stevegrant

Some of what you post makes sense, other bits I know to be untrue. I suggest your source has his/her "angle" and is embellishing a few details to make the story fit.

It doesn't, but it would certainly make sense for transfer revenue to be included when boosting the wage bill above the threshold.

I did qualify that with "for the most part", tbf

The big clubs do seem reluctant to sign anyone but the absolute top names without some PL experience (Sky have done a terrific job of making it seem as though it's better or harder to play in than any other big league in Europe - the only tough thing is the number of games, not the technical quality), so a couple of years with a club of our size who are more willing to take that sort of "risk" and then a step up to the top wouldn't be entirely unheard of. You could argue that's what Dejan Lovren did. He had Champions League football with Lyon, believed that was his level but none of the top 4 in England were willing to take a chance on him, so came to us, showed what he can do and is now getting that step up.

If they could walk straight into a top club side, why haven't they been signed by such a club already? Sporting Lisbon don't *really* count these days. Big name, but haven't achieved anything of note for decades.

I guess there are a few angles. Firstly, Ronald gets his medals out Secondly, even though we're not a big fish in this league, the league itself is a big draw. The sums of money involved mean that even a club of our size can compete financially with much bigger clubs in Europe. Ultimately, we're going to have to accept (if we haven't done so already) that many players will see us as a stepping stone to bigger clubs, but if players want to make that jump to the top, they're going to have to turn in performances for us first, and they're certainly not going to be struggling to pay the bills in the process. Thirdly, it's a decent part of the world to live in, for the most part. For players with families, that can be a pretty big consideration as well.

The £52m limit and associated restriction on increased wage spending is only applicable if all other club revenues remain the same (i.e. it's only connected with the broadcasting revenue). If the club's commercial revenue increases (which it will do, significantly), all of that can also be put towards the wage bill.

So two (relatively) unknown players being signed from clubs he has been associated with in Holland can't be attributed to him, and it was purely a coincidence that we signed them? Really??

Agreed, just because the focus of the media and fans is (rightly) on the first team squad, that doesn't mean that the rest of the club stops what it's doing. It's often said that if you stand still in football you'll actually be going backwards because other clubs will overtake you rings true at all levels of the game - if we don't make sure we're doing everything we can to recruit the best talent, you can bet your house that another club will get in there ahead of us.

We won away at Notts on our way to winning the whole thing two years ago, no reason we can't do so again.

I would expect that, with the new EPPP stuff, as a Category 1 Academy we can more or less do what we want.

If they are doing their accounting properly ( ), the season ticket money for the forthcoming season won't have been included in the profit/loss calculations for last season, regardless of when the money was received. Or at least that's what my Accounting A-Level told me 14 years ago.

They managed to lose to a team worse than the side that Newcastle pumped 4-0 as well. An impressive start to Fat Sam's "Operation Aesthetically Pleasing"

I meant all of the media leaks referring specifically to him moving to Liverpool. I would guess that the Chelsea stuff came from us to perhaps force a bit of a bidding war, although it's conceivable that it came from Lovren's agent to get Liverpool to pull their finger out and get it done. After all, no deal = no commission for him.

As far as I'm aware, there's still been no bid accepted. All of the media leaks have been from Lovren's people (with authorisation from Liverpool) with the intention of forcing the move through as quickly as possible. All this talk of "the expectation is that he'll be a Liverpool player by the weekend" only holds any water if they actually submit an acceptable bid - I repeat, that still hasn't happened yet, and the original bid wasn't as much as the reported £20m. Because of Lovren's attitude, the balance of power has probably been shifted to us. Koeman won't pick him for friendlies while he's got that attitude, so he's getting no match fitness in preparation for the new season which is now just over three weeks away. Liverpool obviously want him to join up with their tour of the US as soon as possible so he can start playing some games, but that obviously can't happen until we accept an offer, so both Liverpool and Lovren's people will start getting more and more twitchy about the situation and I suspect it'll end with Liverpool eventually giving us what we want. As far as I'm aware, Chelsea aren't in the running at all.

He genuinely won't give a flying **** that a handful of gobby teenagers on Twitter and Instagram have been giving him a bit of stick. He's getting what I assume will be a tidy pay rise and a move to a team playing in the Champions League where he can be found out again, the opinion of a few fans of a club he's barely been at five minutes isn't going to bother him in the slightest.

That's the name of the game these days, though. As soon as any bid is received and the selling club knows they're probably going to have to accept a bid at some point, they'll be leaking the story left, right and centre to encourage a bidding war. Can you imagine us sneaking through a deal like we did with Keegan back in the 80s in the modern era? It would be impossible.

Don't know for sure, but I'd like to think he'll be back here for a bit. Would probably do him good to play one of the two friendlies coming up.

Correct.

Highly unlikely. Kenya haven't even qualified for the qualifying group stage yet, they're 1-0 down after the first leg in Lesotho. If they were to overturn it early next month, they'll then go into a qualifying group with Burkina Faso, Angola and Gabon, all of whom are ranked higher than Kenya. Edit: As DuncanRG managed much quicker than I above!

They've expanded it since that photo was taken. The corners are filled in all the way around now, and the stand opposite the main stand has an upper tier, I think.

Not sure our poor conversion rate is particularly recent, we missed a hell of a lot of good chances last season.

The reports were inaccurate. £18m is what they've offered so far (or at least, that was the case a week ago), with SFC demanding £25m.

That's a point, what's happened to him?

We had a 60-odd point lead over Surrey a couple of months ago. That's going to be down to 5 after this game, with 4 games to play, them in great form and us falling to bits. ****s sake.