verlaine1979

Almost all of them have been here a couple of seasons now - presumably their book value would have been marked down over the percentage of their contract already.

So only the first four in that list earn over the average premier league wage (£57.6k per week). Worth bearing in mind when discussing the apparent parlousness of our financial situation.

How do you know whether FF wants to play or not? Besides, at the most basic level, footballers are paid to train and be available to play if called upon - they aren't hired contingent on whether they are in or out of the first XI.

Losing money on him with 3 years left on his contract would be idiotic. Moreover, to all the people claiming he has a bad attitude and spends too much time on instagram, it's funny that it's only ever the likes of Pogba, Sterling and Lemina who get criticised for this, when pretty much every professional footballer under the age of 30 has more or less the same flashy, hedonistic lifestyle. Wonder what the common factor is between them?

Out of interest, how successful do you think clubs are at forcing out high wage earners with cast-iron contracts? There's a very long list of overpaid players who've collected millions while seeing out contracts despite never being picked, yet I'm struggling to think of someone who was on a massive wage who ended up leaving to their obvious financial detriment.

Don't Leeds want £30m+ for Phillips? Pretty sure that puts him out of our price range regardless of what we get for Lemina. And even if we could afford it, £30m spent on a good CB would be more transformative to the team than upgrading Lemina.

Honestly, unless Djenepo and Adams suddenly tear up the league, I feel we'd be roughly in the same place we were last season, albeit with perhaps a marginally less squeaky last week or two. It's a team with almost no spine, crying out for more strength at CB and DM.

Hopefully just trying to give other clubs the impression that he isn't totally surplus to requirements, boosting his desirability in the market.

Presumably you're also fine with players trying every dirty trick in the book to force a move when they feel the club they are currently contracted to doesn't meet their ambitions?

4-2-2-2 with our current squad is still tricky. As I understand it, basically all of the 2s need to be pretty mobile, as they regularly switch from central to wide positions depending on where the press is happening etc. As such, I wonder whether either of our obvious deep 2 (Rom and Hoj) actually have the mobility to cover the necessary ground. Playing Lemina as part of the deep 2 would certainly give us more mobility there, but you'd think a spine of Hoj/Lemina - Djenepo/Redmond - Ings/Adams would get picked off pretty easily. Wonder if we might end up defaulting to 4-3-3 just to make the most of who we've got, with Rom sitting, Hoj and Lemina ahead of him, and then a front three of Redmond, Djenepo and Adams.

Fits the profile at least. Wonder if there's any chance we could be looking to move Ings on to one of the promoted clubs at cost or a small loss? I remember reading a few months ago how Dortmund have a policy of selling pretty much anyone in midfield/attack aged over 25/26 as their data suggested capacity to run and press drops sharply from that point onward. Leipzig have a similar recruitment policy, so I wonder if Ralph wants us to adopt a similar approach here?

Yeah, I wouldn't look too deeply into the reasons why certain players are labelled by certain fans as lazy or unreliable.

Agreed on the Austin front - his lack of mobility is just too big an impediment these days. As for whether Long played into form or luck, 20% of his season goal tally was down to Kaspar Schmeichel diverting a shot bound for the corner flag into his own net, so I'm sticking with luck.

Long is more suited to moving about than Austin, and that's about the sum of it. As for his goals towards the end of the season, he ran into a vein of luck, not a vein of form. If you want Long to be a significant component of our attack next season, you're inviting another year of frustration. Hopefully with Adams starting and Ings resting on the bench, Long's league appearances next season wont make it into double figures.

Eh, maybe it's just a coincidence, but the number of scuffed/bobbling goals last season does suggest that he doesn't strike the ball particularly well. It's not always a big impediment to a successful striker (Inzaghi never seemed to make a great connection and it never did him any harm) and of course, his first touch and passing could be exquisite, as all I've seen are the goals.

Doesn't look to be the cleanest striker of a ball, so I hope his other attributes compensate for the technical shortcomings.

You wouldn't sell Lemina unless the rest of our transfer activity depended on it. But as he probably commands the highest fee of anyone in our squad, and is among the most likely to find buyers around Europe, I guess it makes economic sense if there's no money in the kitty. £25m for Lemina + £14m for Targett + £15m for the assorted rabble probably keeps us net neutral again.

Agreed - would much rather take a huge haircut on Elyounoussi's fee, as we know he can't run and RH's style requires runners. Boufal at least has the control and acceleration to carry the ball and go past people.

Maybe we can use the money to lure Davis back from Scotland to provide a much needed boost to our creativity.

To be clear, I mean 'changed the game' in a way that none of our current squad would've been capable of doing (with the jury obviously a long way out on Djenepo). Maybe RH has already decided he's surplus to requirements, but he's got ability that's otherwise completely missing from our squad, so personally I hope he does well and comes back eager to be a part of what RH is trying to build here.

Not the greatest opposition, but changed the game when he came on.

Wasn't Vestergaard more like £16-18m? Considering he can't run and can't head the ball more than about five yards, you'd hope he wasn't our record signing (not that the other contender is any more impressive).

My point is that you seem to think that the owner investing money inevitably carries an unacceptable risk, unlikely to lead to a positive return. I'm saying that's obviously not the case, because if you recruit well, you can make a lot of money. Saying Gao shouldn't spend his own money because Wesley Hoedt is a bust would be like arguing that Apple shouldn't have bothered developing the iPad because the Newton was a failure. That, to borrow your beloved phrase, isn't how business works.

Eh, as so many people are happy to blather on about the club being a business (though I dispute this definition - it's merely a convenient simplification for owners who would prefer not to imagine they have a duty of care over an important community asset), investing to grow is always inherently risky, but businesses do it all the sodding time.

You keep banging on about business, but you miss some really obvious stuff. For a start, who says that a higher investment in players wouldn't yield an even greater return? It's not as if good quality young players go down in value once they prove themselves in the league. Anyway, as you say, it's getting repetitive. You think everything's fine, and I think we've got a dud owner and that it's unfortunate for the club and supporters that we're likely to be outspent by just about everyone in the league if we really do stick to our self-sustaining model. One of us is going to be right, and I honestly hope it's you.