Harvey Barnes

[The College Dropout]

14 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

Pretty sure we signed him because Eddie Howe was really keen on him. We could have bought someone for a different position if we wanted to buy someone as a FFP hack.

Eddie was really keen on ASM too. But he had to sell ASM and ASM needed replacing. I agree he really likes Barnes too. But he also really likes Gordon at LW. IIRC all of Gordon's starts have been at LW. Almiron might lose his shirt and Gordon moves over but in an ideal setup, he has inverted wingers. I'm just making evidence-based observations.

 

---

Asked why Saint-Maximin was set to leave, Howe said: ‘With Financial Fair Play, you sort of have to trade otherwise, for us, this summer, we would be stuck in a position where we couldn’t recruit players the other way. That’s how Financial Fair Play works and we understand that.

 

‘Financial Fair Play forced that to a degree. We could make a stance not to sell Maxi, but then we’d be in a position where we couldn’t recruit Sandro (Tonali) or any other player, so our hands would have been tied. We knew this summer, the likelihood is we’d have to sell a player to trade, and that looks like it will happen. Sometimes these things have to happen for club to grow.

‘Maxi is a top player and we definitely don’t want to lose him. We want to strengthen the group, but sometimes these things happen and we have to accept that.

--

Some said at this time that this was some level of kidology. But I think Howe was being genuine here.

 

 

[TRon]

1 minute ago, The College Dropout said:

Eddie was really keen on ASM too. But he had to sell ASM and ASM needed replacing. I agree he really likes Barnes too. But he also really likes Gordon at LW. IIRC all of Gordon's starts have been at LW. Almiron might lose his shirt and Gordon moves over but in an ideal setup, he has inverted wingers. I'm just making evidence-based observations.

 

---

Asked why Saint-Maximin was set to leave, Howe said: ‘With Financial Fair Play, you sort of have to trade otherwise, for us, this summer, we would be stuck in a position where we couldn’t recruit players the other way. That’s how Financial Fair Play works and we understand that.

 

‘Financial Fair Play forced that to a degree. We could make a stance not to sell Maxi, but then we’d be in a position where we couldn’t recruit Sandro (Tonali) or any other player, so our hands would have been tied. We knew this summer, the likelihood is we’d have to sell a player to trade, and that looks like it will happen. Sometimes these things have to happen for club to grow.

‘Maxi is a top player and we definitely don’t want to lose him. We want to strengthen the group, but sometimes these things happen and we have to accept that.

--

Some said at this time that this was some level of kidology. But I think Howe was being genuine here.

 

 

 

My view is that Howe publicly liked Max, but if he really rated him as fit for his system he'd have never let him leave.

[The College Dropout]

11 minutes ago, FLUMPO235 said:

I really think this ffp stuff needs to be published in an easy to follow spreadsheet by every club and updated on the 1st of every month. If clubs have to follow it, it should be transparent and published for everyone to understand.

 

Although as I’ve written that, I can see why clubs would hate the idea as everyone would know how much everyone else had to spend/in the kitty and just because a club had 100m for ffp purposes they may not actually have/want to spend it.

 

ffs. What a stupid idea it is. (Now we have rich owners) 

It's always dynamic. You sign a new commercial deal it changes. Whenever a player signs a contract extension it changes.

 

And a lot of commercial income is performance related. Both prize money and sponsorships.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by The College Dropout

[80]

Think I'm right in saying your FFP balance resets on a three year rolling basis? So a loss OR profit in 20/21 would expire for this year.

 

It's another one of the more sinister elements in FFP as a club like Brighton or Villa could, theoretically, bank a very serious warchest over 5-7 years. But they'll lose the benefit of profiting on, say, Cucurella just as they move Evan Ferguson on. So they're forced to either not use the FFP leeway at all or dribble it in in a (realistically) low impact way, mixing one or two stars in with their Dan Burns. Neither of which really concerns the established clubs.

[The College Dropout]

1 minute ago, TRon said:

 

My view is that Howe publicly liked Max, but if he really rated him as fit for his system he'd have never let him leave.

I don't think he considered ASM on Bruno's level. But he was rated. Close to the way I think he rates Barnes. If you read his words, we needed to sell someone for £20m+. It's either him or Callum Wilson. I think even Almiron for 25m would've raised more objections about fair value than the club wanted.

[The College Dropout]

2 minutes ago, 80 said:

Think I'm right in saying your FFP balance resets on a three year rolling basis? So a loss OR profit in 20/21 would expire for this year.

 

It's another one of the more sinister elements in FFP as a club like Brighton or Villa could, theoretically, bank a very serious warchest over 5-7 years. But they'll lose the benefit of profiting on, say, Cucurella just as they move Evan Ferguson on. So they're forced to either not use the FFP leeway at all or dribble it in in a (realistically) low impact way, mixing one or two stars in with their Dan Burns. Neither of which really concerns the established clubs.

Yes I think i get what you're saying. You typically sign players that have potential good resale value on 4-5 year contracts so the cost is spread over 4-5 years. But you only benefit from sales for 3 years.

 

So if you speculate the player sales to the max. You either need to keep selling players to afford it. Or your spending catches up to you and you can't manoeuvre how you want.

