Harvey Barnes

[r0cafella]

57 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

The more I think about it - the more I think Barnes was only signed as a bit of a FFP hack to replace ASM. 

 

He's older than Tonali with PL experience but not been given significant game time. I hope he's just been warmed into the starting line-up but I'm not convinced.

 

Plans obviously change so I still have hope. But if the plan was to play Barnes LW and Gordon RW we would've tried it for more than 10 minutes in over 360 minutes of football.

FFP hack? Do explain what you mean by this. 

[Conjo]

6 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

FFP hack? Do explain what you mean by this. 

 

Replace "like for like" (Barnes for ASM as cover for LW) while getting more leeway with FFP for other signings.

[r0cafella]

6 minutes ago, Conjo said:

 

Replace "like for like" (Barnes for ASM as cover for LW) while getting more leeway with FFP for other signings.

Ohh, thanks. I mean yeah it’s a likely for replacement, given the pittance we got for ASM not sure about the hack part

[80]

10 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

Ohh, thanks. I mean yeah it’s a likely for replacement, given the pittance we got for ASM not sure about the hack part

It would be to do with fiddling the fact that purchases are counted as being spread over (usually) 5 years, while sales are counted in full immediately.

 

So selling for £20m today loosens up £100m to be spent immediately, because only 20% of that spend figure is counted in the first year (you just have to make sure you come up with the rest of the money over the future years...).

 

The whole thing becomes a kind of pawn shop buy now pay later game.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by 80

[The College Dropout]

34 minutes ago, Conjo said:

 

Replace "like for like" (Barnes for ASM as cover for LW) while getting more leeway with FFP for other signings.

 

16 minutes ago, 80 said:

It would be to do with fiddling the fact that purchases are counted as being spread over (usually) 5 years, while sales are counted in full immediately.

 

So selling for £20m today loosens up £100m to be spent immediately, because only 20% of that spend figure is counted in the first year (you just have to make sure you come up with the rest of the money over the future years...).

 

The whole thing becomes a kind of pawn shop buy now pay later game.

 

 

 

Aye.

 

So Barnes was 44m on a 5 year deal. That's £8.8m booked this year and say another £5m in wages. £13.8 on the FFP books for this season.

ASM was sold for 27m. And let's say he earned £3m a year. That's £30m freed up to the book for this season if we want to use it.

 

Subtract the difference for this season: We have £16.2m we could still spend this summer if we wanted too.

 

Let's say Livramento is 38m on 5-year deal. 7.6m this year on the books. 3m salary. 10.6 total on the FFP books this season.

 

That single ASM sale has covered both transfer costs this season from an FFP perspective. Obviously, future years need to be accounted for but you hope we get greater commercial revenue, prize money and can continue generating income player sales.

[The College Dropout]

Btw I don't think Barnes is or ASM was considered as cover or backup. Rather a first-team option but not one that is automatically in the teamsheet if fit. Lascelles is cover, Targett has become cover, Anderson was cover last season. Only injuries or resting others would mean they started. Semantics I know but it's either that or do some actual work.

 

Some of the chat when Barnes signed was that he was a massive upgrade on ASM who is everything Howe wants in his system and he would come in and nail down that LW spot somewhat in the manner Tonali has come in and basically taken Longstaff's spot. So far that has not happened and he's more or less getting the same minutes ASM was getting when the preferred LW was playing well enough. Not that he couldn't win that spot back - Barnes can.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by The College Dropout

[RobsonsWonderland]

Is this not the same as Bruno, Botman, Gordon etc

 

As Howes plan seems to be to  introduce  new players into the first team gradually, be it for fitness, tactics or just allowing them time to settle.

 

We don't know but if Tonale would have started if both Willock and Longstaff had been fit? 

 

Also the new players have not been bought just for the first four weeks of the season.

There time will come and it's up to them to hold their place

[TRon]

2 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

The more I think about it - the more I think Barnes was only signed as a bit of a FFP hack to replace ASM. 

 

He's older than Tonali with PL experience but not been given significant game time. I hope he's just been warmed into the starting line-up but I'm not convinced.

 

Plans obviously change so I still have hope. But if the plan was to play Barnes LW and Gordon RW we would've tried it for more than 10 minutes in over 360 minutes of football.

 

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.

[The College Dropout]

10 minutes ago, RobsonsWonderland said:

Is this not the same as Bruno, Botman, Gordon etc

 

As Howes plan seems to be to  introduce  new players into the first team gradually, be it for fitness, tactics or just allowing them time to settle.

 

We don't know but if Tonale would have started if both Willock and Longstaff had been fit? 

 

Also the new players have not been bought just for the first four weeks of the season.

There time will come and it's up to them to hold their place

This is a good point - although Botman started the second and third league games iirc and the others were mid-season signings, one from abroad. And Tonali has come straight in, despite only being 23 and from a different league and country, doesn't even speak English. Barnes personally - had a good season last season. 25 years old, 150+ PL appearances, joined in the summer.

 

But plans always change. It's just more the fact he's not tried both Gordon & Barnes for any significant length of time. 

 

Could totally be wrong.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by The College Dropout

[FLUMPO235]

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) 

[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.