BShearer

would not mind Fulham to go to extra time to be real fucking tired in Carabao so they find it bit harder at the weekend in the FA Cup.

good Wolves didnt win, we would have slipped to 11th. time to get some wins next few weeks, but Villa away is really hard game with them having best home record so far. still we need to do some magic away from home as we already dropped 3 points in games where a win was very much expected (Luton for example)

We might also calculating with the loss of CL revenue next season alongside not being in Europe at all which is currently almost 50/50, we can finish 6/7th if we pick up form but also 9-10th if we dont which is some less money from PL too instead of the 4th plce previous year. Adidas coming in will help but may only offset the losses from no CL revenue next time rather than add to it on top of that. they keep fucking tweaking the FFP rules but currently its on a rolling 3 years mode, so the less money we "lose" this season is better for next as well. out of Wilson, Trippier, Almiron imo only one will be gone in a week time despite the late rumours. if two or all three with no incomings wow thats not good lol and probably finance related sales due to hard ffp limits.

it could be that we overestimated the CL revenue for this season. we probably did not think we gonna end up in group of death and finish 4th with only 1 win in 6. many other groups we are easily 3rd at least or even 2nd in some with more wins and more bonus money for later rounds. or at least some consolation prize money from EL after being 3rd in group. with the coeff points play a big part of the total CL prize money we get fucked really with the shit coeff points. we will get something like 30m pounds more or less from Uefa. Arse and City will get 60-65m easily even if they lose and exit CL right next round which they wont. if they go till the end its more like 90-100m overall. and now we try offset the projected difference by selling players quickly. this may be the reason as long as we only have outgoings this window. but last 3 days of the window can be crazy, teams done nothing for 30 days can go crazy in last 24 hour. if we only sell 1-2 players without a decent one coming in thats probably us needing to balance the spending.

for Almiron I was pretty much on the opinion he is type of player who needs to turn into a bench player rather than regular starter for us to improve the squad for fight for CL regularly. him leaving from the line up effectively means we need to replace him in the line up also his future bench role. but if a decent offer comes from Saudi for him, with him probably 3x or 5x his salary its probably a sell worth doing if it means we can get some quality in still in January. albeit not much time left. we certainly wouldnt try to push him for sale if no one is coming surely?

this all well planned. weaken rivals while strengthen themselves in the football operation level which where they really lacked quality people for years. (Berrada from City, and Ashworth from us) have to say good moves from Ratcliffe. I wonder tho how hard Ashworth has been working on strengthening Newcastle if he had interest from Man United since a good few weeks. is our January dealing heavily influenced by Ashworth? s he doing any kind of sabotage?

bit worried about him, imo we need to show him we can offer CL football and this years CL was not a one off in a way that now we will not be back for 3 seasons. for that he needs to see serious transfers next summer and squad rebuild. some of our players tasted CL football this season and while result wise it wasnt good with proper horrible luck with the draw, CL is still the cream of top football. being in it as a player especially plying the later rounds is huge thing. we need to keep aiming very high as thats how will be able to sign better and better players. we need to sell them the dream of playing huge CL games in near future. but thats also the way to keep our elite players at the club. if we tell today to Bruno, Isak, Gordon, Botman that next 3 seasons we will have 2x EL campaigns and one Conference campaign, well their agent would knock on the door quickly. even with Tonali I am not 100% sure he would have signed if we didnt clinch the 4th place last season. (still fuming about this betting scandal shit that hit us very hard despite having nothing to do with it while Milan laughing with the transfer fee instead of them having him out for a season.)

I am very much on the opinion City will not punished. As the kind of things they are charged with are brutally hard to prove and also falls under serious crime which should be investigated by police, HMRC and other serious organizations instead of the kangaroo court of PL. this is a last ditch effort from PL to try to catch City heavily lobbied by the redtops/Spurs who also heavily leaned on Masters to block our takeover recently. there are also serious blowback if they are found guilty and get relegation, everyone could sue them same as with Everton can be sued by relegated clubs. its gonna be a legal catastrophe. (also very much doubt it would take this long if PL had clear proof or wrongdoings.) they are aware City built a machine last 10 years which is hard to catch up which now also delivers world record revenues meaning in the world of FFP where spend vs revenue is the king of course clubs with highest revenue will dictate the results as long as the football side of the things are run by experts (unlike Man United) which is the case at City. no wonder their staff gets poached, Arteta to Arsenal, Berrada to MU CEO etc. their 3rd assistant manager from last season now ripping apart the Champo with Leicester. drawbridge seems to be up now with PL FFP, exactly to avoid another City happening we are finding out how hard it is to invest under these rules and how much it favors going forward the clubs with already enormous revenues. redtops also heavily influenced football media to spout shit and kind of accept that investment in football is evil. unless its them investing into the squad which is God given right for them. unless its them accepting overinflated transfer fees for Saudi league for past it players like Henderson, Fabinho etc. United spending shit load on van de Beek, Martial, Anthony, Onana, Mount, Sancho worth around 350m and them having total of 10 games combined where they really played well for their team is all OK. but if Bournemouth would do this thats a crime against football. WTF? even more so if they would actually be more successful on the back of it taking away CL places from the redtops. that cannot be allowed surely. let them grown organically, let top6 clubs steal their best players, offer them higher salaries before they can become a force.

what price are we looking at? I recall they wanted Kyle Walker in the summer, very similar age and profile, was something like 10-15m fee mentioned there.

