OTF

Nothing near their players head there.

They just need a few dozen more games to figure out how to play together, patience.

Have a go at Pickford he's carrying on like he does when playing us. That said he's right to be annoyed at how clueless England look.

Slovakia are good for their lead. England pushing too high. Rice doing nothing in midfield and not following a runner.

I guess this ref is one of those who'll be very particular and strict early on to keep control of the game in the hope that the players will be more selective with their challenges. He will then presumably ease off a little as the match goes on. Otherwise at this rate we'll have players off soon.

What was Walker doing there, did he forget he's a dedender?

England look really nervous, as does Southgate. Oh Trips haha

Especially so early. The Guehi one was clear though (and terrible defending).

One of their best, yeah. He was nearing the end of his extended contract and they only paid £15m for him in 2019 so the £42m + is mostly profit. Yay to modern football!

As I reflect on it more this may be the case. With fewer games maybe we're counting on Pope not missing so many games. This is assuming we're planning on selling Dubravka. Maybe we're not? Seems unlikely that we wouldn't try to cash in on him before his final contracted year. Even if he's not sold for much it's all part of the available funds to improve the squad and hus book value would be well below £1M. He was on top of his game when he signed the six year improved contract with us, so his wages would also be nothing to sneeze at.

What do Brighton gain given we've not made a reciprocal purchase with them? It's likely just the actual value on Minteh based on a strong season in a technical league. We paid approx. the same for Lewis Hall and there's usually an additional luxury cost associated with exciting attacking players given that they're the ones the generate the most interest. Anderson has a great deal of experience for a 21 year old and Vlachodimas is an experienced full international. As long as they don't go overboard there's enough plausible deniability to make it impossible to punish.

Agree re: Karius. We'll try to sell Dubravka and replace him with someone younger.

Sels was undeniably atrocious for us, no confidence at all, and that was 8 years ago.

So we're doing a tame version of the I'll scratch your back you scratch mine. They bought Vlachodimas for about £4.25m on a 4 year deal so his value to them is somewhere around £3m. I expect we'll be paying more than double that and Anderson will be on a 6+ year deal.

He was a 3 point deduction for us this season past.

Now that we've fixed our June 30 problem the further sales will be injected back into the team in such a way that we don't have a June 30 2025 problem. Thereafter the PSR regulations are somewhat adjusted which will work in our favour as our revenue is on a strong upward trajectory.

So stupid that having already qualified for the knockout rounds that he didn't rotate the squad for nothing less than giving players legs a break. He's an over cautious dogmatic management dinosaur. Any other country would have long severed ties with him, I really can't see why they haven't.

He scored in some quite competitive pre-season games in front of good crowds so there's that at least. Just about single handedly won the game for us IIRC.

Agree, that's absolutely the worst part of it especially as we have such a tight knit squad. But as I said honestly he was not likely to see much time on the pitch next season with our reduced game count. Ridiculously even if we did qualify for Europe we'd still have had to sell him and then buy players to fill out the squad.

It's a fucking joke that has to boilover eventually. However we've come out of it OK IMO. Anderson is hardworking and talented and whilst it sucks to see him go he'd have been unlikely to have got much playing time this season unless we were hit with a similar injury crisis to last season (perhaps worse because Tonali is back). He hasn't yet realised the potential he has shown and would have been unlikely to with limited time on the pitch. Minteh, it would have been great to bring him in, exactly why you try to sign and develop the best and brightest youth talent but not to be. We have to ride out a few more seasons like this but as our profile grows and our youth investment continues we'll find ourselves able to sell more effectively with less impact on the first team. And anyone we sign will be youngish and on lengthy contracts.

You're probably right. We bought him for a bit under £60m on a 5 year contract so by my reckoning it would have to be above £48m to be considered profit. There would also be the benefit next season of the reduced wages which of course does nothing for our immediate issue, but the thing with Tonali is we wouldn't miss what we never really had. The emergence of Miley opens this up as a more palatable option.

What would the expected points deduction be? Forest were docked four points for being £34.5m over. I've heard figures from £20-60m pounds touted as our current discrepancy. A 2-7 point deduction would be more palatable than losing Isak/Bruno/Gordon. I'm slightly suprised that Tonali hasn't been mentioned.

Well this is embarrassing. I've posted just about the same thing as CN at the same time. Our thoughts may have touched and I may be contaminated.

I have wonder if we're having all of these talks take place so upon review we've been seen to be trying to adhere to PSR even if we don't quite get there (e.g. if a Minteh sale falls through, or doesn't happen before June 30). In the meantime momentum seems to be building for other club's objections to this misguided legislature. Are they really going to want another season marred by numerous asterisks and protracted legal proceedings?