Chewy

This is a genuinely “wow” moment. Even forgetting that it’s so morally repugnant that it shouldn’t cross their minds, they’ve seen the reaction, the fall-out, the out-cry, they know the political hue of their city and fans. And they do this. Wow. Even the colossal moron Carragher isn’t supporting his club on this one.

I think poor Mr Rose would be better off directing his ire at the likes of Ashley and Levy for rushing to furlough the person who tops up Danny’s monographed gold-plated water bottle before waiting to see what the players did rather than any politicians questioning the moral validity of this decision. Would rather they chose where it went?? They work with these people every day, they’d be supporting the lowest paid workers at their own football clubs. It’s not a difficult concept.

I believe he 'earnt' £7 million quid last year. I'm really struggling with some of the views on here (and that's not including some of the politically charged rants). Some arguing footballers are great because they've visited a hospital, it's the rock stars who are the enemy. People saying clubs are right to be acting this way because the government provided a fund for this, to save the poor unfortunate low paid workers. People with those views are missing a few simple points. 1) this is not directed at footballers in the sense that we think they are all evil. Many do indeed perform many community actions. However, their leadership via clubs and/or PFA have got he balance massively wrong in terms of performing their duty in protecting their members /prized employees, versus acting fairly in the wider (global) community 2) in terms of rock Stars etc., 2 wrongs don't make a right. If you're rich you should be doing your bit 3) the accountancy argument is utterly wrong and misses the point. If someone could point out the following to Andros Townsend it would be appreciated: Normal times you have income and outgoings. Most outgoings are on staff, and almost uniquely in football, they are massively skewed in favour of a few elite performers. These people are arguably some of the most privileged people on the planet. I'd remember that fact. The income is being impacted. It could be about to get a whole lot worse depending in tv revenue, but at present its just essentially gate receipts and over priced burgers, not insignificant but not the main revenue stream either, at least at PL level. Elsewhere, there are companies that have lost their entire revenue stream, and have no means to pay their staff, most of whom are on relatively low wages. In order to prevent total social breakdown, the government introduced a scheme to help pay these people. The bill will be picked up by the tax payer. Worth noting the tax payer is not a mysterious man with a funny name, but is you and I, earning our average salary of 20 -30k Now here's where it gets to decision time for football clubs, and where they are basically acting like ****s. Like all companies, they have to rebalance their outgoings with income over this strange period which will last for an unknown time. They can either reduce their outgoings by getting their lower paid staff to be paid by the government, or ask their highest paid staff (some of the most privileged in society) to reduce their wages instead. One action means that the taxpayer (you and I) helps pay for these staff at companies we have no interest in for years to come in higher taxes, the other sees highly privileged people help pay for people they work with and rely on every single day of their current working lives. Of course, from an accounting point of view, it makes sense for a company to take the free money option. And you can argue that in a progressive tax system, we are all paying, and the rich are paying more than the poor. In the real world, however, the rich don't pay more tax, the clubs at the top end of the PL are so awash with money they dump millions at the feet of agents, call girls and god knows what else every year, and the players are enormously well-paid and privileged. And the staff being furloughed are people they work with every day at their own clubs!!! I fail to see how anyone doesn't find this morally abhorrent. There are accountancy arguments, progressive taxation arguments, and discussions about where to draw the line in terms of first team v youth team players, how far down the football pyramid we're talking etc., but for (and I'm sure Harry Kane is a charitable Saint) the England captain at a champions league club on millions a year to be taking no pay cut while his fellow club staff (the club he's famously supported all his life) get laid off at the governments cost, to be paid for by me through my tax, when he's got nothing to do (not his fault) and people all around him in his city, country and world are being laid off in droves, losing businesses they've spent years building, losing loved ones and not being able to attend funerals, and risking lives helping people who are dying in underfunded hospitals because you and I can't really afford any more tax already is 4UCKING DISGUSTING. It is not Harry Kane's fault. He hasn't made this decsision, and might be opposed to it for all we know. But that is the context. He's on millions, and expects me to pay for his masseuse at his boyhood club who he works with every day through my tax because he doesn't want a pay cut. While his boss picks up a £3 million bonus for delivering a late stadium and will no doubt get another bonus for safely navigating Spurs through coronavirus through his brilliant accounting decisions. Utter c4nts.