Tonali and Barnes was like 75% of summer spend, and they give us nothing so far basically. this cannot happen any other transfer window going forward. not our fault we cannot rely on them but we cannot afford this.

West Ham are set to win the race for Kalvin Phillips on loan. As well as agreeing to meet his £130,000-a-week #ManCity salary, West Ham will also pay bonuses to Phillips in an initial loan until the end of the season that could be reviewed in the summer. [via@JamesNursey] WHU really wants him. if they can get him without "must buy" option and get a discount on the loan fee itself thats not a bad deal for them.

I dont think there is any movement until after the Fulham game. In that we probably get another player injured "out for weeks", and then we realize only 3-4 days left of the window.

the man United appointment from City is bad news if they get much more professionally run. I guess they also bring in a sporting director, could very well be Ashworth, would make sense as they do weaken City with the CEO, and us with Ashworth. they made big mistake of letting Woodward run the show both commercially and football wise for all those years. wasted 100s of millions on poor signing, poor squad building, huge salaries, double digit in expensive flops etc. thing is if they manage to stop the rot with these new hires and Ratcliffe joining thats possibly one less CL place available for us.

He is 34 in September, imo its not a long term solution to keep him as a starter here and have him kind of being one of the main creative force. Still very influential for us and has been since he arrived for sure. only thing I can assume he thinks of is the CL, will he play CL with Newcastle in next 1-2 seasons?possibly not. with Bayern and Kane there that is guaranteed also some Bundesliga titles as well and be one of the favourites for CL too. I think he has current contract until summer 2025. so this and one more season. would I extend that? not really. but this is the exact case of him still being useful for us next 18 months certainly much more than some bullshit 10-15m fee would get us in return.

do you think we need to sell at least one of our top players to be able to spend around 130m next summer (similar spend as last summer on Tonali, Livra, Barnes) or the 200/225m bracket? only Maxi as outgoing for sizeable amount last summer. dont expect to see even 20m combined from Targett, Ritchie, Frasers etc. Wilson might pull in like 15m maybe if we sell? I would hope we can spend around the same at least like last summer only if we sell the deadwood + Wilson. albeit 130m may not get us too much maybe 2 good starters and a good sub. well would need to turn out much better ones than what Tonali and Barnes actually could help us this season because thats almost a big fat nothing so far for various reasons.

status quo, thats all FFP about. it is just painted as a "fair play" fake ethos, but nothing fair about it. there are many things can be done to prevent clubs go to administration but under FFP you can easily get into administration due to dodgy owners without actually overspending. but thats ok under FFP. what is not OK to have ambition to take on the red tops and Spurs and take away important CL places from them. Leicester won the league within two years most of their best players ended up at top6 clubs. Mahrez, Kante, Drinkwater, Maguire etc. at least they saw good incomes for them. thats what top clubs wants if someone challenges them from the outside at least they quickly rip them apart. thats the plan with Brighton as well who are punching above their weight but will face constantly poached their talent they built up from peanuts spending s simply they cant match salaries and offer same trophy chances as top6 clubs. they are shitscared of Newcastle who already took a CL place front of Liverpool last season, no wonder all the delay and blocking the takeover not long ago. and we can see through FFP limits that we may need to wait years before being back in CL which is may not be what our players want especially the ones we want to sign to really improve us. will Isak, Bruno, Botman, Tonali etc stick around if we have no CL for next 2 seasons if they have offers from CL clubs for even higher salaries? thats the whole point of status quo. it is brutally hard under FPP to grow both commercially and sporting wise we would almost would need constant top class transfer windows with all signings to be a hit, never a flop, certainly not an injury nightmare like this season and still hoping 2-3 rivals for CL places will heavily underperform at the same time with their much stronger/expensive squad while we overperform.

lets be honest we had months to think who we bring in January. certainly we were allowed to think before 1st of January who we will target. half of January gone nobody arrived yet and maybe we are in the mode of "if someone becomes available 30th or 31st of January" we make a move but otherwise thats it. Phillips was not an option, it was clear City wants a loan fee + fixed option of permanent transfer. had we offered only 30m for Tonali instead of 60 they would have sent us away too. we need to pay what the seller wants or agree close to it. its very clear our injury woes will continue, about every game or every second game one starter will be out for weeks. lot to sort out in the medical department because a big portion of these injuries is due to lack of rotation, not good enough rehab and poor physios work. wouldnt be surprised that if the 3 players we ran into the ground would get an injury soon. (Almiron, Gordon, Bruno or Miley who as a 17 year old getting used like a workhorse) case is pretty much what I thought that we have zero proper money available due to FFP to spend, maybe 1-2 loan deal were possible if fees are low and salary is low. would be surprised if we even spend 20m this window. I think the Hall deal already showed we had to be creative and we probably made less money from CL than expected. lots of the money is based of historical coefficient points and also how far you get, and with 4th place, 1 group win only, and one of the worst coeff points we probably didnt make a lot overall. somehwere between 30-35m io instead of likes of 85-100 the eventual winners can rake in. next year we wont even have this extra 30m or so, which may be balanced out by the Adidas deal but then we are not ahead really and we also need to sell a few to replace the income for Maxi. not sure our deadwood can ring in that much.

