TheBrownBottle

Likewise - we don’t have a stellar record; and I’d bet my house that our forecasts weren’t allowing for the reduced prize money from a bottom-half finish

FFS - that’s not what I meant. Our hit rate was close to 100% in terms of transfers until last summer; I’ve never said anything except that. What I was saying is that selling is much, much easier than buying. So selling a player isn’t ’acting fast’. If anything with the way football’s finances work selling before 1st July isn’t smart, unless of course our finances this season are much worse than we currently understand.

It’s usually buying where the issues start, not selling

Yep - we’ve stocked up on the sort of wingers who thrive playing counter-attacking football, when most PL sides are now sitting back against us

This is the hope tbh - if we start seeing ‘under the radar’ technical talent showing up during the window then it’ll give someone like myself (a sceptical miserablist) a lot more hope re the club under the current manager.

Makes perfect sense that tbh

What struck me about last summer was that we were chasing players we’d been linked to for years (Ekitike, Joao Pedro, Trafford, Elanga etc). Most of them weren’t on the big boys’ radar when we were first linked to them - but it doesn’t look like we moved on re the targets list for years (arguably we also didn’t grow tactically either). Hopefully some lessons have finally been learned.

He’s only worth that to an English club - I’d rather lose the English premium than sell him to another English club

The passport alone is worth £20m

Agreed - I’ve not seen a player come through like Miley, I held back on getting overexcited until I saw him being shuffled into other positions and he just looked like he’d played there forever - completely agree that this is the sign of a talented and intelligent footballer

Amortisation is capped at five years, so it could be that. Too many people seem to think that a really bad summer recruitment can be corrected the following season, but the impact can rumble on for years with the way football finances work Five years is an overstatement, but we’ve likely fucked ourselves for at least another season, maybe two.

I think you meant to reply to me There are zero similarities between them other than the location of their birth. They aren’t remotely similar in terms of talent, and again the circumstances of their leaving the club was completely different. For a start, Gascoigne was a first team player I stand uncorrected on the use of the term ‘water carrier’. That’s what the position is - short passes to better players. If he heads to a Man City his career is pretty likely to follow the route taken by Calvin Phillips, who was also an England regular at Leeds. The fees being quoted are hilarious and 100% down to the English premium rather than talent I’d take him back, but I wouldn’t for a fee above £50m. That we’re talking double that is crackers Miley is a far, far better talent than Anderson was - if the lad can stay injury-free for a bit, he’ll be knocking on the England door next season

Gascoigne was a generational talent who wanted to leave to go to a bigger club for more money. Anderson was a utility player who hadn’t looked like a world beater in the half a century of matches he played for us, and today has been converted into a really good water-carrying midfielder who’s transfer valuation has been massively inflated by Tuchel’s baffling England selections.

What parallels? They’re not remotely similar players, and the circumstances of their sales were different too.

Yep - though I suspect he’d absolutely rip teams apart in the Bundesliga, and we’ve seen what he can do vs the ridiculously weak teams which compete in the CL these days. He’ll do nowt in the latter stages of the competition, but he’ll do enough before then.

Best away kit we’ve had for me. Looked great under floodlights

If he’s off to Bayern, then he isn’t wrong in that assessment

It’s not unlucky to have the same thing happen week after week. On that basis Burnley were unlucky.

It isn’t - I was joking

‘I’ve spent £700m but all the players are a bit shite and I’ve had to overachieve with them. Can I have another £200m please?’ It’s a bold sales pitch, but I suspect it would take a first rate PowerPoint to overcome some of the objections. (I don’t think the squad is shite).

He absolutely does, he looks utterly drained. KK kept offering to resign; if it’s true re Howe post-Brentford, it should’ve been accepted.

Chelsea can’t do this anymore for starters - their SCR position is completely fucked. They’ll have to sell to buy - hopefully our owners won’t do the usual and bail them out.

He hasn’t got a hope in hell, unless he has an uncle in the game

The original absurdist comparison wasn’t made by me. It’s possible to go reductio ad absurdum when someone keeps referring to Souness and Dalglish as some sort of proof of why Howe should keep his job. Perfect comparisons don’t exist - and I also think Dalglish should have been sacked. I also think Howe’s ran out of ideas and has misspent a large sum of money, which in the current FFP climate makes it very difficult to claw our way back. I don’t think anyone has suggested that Howe hasn’t done a good job, but for some of us the writing is on the wall and it’s going in a completely different direction. He’s been backed to the hilt - he hasn’t magicked the results up out of nowhere (nor should he be expected to). The results in 21/22 didn’t turn around until money was spent and new players through the door. This all boils down to whether or not a person thinks we’ve got a better chance of kicking on with Howe in situ or not. I’m not convinced anymore that this is the case - you disagree. I don’t feel I owe Eddie Howe some sort of personal loyalty or fealty - he’s a man who is well rewarded to produce results as a football manager. Had the present rules been in place a couple of decades back, my thoughts would have been the same re KK or BR. If FFP wasn’t in place, I’d be completely supportive of Howe getting another spin at the wheel.

100% agreed - 13th place despite him getting us into the CL the year before, beating Barca in the CL and going on a cup run weren’t close to being good enough. We looked to be flirting with relegation at one point. I just find it ironic seeing folks try to justify not changing manager due to the drop-off, yet all the excuses applied to Howe could just as easily have been applied to Dalglish - and in 97/98 we could recover from a bad season much quicker due to the lack of FFP.