Gemmill

Incidentally I've just watched match cam and you can plainly see Mitchell point across at Howe and then slowly draw his finger across his throat.

He said the STRATEGY wasn't fit for purpose ffs. He's not talking about individual signings. A week from now you lot will have Chinese whispered yourselves into thinking he called Isak a cunt.

Even when there's no pun, we get presented with your workings. Unbelievable.

Focus Vignale here. S-Line though cos I'm young and sexy.

Wonder which one got "absolutely raped" that night.

"Exactly the attitude I'd expect from a CONVICTED RAPIST" would be my go to response here. Let us know how it goes.

Except he didn't criticise previous signings.

Well said.

I'm not making excuses for anyone. I've said it was poorly worded and it's clearly caused a rift and needs to be solved. That Howe took offence is not in question. That the two men should have spoken to one another since is not in question. But also not in question is that spending top dollar and not recouping anything is not sustainable / fit for purpose in the context in which our club has been operating. That is not criticising individual signings or the people that made them, it is a simple statement of fact. Taking offence at that, and not taking the time to have any sort of clarifying conversation with the person that made the comments is stupid. As is not taking the time to contact the person that you've clearly caused offence to. I think Howe's behaviour here has been as bad, if not worse, than Mitchell's tbh. This can be resolved quite easily.

What might be in the future isn't the context in which we're currently operating though, so you can't talk about what might be in the future. Also, there wasn't any criticism of specific transfers - Howe has created that perception in the way he's responded. He was talking about the policy not being sustainable, he didn't suggest that any of the signings were poor or anything like that. And your point about us not being able to recoup on players is exactly what Mitchell says too. We aren't selling people but we're buying at big prices, and you can't do that. I'm not denying that it's created tension and the egos of the two involved have meant that rather than it be resolved by having a sit down it's been allowed to fester. Bad form on both of their parts tbh. I repeat though, nobody is questioning the quality of the signings we've made. You're making the same mistake Howe has made if you think that's what Mitchell has done.

Read my posts from this morning in this thread. He's undeniably correct in the sense that it is unsustainable in our current PSR context. I'm not saying we've made poor signings, and I don't think that's what he's saying. He's saying you can't do what we've been doing on a consistent basis in our specific PSR situation.

Anybody know how Ant's doing btw?

Pig farming is not big business. It's pig business. As to the rest of your point. Aye we should bring in more commercial revenue, but is the context in which we have been operating? No. So Mitchell's point still stands.

I'm not remotely suggesting we should sell our best players. I'm saying that ewerk's argument that we spent a lot but they appreciated in value is irrelevant to the context of being PSR constrained. You can't keep spending big and bringing nothing back in. That is the crux of Mitchell's point and he's right.

All true. As is the statement "AND IT'S NOT SUSTAINABLE". In other words, it's not fit for purpose in a PSR constrained context.

I think it's very unsavoury for a man that is KNOWN for only driving the absolute tippity top of the range (with blacked out Audi sign) to be punching down on others less fortunate than him. This must be what the Hamster felt like when Clarkson ate his lunch out the Top Gear fridge.

Aye I've seen that one. The one lad out of those that was a bit more vocal seemed a dead canny kid too. Pretty shite that visa bullshit fucked them out of the trip.

We broke our transfer record buying Isak. Ewerk: Yeah but he was young and he got better so that doesn't count. Get fucked. That only helps if you then sell him. Unrealised profit doesn't contribute to your PSR.

You're not taking anyone to school. Our PSR situation doesn't allow us to consistently buy at peak age and peak price. It's not sustainable. That's why we had to sell £65m worth of youth talent on June 30th. That's all the evidence we need to see that the bloke is correct in his assessment. A lot of people on here had a good fucking whine about that and would do the same again if it happened next summer, but someone coming in and going "well we can't keep doing that" is somehow "mostly nonsense". You can split hairs on peak age and peak price, as is your wont, but what he's very clearly saying is that we can't keep making big money signings because we are PSR constrained and it is impossible to balance the books.

Also journalists are predisposed to look for a story and a narrative. That they all left the room with one, which they've all run with, some to the extreme, doesn't necessarily mean it was there. Certainly not to the extent that some have spun it. Don't get me wrong. Whatever the intention, it's clearly caused a rift, and it's the job of the man above the pair of them to ensure that it's resolved quickly now.

His first paragraph sets the scene for everything that follows imo. We can't buy at peak age and peak price. You could take a lot of what follows out of context and say that it's direct criticism of Howe and his predecessors, but with the context of the first para, I'm not sure that that was the intention.

Really, I thought it was absolutely shite. Slow as fuck.

I think this is exactly what he meant fwiw.

He's a sex god, not a soccer mom. He'll get the Focus and he'll look good doing it.

Look we can't all drive top of the range Audis.