Bruno Guimarães

[AyeDubbleYoo]

It’s not the case, I’m pretty sure. 
 

Although if we were really shopping Gordon to Liverpool then I may have to rethink. Who knows. 

 

 

Edited June 30, 2024 by AyeDubbleYoo

[Dokko]

How can we be £50m+ in an overspend hole and not have foreseen it? Are we stupid enough to have that oversight? We either made a massive error in accounts or, expected a rather large sum of money coming in this month. So where was that coming from? 

 

Were already £28m down tomorrow with the Hall deal going through, which was planned well enough to avoid psr issues this year, yet we still lean into them massively. 

 

A rabbit off somewhere. Either incompetence or we planned a big sale, and with Bruno's weirdly timed out release clause, I know whixh way I'm leaning.

 

 

Edited June 30, 2024 by Dokko

[Tiresias]

I understand why everyone is upset but to some extent (and yes, temporarily, ignoring some rules not working as they perhaps should) this is the price of us underperforming last season. finished 4th season before and essentially budgeted that we would at the least maintain that level. We didn't, we had some horrendous luck, we missed Europe because Man City are cunts who didnt give a shit about the FA cup. 

 

We have lost a promising young player who hasnt yet kicked a ball in the league, and our own homegrown midfielder who wasn't really delivering at the expected standard. We can now strengthen the squad and go again. I would not expect Howe to be given the same patience he got last season though. If we don't kick on and look like solidly in European places I would expect Howe to be shown the door by Christmas because underperforming means financial pain, and we won't keep Gordon, Isak and Bruno if we don't finish top 4, and we won't attract the best either. 

 

 

Edited June 30, 2024 by Tiresias

[80]

3 hours ago, Barnes23 said:

I hope that isn't the case as it would seriously call their judgement into question. 

How so? Not that I'm disagreeing, just wondered what your issue with it would be. 

 

Personally, my problem would be that it's conniving to try and shift blame onto Bruno for him leaving if they wanted it at least as much. Although even then I suppose they might have thought they had to look as reluctant as possible to extract the most value, which I'd sympathise with.

 

To be really conspiratorial, I wonder if our grand plan was sabotaged by Ashworth and Ratcliffe putting the word out about our situation and getting other clubs to call our financial bluff.

[Barnes23]

20 hours ago, 80 said:

How so? Not that I'm disagreeing, just wondered what your issue with it would be. 

 

Personally, my problem would be that it's conniving to try and shift blame onto Bruno for him leaving if they wanted it at least as much. Although even then I suppose they might have thought they had to look as reluctant as possible to extract the most value, which I'd sympathise with.

 

To be really conspiratorial, I wonder if our grand plan was sabotaged by Ashworth and Ratcliffe putting the word out about our situation and getting other clubs to call our financial bluff.

 

I agree with that, but to me it's actually something more fundamental - the suggestion to me seems to imply a level of forethought to the clause and Bruno potentially leaving on the part of the club. I find it difficult to imagine a formulated transfer strategy which has losing Bruno at the centre of it that isn't sub-optimal, in my mind. I would sooner have spent less last summer, or sold others, before doing so (barring circumstances like Bruno himself pushing for a move - and of course we don't know all the details regarding the insertion of the clause in the first place or if there were any further stipulations). 

 

I think he should serve as the centrepoint of everything we are trying to build. 

[80]

9 minutes ago, Barnes23 said:

 

I agree with that, but to me it's actually something more fundamental - the suggestion to me seems to imply a level of forethought to the clause and Bruno potentially leaving on the part of the club. I find it difficult to imagine a formulated transfer strategy which has losing Bruno at the centre of it that isn't sub-optimal, in my mind. I would sooner have spent less last summer, or sold others, before doing so (barring circumstances like Bruno himself pushing for a move - and of course we don't know all the details regarding the insertion of the clause in the first place or if there were any further stipulations). 

 

I think he should serve as the centrepoint of everything we are trying to build. 

I'm with you on most of that. To steel man the club's position though, I think we've just seen how hard it is for us to sell most of our squad for any serious money. Factor in Bruno's age and understandable ambitions and it starts to feel more natural that he might have needed to be the one to go however horrible that is (unless he's genuinely willing to commit to us for the long haul and risk doing a Shearer in terms of winning nothing in his prime years).

