it was because it contained magic - and sorcery and black magic still carries the death penalty over there, so, fair dos? At some point the 18th Century will come knocking, and that’ll be eye-opening for them

That’s that disarming modesty they love so much about themselves. Unlike those delusional jawdees

‘D’yer caal theyse chips cheesy, marra?’