TWar

I think that is reasonable. Play the cards you have, be upfront, and try to find a solution that suits both parties. I don't object to us not giving him what he wants, we have no obligation to do that beyond the contractual obligation to pay wages. I just think outright bullying is wrong.

It doesn't matter if someone is a multimillionaire or on minimum wage. Bullying someone off the wage bill and making their life a living hell is unethical, illegal, and will tank your reputation as an employer.

Some people have zero empathy. The don't see footballers as human beings so they think it's fine to bully them for the benefit of the club. Or they do see them as humans and treat all people this way, in which case are sociopaths.

If you intend to keep paying his wages but inform him once he's not good enough and demote him to the U23s then that is absolutely fine. If you are to "make his life hell" that is illegal. It is tantamount to workplace harrassment. Not sure how well Jankewitz would do as a goalkeeper... Some of the things you say are hilarious. We were able to get good money for a youth player who didn't fit so we sold him. Not sure why that upsets you so. Also, again, since you can't seem to grasp it: It isn't Ralphs job to sell players!

This is the sort of gossip this forum is made for. Juicy drama! Hope he goes tbh, Salisu is quality and the money could buy us a pretty tasty attacking mid.

Fraser has done nothing wrong, he got a good contract and signed it like anyone would. I think bullying a person is unacceptable in all circumstances, especially someone with rumoured mental health issues. You shouldn't be able to create a negative workplace environment for financial gain, it's unethical. Also players/agents talk. If we get a rep for doing shady business practices like that and bullying a player and making their life unpleasant if they don't live up to standards then players might think twice about joining us. Not sure I'd join a team where the contract I signed won't guarantee employment for it's duration with basic respect and dignity.

The lack of money is definitely Ralphs fault, why doesn't he sell his car or remortgage his house or something? Complete lack of commitment.

The manager is in charge of incomings, outgoings, all scouting, all negotiation, all contract extensions, making the tea for the players, the lot. "Why doesn't Ralph simply sell a few players to get the people he wants, lazy is what it is, get on the phone to Norwich you mug"

£4m seems low considering what was said today. Hopefully some add ons. Also hope this means we can spend a little more on Armstrong.

Shouldn't be too hard to show, they have 14 first team players by the looks of things. They will definitely be making a few loans.

Can't they still loan during the transfer embargo? Also, they could just cover a % of his wage in the final year to get them off our books.

Long would cost basically nothing, we'd probably loan till end of contract.

If the vaccine has anything other than 0% or 100% efficacy then the number of people who have it effects every person, this is virology 101. Here is a comment where I break down the reasoning for this in another thread: --- Getting the vaccine lowers your chances of catching COVID by approximately 91%. It also lessens symptoms considerably, but that isn't the reason for why the club insist on being vaccinated. It is definitely false to say it doesn't lower chances of getting it. Sources: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/getting-a-pfizer-or-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-can-drop-your-risk-for-infection-by-91 https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/226413/almost-double-vaccinated-people-england-have/ The reason for insisting on vaccines can be seen through simple decision mathematics: - Imagine a vaccine source S and two people labelled X and Y wherein X is the "passer" and Y is the receiver. - Imagine the vaccine is 90% effective. Consider three cases - First, if neither X or Y is vaccinated then there is a 100% of the virus being passed from S to X to Y. - Second, if Y is and X isn't there is a 10% chance of the virus going from S to X to Y. - Third, If both X and Y are vaccinated then there is a 1% chance of S to X to Y (10% of 10%). Therefore X not being vaccinated directly effects the health of Y even if Y is vaccinated, any more risk they take on is compounded to everyone else in the network. In actuality it is a big web of passers and receivers and compound probability is what keeps us safe. This is why, mathematically, insisting on vaccination before gathering is essential, because the vaccine massively reduces risk but it isn't perfect so you need to reduce the transmissibility between nodes. Apologies for nerding out on this one a bit, it's a bit closer to what I do for a living --- TLDR: If the vaccine has an X% chance of not stopping the virus then the chances of it making it through two jumps is an X% of X% chance, which is significantly smaller. Therefore reducing every given jump reduces everyone's chances, it's a simple decision maths problem! Also some people can't get the vaccine and rely on others to have it so they don't catch the virus off them, but empathising with the vulnerable is hard for some so I don't tend to lead with this argument.

