Paul Mitchell to leave club by mutual consent at end of June (Official)

[TRon]

14 minutes ago, McCormick said:

The same policy that has gotten us 2 Champions League qualifications, a final and a trophy from starting in a relegation position? Or the same one that bought the player in Minteh that massively helped solve said PSR issues? Yes, imo.

 

 

 

 

 

But hasn't Howe also targeted the sort of players Mitchell should be signing, AFTER they have proven themselves in the PL? I'm thinking Mbuemo and Elanga as examples. The whole idea behind bringing Mitchell in was to identify those players before their values triple or quadruple.

 

I understand Howe's desire for proven players, but it was unsustainable with PSR. We need a mix of both until the PSR shackles have been kicked to the kerb.

[McCormick]

We could have always sold a purple. None of the big players we bought (maybe Barnes?) went down in value. A transfer policy that’s allowed us to get players like Tonali, Isak, Hall, Livramento, Botman, Bruno and Gordon; bringing us a trophy, bringing us Champions’ League nights etc. and now putting us in a position where we can spend big again without selling the Crown Jewels is not fit for purpose? 

[GEFAFWISP]

Be disappointed if he's not being tried for war crimes in The Hague end of this week if there's no new signings.

 

Tick tock Eastenders nonce.

[The College Dropout]

This season has been vindication for the old regimes way of working. 
But we didn’t sign mid 20’s PL players for mega bucks though. That wasn’t the approach. 

[McCormick]

Just now, TRon said:

 

 

But hasn't Howe also targeted the sort of players Mitchell should be signing, AFTER they have proven themselves in the PL? I'm thinking Mbuemo and Elanga as examples. The whole idea behind bringing Mitchell in was to identify those players before their values triple or quadruple.

 

I understand Howe's desire for proven players, but it was unsustainable with PSR. We need a mix of both until the PSR shackles have been kicked to the kerb.

There’s way more examples of unproven players failing in the prem than succeeding. You’re talking about those successes with the benefit of hindsight.

[KaKa]

1 hour ago, McCormick said:

The guy has done nothing positive so far (besides the Kelly sale?) and took Howe on last summer causing unneeded unrest which led to a shaky start to the PL campaign.

 

Monaco fans largely hate him for talking a lot and doing nothing of note.

 

Granted, he hasn’t had the time to prove his worth here yet so let’s see. Big summer ahead for the club; I hope he succeeds.

 

Well, he couldn't make any signings the last two windows because we had already messed up the PSR situation.

 

What he has done so far is move on Almiron and Kelly for decent fees and bring in a number of promising young players.

 

Pretty sure he revamped Monaco's whole setup and team profile by moving on a number of underperforming older players and having them start bringing in younger players.  This has since started to bear fruit the last few seasons.

 

Videos were posted when he joined, about the changes he made at Monaco to setup them up to be in a better position going forward. They were not short term quick fixes, which is likely why their fans were moaning. The videos are still in this thread.

 

His record of signings he has made at other clubs has also been posted and it isn't one to sniff at.

 

Not sure why people keep trying to make out this guy is some sort of buffoon.

[The Prophet]

No time to bask in the glory of a hugely successful season?

[Tiresias]

People actually moaning at Mitchell? Jesus wept. He definitely has to do better this window, teh Guehi saga was a little ridiculous, and clearly there were political rumblings behind the scenes. I think likely Howe felt vulnerable with Staverley leaving and the PSR mess meaning he couldn't improve the squad leaving him likely to get sacked if we underperformed this season. I even mooted at the time that I wouldn't be totally surprised if that turn of events happened. 

 

Things will have moved on though, Eddie's position is clearly stronger than ever. If they clash this summer and one is unhappy I suspect Mitchell will be the one in trouble, but nothing about the ownership suggests they are short termist in anything so I think everyone will act like adults and do their jobs and anything off will get blown out of proportion by some in media to have something to talk about while there's no football on...

[TRon]

1 hour ago, McCormick said:

There’s way more examples of unproven players failing in the prem than succeeding. You’re talking about those successes with the benefit of hindsight.

 

Nevertheless, until we are able to compete in the same markets as the cartel clubs, we don't really have much choice but to take calculated gambles on unproven players. My understanding is that it's not a case of either/or anyway. Mitchell's expertise should complement Howe's approach. I don't see giving Mitchell a chance to prove himself as a rejection of the previous transfer strategy anyway. Just a necessary progression.

