Adam P

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.

The deals were already agreed. Takes weeks to do a deal. The PR angle is once we know we are selling which is not when we know we are selling.

You could park a bicycle in the gap in my front teeth. You can draw your own conclusions from that.

In which case soz then. Dont think we were in a panic and dont think we were anywhere near the size of the points reducing deficits being claimed in the press. I could be wrong too.

I was referring to the post which starts with this nugget. My guess: 2 days prior to the PSR deadline we started to panic about a potential points deduction...

My scenario of the the CEO and COO meeting in the corridor and realising they were 2 days away from a points deduction. And your scenario where this was an actual 'strategy' that they panicked about last minute.

Like the Ben Jacobs story, of course. Gordon definitely wobbling.

My view is that without the sales, we would have been sailing close to the wind. Swiss Ramble said he didnt include CL revenue in his 40m deficit estimate. Probably a few other revenue lines much higher last season too. Wage bill probably higher, so not all positive. PSR deficit based on best publicly availble info right now is likely somewhere around 5 - 20m. If it was 5m (as our net revenue increased by 35m) then it was probably seen as low risk.