Chez

it's a pen. He doesn't control it with his body and his hand goes to the ball a bit.

that's a pen for me

we were pretty poor though, failing to keep the ball, track runs.... worked our way back into the game and have been better side since they scored.

he doesn't do enough does he.

decent composure initially, ball then just got stuck under his feet a tad as his second touch wasn't quite good enough, he was then worried about not having time to set his feet, so used his right. Disappointing.

fuck. How did we not score.

absolutely. Ref bottled it. Piss poor from FF.

Ralph loves him. New contract coming his way.

Not sure why football makes such a big thing about substitutions. Why do we need numbers displayed at all and so much faffing around. Other sports don't bother with it. As a watcher I find the whole thing a massive interruption to the flow of the game. Why would we want that? If other team sports can do rolling subs without massive fan fair, why not football? If not rolling subs, then subs that just happen much much quicker. It amazing the difference in time taken when a sub is made when a team is a goal behind as apposed to a goal ahead.

I think five subs is a shite idea. With all the stoppages for fake head injuries, teams perfecting the art of falling over and wasting time etc., we see less and less actual football being played (the ball is in play about an hour these days I think). Substitutions is just another period of non football, all be it, time is added on, sometimes. Why on earth would we want more breaks in play that disrupt the flow? I don't actually understand why we would want to have more fresh players on the pitch. Isn't the game better as players get tired, make mistakes, get stretched, can't get back to cover and close spaces allowing more opportunities for attacks and goals? Late goals was down to just that, tired players, but if half you side is fresh as a daisy then won't we see less, not more?

I honestly think he'll get one. We ain't got money to spend, he's a free transfer and Ralph has gone out of his way to say nice things about him.

and just to enhance your happiness, its a three year deal - and don't think for a minute that he's accepted some sort of reduced contract equivalent to a back up keeper. It will most likely be on equal or better terms than his previous contract. Forster will of course leave, and is probably lined up for a mega money deal as a second stringer at Chelsea, or such like, and I suspect Sam Johnson will sign on a free.

I wasn't someone that made that argument, but its still £5m less available to spend than appears on a net transfer spend table. The fact the club has registered losses of £140m over the last three years and currently has a £90m debt, is ample justification for why we have not spent more on transfer fees over the last three years.

Loss after tax over the last two years is £99m, with COVID to blame for £40m of it, which means we have lost £30m a year. Anyone thinking we don't need to sell an Ings every other year is kidding themselves, although finding a few more £5m Livramento's would certainy help.

yep. Spurs got burnt on there last couple of mega money signings. I can see them return to the `tap up just before they approach the last year of their contract' type. I suspect Salisu's agent will soon to be top of Levy's recent call list.

Whenever posters suggest we should sign experienced Premiership players, this (Winks) is exactly the type of player that comes to my mind. Experienced yes, but so meh. All you get is someone that another club is not that fussed about and can play at this level, but does not excel or improve the side, just gives you expensive cover and fills a squad berth that could be filled with a player that might blossom into a star.

Sure that make sense, as she was both the major (sole?) shareholder and the lender. In this circumstance, Gao is simply the major shareholder (and hasn't loaned the club any money that he would want back), while the lender is a third party - the bank, and unless the bank has some sort of clause requiring full repayment should their be a change of owner/major shareholder, the club would simply continue to have that £90m debt with them and need to pay the interest off etc., as it was doing before the sale.

What makes you think that? When you buy the ownership (shares) you don't then automatically pay off the company's debts to third party lenders unassociated with the previous owners.The new owners bought the shares. They own the club, but the club still has that bank loan. The new owners may insert their own funds/loans to pay off the bank loan to help save on the £9m annual interest we are paying, or the club simply use some of the business' income to pay the interest/loan down. The cheap price was because the company carried a £90m debt. If there had been zero debt, the asking price would assumably have been £90m more.

he meant, we don't need to sell a player first (in order to have the cash flow) before buying. He didn't mean we can buy a player and then NOT sell another to balance the books. There is currently £28m remaining in the bank of that £90m loan. We this have cash flow available to buy a player for £20m or so, but the idea that actually have £28m of surplus to spend is a completely different matter. We lost money overall (£14m) last year even after making considerable income on player trading. Income will go up after a non covid hit season, so you'd hope we won't need to make an income from player sales to breakeven (or even make a profit) this time round. Its pretty obvious that in the recent past that we wanted a player, but the cash flow was not there and then buy the time we sod a player (to make those finds available) that player had gone, and we had to go for our second, third, fourth choice.

yep, without that £90m+ debt it would have cost more than the £100m or whatever it was Dragon spent. Refinancing £90m loans isn't easy. If it was you'd have taken that loan out originally. They may well have paid some of it off, but more likely they will let the business do that over time. So long as we are in the Prem its not an issue. Fans just need to be aware that we are not flush with cash.

not sure the majority of fans feel like that. Certainly not at SMS. When at a game I don't get that sense of dread or concern. I think there is usual nervousness when the ball is at his feet, but thats the same with most sets of fans with most keepers. I don't think making howlers has ever been the problem with Forster. Its more his lack of agility or movement off his line. McCarthy is more agile, but he is the one that drops the odd howler. Maybe the bar has dropped, but I think most fans feel Forster is getting back to his best. He isn't more agile, but his positioning is great and he gets in the way of a lot (he makes the goal small) - he always been good at that. I'd like a better keeper, and thought this summer was an opportunity, but on our budget, can we find better?

I return to this post showing the out of contract players this summer. If McCarthy and Stephens deals are done as suggested, then the priority is to find two keepers (maybe one if Caballero gets another year) and two strikers (possibly one if Long gets another year).

If he is on, say £70k a week and we have to offer the same again, then it doesn't feel good value to me, but as always its the total cost (transfer fee, signing on fee, wages) over the course of the contract that matters. Another factor is that by paying him, we cant take a punt on someone else that perhaps will a) be better b) increase their resale value.

considering effects of COVID, they could be worse. The losses the previous year were far far worse - hence the £90m loan. Paying that down is gonna take some doing - and no matter what anyone says, will affect our transfer/wage budget. Doesn't mean we can't operate successfully in both areas, but we kind of need to make/not spend £20m more to pay the annual interest and perhaps £10m off each year

We took out a £90m loan. We have only £28m of that left in in bank. We also owe £8m to other clubs. We paid £9m in interest over the year. The Ings and Jan sales helped to reduce the losses. No one should have any doubts that we need to sell a decent player every other season if we want to spend money on recruitment and not add debt.