angelman

Doesn't make good reading seeing all the gambling companies. But good to see the increase we have made.

Might it not mirror the Caulker deal, in that it is insurance in case primary target can't be signed. But we loaned rather than pay £10m

Out of interest, how would getting the cheque book out stop the team looking clueless?

Not much point in getting them to come to Netherlands for a couple of days.

Times mentioning Mourinho might be sniffing at him, amongst others, to bolster United's defence

Aye, point taken. His contract expires 30/6/22 so I guess more than 5. Putting a limit on would be restricting trade wouldn't it, and no idea why FA/PL would actually ask for that in the first place. Klopp has said that he would give up football if £100m became standard. It seems that £10-15m is pretty average. £30m is standard for a good player and anything above that for a good player. It is madness in my eyes at least. Higher fees, higher wages, higher (or the same) season ticket prices, higher satellite packages. Footballers win, supporters lose.

I think it might simply be that they won't want to spend the money on him that we could ask for given he has 6 years left on his contract. Stones has 3 years left and is valued at £50m, I cannot see any reason what so ever why VVD would be less. Is anyone going to spend £60-70m on a central defender?

Or he stays at Untied for 2 years (as per his contract) and then retires at the end of it when he is knocking on being 34. He is going to be 32 on Monday. He is supposedly on £275k a week (pre/post tax I don't know).

So presume that Stones is a done deal. Alas, it seems that Everton are going to have to burden themselves with much higher wages in order to "persuade" players to come to them rather than the likes of Chelsea. The thing that people forget is how big a draw London is to overseas players.

What I find interesting is the change in attitude. When the likes of Leeds and Blackburn won the league, there were accusations by some that they had bought it. Chelsea under Abramovich also were looked at with disdain for buying the title. Now, no one bats an eye lid about dropping hundreds of millions. I find it very hard to reconcile such sums and it will be the factor that pushes me away from what masquerades as a sport.

Fine. But do you know about However, the league has warned that the £1billion distribution is dependent on a "satisfactory outcome" in Ofcom's investigation into how domestic TV rights are sold, following a complaint from Virgin Media, as well as overseas rights sales Was this resolved? As for the surcharge on over seas players, yes, I'd still have that. I know the 8 HG players is supposed to address things, but it doesn't. I do wonder why some of these big clubs bother having academies.

Say we get £100m, being overly simplistic it then looks like this Man Utd £395 + £100 = £495 Man City £352 + £100 = £452 Arsenal £345 + £100 = £445 Chelsea £319 + £100 = £419 Liverpool £298 + £100 = £398 Spurs £196 + £100 = £296 Everton £126 + £100 = £226 West Ham £121 + £100 = £221 Saints £114 + £100 = £214 So yes, we are richer, but so is everyone else, so not a lot has changed when comparing against other PL teams. Compared to others on the continent, maybe it has. But then Germany have signed a mega TV deal, so they are a "new" competitor in the stupid money game.

Yes it has been a lot fairer than, say, the Spanish league. But what isn't particularly fair (actually, it probably is) is the way that they pay to show games and then televise some club every single match. There's one in particular who are the darling of the media who get shown something like 28 times, compared to our usual minimum of 11 or maybe a couple more times. I realise that this plays to the biggest audience so is commercially a necessity, but even when there are big/appealing matches, we still get that club's boring games. And how does PL deal benefit the leagues beneath us and grass roots? It doesn't. I would love PL to bring in a surcharge on all players signed from over seas. Say 10-15%, that goes in to a pot to help grass roots. We have aspiring coaches having to fork out over £5k to get their coaching badges (I think in Germany it is €500), not enough pitches, smaller clubs going bust for less than a top player earns in a week, etc etc

That may or may not be so, although I am not too au fait with distribution rights. Germany: http://www.totalsportek.com/money/bundesliga-tv-rights/ Spain: http://www.totalsportek.com/money/spanish-la-liga-tv-rights-sale-equal-distribution-model/ Italy: http://www.totalsportek.com/football/italian-serie-a-tv-rights-money-distribution/ Seems pretty much in line with UK, except Italy's bit based on appeal of the club.

