TheBrownBottle

I'm from Throckley - the lack of pubs and reliable buses would be a nightmare for a new ground. On the bright side, I can identify entire areas which could be demolished for a new stadium ...

Their tactics were tiresome in the extreme, and they came across as NIMBYs. And canvassing in sunderland was fucking disgraceful. You are right that the plan was to maintain SJP for rugby etc - John Hall's 'sporting club' stuff was still rumbling on.

No, because the offices weren't going to be built on top of the Metro station (see link). Even if they were (they definitely weren't), the office block foundations would be on the building footprint - the stadium foundations would be structural piles underneath the steel columns. The weight distribution would be completely different from that of an office block. The stadium expansion is a civil engineering project; the office blocks an architectural one. The foundations aren't built in the same way even if they were both a level greenfield site. https://heliosrealestate.com/mixed-use-scheme-strawberry-place-newcastle/

I suppose one question would be - do you even need a SJP Metro station? (Can you tell I'm from the west end?)

They talked of it - but that doesn't mean it was possible. You'd need to span the structure over Strawberry Place. Which would mean that the piles would be coming directly through the roof of the current Metro station.

You'd have to do something like that tbf. The stand extension would need huge pile foundations and even their installation could cause substantial damage to the station and line - assuming of course that they are even able to avoid the station at all. Removing the Metro - even temporarily - would make it more feasible, as it could be possible to build across Strawberry Place leaving the road intact (if temporarily closed). The slope at Gallowgate makes it all the more fun

The NIMBYs trawled for signatures in sunderland, too. The cunts. The issue with the Gallowgate remains the same regardless of the funds available to the owners. It is a potentially insurmountable task to extend the Gallowgate to any substantial degree - a civil and structural engineering nightmare. The risks - not only cost-based ones - would be a nightmare. I suspect a move will be the only option for any kind of substantial increase in capacity. The site is a fucking nightmare, basically - blocked by listed building on one side and likely blocked by the Metro station on the other. I can't see how the structure to expand the Gallowgate can be safely built.

He was terrible in the handful of games I saw at the end of the season. Looked disinterested or poor.

Todd Boehly is of the Peter Ridsdale school of football transfer negotiations

Why are you writing in German then?

We also pretty much know what Maddison’s ceiling likely is - he’s in his prime. Maddison is an excellent footballer, but he isn’t an elite one and never will be. No-one would describe him as world class. Szoboszlai‘s ceiling hasn’t been reached, and potentially he could be a genuine world-beater. I wouldn’t be unhappy with either signing, but I know who I would be more excited about.

Oops, forgot about the changes made after Chelsea gamed the system! Yep, five year cap is in place now

Alright keep your wig on. Time will tell who is right

The rules on FFP are pretty straightfoward tbh. Amortisation works by dividing the total fee (not phased amounts) over the length of the player's contract. This is why Chelsea was offering eight year deals last year. We haven't been doing that - if the reports are true, Tonali has been offered a six year deal (which is still long in football terms). Part of the problem is that while Tonali's 70m fee (or whatever it lands at) is split over six years, previous signings of ours are still being put through the FFP books. You don't need to be a professional accountant to grasp FFP - so most of these journalists will have a reasonable grasp of it (I don't doubt that some won't). Chelsea's turnover is more than twice ours, too - they've a lot more wriggle-room. So even though ASM and Joelinton signed in 2019 (for example), their transfer fees are still being put onto the FFP books. We haven't sold many players of late, so nothing is balanced, and the players bought in the last 18 months will still be impacting the books for years to come.

You'd hope so

Bet there is a hefty signing on fee too. I'm sticking by what I've always said - everything about him screams 'Spurs' for me

Yep, it is a significant problem - though it is a combination of the two. Until we get some big leaps in revenue we're constrained in what we can offer - even with CL football we'll still bring in less than Spurs, for example. And for our turnover, we've a lot of deadwood on solid PL wages. Shelvey and Wood leaving helped, but the likes of Dummett, Lewis and Ritchie are on decent wages. I understand that Ritchie and Dummett are good behind the scenes - but you don't pay a couple of coaches over 80k per week between them.

It is fairly straightforward to do the sums; the club releases its financial records on an annual basis. Happily, FourFourTwo released a video the other day explaining it quite neatly. It is why plenty of us laughed at Edwards's '75m' claim, but also poured cold water on those who thought that we'd be spending 150m+ net this summer.

We’re definitely close to the edge on FFP, but most of those who’ve done the sums would say that there would be c.£50m after Tonali signs without starting to sweat too bad

The article implies that buying Tonali effectively rules out buying Maddison, as that’s the money spent on midfield. Reads like guesswork to me.

C.82 was the first really good French side. Prior to that they weren’t much cop.

Not until McTominay retires. He can haunt your dreams until then

I’m not precious, I’m only kidding The ‘pivot’ to me is an evolved version of the sweeper / libero. It describes a deep-lying playmaker. A creative ‘no. 6’.

that made me laugh more than it should. Gloriously retro insult