it should have never been voted in these PL FFP rules. unfortunately Ashley voted for it t the time. big fuckin mistake. I am almost certain too that the charges against City are mainly fake and heavily fabricated by the pressure from red top clubs. I think the huge delay comes from the PL is unable to prove their charges, if they had black and white proof it wouldnt take 4-5-6 years. whole FFP is about a closed shop, same clubs fighting for the top places and making sure no other clubs can really break into it. short term yes, Villa might get a CL place as a one off, Newcastle might get a CL place as a one off but to actually have the ambition to become a PL force you need to spend serious money like the money spent by City, Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal, Pool in last 10-15 years. Arsenal were not in CL since like 2017 until this season. look how much money they spent each summer since 2017. they spent very high amounts. Boehly spent a billion just on transfer fees since his takeover. these clubs want t spend these kind of sums going forward but also have FFP rules in place that any challenging teams not to be able to spend so they can offer better salaries to best players of WHU, Villa, Newcastle, Brighton like it happens. Grealish, Rice, Caicedo, Mcallister, Cucurella, where did they end up? imagine you cook up a new fizzy drink at home and decide you want it to compete with Pepsi and Cola Cola. thats a brutally competitive market so you would need to spend shit load on marketing, commercials etc. first few years could be lots of minuses on the accounts. but hey, as you only sold locally few hundred bottles all you can spend on commercial is actually 500 pounds per year. will take 7 million years to catch up then. do you think the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal would want a fair system? with salary cap where Luton can spend as much on salaries and transfer as Arsenal and vica versa.

Chelsea did well with the loophole of signing new players on 8-9 year contracts. this will imo catch up with them quite hard in few years but short term it was a quick fix vs FFP. and also they wont be able to sell players for 100-150 each season without weakening themselves unless saudi club will jump to help them, Boehly does have some Saudis connections. Wht they will get done for tho is the historical shady things they did under Abra which they admitted, so PL just has to charge them without much fuss and decide on the punishment given they admitted to these things blaming previous ownership. Uefa already threw 10m euro punishment for them for these. bit surprised takes PL lot longer for same charges.

Burn looked at the sideline when sub was done hoping it was him as he looked dead tired lol to keep up with walker runs, bit of Bernardo moving to right then Foden / KDB too took up some right wind positions... overall not sure either if we will make it permanent with Hall. sounded like a must buy option built into the loan but maybe only triggered if he plays X amount of games for us which he may not as he did not start many games so far and dont expect him to be either.

our medical team is really shit this season. I am certain that some of our many injuries are down to them rather than bad luck.

this season is a bit of a reality check for Howe but also for the club in terms of if we want to be a PL/CL force what we need to improve on an look out for. all the injuries, the sick schedule increase, the group of death CL draw, the horrific Carabao draw. these can be excuses but then excuses wont get us to be a PL/CL force. we need to improve on these and learn from them a lot and also on the transfers which were generally quite on the hit since takeover until the summer window. this time tho the way it turned out this was a mediocre window in hindsight which helped us not much really apart from the few good games Livramento had.

strange, but was much more angry after the Liverpool loss at home, from 1-0 up at HT and they had a red card too. fucking Nunez scored two in second half. Dubravka actually had some proper good saves.

no games for two weeks, time to make some moves now if we make any at all. Ashworth to work overtime and Sundays too from tomorrow.

worry is we still have to visit Arsenal, Villa, Chelsea, Man Utd and quite tricky away games vs Palace, Brentford, to be fair even the lesser clubs aint easy way from home apart from 1-2 exceptions. in return our home fixtures left way easier based on opponents , only Spurs and Brighton are the decent teams there maybe WHU. if we can go on a home run at least and do decent in away games nicking a few wins (hard to see to be honest the latter part) we can make top6 still. top4 no way, 5th which may or may not worth CL spot, also no chance imo. 6th maybe, and anything possible between 7-10th. United/Chelsea underperforming, Brighton, WHU overperforming, Villa overperforming by a lot, we are underperforming too, Spurs a bit over at least to to hat I felt before the season started... unfortunately despite Chelsea being awful now they worked their point gap down and ahead of us too. next 3 PL games: Villa away Luton home Forest away Luton and Forest just beat us in December, while Villa has one of the best home record so far with 9-1-0 standing and most goals scored at home so far. will say a lot about the team of how we gonna come out of these games out of 9 points. Luton at home is a must 3 pointer, Villa away a loss imo, Forest hopefully not worse than a draw but should be a win really. but would rate 4 points from 9 still quite poor if we actually wanna make top6. 2 weeks break now, then Fulham in the cup then these above 3 PL games.