egg

You figured out who he is yet?

It always pours rather than rains for that lad. Awful luck.

Grealish is the best English midfielder / winger imo. Whether he's worth £100m isn't for me or you to say, and why it bothers you that one football club are willing to pay that to another I can't understand. How much JWP is worth neither of us know, but the £50-65 m some fans claim is mental. He's a decent midfielder who takes a great free kick, that's it. If he goes, I'd like us to get as much as possible, but nobody will pay anything like £50m for him. The loan. It has to be repaid, that's how it works. Asking fans on a forum for evidence that we've spent it is as daft as me asking for proof that we haven't. However, nobody borrows that amount of money on such high interest rates, without needing the money. The issue is a) paying the interest, anyone with any sense would agree that wasting about 5% of your annual turnover on interest is best avoided; and b) where do we get the capital from to repay any capital we draw down on. Anyways, I've said more than enough on the subject. I'll leave you to it.

None of that has anything to do with spending millions a year on Interest if we can avoid it. I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make - for me I'd prefer that we spend money on players/wages, not interest on a loan.

Jeez!!

It is bonkers. He's never a £65m player. That's almost 3 Patson Saka's, or a Jadon Sancho.

They're not "looking" to sell Grealish any more than we're looking to sell JWP, or Spurs are looking to sell Kane, or Chelsea were looking to sell Hazard, or Real were looking to sell Ronaldo, etc, etc, etc. If you honestly believe we're going in a more positive direction than Villa, no doubt you'll set out the details.

Hard to disagree with much of that, but the suggestion that we'll get £50m for him is way off. He's a decent player, but he has very obvious limitations and is a million miles away from a £50m player.

We're not essential to him. They're a club going somewhere imo. Very Leicester ish. We're going the other way. Plus a small matter of a massive wage hike, loyalty fee on exit, signing on fee, etc.

Do you think he'll go for £65m? Mental suggestion. The fee will be much nearer £32.5m than £65m.

Behave! He'll go for about half of that, possibly less.

It is a lot when we haven't got £10m to spare. Spend it on Interest or players. Not much of a choice is it really.

To many on here its not even a debatable issue. To me there's an inevitability about it.

Conspiracy theorists? I'm not one of them, but I think we'll sell him if the right bid comes in and/or he's tempted by a big wage increase. If he's still here after the transfer window has shut, then the club will have convinced me that he's not for sale.

Grealish is as good as gone, they signed Buendia in readiness and Bailey is the confirmation for me.

And what's that based on? If they offer us money that tempts us, and chuck him an extra £40k + PW he'll be gone. Naive to think otherwise.

On that subject, he's a player that I could see coming back.

Easy to speculate. The guy never misses a game, yet misses 2 either side of an offer. Hmm.

Absolutely. And he'll play every week. I doubt JWP would take the wages and be a rotated player which is why I think somewhere like Villa would tick a lot of boxes for him.

Read the accounts mate. What am I and what I do is irrelevant, although I look at and consider account's of businesses every day. If it puts a spring in your step to believe that our club is on secure financial footing and can reinvest all its player sales monies on new ones, and that the 'TV money' is all we need, then I'm pleased for you. I'll continue to be realistic.

I have no issue with the clubs financial people, I know one of them. Very bright guy. However, the issue is the fans who think that the 'TV money' will pay the wages, service the loans interest, buy players, run the club, etc. Fortunately the clubs accounts people understand that more money going out than is coming in doesn't work, hence the loan. These people will also understand that to be unsustainable. If people want to delude themselves that we can sell and spend all that money on new players, that's a matter for them. The reality though is that we cannot afford to do that.

That was tragic. However, the family were safe in Turkey. They wanted to go to Canada where entry was refused, and there was some issue with the application form. They had no need to take that trip and they capsized a few mins from where they set off. Thus, any RNLI equivalent would have taken them to where they set sail from, not where they were heading. The heart breaking photo of the lad shouldn't get in the way of the facts.

Have you read our accounts, and the very helpful summary someone posted recently? If you haven't, I'd recommend it. The explanation is all there. The simple explanation is that we spend more than we generate before player trading. Please explain where that shortfall is coming from if it's not the loan. No business can consistently spend more than it earns. Its a simple concept.

I keep hearing this. It's wrong. The interest on the loan is about 10% pa, and to say that the 'TV money' will be set aside for anything is a fallacy. According to people on here, the TV money will pay wages, buy players, and now it'll apparently be saved up to pay a loan in 4 years. The mind boggles. All businesses, and households, have a total income. From that they pay everything. The 'TV money' isn't earmarked for anything. It goes in the income pot which isn't big enough to meet our outgoings - read the accounts. Whether you like to hear it or not, we're screwed financially and need injections of capital to keep going. The loan was last year...it'll need repayment (and the interest serviced) and we'll have the ongoing shortfall to address. Gao ain't got the dollars, tinpot bookmaker sponsors won't address it, continuous loans isn't the solution. Sales are the only solution sadly.

You don't think there's been one? Betty's game for anything, and Wilma has a cheeky little twinkle in her eyes.