The Fish

That's his release clause. That's the only way we can force the deal through without negotiations that drag on. Wise up Wykiki or I'll get HR onto you.

That's his release clause. That's what's being reported for the Ekitike deal, but I've not seen that for the Carlos deal. It makes sense to try and use bonuses to limit our liability, be foolish not to. We can't just toss £40m at Sevilla up front, because we could still go down.

There's no guarantee of that, who's to say that every transfer won't be drawn out and expensive? Wood had a release clause that we could pay and plays in a position that was an immediate concern. Centreback wasn't as vital as centre forward because, for all they're not very good we do at least own some centre backs. Chasing Botman and Carlos wasn't obviously doomed to fail from the off, so I don't mind them spending time trying to get the deals done. But spending over the odds on an average CB will impact; squad spaces, transfer kitty, the price of the next one and so on. And there's no guarantee they'd be better than what we've got.

See if they fancy filling a hole in their finances by selling us Tarkowski.

Right, so it's a balancing act. They can't just wade into the window spaffing tens of millions around willynilly, if they do, they'll be overpaying for everyone forever. They'll also get fucked by FFP. So they have to weigh the cost/benefit of every transfer. Signing Diego Carlos for £80m will not guarantee survival, and it will mean that they'd be expected to pay millions more on Botman, on Zapata, on whomever else they're interested in. Every agent will be expecting phat percentages, every player will expect phat wages. Yes, we will have to pay more, but they shouldn't be idiotic just to pacify a panicky fanbase.

Well I for one can't wait to hear Zapata of tiny feet.

Magnificent.

Just me or have they looped the audio?

Twitter, for a start.

It is funny that the same people saying we need to go down our list to find more realistic targets are now complaining that those players are underwhelming. It's like they're only happy when they're FUCKING MISERABLE!!

Several of the linked players have reportedly agreed terms, so it's got fuck all to do with our league position and is, instead, entirely because the clubs can see we're minted and want to squeeze us for every penny possible.

They're missing 10 players, apparently.

I'm a huge defender of the BBC, but I wonder if a change to the licence fee mechanism would be worthwhile?

I see enough in the performances to think that with a few better players we've enough to survive. Watford, Burnley, Norwich, Everton, Leeds have all looked awful.

Nice. HBA can talk up Newcastle to Botman.

There's a great deal of time and a huge gap between our current commercial revenue stream and where we could be. If we can get commercial deals in place that lift our income for fuck all to West Ham, or Everton levels (which is fair market value imo). Our FFP envelope stretches once more. There's also the prospect of dumping a load of dead wood off our wage budget by selling the likes of Lascelles, Clark, Shelvey, Krafth, Longstaff(s), Gayle, etc.

I agree, but again, I think that's because of the players. Specifically Lascelles and Shelvey. I think replacing them with better (not a huge ask in JL's case) mean those dropped points will be picked up later in the season.

Watford, Norwich as well. I'm not claiming we've been great or owt, just that individual errors have cost us significantly. Even in games where we've been outplayed, things could have been very different had we not suffered from individual mistakes born of poor quality players.

I don't think that's true. I think we've looked better than a good number of teams, we just haven't finished them off.

Don't mistake my posts as a fullsome defence of the new owners, I think there've been several missteps and mistakes made. Getting the right DoF in should have been the priority, but I'd wager the size of the task behind the scenes and the size of the task on the pitch meant that priorities have had to be more fluid. The things you mention are why things don't appear to be moving quickly. I'd suggest that they are moving quickly, but just not quickly enough from an outside perspective.

This is the point that so many on twitter (and some on here) seem to overlook. Every other club will demand a surcharge because we're Premier League rich. Every other club will demand a surcharge because we're Rich Premier League rich. Every other club will be reluctant to sell players midseason. Every player will demand a phat wage because we're rich. Every player will demand a phatter wage because we're in the relegation spots. Right now, we're not an easy sell, because regardless of the 000s at the end of our bank account, we're a relegation battling side managed by Eddie Howe. Instead of the midtable side managed by Rafa Benitez we were 24 months ago.

There's an element of risk with every signing. The way I'm approaching it is that given the 'quality' of the current squad, any additions are very likely to be improvements. Botman is very highly rated, Carlos, for all his errors, is still a good defender and better than Clark, Lascelles et al. We don't need to be signing van Dijk, we just need better than shit. Look at the players we've been legitimately linked with. There's a clear pattern of trying to address weaknesses in the squad. Trippier is a good rightback who's got experience and ability. Wood is a proven goal scorer in the Premier League. Tarkowski, Botman, Carlos, Attilla [Insert Last Name here], are all good to very good centre halfs. Zapata is a rated striker. This is way better than previous seasons where our approach to signings was scattergun and hunting for a bargain, rather than looking to plug the gaps.

What dusty little compartment of your brain did you dredge that from?!

I've zero problem with bringing in a loan player or two. We've done ok in that market before (Dubravka, Kenedy, Willock, Willems) and done badly (Slimani, Bentaleb, Kenedy, Doumbia, etc.)

Loan deals don't tend to become doable until the end of the window.