 

I guess the hope is other revenue increases (as it has done for the last 30 years) in line with your spending (which it hasn't for Wolves and Leicester). Fortunately for us - we are owned by PIF so we'll keep getting padded-out commercial deals as far as we can to sustain spending. All the while trying to build our own player sale factory with the academy and other signings. FFP doesn't include an academy and such. Yet.

[80]

2 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

Yes I think i get what you're saying. You typically sign players that have potential good resale value on 4-5 year contracts so the cost is spread over 4-5 years. But you only benefit from sales for 3 years.

 

So if you speculate the player sales to the max. You either need to keep selling players to afford it. Or your spending catches up to you and you can't manoeuvre how you want.

 

I guess the hope is other revenue increases (as it has done for the last 30 years) in line with your spending (which it hasn't for Wolves and Leicester). Fortunately for us - we are owned by PIF so we'll keep getting padded-out commercial deals as far as we can to sustain spending. All the while trying to build our own player sale factory with the academy and other signings. FFP doesn't include an academy and such. Yet.

Yes, we're relatively protected because we've been given a partial cheat code.

 

But for a Brighton - let's say they manage to profit £100m per summer for 7 summers. £700m in the bank, amazing work. The following summer they decide this is the year they want to kick on and no longer be a nursery club, keep their most sellable players and actually smash into the title race by adding more stars to their fantastic infrastructure.

 

But they don't have their £700m to spend. They have £200m (plus optional amortization) from the previous two summers only, which definitely doesn't guarantee success in today's market and means it's more of a Champion's League push. Even modest gambling - spending £100m extra based on projected additional earnings - puts the club in big jeopardy for the following year when they have to make good on the additional FFP payments, as yet another £100m profit from 3 years prior will 'expire' and be removed from their accounts. Now the club looks like it's about to start running on debt, even though they have the actual hard earned money in the bank. One season into their 'big push', and they have relatively little room for consolidating their ambitious new team with further signings. The pot is artificially empty and they're forced to look at breaking off parts of their team before it's really got going. The next season, disruption means they just miss out on the Champion's League and begin to enter a death spiral.

 

Basically, money has stopped being a reliable store of value in the FFP-based transfer market. Turnover is what's required to allow you to keep spending and that's much harder to achieve without sustained, FFP-defying investment. Hence needing to have youth players on a conveyor belt out the door along with international marketing operations to make things viable long term. Anything less and you're done for, which is why NUFC is putting so much focus on the Mintehs and USA tours etc.

 

I don't especially agree with it, but you can make an argument that it's unsporting for money from outside football to come in and disrupt the order of winners and losers in football. But when clubs are blocked from spending football money they earned through football transactions, that's really silly.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by 80

[The College Dropout]

But if you're giving stars new contracts then the amortization is spread even further which should help. If we give Bruno a new contract - aye you have to account for the higher wages but you also spread the remaining cost even further.

 

And in reality, if you're maximising your FFP numbers every year - you are making massive cash losses in real terms. As in you sell an academy player for £100m so you spend £160m in fees plus £20m per year in wages.

 

It's only us, Chelsea and maybe Villa that are trying to maximise what they can spend under FFP. Liverpool will sell Mo Salah for £150m and buy £150m worth of players because their owners are operating in the real world of operational profit. M

 

PIF with all their infrastructure investment that doesn't contribute to FFP - will be losing millions on millions per year as long as they own us. Todd has 2bn credit line for Chelsea and zany growth plans.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by The College Dropout

[Jaqen]

We'll see him a lot more after the break I feel. Don't think he was ever in consideration to start any of these first four games as he's probably not drilled well enough yet defensively to play against that sort of opposition. 

 

A big reason we signed Gordon was for his versatility so I'm not sure why some are viewing him as only a LW option for us. He only had a brief spell on the right against Brighton but I think that's a sign of things to come. 

 

 

 

[The Butcher]

 

[TBG]

Can see why with the form McTominay is in

[Superior Acuña]

5 hours ago, TBG said:

Can see why with the form McTominay is in

Sarcasm? McTominay is on fire for Scotland.

[Skeletor]

Don't like all our players defecting to Scotland. Stop the madness.

[r0cafella]

Up to him, but I find it odd. Given he’s signed for us you would think he’d back himself to get into an England squad. 

[Mattoon]

Just have to wait out this tournament and we might get a manager in that actually picks players on form.

[Holmesy]

10 hours ago, Skeletor said:

Don't like all our players defecting to Scotland. Stop the madness.

The Southgate effect!

[andycap]

That attempted shot in the first half had screamer written all over it. The sound it made had the crowd cheering. 

[Optimistic Nut]

Surprised this hasn't been bumped. Second half he was great and did brilliantly for the goal. 

[ponsaelius]

I'm not convinced by him yet. He's much better when games open up a bit though.

[joeyt]

Thought he grew into the game nicely

[Big Geordie]

 He and Gordon were our best attacking outlets today.

[andycap]

His deliveries from wide areas are great like always into goal scoring  areas of the field. 

[Gallowgate Toon]

Left side was dead attacking wise for the first 20 and then he started to take responsibility and things improved.

[SiLvOR]

Thought he played really well as the game grew on. The whip he got on that cross which flashed just over Gordon's head was great. 

[andycap]

Probably out best winger for quality deliveries we've got in the squad.