egg

Good post. We're not a better option. They're performing better than us, have an owner willing to spend, have a better team, and pay more. It's the latter that's the key though but personally I'm happy that we stick to a wage structure and with ffp we have to.

So you speak for the entire fan-base now? Personally I can't get excited about a kid from div 2 and couldn't give a monkeys that somebody else has spent £25m on him. I'm more persuaded that we need someone proven at the top level to score goals, and a proper CB to reduce the goals we concede. You carry on moaning though mate, whatever makes you happy.

But if we had signed him the usual moaners would be saying that we lack ambition by signing div 2 players so more "poor recruitment". If we miss out it'll be a "failure to sign our targets".

£24/25m for a kid who's had one good season in division 2 is madness. Redmond has shown that being good in division 2 doesn't translate to being good in the Premier league.

But she's a girl Percy, so according to Hypo that automatically means that her opinion doesn't count.

516 posts on what shirts we're going to be wearing. Wow. Seriously, why does it matter to what the shirts look like?

Mourinho uses his own experience of playing a few lower league games as a goalkeeper and coaches nternational outfield playrs. Not really comparable in terms of experience, but he ain't done bad. Fool.

Looks like squiggles by a few different people in the office.

They signed him from division 2 so I doubt he received millions for signing.

That leaves us with 1 keeper, and 1 left back who probably wants out anyway.

Fraser personal life is fine. I agree on the coaching. McCarthy had a serious long term injury after he joined us. He bounced back from that and was out best player last season. That doesn't suggest poor coaching to me.

The bloke he's replacing is apparently going for £6m so doubt it'll be £5-10m.

There you go, that's been the delay imo. The bloke wanted to run the football side of the operation, not just pick the team and take training as per a coach. For me, his signing can only mean that any issues he had re the influence of others and money have all been met. Very positive and I suspect that Reed will be a peripheral figure whilst Hughes is around.

Agreed, but would you seriously be happy with a guy who's best performance in England is taking a team to 3rd in the 2nd division?

Deppo reinvented...

You clearly aren'ta business man. Deducting sale and purchase costs, and tax where applicable, is exactly how you assess profit on a transaction. To be accurate in football deal terms, one would use your formula but ignore z (wages don't count) and substitute a deduction of any signing on fees and/or loyalty or other bonus to the outgoing player. I'll bow to your inside knowledge that Les gets a cut.

Del, I agree we need to invest. I'm not saying we necessarily have to sell to buy. What frustrates me is the belief by many that cos we sell a player for 70 odd million that we now have 70 odd million to spend! It doesn't work like that. Taking the Carillo cost, the Celtic cut from the VVD deal, agents fees on those 2 deals, signing on fees, I reckon there's a max of £35mil surplus from them. Then there's Puel, Pellegrino, their staff to pay off. The TV money goes a long way to paying wages and general running costs. Sure we should be able to spend a but, but we ain't minted and I can't see £50mil kicking around.

Were we? Where does £15mil of lost revenue get found? The club ain't got a bottomless pot of money. Anyway, the point seems to be that Hughes wants cash to sign players whereas the club seem to want him to either polish a turd of a squad, or recycle the squad and use the cash. If that's the case, and it wouldn't surprise me, I can't blame him for saying goodbye.

Yep, our revenue is down massively. Then there's the fact that the VVD money is not sat in the bank. People seem to think that the headline sales figures = exactly the same amount available to buy players. Nuts. Seemingly, not a penny is needed for the sell on clauses, loyalty bonuses, agents fees, signing on fees, running the club, paying debt, paying up old managers etc. Then there's the Carrillo purchase, agents fees for that, etc etc. We ain't rolling in cash. Someone asked me earlier what a 'yes man' is when I suggested that the club probably want one of them. Hughes clearly ain't a yes man. I speculated that he wants a say on the policy of the playing side, which would include a transfer kitty. The last 2 managers have been coaches tasked with taking training and picking the team - Hughes is a different animal. I suspect that if the club don't bend to him, he won't bend to it.

I thought the same about Jake Thompson. Technically very good, pace, skill etc but he ended up in the Conference South. Odd.

Hughes apparently wants to be part of a transfer committee, ie be able to influence transfers rather than get what he's given. Sure, past managers appear to have signed 1 or 2 of their players but until Carrillo came in, Pellegrino got was he was given. Hughes is an old school manager, not a coach. Proper managers want to run (or at least influence) the football side of the club, not just take training and pick the team like a coach does. We've had coaches. I'll bet you that Hughes wants a role bigger than his predecessor, and bigger than the club initially wanted him to have. That for me is likely to be the hold up. The lawyers involved will be a factor as the clubs people will prepare a draft contract with the terms they propose, Hughes people will want something different, that's the nature of these things. The issue here is whether the detail of the terms are acceptable to both sides - the fact that it ain't buttoned up suggests that the 2 sides are apart. I repeat my earlier point that I am comfortable that it's taking time as it suggests to me (I could be well off beam) that Hughes is holding out to agree terms to give him a wider role than just a coach, but they longer it goes on I'm more concerned that there are issues that can't be resolved. My prediction/hope is that he'll sign, be announced as manager not 1st team coach, and that we'll see and hear less from Reed.

My feeling is that Reed wants a yes man and Hughes won't be a yes man. Talks about how to compromise on that won't be easy. However, any compromise on Reed's role won't be a bad thing and the longer this drags on my gut feeling is that Hughes is getting what he wants - if he didn't, instinct tells me he'd walk away and wait for the call from a club nearer his family base up north. I'm sure this will get sewn up and we'll have ourselves some stability with a manager who knows this league very well.

Hoedt. Bednarek. May not be anywhere near as good, but they're physical replacements. 2 strikers going will be replaced by 2 strikers. They be better, they may be worse. Even if worse, they are actual replacements.

Spot on. Bertrand hasn't been good and hasn't looked committed. Rose, when he's played, has. Bertrand's omission is down to Bertrand.

He did more in his last game to warrant a place than Bertrand has all season. He's proved he's back at his best, and his best is better than Bertrand. Southgate has gone with the better player, simple as that.