 

Re: spending less last summer etc, I've thought that myself but if I understand right - and I might not - we were in such a deep PSR hole that we could've not bought Barnes, Tonali AND Livramento AND Minteh AND Gordon and still been uncomfortably close to the line, which would've totally changed our last year for the worse overall. The problem is the system doesn't seem to reward saving up a pot of money in the slightest.

[80]

As an aside, I have to hope Eddie was fully aware and on board with the idea of Bruno being sold if that was Plan A. The alternative - that he was blindsided and feels misled by the past fortnight - is much worse.

[madras]

1 hour ago, 80 said:

As an aside, I have to hope Eddie was fully aware and on board with the idea of Bruno being sold if that was Plan A. The alternative - that he was blindsided and feels misled by the past fortnight - is much worse.

I've posted elsewhere that plan A may not have been to sell Bruno but to be prepared as it would be out of our hands should the clause be activated.

[Coffee_Johnny]

1 hour ago, 80 said:

As an aside, I have to hope Eddie was fully aware and on board with the idea of Bruno being sold if that was Plan A. The alternative - that he was blindsided and feels misled by the past fortnight - is much worse.

There is no evidence that selling Bruno or any of the ‘difference makers’ was ever in the club’s plans. 

[80]

1 hour ago, madras said:

I've posted elsewhere that plan A may not have been to sell Bruno but to be prepared as it would be out of our hands should the clause be activated.

I guess the distinction is I'm defining Plan A as what I suspect they thought was the most likely outcome, and possibly the necessary outcome - not that it was their preferred outcome.

[80]

39 minutes ago, Coffee_Johnny said:

There is no evidence that selling Bruno or any of the ‘difference makers’ was ever in the club’s plans. 

There were multiple briefings, off and on record to client journalists, in the first half of the season that we'd have to sacrifice a big beast to keep the show on the road. Our communications on that changed pretty much exactly around the time we realised we were in deep shit after not managing to sell anyone in January.

 

We've seemingly had a £70m hole in our PSR budget - they will have known full well it would be extremely difficult to fill without selling some of our crown jewels. We've been extremely lucky Minteh wasn't a Kuol, and it's not at all obvious how we'd have bridged that gap without him being extraordinary - sans a Bruno going. It would've been neglectful to have not planned for that eventuality, really.

[Bondedcrown]

2 minutes ago, 80 said:

There were multiple briefings, off and on record to client journalists, in the first half of the season that we'd have to sacrifice a big beast to keep the show on the road. Our communications on that changed pretty much exactly around the time we realised we were in deep shit after not managing to sell anyone in January.

 

We've seemingly had a £70m hole in our PSR budget - they will have known full well it would be extremely difficult to fill without selling some of our crown jewels. We've been extremely lucky Minteh wasn't a Kuol, and it's not at all obvious how we'd have bridged that gap without him being extraordinary - sans a Bruno going. It would've been neglectful to have not planned for that eventuality, really.

This figure keeps getting bigger! Do we actualy know what it is or are people just guessing? It's becoming laughable!

[80]

6 minutes ago, Bondedcrown said:

This figure keeps getting bigger! Do we actualy know what it is or are people just guessing? It's becoming laughable!

Well, we don't really know, but under duress we've done Minteh, Anderson and Ashworth all on the same day just before the PSR window closed, so the implication is it was in that region...

 

This pretty much sums up the situation, unless it's a tissue of lies - https://archive.ph/zfPwk

 

 

Edited July 1, 2024 by 80

[Bondedcrown]

7 minutes ago, 80 said:

Well, we don't really know, but under duress we've done Minteh, Anderson and Ashworth all on the same day just before the PSR window closed, so the implication is it was in that region...

 

This pretty much sums up the situation, unless it's a tissue of lies - https://archive.ph/zfPwk

 

 

 

You admit it then so why repeat it? it is a pointless exercise! Swiss Ramble had it at 30 m he's not a journalist go figure!

[80]

3 minutes ago, Bondedcrown said:

You admit it then so why repeat it? it is a pointless exercise! Swiss Ramble had it at 30 m he's not a journalist go figure!

This looks like willful blindness to be honest... I don't think we sold Minteh for fun, I think it's pretty clear we did it because we had to.