That sucks. It also sucks that the idea of ensuring people who choose to endanger others by not getting the jab have to isolate from the rest of the sensible world is a good one and this will probably be the last time it is raised and will be dropped because it isn't properly fleshed out.

Good news that. Hope proving full vacc will be easy as I imagine a lot of establishments will have this rule. Also hope if you are immunocompromised and can't be vaxed then there will be fairly simple provisions.

I make out like the manager can make suggestions and is asked for input but the buying of players, scouting players, budgeting, prioritisation ect. falls finally on the director of football. Which is true. I feel you aren't so great at reading if you think I said Ralph can't make requests and is a "bystander", it's right there in the original post, and if he doesn't want to work with someone (ala Jank) then he can ask to get rid. The final decision, however, and all the actual work of negotiating a deal ain't him. Sorry, I know you think the nickname "Teflon Ralph" is very clever but you might need to wait for another opportunity to use it.

I personally think we have three players, Vest, JWP, and a deep dropping Stuart Armstrong to progress the ball effectively but we could do with 6 or 7. Like how in Liverpool, for example, VvD, Matip, Robbo, Trent, Allison, Thiago, and Henderson are all great passers so they can play the system we want to with quick turn over, we can't as we have two players before our attacking line who can pick a pass, maybe three if you include KWP. But yeah I think we are fundamentally on the same page that we are way over reliant on Vest and because of that his value is much higher to us than it should be for his quality and we should look to fix the fundamental flaws with the team rather than keeping Vest around to tape up the cracks.

Attacking mid is a higher priority, as is replacing Ings when he goes and having a single back up fullback. It is probably our 5th choice after those and the left back. Would love a new keeper but I can see why there are more important things in the budget. A budget which the manager doesn't control, I will remind you, before you try to lay any signings or lack there of at the door of the wrong person.

Ralph is not in charge of the budget, negotiating, "wheeling and dealing", or squad/financial structure. No manager does that any more, it's the director of football's job. Ralphs sole contributions will be answering "got any suggestions?", and "hey Ralph, we found this player what do you think?" The idea that he's personally ringing up Ademola Lookman trying to get a deal through with an excel spreadsheet in front of him is not only hilarious but also shows a complete lack of understanding as to how a club works.

It's not really how it works. You can't have just one player who can start play otherwise the other team just stick a midfielder to man-mark them all game and that's that. We do over-rely on Vest but primarily because Romeu isn't a passer and neither was Bertrand, KWP was more the receiver sitting super high, Bednarek is dreadful with his feet and our GKs have, statistically, the worst distribution in the league. JWP had our most progressive passes in the league and our highest chance creation aside from the strikers setting eachother up. He was not the issue. What we need is to replace a few of the other members of the back line/Romeu with people who can pass. Bertrand to Perraud would be a good start but it would be nice to get a more modern keeper too and for Diallo to kick on and challenge Romeu as he is already a lot better with the ball at his feat.

To be clear this is definitely not true. Getting the vaccine lowers your chances of catching COVID by approximately 91%. It also lessens symptoms considerably, but that isn't the reason for why the club insist on being vaccinated. It is definitely false to say it doesn't lower chances of getting it. Sources: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/getting-a-pfizer-or-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-can-drop-your-risk-for-infection-by-91 https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/226413/almost-double-vaccinated-people-england-have/ The reason for insisting on vaccines can be seen through simple decision mathematics: - Imagine a vaccine source S and two people labelled X and Y wherein X is the "passer" and Y is the receiver. - Imagine the vaccine is 90% effective. Consider three cases - First, if neither X or Y is vaccinated then there is a 100% of the virus being passed from S to X to Y. - Second, if Y is and X isn't there is a 10% chance of the virus going from S to X to Y. - Third, If both X and Y are vaccinated then there is a 1% chance of S to X to Y (10% of 10%). Therefore X not being vaccinated directly effects the health of Y even if Y is vaccinated, any more risk they take on is compounded to everyone else in the network. In actuality it is a big web of passers and receivers and compound probability is what keeps us safe. This is why, mathematically, insisting on vaccination before gathering is essential, because the vaccine massively reduces risk but it isn't perfect so you need to reduce the transmissibility between nodes. Apologies for nerding out on this one a bit, it's a bit closer to what I do for a living.

Gutting that, would have been exactly what we needed.

Yeah wages I'd imagine. Lemina out Armstrong in imo.

Apparently a ridiculous deal, people calling Gil a world star and there were reports Sevilla would ask for like £100m for him in March iirc.