Farmer Saint

But obviously you can't do that around the world? So it just means any decent player will go and play in another country. In no sports do you have a wage limit for players. You have salary caps for the whole club, which could work, but then you need a full re-structure on transfer fees (ie get rid of them), young talent - essentially you would need a worldwide adoption of the NFL model,which is just not possible.

Doubt we'll be able to...looking at those numbers, even with what we've brought in this season in transfers we may still fall should of FFP.

Oh absolutely, the same as being at the bottom end of the PL. We always lose decent young prospects. But yes, I know what you're saying - however in a vacuum I am really enjoying this year, and that's what enjoying football is about.

Not sure why everyone is so harsh on him tbh, I've always like Elvis Costello. "Hamas's Army is on its way..."

I'm enjoying this season more than any season since Koeman tbf.

I would assume the sales last Summer should cover a lot of the next years liabilities. Tbf, this club's awful transfer record over the last 5 years has really come back to bite.

I would assume a proportion of it will - I wouldn't have thought teams are paying the full amount of wages - but also we have quite a few players out of contract that are on high wages (McCarthy, Adams, Armstrong), so on their own that's approx £10m pa.

How much in wages do we think we'll get off the P&L this Summer?

You can see why SR wanted to recoup as much money as possible last Summer, and didn't want to lay out much on new purchases.

I don't really want to get bogged down in the Brexit thing, as it seems odd that people seem to ignore obvious statistics to show it has hampered us, but we can have large borrowing because of the pandemic AND suffer from poor government financial control and economic issues from Brexit.

How many of those cities have we built so far then - must have missed that?

It's using stats from the ONS, which you literally just sent me a link to, to prove your point???

The why are we the only country to really suffer: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/30/uk-is-only-g7-country-with-smaller-economy-than-before-covid-19 Not really sure what the ONS thing is proving, the economy is 4-6% smaller than it should be due to Brexit: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/14/brexit-has-sliced-5percent-off-uk-economic-growth-goldman-sachs-says.html https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almost-ps140billion-smaller-because-brexit#:~:text=UK real Gross Value Added,in 2023 under this scenario. Etc, etc.

Didn't think so.

Absolutely it is, you'll have to ask the Tories where all the money has gone because it seems to be nowhere to be seen. We have seen a reduction in GDP of around 4-6% due to Brexit, so that doesn't help, but it also may be reducing that highest level of tax and loading it onto the lesser earners in society.

Some people just struggle with it - not saying it is right, but some people do - different strokes for different folks. We can all rationalise it and say they shouldn't, but if we were all thought the same way it'd be a pretty boring world.

Perhaps you can explain - there is nothing in there disingenuous - I'm just trying to ensure that people are looking at things with perspective. It's fine if you can't find anything, there is nothing in there, but I'd appreciate it if you can let me know so I can improve my writing style if that's the way it comes across. You seem pretty angry about it, so there must be something pretty big in there that has wound you up.

Oh, I agree, defence has been poor recently, but the amount of fans that seemingly want him sacked, or one fan yesterday saying he'd prefer Nathan Jones in charge 😝 Madness. I think people just need to calm down and be more objective, that's all.

You OK hun? Sorry, but what was disingenuous about my post? I genuinely think he's doing a good job.

Well, I think any manager would have to be doing amazing or superb to have us top, so I think my wording is about right.

I don't think it's a miracle - but I think he's doing a good job. Bit disingenuous the "bringing £25m players off the bench" - don't think anyone thinks Sulemana is worth anywhere near that much (Leeds and Leicester both had 2 players playing yesterday who cost that much or more). And Charles may have been the most expensive player, but he's been mostly shite. THB was good last year, but not deemed good enough by any PL team to sign (including the one he got promoted with) and Downes was a bit part player for Wet Spam.

Just a quick precis: - We were by far the worst team in the PL last season, both talent wise and performance wise. - We sold far more of our "good" players than both Leicester and Leeds, and brought in a mixture of Championship level loans and free transfers. - We had been poor for so many years that losing had become a habit. And yet, we are 4th in the table, 8 points off top. Personally, I think it's utterly ridiculous the abuse and criticism that RM and the team endure. Just my two pence worth, but I think we're doing alright.

Not sure if you're talking about Che Adams, but if you are I agree. His hold up play and release of the ball is very decent. If he could finish 2 in 5 more chances, he'd be a Premier League player, easily. But he doesn't, so he isn't.

I celebrated the win at home, not sure why I need to celebrate it online? I wasn't being condescending, I was calling out the sheer ridiculousness of some of the opinions. RM should be sacked, we're playing utter shite (which was never true), we'd be better off with Nathan fucking Jones. Embarrassing comments all the way through this thread. Yes, we're poor defensively, but where's everyone's adventure, and enjoyment of end to end games. People are massively over-reactionary, like children.

Issue is we have some shit defenders who are prone to mistakes. That's the issue. We knew that about Bednarek, hence why we all laughed when he went to Villa. We all know Manning is quite poor defensively, but not sure playing Meghoma would be an upgrade.