I believe he 'earnt' £7 million quid last year. I'm really struggling with some of the views on here (and that's not including some of the politically charged rants). Some arguing footballers are great because they've visited a hospital, it's the rock stars who are the enemy. People saying clubs are right to be acting this way because the government provided a fund for this, to save the poor unfortunate low paid workers. People with those views are missing a few simple points. 1) this is not directed at footballers in the sense that we think they are all evil. Many do indeed perform many community actions. However, their leadership via clubs and/or PFA have got he balance massively wrong in terms of performing their duty in protecting their members /prized employees, versus acting fairly in the wider (global) community 2) in terms of rock Stars etc., 2 wrongs don't make a right. If you're rich you should be doing your bit 3) the accountancy argument is utterly wrong and misses the point. If someone could point out the following to Andros Townsend it would be appreciated: Normal times you have income and outgoings. Most outgoings are on staff, and almost uniquely in football, they are massively skewed in favour of a few elite performers. These people are arguably some of the most privileged people on the planet. I'd remember that fact. The income is being impacted. It could be about to get a whole lot worse depending in to revenue, but at present its just essentially gate receipts and over priced burgers, not insignificant but not the main revenue stream either, at least at PL level. Elsewhere, there are companies that have lost their entire revenue stream, and have no means to pay their staff, most of whom are on relatively low wages. In order to prevent total social breakdown, the government I troduced a scheme to help pay these people. The bill will be picked up by the tax payer. Worth noting the tax payer is not a mysterious man with a funny name, but is you and I, earning our average salary of 20 -30k Now here's where it gets to decision time for football clubs, and where they are basically acting like ****s. Like all companies, they have to rebalance their outgoings with income over this strange period which will last for an unknown time. They can either reduce their outgoings by getting their lower paid staff to be paid by the government, or ask their highest paid staff (some of the most privileged in society) to reduce their wages instead. One action means that the taxpayer (you and I) helps pay for these staff at companies we have no interest in for years to come in higher taxes, the other sees highly privileged people help pay for people they work with and rely on every single day of their current working lives. Of course, from an accounting point of view, it makes sense for a company to take the gre money option. And you can argue that in a progressive tax system, we are all paying, and the rich are paying more than the poor. In the real world, however, the rich don't pay more tax, the clubs at the top end of the PL are so awash with money they dump millions at the feet of agents, call girls and god knows what else every year, and the players are enormously well-paid and privileged. And the staff being furloughed are people they work with every day at their own clubs!!! I fail to see how anyone doesn't find this morally abhorrent. There are accountancy arguments, progressive taxation arguments, and discussions about where to draw the line in terms of first team v youth team players, how far down the football pyramid we're talking etc., but for (and I'm sure Harry Kane is a charitable Saint) the England captain at a champions league club on millions a year to be taking no pay cut while his fellow club staff (the club he's famously supported all his life) get laid off at the governments cost, to be paid for by me through my tax, when he's got nothing to do (not his fault) and people all around him in his city, country and world are being laid off in droves, losing businesses they've spent years building, losing loved ones and not being able to attend funerals, and risking lives helping people who are dying in underfunded hospitals because you and I can't really afford any more tax already is 4UCKING DISGUSTING. It is not Harry Kane's fault. He hasn't made this decsision, and might be opposed to it for all we know. But that is the context. He's on millions, and expects me to pay for his masseuse at his boyhood club who he works with every day through my tax because he doesn't want a pay cut. While his boss picks up a £3 million bonus for delivering a late stadium and will no doubt get another bonus for safely navigating Spurs through coronavirus through his brilliant accounting decisions. Utter c4nts.

Sheffield united?

Port vale?

