Whitey Grandad

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.

Probably the main reason he took the job. Who knows, he may have said: "OK I'll take it but we'll have to get rid of all these old carthorses, hospital cranks and big-headed primadonnas first".

Our summer summed up in a short summary.

I'm with you, Fat C. What's wrong with the youth of today? Everybody wants instant results. Sometimes you need to do some wholesale pruning in order to get vigorous future growth.

'Without regard to the company's future' is the important bit.

Sometimes also 'diplomatic'.

Why? Plenty of other clubs look at us with envy. Clubs are not run for the benefit of the fans, we should all know that by now.

We're converting assets into cash. That's not stripping unless the cash is withdrawn.

Yes, that's true, but well have to give it a month to see the full picture. We've only had 3 out so far and probably Lovren too so we can't include the possible outs and discount the possible ins.

Yes, and so is cash. It certainly isn't asset-stripping if the assets (of all types) remain in the business. Having said that, you can't play football with a bundle of cash so we should expect to see some of that cash converted into players. Let's not forget that we've made a whopping profit in our book values and there will be a big lot of corporation tax to pay if we're not careful. Perhaps we can offload Osvaldo at a hefty loss, who knows, in a convoluted world maybe that's why we bought him?

Fiona Walker http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jul/05/tennis-girl-poster-sells-15500-auction