Which comes back to what 'Arry said about FFP while he was at QPR. One of the (few) things I agreed with him about. He said, “We should be able to spend as much as Man United before we play them on Sunday shouldn’t we? What is fair play? I don’t know. One team can spend £200m on a team, another team might spend £8m on a team, and that’s not fair play is it. Fair play would be everybody having a maximum of £30m a year to spend on their team, produce some kids out of the youth team and work harder with the players they’ve got.” People go on and on and on about the TV deal. It still doesn't close the gap between the rich and poor clubs that much, it just moves the fees along for everyone. Palace can try and bid £30m for one player. The big boys can sign a whole team of £30m players if they want. Let's face it, Scudamore likes the big boys. He wants them to spend huge amounts and to get international super stars in. He can sell Imbrahimovich and Pogba around the world very easily. Even I could! A bit harder to sell Hojbjerg and Redmond to an overseas audience. The big sides do very very little for the English game and its development.

Problem with this forum is that it is very hard to tell who is being sarcastic.

Schweinsteiger has also got the chop (supposedly). Funny how Januzaj was being courted and people saying that he should be signed up for England. He started off pretty well and then went Pete Tong.

You seem very confident with that. Do you not recall how Mané played when he first came? The reaction from the supporters? I see Redmond ahead of him in that respect already. But then I see that people are more familiar with Redmond than they were with Mané, so are far too quick to write him off.

Koeman and the youths. Do you not think that his ignoring of them (I think that is a fair description) was him having his own self serving interests at heart rather than the clubs? If we can bring through a couple of players like Shaw/Chambers and sell for £20-30m then that is hugely important to us. You say that it is to bank the money, I say it is to further the aim to be self-sustaining and help reinvest in the squad. I look at the PL, and all I see are the clubs helping finance overseas clubs. Our balance of payments is hugely in deficit to overseas clubs, It does nothing for lower leagues nor grass roots. As things are, we are still in credit with the academy. It is why I think Hojbjerg might have come to us, knowing that young players get a chance to improve. Of course there is a balance that needs striking and the club is more than aware of that and strikes it pretty well. There were many reports that parents did not want to enlist their kids with us knowing RK wasn't going to give them a crack at stepping up. That's a great shame. And that is why MP was the better manager, even if he finished 8th compared to RK's 7th and 6th.

I agree with you that I want to win EVERY game. But your "change of priorities" that is apparent to you, isn't quite so apparent to me. As with my previous reply to you, can I ask you whether you could explain rather than just write up these throw away lines. How have our priorities changed? From what to what? Nothing personal, but it is far too common and somewhat frustrating that on forums, people make these grand statements without actually putting any meat on the bones.

Our best player last season is still with us having extended his contract

How much is that based on what you think you know of FdB and what you don't know about CP? I know nothing about either's managerial style, so have faith in the Board's choice. They are professionals in football. You and I are amateurs. So the same as CP is doing. Your opinion seems to differ from those who know the French league and who said he was the last good manager there. I suspect you are basing this on his time at Lyon. Do you know the ins and outs of what was going on at Lyon? Probably = conjecture. We all have our opinions, but from the outside looking in, you and I have no idea what so ever as to what went on and why he was chosen. What do you call decent money and which overpriced player would you have bought? It's a bit meaningless just saying "decent money on replacements". As it is, we have replaced 2 of the 3 you mention, and the 3rd was himself a replacement for an injured player. But back to buying, Everton seem to be having a wee bit of trouble buying players and they've got lots of money, so what you think is easy to do, really isn't. Or do you think we should be imprudent and just splash money for the sake of it? Sold to who? And I am presuming that the management might have a different opinion to you. I don't think he has settled that well, so hope he can this season. My opinion, which I know differs from others, is that he isn't any better than Reed. As I say, you and I are amateurs. I have faith in the professionals at the club, maybe you should give them the benefit of the doubt as to them knowing what they are doing. TBH, I am so ****ing bored of hearing the new TV money. It seems to make fans think we should all be rushing out and spending £30m on players whose value is less than half that. Personally I want a sustainable club that is debt free, and to me, the first thing that should be sorted out are the director's/owner's loans to the club. Then I would have cut ticket prices.

So the youngsters..... Lewis McQueen Reed Valery Jones Hesketh Gallagher Isgrove Olomola Turnbull Any opinions on who might make the step up? McQueen was playing out of position, did OK-ish sometimes going forward, but looked shaky at the back. Reed I like and think he might be the best of them. Valery did well as did Hesketh, but wonder if they are ready yet.

OK Saint Billy, what would you have liked the Board to have done? £32m on Benteke maybe - would that have made you happy? It's all well and good slagging the Board off, but usually the slagging off holds more gravitas if you put some examples as to what they should have done instead.

(Some) dull supporters. Seriously, if some so called supporters are so discontent with the club and the way they do things, why carry on supporting?