[Coffee_Johnny]

22 minutes ago, 80 said:

There were multiple briefings, off and on record to client journalists, in the first half of the season that we'd have to sacrifice a big beast to keep the show on the road. Our communications on that changed pretty much exactly around the time we realised we were in deep shit after not managing to sell anyone in January.

 

We've seemingly had a £70m hole in our PSR budget - they will have known full well it would be extremely difficult to fill without selling some of our crown jewels. We've been extremely lucky Minteh wasn't a Kuol, and it's not at all obvious how we'd have bridged that gap without him being extraordinary - sans a Bruno going. It would've been neglectful to have not planned for that eventuality, really.

Still don’t see it. Eales, much earlier, words of caution don’t provide evidence for this. I think our contingency plans will be multi layered and that kind of outgoing was, hopefully, one rung up from a never event. 

[madras]

15 minutes ago, 80 said:

Well, we don't really know, but under duress we've done Minteh, Anderson and Ashworth all on the same day just before the PSR window closed, so the implication is it was in that region...

 

This pretty much sums up the situation, unless it's a tissue of lies - https://archive.ph/zfPwk

 

 

 

May not be lies but may nit be the full facts. A lie to me is deliberate deception opposed to creating a narrative without knowing h it understanding the full facts.

[Bondedcrown]

4 minutes ago, 80 said:

This looks like willful blindness to be honest... I don't think we sold Minteh for fun, I think it's pretty clear we did it because we had to.

Eh you said 70m ? Make up your mind

[80]

Just now, madras said:

May not be lies but may nit be the full facts. A lie to me is deliberate deception opposed to creating a narrative without knowing h it understanding the full facts.

Maybe, but the article claims it's full of quotes and views from senior figures at the club. Are we proposing we never really had any concerns and always expected to sort any minor issues out by selling Minteh and Anderson for £30m+ each? It doesn't seem to be attached to reality...

[80]

3 minutes ago, Bondedcrown said:

Eh you said 70m ? Make up your mind

Mate, have you had a drink?

[madras]

5 minutes ago, 80 said:

Maybe, but the article claims it's full of quotes and views from senior figures at the club. Are we proposing we never really had any concerns and always expected to sort any minor issues out by selling Minteh and Anderson for £30m+ each? It doesn't seem to be attached to reality...

No, there was clearly an issue but ad yet we dont know how much but I'd doubt 70mill as quoted somewhere

[80]

13 minutes ago, madras said:

No, there was clearly an issue but ad yet we dont know how much but I'd doubt 70mill as quoted somewhere

Well, the problem is seemingly the club itself doesn't know what the number is. They're working off estimates. That sounds incredibly unprofessional but apparently all clubs are in the same boat, so no major criticisms there.

 

The story we're being fed is £68m for Anderson and Minteh was 'probably' enough but they weren't certain. So sure, it could've been £59m in reality, but equally it could've been £72m. Whatever the case, it appears we were unsure enough to seal the Ashworth deal and make it (hopefully) cast iron.

 

Which is why, going back to the original subject, the obvious route to fix the problem would've been to get a whacking great fee for a single player and sort it in one go.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2024 by 80

[KaKa]

3 hours ago, 80 said:

As an aside, I have to hope Eddie was fully aware and on board with the idea of Bruno being sold if that was Plan A. The alternative - that he was blindsided and feels misled by the past fortnight - is much worse.

 

Howe had talked about having to make tough decisions this summer.

 

Doubt he'll be getting worked up about any difficult decisions we've had to make.

 

In fact I quite imagine he'll be really pleased they figured out a way to keep the best players under tough circumstances.

[Gawalls]

54 minutes ago, Bondedcrown said:

This figure keeps getting bigger! Do we actualy know what it is or are people just guessing? It's becoming laughable!

I worked it and it’s £70m exactly, I can’t believe we let it get to £80m - even Eales apologised for the figure being £90m.

[80]

4 minutes ago, KaKa said:

 

Howe had talked about having to make tough decisions this summer.

 

Doubt he'll be getting worked up about any difficult decisions we've had to make.

 

In fact I quite imagine he'll be really pleased they figured out a way to keep the best players under tough circumstances.

Yeah, I reckon so. Was saying it partly with a view to combating the idea the board was inherently not operating in the best interests of the club if they were counting on a Bruno departure. I think realistically Eddie would've been made fully aware and bought into that plan also, with a view to the ultimate ambitions for the club.