stevegrant

Liverpool won't sell him, he's far too valuable, and they definitely won't sell him to Chelsea

Yes and no. The rules come with a very significant caveat. The £4m increase limit has been brought in to ensure that the extra cash from the new TV deal doesn't all end up in the pockets of the players, but the rules also add that the wage bill can increase by more than £4m if the increase is sourced from an increase in commercial revenue. Hence why Man United have been signing up dozens of new sponsorship/partnership agreements. Getting £15m a year from Aon just to sponsor their training ground means that's £15m a year they can add to their wage bill if they feel the need to make any marquee signings.

Liverpool have clearly learned from the Suarez/Evra affair (presumably appointed a semi-competent PR/communications manager), apology statement released already.

Interesting to note that Suarez never actually served all of that 7-match ban he was given in Holland, as the incident happened towards the end of the season and he was sold that summer.

Who'd have thought that, as the total value of the Premier League TV contracts increase, so have the subsequent parachute payments. Come on Nick, I'm sure you're not stupid, but you don't half come across as though you have absolutely no common sense or ability to think sensibly. It's not as if the exact structure of the parachute payments Pompey have been entitled to for the last 3 years haven't been regularly posted on here either. £16m per year for two years followed by £8m per year for two years.

Won't make a great deal of difference. The only impact it has is on the amortisation figure for players we've paid a fee for. For example, we signed Lambert for £1m on a 5-year contract, which means the accounts show a £200k charge each year in amortisation/depreciation. However, having "paid" £800k of that over 4 years, we've since given him a new 3-year contract so the remaining £200k will be split over those three years, reducing his annual contribution to the amortisation bill by £133k a year. Our wage bill is too low to be affected by the "maximum £4m increase" rules that come into play next season. The threshold is £52m, I expect ours will be around the £35m mark.

OK, so this is where I think we lie with a week to go: GK: Chris Summers, Kev's +1 DF: Kev Thornton, Adam Moore, Andy Porter, Lee Chamberlain, Mike Florit, Scott Phillips, "Lighthouse", "Nexstar" MF: Chris Knight, Stu Holloway, Andy Mintram, Jordan Florit, Ben Coombes, "Bwanamakubwa", "JustMike", Tim Mumford, Lee's +1, Andy P's +1 FW: Steve Grant, Scott Griffin, Brad Smirk, "diggs", Andy P's +1 Still need a few more.

TV games for that weekend have already been announced, so no, it won't be moved.

Since Luke Shaw broke into the team, Fox has started 4 league games, all of them due to injury. I'd hardly say that's "persisting" with him. Matt Targett seems to be the next left-back coming through the system but I assume he's not deemed good enough yet. Let's face it, Shaw's the number one and we're unlikely to sign another left-back who's either a) better than Shaw, or b) good enough to challenge to be a first-choice Premier League left-back but happy enough to sit on the bench behind someone who will be 18 years old next season. For the low number of games where Fox is going to be needed, he'll do.

2076 is the official allocation, it seems.

No it wouldn't, Leeds and Boston both went into administration and took an immediate 10-point hit at the end of the game that relegated them. In fact, in Boston's case, it was at half-time of the game that relegated them.

Sure there must be a few, Fleetwood, Burton, Crawley, Accrington (might have played the old version, I guess, but they re-formed), Morecambe...

You were already on the list

OK, at the moment we have the original squad of 15 plus three others, I'd need to get it back up to at least 25 (preferably 28 so each side has a few subs to account for varying fitness levels) to make it viable.

Worth noting, though, that Bradford's attendances have been propped up in recent years by ridiculously cheap season ticket deals. Even if they somehow discover that it's possible to run a football club on a break-even basis, they'll still have by far the biggest budget in that league.

I'm not sure the news that footballers aren't necessarily the brightest is a particularly big story, to be honest

Not on it

Yes, I've still got that sky blue one so that'll do for the nominal "away" team.

The old saying "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" rings true here, I'm afraid.

Yeah that's not a bad shout, as long as there's enough interest. I'll need confirmation from everyone interested (only those who will actually turn up, rather than those who say they'll turn up and then don't bother, please) by the end of the week otherwise I'll have to cancel the pitch booking. Go!

Most clubs these days announce "attendance" figures based on the number of tickets sold rather than number of people through the turnstiles.

The commercial side of things in terms of supporter revenue (not corporate sponsorship) is abysmal in this country. The match-going fan, as a generalisation, won't buy a lot of the absolute tat that is put on sale in club megastores. Compare that to somewhere like Germany where their ticket prices are generally lower but they spend a fortune on club merchandise.

£5.3m of that wage bill was promotion-related bonuses.

I reckon they saw that the total TV deal value increased by around 50% and just assumed the parachute payments would increase in line with that.

No, as Pompey are about to enter year 4 of the parachute payments, they get whatever is relevant to year 4 at that time rather than at the time of their relegation from the Premier League. On the flip side, if the new deal had been for less money than the previous deal, they'd have been utterly ****ed as they'd have received even less than they were expecting.