Ok, somebody took that one. I'm going to stay in London ... West Ham?

Ok, one other guess before letting someone else ... QPR

Palace?

Rare for me to agree almost entirely with Turkish, but absolutely this. I get that other businesses will take advantage of the governments offer, and I get that in pure accounting terms it makes absolute sense for the clubs to do this - the staff aren't working and the government can pay so why not? Well, it's frankly immoral, that's why. And there is another factor. After all this we can as consumers and customers choose to punish the w4nkers who tried to profiteer, be it sports direct for claimong they were an essential retailer or the corner shop who put up the prices of hand wash and toilet rolls. We can't when it comes to football clubs. Of course, technically and legally we can, I don't have to support saints, but changing from saints to Pompey is a bit different than Waitrose to Asda or whatever. Football is simply different, and the obscene sums of money in the premier league, especially in wages to players and board members and fees to agents makes this absolutely stick in the throat. There are people who have lost livelihoods and businesses, and obscenely wealthy football clubs are using tax payers money (perfectly legitimately) to cut costs while continuing to pay players a weekly amount higher than many annual salaries. Utterly sick and obscene.

Actually Mr Lewis died today (or possibly yesterday, was in today's news). Not joking!

I do wonder if this season will simply take two seasons to complete. All sorts of issues with that, and god knows how many clubs lower down the pyramid would survive, but this doesn't look like getting any better before the start of next season in August, does it?

You forgot the fourth category - Gordon Mockles. A category all of his own.

The top 6 have squads capable of fighting on multiple fronts. Iirc the last sides to be the 7th European qualified side have been us, Everton, Burnley, Watford and Leicester who all went on to have pretty disastrous domestic campaigns the season they were playing in Europe. Wolves this season have very much bucked the trend, but Watford might well get relegated. I pray we don’t somehow qualify, it would be a nightmare with our squad.

Based on probable wages, age and injury record, non. Based on who he is, definitely no. Next.

:thumbup:

Some decisions?? If my maths is right my above list contains 44 contractual decisions by next summer, not including the swathe of youngsters ending contracts June 21, not including the 4 on longer contracts we definitely want to try and sell (Forster, Ely, Hoedt & Lamima), and not including any recruitment whatsoever. That's quite some job He has.

Thanks for the info, grateful as always. Good job we now have a DoF (or whatever his correct title is) in place now, because holy sh1t there's some decisions to be made this summer. Based on what you've advised, I reckon come the summer we have the following players over 21 and on contracts over a year: McCarthy, Vesti, Stephens, Ings, Adams, JWP, Armstrong, Redmond, Gunn, Bednarek, Djenepo, Hoedt, Ely, Lemina and Forster. We obviously want to try and sell the last 4, and for the right money would probably sell a couple others. This is the core of the squad to build our long-term future around, and is shockingly week. You can add the following 'first-team' youngsters on longer contracts as well: Slattery, Obafemi and Valery. Doesn't look massively better. We have options with the following who are out of contract: Long, Lewis, Barnes, Cedric, Maya and Rose; and our players on-loan: Danso, KWP and Maddox. I doubt we'll extend more than 1, possibly 2 of those combined lists. We've got the following with one year left, who we can see leave for reduced fees (a very good thing to shift on many of these, less good for the ones we want to keep): Romeu, Boufal, Bertrand, Hojberg, McQueen, Carillo, Sims, Hesketh, Jones and Reed. Do we chuck money at those we want to stay? Given the first set of 'core' players, I don't think we have much choice ... So long as the players want to sign! PEH is the most pressing concern here IMHO. You could add Johnson and Latham to the list, but they've just signed extensions so I guess are playing for their futures over the next 12 months. Which leads onto the next list, u21 players with either first team or loan experience, also out of contract next summer: Smallbone, Vokins, Ramsay, O'Connor, Hall and Klarer. Decisions needed on all. None scream at you as nailed on first-team critical players. And finally 17 youngsters out of contract this summer, needing more urgent decisions: Norton, Olofunwa, Hansen, O'Driscoll, Tella, Hale, Cull, Scott, Ogbonotohoma, Defise, Cluett, Burnett, Idowu, Glean, Watts, Morris and Kozak. Again, no obvious candidates for extending here. Granted there's the next batch of youngsters I've missed off, but wow that's a lot of decision-making and work to do. And also a damning indictment on the state of the playing-staff left for the DoF to have to sort to improve. On the plus side with so many contracts ending in the next 16-17 months we will be freeing up a lot of space and money but it does seriously make you wonder at the wisdom of leaving this post unattended for so long ahead of such a critical two transfer windows. Assuming we stay up, obviously ...!

