Saint-Fred

No.. I am sure I read Newcastle were only the 7th team of the last 33 relegated to get automatic promotion the next season..and that Burnley and Newcastle did it recently but there was a long gap previously to that. It's pretty rare for a team to do it despite the extra finances, look at Sunderland, Boro and Hull from last season?

Of course it's the sensible action to take. probably would have decided that it's also sensible to tell Theo he has to have a relegation clause which halves his wages if we do go down.

I wouldn't pay £5 more for a ticket to sign Theo either.

When Man City won't pay your price but the scousers panic and pay you what you wanted plus the extra 5 million you added on from the summer price as they were being dicks..then you know you have probably squeezed just about as much as you were going to get out of the deal IMO.

Lol you think it's ok for a professional sportsman not to try? Ignore the fact that he was paid (in those 20 weeks) more than the vast majority of this country will earn in a lifetime to actually put in some effort, but for example what about everyone betting on the game. it is assumed the people taking part will actually be making an effort to win the game. He cheated a lot of people during that spell. It may be naive to expect sportsmen to try every game, however that's what should happen whether they want to be there or not..it's called being a professional. I, for one think, that what he did was wrong but I suppose ethics are personal so you may think that it's acceptable.

Hmm this could be an issue for us..the last thing we need is Stoke getting their act together. O Neil would keep them up I have no doubt, they haven't got bad players and he'd organise them. We also have them as one of our three winnable home games left so an organised Stoke coming to town, even if they are only here for a draw, is two points we can't afford to drop.

Atletico etc are not the top rung of the ladder, the same as Liverpool aren't, They have the really big clubs courting their players and yet often can keep them for at least a while.(Griezman?) We don't sell to the top tier we sell to the Atletico tier (Liverpool, Spurs etc) as we are the tier below. IMO should we ever want to head towards that we need to understand how they work. It's not about money as our turnover , with premier league money, won't be far behind the atleticos and naplois of the world. It's a bit academic really as the dream Les sold us has been wiped and just staying up will be an achievement whilst the mighty Burnley, Watford and Huddersfield fight for the places behind the top 8. IMO the model does sort of work, selling players for big fees it's just we do it too frequently and it only takes a few newbies to take a while to settle and you're in trouble.

He obviously isn't the one house hunting in Winchester then! Lol

WTF you on about? I thought everyone, including the club, agreed we need a frontman? Obviously not then. Don't ever make the squad better eh?

"This year we have double digited so that we can regroup, consolidate in the champions ship diviseon. We needed to do this after Virgil upset the micro economy in the dressing room at San Marie's stadium. Mauricio has displayed amazing strength and grace in the face of overwhelming adversity and despite Leslie and I lunching with the team we were unable to turn results around. Next year we will look forward to the play offs for the southern division which will provide additional revenue. We'd like to thank Prowsey, Gabbi, Tadic, Boufal, Long, Cedric, Bertrand, Austin, Lemina and Hojbjerg for there service this year and we wish them all well at their new clubs." "Oh and for any of the academy players I have a message: have the pasta...it is exquisite."

"well, Red for Walcott and Balotelli...I will point it towards that Monaco reserve striker and see if it goes green!.....I sure wish Mitchell had left the instructions when he left"

Perhaps he is...that's why the pitch looks so bad.

Perhaps that was the ITK comment about needing to wait a week...perhaps we knew Hughes was getting the sack! Lol

TBH I am a bit torn. I don't like MP, I think he has a lot of faults BUT I do think whoever is in charge we will struggle to stay up now. I am not joining the clamour for him to go, but I probably would raise a smile if he did. I have not much confidence that the board would pick an adaquate replacement anyway so really don't know if there is any benefit either way. I think I am at the point where I have accepted that I can't influence us going down or staying up other than supporting on match day. I won't join in any anti the manager songs etc.. I don't think that would help... However if anyone wants a protest about the ownership of the club, I am in!!,

Lol Pr1ck

I like Coventry, I am glad for there supporters today after the crap they have had in the last 10 years.

