Whitey Grandad

Give it a chance, for Gawd's sake. Come back in 3 or 4 weeks and then you can start worrying, if you still want to.

Not so. If the book value of the assets at the end of the year is higher than the beginning then that counts as a profit. Either way, the talk of somebody taking large sums out of the club ignores the mechanism for doing so. If it's repayment of directors loans then that can be done even if the business is operating at a loss but a large amount if debt was converted into equity and dividends on shares can only be paid out of profits, and that will be after tax in those profits.

That's a ridiculous conclusion. How can you come to a judgment based on a couple of weeks of dealings when the fellow's been here a few years? Wait and see before you get the razors out.

There are all sorts if tax and accounting reasons behind these deals. Sell him at a notional loss and we can offset it against profit on others. Spread the payments over several seasons and you can reduce your tax liabilities, that sort if thing.

Not really, what did I say? Upper end if the lower half of the table? It all depends on who we get in.

You need a new fag packet with accounting like that. Take off all the debts hanging over from previous years and corporation tax on any profits, if there are any, and there's not a lot left for future investments, maybe £50m is about right and that gets us another team probably better than we had last year.

Please read that Times article and keep a sense of proportion. We are only part way through the process of reconstruction and any sensible person would at least wait until the new team is in place before coming to any conclusions. Talk of massive profits at this stage is very naive.

I'll wait until it's all done and dusted.

That's easy for you to say. By the way, do they charge per letter if you have a players name put on the back of your shirt?

Plus Premier League guaranteed income one way or another, even if it's parachute payments.

The assets were clearly undervalued and we don't know what type of debt this is. Next year's figures will be interesting.

That'll change.

Yes, exactly. So how much profit have we/will we have made on Lambert, Lallana, Shaw and Lovren and possibly Chambers? I would be pretty certain that their book asset value is nothing like the amount we are supposed to be getting for them. Lovren for example, signed for £8.5m for 4 years so written down to £6.375 after one year and sold for a reported £20m at a profit of £13.625. Of course the profit/loss on trading players has to be included in the total company figures but the extra money that we receive from selling players for more than their book value is not all going to be available for replacements.

They might want to join because they can see all the great deals that our other players are getting after just one season in the Premiership. They can see what's happening and think 'I'll have some if that'.

Well said.

We've already got one of those and they all post on here ;£

What on earth makes you say that?

Yes, of course, I renewed my two fully expecting there to be some big changes. I've had my tickets through all the crap years. This is nowhere near as bad as it has been.

Have you allowed for corporation tax on these enormous profits we've made?

I know, I know, I couldn't imagine someone costing that much being scared of a home debug against his old club.

It's not over yet. I bet you walk out of a match after 20 minutes if we're 1-0 down

That would have been nice but it's not the modern way on the football world. What I don't understand is why the bigger clubs don't follow our model. Why aren't they buying up the academy instead of its products?

'Been wound up' is not the same as 'gone to the wall'.

See, I've never had that joy because I've always known that they would be sold off. It's like running a pig farm, you know that they'll all end up as bacon.

Yes indeed. But unsustainable? I'm not so sure.