Thank you OLAS. Out of interest, do you have a list of the current U21 players who won't be come next season (you mentioned Johnson for example). Be interesting to have a look at what things might look like before we plan the summer cull! As an aside, it's funny how things go ... A few months ago I thought the only senior pro out of contract this summer with a chance (albeit slim) of being extended was Maya. Now the only one you'd make a case for is Long. One would hope on less money, despite his recent goal rush (!!) but he might just be playing himself into a new contract.

Appreciate it misses the point of the OP somewhat ... But I think the points for the next five depend dramatically on the next one. Beat burnley, and we are safe IMHO, and put the home form hoodoo plus wolves second half behind us. From there think we'd beat villa and Newcastle and with that confidence could do well in the other two. Being a fan for as long as I've been, however, I'm obviously programmed to be a pessimist and nervous wreck. Lose to burnley, and suddenly our ability to implode coupled with our inability to perform at home will leave me very worried about slipping back into the relegation scrap. Which means we'll draw and leave me sat on the fence.

Forgetting the rights and wrongs of what's been said for a second, from a purely business point of view (no proper director of football, inflated January fees, owner possibly looking to sell) would it not be wise to wait and see how the next two games go before spending millions just to appease the fanbase? I'd suggest if we manage, say, 4 points from the next two, we aren't realistically getting relegated. Waiting a few days before hitting the "spend" button on some expensive and unproven solution might be a sensible business decision? Of course, who knows how Ralph would feel, but just thought I'd throw up an alternative view.

This. Trying to say it's not off topic because it's vaguely transfer-window related is stretching things … clearly most people see this thread title and want rumours, news, whatever, not pages of tedious arguments. Want to argue about club PR? Start another thread. Of course, it would help if one of the people arguing wasn't the a moderator meant to be keeping threads on topic ...

Good to see you helping to keep this thread on topic ... Any chance of some transfer rumours??

Love this place. While a betting man would probably look elsewhere for the three likeliest candidates, a couple of good results doesn't mean we are now safe. In the same way we weren't definitely down two weeks ago. We're just five points off the bottom 3 and are likely to lose our next 2 games - this is far from over. I'm optimistic for the rest of the season, but to say we're safe at this stage is mad IMHO.

Tough balancing act - want to maintain the confidence we've gained, and given the opposition an extremely good chance to progress. But there's been a lot of games over Christmas and the league is very obviously the priority for everyone these days so don't want to take silly risks. For me there's two elements to this - those who we want to rest / protect, and those we think could gain from some game time. I think Ings and Bertrand (we have no other left-back) need protecting, and given his fitness record would save Obafemi. I'd ideally rest JWP and PEH but with only one viable option for cover will need to play one I'd imagine. From a confidence perspective, I think Gunn & Adams would benefit from playing, possibly Redmond too (needs goals) and also Djenepo and Valery (if fit). Much as it's tempting to give Maya or Vesti a run-out I think any more changes would be too disruptive. Of course, if either Slattery or Vokins are deemed fit and ready then happy to see them feature but see no signs of this being the case? My team would therefore be based around: Gunn Valery / Cedric Stephens Bednarek Cedric / Danso Djenepo Romeu PEH / JWP (maybe a half each) Boufal Redmond Adams Probably outings off the bench for Long and Armstrong replacing Djenepo and Redmond?