Aren't they League 1 or 2?

Good I am glad you are happy for him. I hope you also hold him up as a role model for your kids, seeing as he took a million pounds in wages from us, whilst pretty much refusing to play some games then when he did play just went through the motions. Then just to prove how much he was taking the **** he actually tries in his first game for his new club. Oh and this was on the back of having 1 1/2 million pounds in wages for the previous 6 months without playing whilst we paid for his rehabilitation and then he couldn't even be arsed to turn up to the end is season do. Oh and all this on the back of being made captain of the first team. I, for one, feel nothing for the vile pretence of a human being. I certainly won't ever think " good for you" when something good happens to him.. Coutinho on the other hand in the same circumstances played his heart out when he played despite knowing he was leaving. I will give a smile when he scores for Barcelona.

Well, like Double VD, it was pretty obvious when he got "injured" and stopped playing a couple of games ago. Funny how all the clubs that made a stand in the summer stopping players moving have pretty much lost them now anyway. I am not sure how the club can be criticised for losing the players we have, obviously no one can stop players moving if they chose to. I think the club should be looking at Atletico Madrid, Dortmund, Napoli and those types of club to. See if we can learn from them. They do lose players but also manage to hold on to some pretty good players for quite a while, so we need to understand how they can do it and what the secret is... They obviously do something right as Costa was happy to throw away his Chelsea millions to get back to Atletico.

I think when they say 70 million up front, it's the same as Liverpool are getting 105 million up front for Coutinho. That's the amount guaranteed, it's still over a length of time in instalments but that's what we will get eventually definately. The other 5 (or 35 in Coutinhos case) is related to performance, number of games, champions league trophies etc. And therefore not guaranteed. As we have the 70 million guaranteed we should still be able to spend it and structure buying players against those payments in the same way.

No wonder we are spending it over furture transfer windows! Lol

Perhaps the black box is a little over technical...perhaps it finds "technically" good players. Perhaps we need to go a bit back to basics and buy someone who just scores (like we did with Austin- I don't reckon he was a black box find!) Maybe the black box runs of Expected goals...it's all the rage but ignores the fact that actually it's the real goals which win you matches... Look at Andy Caroll the other night..did absolutely nothing all game...except put the ball in the net twice and won the game for West Ham...at present a goal scorer is more important than some one technically gifted.

That might be good as, if you remove the top 6 or 7, there are loads of clubs with similar income in the top two divisions. Remove the sky money and you could almost see a league where there is no dominance by a single team. I would hope they would do something to stop billionaires coming in, taking over a club and turning it into another Chelsea to win the league over and over. However Maybe they would all be focused on the super league.

Lol I thought it was about supporting the club and team? Turns out it was all about the premier league! It's a game of footy man..doesn't matter if you are getting beat by Doncaster or Manchester City, it feels the same. I, for one, really couldn't care if I am watching my team in the premier league or league 2 that doesn't make me a muppet... *****

You do realise all clubs are owned or run by multi millionaires don't you? They can't all "do something" to protect their investment and not be relegated..three will go down. They have contingencies for that scenario and 200m is not a lot, it will be servicable for the foreseeable in what ever division. West Brom are also under Chinese ownership? They are in free fall too.. And I think Aston Villa, Birmingham and Wolves are too..all championship..so being in the premier league doesn't seem to be the only thing that matters to them. Wolves are flying obviously on the back of investment and Villa have invested in their playing squad but West Brom don't spend much more than they get in and Birmingham is just a car crash like us. I wouldn't put too much faith in the " he has to do something to protect his investment"..he obviously wants to stay up But it won't be the end of his world if we don't. We just got 75m in and Les will be pointing out how much he can sell other players for in the event of going down. It is what it is I am afraid..like West Brom, It's unlikely we will be "throwing" money at the problem this window IMO.