Adam P

The premise of changing lifestyles of footballers changing the value they place on bright lights/big city isnt wrong. Yes if Joao Pedro's top criteria for living location is shopping then i guess thats him looking to move near a Westfield. World class restaurants too, thats another big plus.

Isn’t the London thing outdated from a time when footballers went out on the town and into nightclubs. Most players are teetotal and committed to their fitness and health nowadays, where London has no advantage whatsoever. Unless he’s just really into theatre?

It was my honest assessment of their relationship, if you watch the pressers closely with this in mind, you cant help notice Eddie and Luke are buddies. Doesnt mean i think we should trust him but the boss keeps him onside for a reason.

Luke Edwards is Eddie's favourite journalist. If you watch EH's body language in the pressers, his face lights up, he smiles, laughs with Edwards and takes the piss out of him. With Ryder, he takes on the air of a special needs teacher patiently explaining some early learning and with the mackem lass, its barely concealed contempt. He's respectful of Hope, Hardy etc but the way he is with those 3 stands out to me. I think his attitude to Ryder is very sympathetic, he probably knows hes not like the rest of them, probably assumes its an old 'care in the community' thing.

PIF showed we werent delusional. All it took was someone able who could afford PSR losses to make us a better club than Man u.

So your revenues would be stratospherically higher than Real Madrid's if it hadnt been for the Glazers? The club's financial performance has remained dynamic, vibrant, growth focused, delivering year on year increases. This should have been 'billions' better had Uncle Fester not taken out 20m USD? Not sure about that. Anyway, the 2 bn the Glazers took out is about exactly the same amount that Ashley left on the table. The damage done i think goes much heavier towards Ashley due to the relative impact of similar damage. If you punch a pro boxer on the chin, they probably wont even feel it. If you punch a basement dwelling forum lurker in the face they may never get up off the floor again. Not that we come out of that particular analogy looking any good.

Froggy if the Glazers cost you 2bn, then the best comparison to that for NUFC under Ashley would be the cumulative difference in revenue between NUFC and THFC over the Ashley period, i.e. money left on the table, to give it its proper name. When Ashley took over, we were the same financial size. Using the difference between the two club's trajectories shows that over 14 years of Ashley, we left much more than a billion. I rough calculated and for the 4 seasons from 2018/19 to 21/22, the difference is about a billion. Given what has happened under strict PSR rules since PIF have come in, shows that the trajectory by THFC was at least 'on the table'. Given relative circumstances, you could argue that a slightly lower total overall financial impact for us was multiple times more damaging.

We'd have never finished 5th under Pardew if we'd not signed homophobic players.

Not wanting a CB because of their religious views on homosexuality is first of all, gay as fuck, but secondly rather odd given the amount of Muslims who have played for us whose views on women and gays can be a bit fruity too. Imagine someone saying 'i dont want to sign Demba Ba as his Muslim views offend me'? You'd be strung up for hate speech. The fact that the lad's second name is gay-ee completes the overall level of stupidity on show here.

Where has the 'Stavely was pushed out' narrative come from? I thought their debt to the parent company could no longer be financed through their equity share, so their position was financially unsustainable. I know she loved us and all that but she is a business woman not a fan.

I assume that when we propose to spend 15 to 20% of the club's revenue and commit to investing 4m a year in wages that the sign-off on every stage of the negotiation goes above the CEO. Depends on how precisely and confidently they see each stage of the negotiation moving. If they know that the minimum price that selling club would accept at the outset but decide to try and purchase at a lower price, then maybe the whole strategy gets signed off with the owners by the CEO. Thats not how it always works and maybe the CEO has sign off to go to a certain price but once that price is passed (first or second offer) then the whole team have to re-convene with the owners to get the additional investment funds signed off. The fiduciary (?) risks are enormous for the business given the relative size of the total investment expenditure to the overall business.

Anyone recognise the bloke on the Broondale platform? Trying to work out why he does the knowing eyebrows. Cant be random.

Fully agree. Almiron would be an excellent no.2 for the RW position. He was instrumental in our 2 best results of last season. Opens the scoring against PSG (THE moment of the season) and seals the game at the SOS with the press and excellent weighted pass to Isak for the second of the game.

You've got to assume that the injuries to our defence have determined the priority for where we spend. Botman's return date may beat expectations but it also may not in which case we have an ageing Schar, Burn and Krafth at CB. If Botman wasn't injured we may not have invested so heavily in a new CB but its a priority to sort out the back, then bring in the RW. Maybe without the injury the priority spend would have been the other way round.

Otherwise you are right, if there really was a PSR angle that we were in panic about then there is no way we get good deals. Thats why the good deals were the proof needed that we were not in panic mode.