Wurzel

Not clever, it's just basic accounting the way every club does it. If you buy a player for £50m on a 5 year contract evin if you pay in full up front (which is very rare in football) that cost is spread over the 5 years at £10m a year. So for FFP purposes you would only have spent £10m on the player for the year you bought him. Chelsea are giving unusually long contracts to spread it even further . And if the selling club accepts it being paid in instalments even better for their cashflow (although irrelrevant for FFP).

Get the players doing it before kick off instead of group hug / huddle 🤣

Can't believe anyone still posts that nonesense. How many big clubs are there? 6 maybe 7? Odds are nearly always against them getting drawn together. Even in this draw statistically it was 2/1 ManU would get Newcastle, evens they'd get either us or Forest. But you're right they never seem to play each other ....except Man City had aleady knocked out Chelsea and Liverpool in this tournament this season. 🤔

You might as well change that thread title to 24/25 season. Designs for next season should have been agreed months ago and are probably already in production. And add me into the "don't like stripes". I'd vote for a Feyenoord style half and half shirt.

Arrives tomorrow. So he's not one of the two already down on the South Coast then ?

I hope @DTnever considers a life of crime. If he's caught he's going to need the best defence lawyer ever 🤣

Anyone else think Arma's goal from putting pressure on the keeper ( he was in his one half when he anticipated the back pass) was reminiscent of a few that Danny Ings scoredfor us?

Hasn't Yoshida been seen at our last couple of games? Maybe recommending his team mate to us ( or us to him)? Or helping to ensure a move goes smoothly ?

Another history making "first" last night .

Even more baffling, if reports were true he turned us down when we approached him before (in the summer??) because he felt he wasn't ready. What the fuck changed his mind?

Now that would be totally out of nowhere but I'd take him like a shot.

Is that not our own fault though? In these days of instant messaging/twitter/forums etc rumours are spread around like wildfire. It's down to us whether we choose to believe them or not and human nature being what it is we believe the ones we want to be true. There's been nothing from the club to confirm or deny interest in any of the rumours discussed on here, so we've got no-one to blame but ourselves if we end up disappointed when certain players don't end up joining us . Oh for the good be old days when the first we knew of a transfer target was when The Echo told us they'd signed. Agree though that in general, when we can all see certain areas need strengthening we'd have a right to he disappointed -if not folded arms, scowling face,season ticket handing back, downright furious - if no-one is bought in.

If I've got this right they are trying to push sales of Kingsland seats on the basis that you will be able to be part of this "groundbreaking initiative" (as long as you get there early enough), but presumably the only place in the ground that you won't be able to witness this amazing spectacle will presumably be ..... the Kingsland stand. 🤔 To be fair light shows can be pretty amazing these days, I'd actually be interested to see what they come up with, but I doubt, even if I was going, it would be something to get me there any earlier than usual. Now if that magic wristband also included a free pint .....

As footballers I admire, and have enjoyed watching both of them. But my comment was based on personalities, Messi for me comes across as the more humble person whilst Ronaldo both on and off the pitch gives off "it's all about me" vibes . I'd be very happy to have either of them in my team the pitch but there's only one I'd want in my dressing room and it wouldn't be CR7.

So pleased that Messi has finally won it ..... and Ronaldo never will. #GOAT

What we can' be sure of is are the players turning us down, or are we not offering enough for the selling club to accept? If it's the former we really are in a Catch 22 situation, won't come because we're not big enough, can't get big enough without players like that. If it's the latter then hopefully that window taught us a lesson, if we want a player bad enough then we have to sometimes forget the business model of buy cheap/sell at profit and simply stump up the cash.

Not really thought that through have you. By the logic of your argument if the ball is definitely out but only by a margin of .1% of the ball's width it should then be considered it in to allow for the accuracy of the white lines. In and out is black and white, it's not open to opinion. I didn't see it live, but every VAR photo I've seen since conclusively shows it was in. Argument settled, no point of contention moved .

Only just seen yesterday's highlights. WTF was Lukaku on? He made Che & ArmA look world class 🤣

On the evidence of this match he could be the answer to our selection problems. We have too many CBs but we need a striker, take him out of our defence and play him up front 🤣

Yeah, just heard the words Dejan Lovren in the commentary. Didn't realise he was still a thing.

They can't have missed it, can only assume they decided as Maguire had his arm round the defender too it was 6 of one half a dozen of the other. Don't agree, but can't think of any other possible reason not to give it.

Tammy Abraham looks like he could be available again. Can you see us a) ever splashing out what it would take to get him (or someone of his stature)? Transfermarket (probably as reliable as wikipedia to be fair) values him at 45m euros, how much were we spending on Gapko? b) assuming the cash was there, would we change the business strategy to sign someone like that? Personally, I'd put him at the same level Ings was when we signed him, so allowing for transfer inflation since then maybe not out of the question, and surprisingly still only 25 so time to make a profit on him too. And I could see him and Adams forming a decent strike partnership. Whether it be him or someone else, we need some experience to mix in with the youngsters. It's all very well giving them game time but how much benefit are they really gaining - particularly the attack minded players - if we are constantly under the cosh. They need an experienced spine not only to help them on machdays but to learn from as well. Edit: Guess I should add a c) would he or someone like him want to join us at the moment?

That's a great read. If he doesn't already that guy should be writing for The Athletic. Assuming it's accurate I can see 2 possible outcomes for us this season, rock bottom or top 10, it's either going to work and work quickly (only a couple of more games before the transfer window to get through) or not at all (and as an eternal optimist I'm going with the top ten). All that assumes NJ didn't write the article himself of course 🤣

Why not? Or are you implying that we are such a big club that we should treat other PL clubs as our feeder clubs for management appointments. If we didn't get him now and 2 years down the line he's taking someone like Fulham or Bournemouth to a top half finish how many on here will be moaning "why didn't we get him when we could?"

Exactly There's a lot on here writing him off before we've even announced him because a) He "failed" at Stoke - most people do and anyway, we're not Stoke. Howe failed at Burnley, Benitez failed at Everton, Moyes and Mourinho failed at ManU, (I could list dozens more) doesn't make any of them bad managers & b) He has no Premier League experience . - Can someone explain how any manager had PL experience until he'd managed in the PL? Somebody has to be brave enough to give them their first opportunity.