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Well played Mr Edwards, well played 👏

I think Mitchell was a shit appointment. But the training ground and (especially) the new football stadium are huge projects that we need to get right. The lack of interest / ambition makes no sense in light of the players we’ve tried to sign. We’ve been beaten to those players by bigger, more successful clubs able to pay higher wages. Frustrating? Yes. A sign of a lack of ambition? No, imo, just our being shackled by PSR. And I like Staveley and her husband and appreciate all that they did from their work on the takeover to getting the likes of Bruno and Botman through the door. But let’s not mythologise them. The players we got in early doors has also been a big problem in recent windows because of PSR and revenue streams. It’s not easy, literally every other club wants to fleece us and see us fail. That’s football and we’re a particular target because of our long term potential under this ownership and not being one of the established elite.

@Howmanheyman enters the chat

I'll trust Howe and Pep over your BIL

I think there is a question mark against what is paying over the odds and what is paying what is necessary. I fully get the need to not have our pants pulled down and make sure we don't completely fuck ourselves PSR wise for future years, but if it's our valuations that are constantly coming in below what the selling clubs are then you have to wonder whether it's our valuations that are the problem. If you work through your list of preferences and every time you fall short of the valuation then it's not a Saudi tax or a premier league tax or whatever, it's that we're being unrealistic in our expectations. Similarly we're being unrealistic in our expectations if we expect Isak to remain happy to be on the same wage we signed him on when he's gone from being a risky signing to one of the most coveted strikers in world football. It's up to the club to find the answers to this or we're not going to be ready for this season.

nufc's greatest ever songwriter is BACK!

Lascelles is back after an 18 month absence. Like a new signing.

I'm guessing he kept the kitchen staff fairly busy

Chelsea probably have the most 'quick thinking' fans in the PL. (I won't say Sunderland as it's not the done thing to be rude to guests).

It's strange the way goalkeepers are valued. If we signed an English CB or midfielder for £40m who could well be our first choice for 10+ years you would say that's great value but because he's a GK it's treated differently.

Quite a bit judging by the constant bed wetting we see on here.

His name in Urdu means.....[checks notes]...... 'Kev Lawson'.

I'm just glad he's been at Atalanta and not Atlanta to be quite fucking honest.

I refer the honourable gentleman to my Sandro song which was a victim of the many TT resets before the fix.... 🎵Just one Tonali Save him for me The midfield maestro From Italy He's class And so's his lass Sandro Tonali From Iiiiiitallllly!🎶

I'm not even talking about whether he's well enough to do the job - in fact I'm assuming he is. But once the decision has been made that he is leaving, the process of finding a replacement needs to happen as quickly as possible. Particularly given the current phase of the "project". We're not the finished article, where Eales as a safe hand on the tiller until a replacement is found is fine. There's all sorts going on. We're knocking on 10 months since we announced he was going. If the replacement is currently in a senior role elsewhere, they'll have a minimum of 6 months notice. So even if we made an offer now (and we're led to believe they only "narrowed the search" last month, so we're some way short of that) the replacement won't be in post until the back end of this year at the earliest (if we can negotiate a shorter notice period). Mitchell announced he was leaving in May, so I understand a lack of progress there, but the time it's taking to replace the most senior exec at the club is fucking ridiculous.

The fact that he's still the CEO is ridiculous. That situation should have been maximum notice of a year, with every effort made to replace him sooner, so he can focus on his health and the club can move on to the next phase. Last we heard was in June when we were reported to have "narrowed down the search". We're now in this ridiculous situation of having an outgoing CEO spearhead the search for our next DoF, having employed an absolute lemon last time around.

Considering Anna Karen died in a house fire having fallen asleep with a lit cigarette, this is cold even by your standards, TP

Snoop dog wasting no time.

I don't think there is any evidence to support that the Saudis have lost interest. There is evidence that they've agreed to play by the rules to get the club from Ashley. There is even more evidence that the rules were changed almost immediately. In fact, we know they were. And purely because of the threat we posed. We've strongly backed Man City in their battle over related-party sponsorship. The problem is that we're competing (or trying to) on an uneven surface. We were miles behind when the sale when through and it's been made almost impossible to catch up because the EPL have done what Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool (among others) have told them and made it so nobody can break into their club. If Man City win their case I think we suddenly start taking the piss on sponsorship deals. The executive level shit need fixed though, Eales has had other things to worry about and should have already been replaced. Mitchell and Ashworth were dreadful appointments in hindsight.

I've had similar thoughts however watching Yasir Al-Rumayyan lifting the Cup and celebrating with us this year mostly puts pay to that. I just don't think they've had the attitude to push the boundaries as they've consistently seen that even when doing everything by the book they're subject to a much higher level of scrutiny than other clubs. Also, because success happened so quickly at Chelsea and City they are faced with unrealistic expectations from some supporters that we will just do the same. I've really enjoyed the turn around since we were bought by PIF, not just because it has massively changed the trajectory of the club but it has also solidified our support, manager and players in a way that I wasn't exactly expecting; a sort of us versus everyone else mentality through both trying and good circumstances. The success we have achieved in that time is phenomenal and we're learning and improving in many ways as we move forward. We still haven't found the perfect mix in terms of player recruitment, but you have to say we have a fantastic success rate with the players we've brought in.