[TheBrownBottle]

This cunt been hung by his bollocks off the Tyne Bridge yet?

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

2 hours ago, McCormick said:

There’s way more examples of unproven players failing in the prem than succeeding. You’re talking about those successes with the benefit of hindsight.

 

Oi. You're thinking. That's not allowed!

[HayDen Traces]

Tbf he'd literally just joined the club last summer too. 

This summer is different, he'll have been part of the planning and already be talking to agents etc...

[HawK]

Just my thoughts on this.

 

I think what's being missed here is that the 'old way' was not sustainable at all, we were taken over when we had almost a net zero on PSR for the rolling 3 year period up until then. We had almost £105m in clear headroom and then more the following January after the first.

 

It was the right approach 100% - use the headroom available to invest in quality players to get us out of the mire and up the table. It was a calculated gamble and it worked. I think no-one would disagree with the approach taken.

 

That said, what Mitchell needs to do differently to how we operated then to now is to work within the small amount of investment allowed each year in terms of net transfer spend - we get £35m p/a above breakeven only (£105m per 3 seasons rolling). This means we have now got to find more of the bargains out there if we want to keep our top players. If we're open to selling our top players for profit, it gives us much more room to manoeuver.  

 

If we want to keep every single top player we have until they retire, all we get is £35m per season to spend above our breakeven point, assuming we break even. That's assuming we can cover all the wages of all of our players and all other club expenses on non-transfer-funded income alone. Our PL prize money and domestic cup competitions pretty much just covers us day-to-day.

 

We will increase this £35m effective spend by turning a profit through increasing income and minimising expenses and player sales. Champions League participation is absolutely massive. It gives us a massive injection in funds for the short term.

 

If we're currently PSR-compliant, the worst case scenario is we have approximately £100m to spend this summer (or whatever the sum total of the projected income received from CL participation is). 

 

But.

 

If we spend that £100m on 2 superstars, with superstar wages, and we then don't qualify for CL the following season to help fund those wages without increasing our income outside of CL participation, we're potentially incurring losses as our wage-to-turnover goes south (Aston Villa) without the CL money retained for the following season.

 

You could say it's high-risk, high-reward, but I think it's a little irresponsible. We have a core of some fantastic, world-class players. I think what we need now is a quality squad, players bought for £10-£20m that can come in and do a job so we don't see the absolutely drop-off-a-cliff in quality when Longstaff, Willock or Wilson needs to play. The smart thing to do in my opinion is to buy up-and-comers so if they come good they either challenge for a first team place, or become a saleable asset to fuel the PSR-beating machine.

 

The other side is getting maximum bang for our buck on our deadwood. Mitchell's done well so far - Almiron and Kelly have gone for way more than I would have dreamed. Let's see how we progress.

[ponsaelius]

The converse argument to that model you could say though is that Eddie has proven to get maximum out of all players he deals with - and that we'd be better off just keep pushing the boat out for top draw quality at the right age to improve the first XI (IE more Tonali, Isak level players) and relegate existing starters to back up. Rather than spreading our bets on a load of calculated gambles like teams like Brighton do. I think this is better for increasing the club's global image and keeping existing stars too tbh. We could always sell a purple if it ultimately came to it. 

 

I get that it's a difficult balance to strike though.

[HayDen Traces]

10 minutes ago, HawK said:

Just my thoughts on this.

 

I think what's being missed here is that the 'old way' was not sustainable at all, we were taken over when we had almost a net zero on PSR for the rolling 3 year period up until then. We had almost £105m in clear headroom and then more the following January after the first.

 

It was the right approach 100% - use the headroom available to invest in quality players to get us out of the mire and up the table. It was a calculated gamble and it worked. I think no-one would disagree with the approach taken.

 

That said, what Mitchell needs to do differently to how we operated then to now is to work within the small amount of investment allowed each year in terms of net transfer spend - we get £35m p/a above breakeven only (£105m per 3 seasons rolling). This means we have now got to find more of the bargains out there if we want to keep our top players. If we're open to selling our top players for profit, it gives us much more room to manoeuver.  

 

If we want to keep every single top player we have until they retire, all we get is £35m per season to spend above our breakeven point, assuming we break even. That's assuming we can cover all the wages of all of our players and all other club expenses on non-transfer-funded income alone. Our PL prize money and domestic cup competitions pretty much just covers us day-to-day.

 

We will increase this £35m effective spend by turning a profit through increasing income and minimising expenses and player sales. Champions League participation is absolutely massive. It gives us a massive injection in funds for the short term.

