Whitey Grandad

I can't see what Liverpool would want in a crock that's not going to be fit until next year and might never be as good as he was again. They need somebody now, just as we do.

I'm pleased to hear it, but we're talking about a bunch of blokes at work, not a social club.

Yep. He's just a football player, there are plenty more where he came from.

It depends on what happens to what's left of any net profit in player transfers. After tax and debt repayment there won't be much in the kitty. We still owe big lumps on previous transfers.

Lets ask a serious question: How much do the bed wetters think we should have paid to the want-away players in order to persuade them to stay, and then what would they have done to satisfy the remaining players? As far as I can see the present way is the only way and the management are going about it just as you would expect.

LOL Welcome to modern football, Champions League, Sky, video replays, Internet forums who says nothing changes for the better?

Popular is not necessarily good.

Who's milking Saints dry? There is not one shred of evidence for that.

'A tiny bit if investment'? We'd need a lot more than that for Champions League.

Well spotted. Why is it that others can't see this?

Footballers don't think, they're not qualified enough. Their agents, on the other hand, are in it for everything they can get.

Yes indeed. It all depends on the replacements. One of the (few) advantages of getting old is the acquired patience.

It's not really a clearance sale though because the only ones going are being sold at stupid silly prices.

No problems! Believe me, if you make a profit you'll pay tax on it and if you don't then you can't take a dividend. If you could save tax by investing your profits in new acquisitions at the end if the tax year then every company would be doing it by buying up a load of stock one day and selling it back again the next.

This is the important issue. The payment structures are complicated in a unique way, such that they lead to staged payments, player loans, loan fees, payments through 'image rights' companies to offset Income Tax and NI contributions much of which is still under discussion with HMRC.

That's clearly not true. Those that wanted to go an have massively increased their pay have been sold at what everybody must agree are ludicrously lucrative values. If it was ALL that we could then lots of others would have gone for relatively little.

Thank goodness there are some of us left. Why look for someone to blame? There's nothing that anyone should be blamed for.

11pm BST 1st September (that's BullShïtTime)

Well put. Most other clubs beneath us must be very jealous.

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.