Which is all that fucking matters (well that and the tales of TBD's ballot exploits)

The thing is that the deals have to be approved in advance, we can't just sign a load of deals and then kick the can down the road. However, the fair market value rule only applies to deals with businesses linked to our owners. I don't see how the Saudis can't use their influence to nudge certain companies that, strictly speaking, they don't control into offering us a couple of huge fuck off deals that the PL can't do anything about.

In the documentary we saw Staveley be a be a bit worried about the Sela deal being seen as fair. We could easily spin the “they’ve gave us a record sponsorship deal as we are a club with massive ambition and are going places”. We went down the safe option then months later Chelsea sell themselves a hotel and the women’s football team and not an eyebrow raised. I suspect we also played too fair with the ASM transfer fee.

He jumped before he was sacked. It was so painfully obvious. He came in, called everything shit and instead of getting the wet wipes he dropped his drawers and curled out a belter on top of the pile. He's the reason we might lose Isak. The one player the Saudis were adamant we couldn't lose.

You say that but spelling and context aside, that's a reasonably well tied ratchet clamp, which seems entirely unnecessary unless this is the world's saddest float parade. Ironically if this is indeed a float parade, I wouldn't mind seeing this particular float being catapulted into the English Channel and left to sink.

Supposedly mates with him but doesn't even know what club he was at?

That’s the other side to PSR. It absolutely fucks the match going fans financially. Which inevitably leads to an even more staid and gentrified atmosphere / experience over time. The impact on associated merchandise too. The cost of kits and so on. It’s just silly at this point and it’s only going to get worse

Eales’ first interview, well worth a watch again considering what seems to be happening (or not happening) at the club. I think we all appreciate the bloke has a serious illness, but he announced he was stepping down on 27th September last year and well he is still here. Was this bloke really the right chap for the job in first place?

Stephen Merchant looks different with long hair.

All a bit convenient in the middle of a difficult transfer window to blame the person who's just left. Not a conspiracy theorist but this does burnish the reputation of those who remain at the expense of Mitchell who is stabbed by Edwards twice in the space of a few hundred words. The truth is very likely a lot more opaque. Not that we aren't suffering hugely from PSR issues or that Mitchell isn't an ocean going cunt either

Yeah agree with the two posts above - the damage Mitchell has done is significant. I'm struggling to understand what we've had in return for his salary. We miss being run by Staveley & Ghodoussi. At the time they left I thought things would be OK and that they'd established the framework we needed to push on to where we want to. Bottom line, they genuinely cared. The people who've come in since them (Eales, Mitchell) have demonstrably only cared about filling their wallets.

We had joy we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the beer and the song, like Amanda they have gone

ive highlighted one little bit of that just because I think it should probably read 'no questions being asked' esles appointed silverstone in 2022, you'd assume he was involved in sela and noons continued involvement with the club, but these are deals tied up in 2023. why 2 years later are we still failing to find investment with sponsorship for stadium etc? eales appointed brad miller a year ago as some kind of guru to oversee the stadium/training grpund development. mankind will be building fucking housing estates on pluto before the club even get round to revealing their intentions, its fucking pitiful. I mean the less said about him bringing in his old tottenham buddy and the12 months of rip roaring success that turned out to be the better. it doesn't really inspire much confidence that he's still here sorting out his own successor one year on really does it? I'm half expecting charlie methven rocking up with his laptop full of cheesy 90s euro trance. for fucks sake get your fingers out, you cunts.

Ashley Young being in there is hilarious. He was shite when he was good

I think it’s a perfectly acceptable position to want to pay 30m, but refuse to pay 40m, for Trafford. No matter how much the lad wants to join us, we’re not in the position to just roll over and pay whatever the selling club wants. It doesn’t seem to be holding us back working on other transfers - Elanga has signed, and sounds like loads of work was put into potential Pedro and Ekitike transfers. What probably has been holding us back is the lack of any long term planning, hard to get players in at the start of the window without it. And hard to do any long term planning given departures of Ashworth, Eales, and Mitchell. Also, with no CEO & no DoF, I don’t think the owners are going to give Howe a blank cheque to bring in anyone he wants at any price, they are bound to be more risk averse without that structure in place. All in all, if we can pick up a couple of squad players before the end of the window, and not lose anyone, maybe that’s not a terrible result (although obviously not ideal, and not what I was hoping for at the start of the window). Then regroup with a full team in place for the next window.

Mandy Patinkin is a hero

Sven isn't too far behind him in the 'new signing' feeling

A rare visit to this thread for you. Let's hope it stays that way.

It's an accurate assessment, but is a bit depressing really as there is no suggested way out. Really boils down to increasing revenue through sponsorship but in some ways even if that gap is bridged we'd still be competing with one hand tied behind our back if location is an issue. Really PIF need to make a move to inject money into the club as profit through whatever means. That has to involve pushing and challe nging the associated party transactions like Man City have done for years. We've been playing nice for too long whilst other teams take advantage. That has to end. Worst case we'd surely fancy our lawyers over those of the PL who have been proven ineffectual multiple times. Drag it on forever again like Man City.