Whitey Grandad

Has he signed yet? I log on now and again to see if anything's happened and all I get is the same old rumours over and over again.

Nah, it was a black and white world until Sergeant Pepper.

Shirley Anne Field I include her mainly because we had the pleasure of meeting her and having a long chat with her on a cruise we were doing a couple of years ago. She was very friendly and likeable but was a bit put out when my wife said that she loved all those black and white films she did in the fifties. "Sixties dear lady, sixties if you don't mind". Her face was a bit immobile but I suppose that's what can happen if you have too much cosmetic surgery without an anasthetic or you've been round the block a few times. A lovely girl though.

We need an up to date figure for players' wages for the last season. I seem to remember seeing £53m?

More like lease-purchase with a balloon payment at the end.

Isn't there a Madeline Smith in there?

Ah, dear Julie. She died in April 2008 aged 64

If you've dropped a division you're better off without them. (Cue conspiracy theories about preparing for the drop already)

In some respects we are suffering from our own success in rising up the leagues so quickly. We have a clutch of players not good enough for this level eating up wages and we haven't had the time to establish ourselves at a sustainable position.

Loans would be better. Then we can try them out and if we don't like them we can send them back

How do you know that?

With their payment record? Not bl**dy likely! Only joking, this move is highly commendable.

'One size'? I wondered what happened to him and I see that his contract with Watford ended at the end of last season. I also saw that as a 14 year old he appeared in the opening of The Fifth Element.

You really want to know? http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cnr/app_dtt.htm The UK keeps the tax but the other country may make an allowance for this having been paid.

Well we're getting into very complicated issues here and maybe multi-national company payments but the UK does have a double taxation agreement with Switzerland of some sort.

Sounds about right to me. I think this will be the first season for years where we finish lower than the previous.

'And we've still got Schelotto on the bench'

The tax is paid on profits anyway. Then the remaining surplus can be distributed in dividends to shareholders who are themselves subject to any further income tax in the UK, with an allowance credit for the Corporation Tax already taken at 21%. Loans can be repaid at any time.

Both will be good.

Yes, sorry if I upset you but I was really referring to a wider readership. When I asked 'Does it matter' I was referring to and earlier post by someone else. I read everything you write, wouldn't miss it

Don't believe all the headline figures in the media. Remember that what you see if the total potential value of the deal. How much of that do we actually get for Lallana? Possibly a clear £12m after Bourmemouth get their cut. The full figure includes all sorts of hypothetical add-ons which are certainly not paid up front. Chambers, fee 'undisclosed', believed to be in the region of... £16m Lambert, 'about £4m' but reportedly £0.5m to Bristol Rovers Lovren 'reports putting the figure at £20m' and we still have to pay for him. Shaw, 'believed to have cost in excess of £30m' with figures varying from £27m to £33m. Nobody knows how much of this is dependent on future conditions. It is rare for a transfer fee to be paid all in one go and for various accountancy reasons both clubs usually prefer to spread the payments over several years. Somebody has to pay the agent's fees which are typically 10% and paid by the buying club. International deals are something else: 'Fifa statistics show 28% of transfer fees go to agents and third parties' http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/jan/08/fifa-transfers-agents-third-parties

NO Where do you get that figure from?

If you think that PR is important then yes, maybe it matters, but as to the strict details about whether a new signing is made by Monday, Tuesday, or whatever then I for one am not going to get hot and bothered over it.

These deals are rarely paid all up front, we still have to pay for the players we bought previously, there are other payments involved (to Bournemouth, for example), agents' fees, potential tax liabilities. Most of it is a big paperwork exercise.

Yeah, whatever.