 

If we're currently PSR-compliant, the worst case scenario is we have approximately £100m to spend this summer (or whatever the sum total of the projected income received from CL participation is). 

 

But.

 

If we spend that £100m on 2 superstars, with superstar wages, and we then don't qualify for CL the following season to help fund those wages without increasing our income outside of CL participation, we're potentially incurring losses as our wage-to-turnover goes south (Aston Villa) without the CL money retained for the following season.

 

You could say it's high-risk, high-reward, but I think it's a little irresponsible. We have a core of some fantastic, world-class players. I think what we need now is a quality squad, players bought for £10-£20m that can come in and do a job so we don't see the absolutely drop-off-a-cliff in quality when Longstaff, Willock or Wilson needs to play. The smart thing to do in my opinion is to buy up-and-comers so if they come good they either challenge for a first team place, or become a saleable asset to fuel the PSR-beating machine.

 

The other side is getting maximum bang for our buck on our deadwood. Mitchell's done well so far - Almiron and Kelly have gone for way more than I would have dreamed. Let's see how we progress.

Prudent but way less fun 🤣🤣

[r0cafella]

2 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

The converse argument to that model you could say though is that Eddie has proven to get maximum out of all players he deals with - and that we'd be better off just keep pushing the boat out for top draw quality at the right age to improve the first XI (IE more Tonali, Isak level players) and relegate existing starters to back up. Rather than spreading our bets on a load of calculated gambles like teams like Brighton do. I think this is better for increasing the club's global image and keeping existing stars too tbh. We could always sell a purple if it ultimately came to it. 

 

I get that it's a difficult balance to strike though.

The funny thing is, we've been as close to perfect as possible so far. 

 

We've literally walked a line which can't be seen. 

 

If anything the difficultly with buying purples is the pool of clubs who can buy them from us is absolutely tiny, this is what we found last year with Bruno, nobody could give us a price which makes sense. 

[ponsaelius]

Fair point on that latter bit. It does become pretty hard to double your money on £40 million signings, particularly if you've bought them at age 23-24 yourself.

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 11:04 by ponsaelius

[r0cafella]

Just now, ponsaelius said:

Fair point on that latter bit. It does become pretty hard to double your money on £40 million signings, particularly if you've bought them at age 23-24 yourself.

 

 

 

Absolutely, same issue with Isak right? I'm sure we would listen to offers for him btw but the money we need to do a deal is so much it's not possible. 

 

One of the unintended consequences of PSR is basically the funneling of every club to the same profile of player. The big clubs with expensive older players better pray to God the Saudis will take them if not they are stuck. 

 

I mean Bruno F is good, but other than the idiots in Munich nobody is paying huge fees for players pushing 30. 

[ponsaelius]

My chosen model would personally be 2-3 proper top quality first XI signings and then some pragmatic free transfers like we did (and tried to do in case of Tosin) last summer. 

 

I could totally see the alternative argument for 5 or 6 £10-20 million signings though.

[r0cafella]

Just now, ponsaelius said:

My chosen model would personally be 2-3 proper top quality first XI signings and then some pragmatic free transfers like we did (and tried to do in case of Tosin) last summer. 

 

I could totally see the alternative argument for 5 or 6 £10-20 million signings though.

How does your first option sound but sell say Gordon and make it 5 top quality players minus a Gordon? 

 

I think this is what id do. If I had the option. 

 

Mandatory disclaimer: Gordon is very good etc and or course losing him would hurt yada yada. 

[Keegans Export]

I'm also not putting "The Guehi Saga" entirely on him either.

 

For starters, he'd just joined and was going off the clubs existing target list. Secondly, a number of journalists have reported that the negotiations did not go the way Palace/Parish was suggesting, so I'd take that with a pinch of salt too.

 

He'll be judged on how the squad shapes up for the coming season, not what happened last summer. 

[nemtizz]

If we're going sell our best winger probably best to do it when his stock is high.

[TBG]

You can't use it on yourself or have all four put their heads together. 

 

One bullet.

 

Mitchell, Gordon, Willock, Murphy (after a bad game).

 

Who you using it on?

[PauloGeordio]

3 minutes ago, TBG said:

You can't use it on yourself or have all four put their heads together. 

 

One bullet.

 

Mitchell, Gordon, Willock, Murphy (after a bad game).

 

Who you using it on?

Willock! 

[Choppy Chop Chop]

Good grief!!!! did we just get relegated