Ric Flair

Our wage structure is certainly a collective decision. I'd still mark a good chunk of that on the Director of Football in their negotiations with players, likewise the transfer fees as its well documented we've paid extremely well and not been able to move players on as a result of it. However, it was a clear strategy of the club that in order to try and remain challenging the top 7, we had to have a wage structure that enabled that. I.e reward players with new contracts comparable to salaries they'd get elsewhere (within reason) and starting salaries that aren't too out of kilter with our best players terms. That's a hard process to juggle and what we've fallen foul of IMO. Who's fault that is, it's not one singular individual but certain areas who are massively involved come under the Microscope.

This debate about how to set up is very difficult to land on either way. How does one prove that one set up has the best likelihood of a positive outcome than the other. It's easy to say, if defensive football was the best avenue to getting results then all teams would do it. It's not as simple as that. It's fairly understandable that trying to frustrate teams who have the confidence to set up to attack with superior players might reap rewards because you sacrifice going forward and allowing them space for them to execute their prowess. But it very much depends on whether you the opponent are actually very good at doing that. The criticism some of us have raised this season is not that for 3 games we've set up defensively but more the personnel we have used does not support the execution. For example vs Villa, we had more possession than them and whilst we selected 3 defensive midfielders, 1 of them played further forward. So we neither tried to stifle the opposition being utilising a low block nor did we look to attack with our best attackers and creators. We went for some weird middle ground and sadly paid the price. I think it's the team selection rather than the tactics he's deploying that I'm struggling to understand.

Just get him gone, it's highly likely he goes on a free at the end of next season so just try and recoup all his wages if possible.

At some point the new rules kick in, so I don't think it is 3 years of £83m from 2024/25 onwards.

Why the PL and not the EFL? Or because we've argued we weren't a PL club on 30th June 2023 for 22/23 PSR it now works that on 30th June 2024 we were a PL club for 23/24 PSR? I can't fathom which would be best if either rules we've broken PSR for 23/24. Surely we'd have got our house in order for 23/24 knowing how this would all blow up.

I'll see what we can do, Jake might know.

For 2022/23? Surely if so, none of this would be an issue. Whilst the loophole may still exist and we could have pointed that out, if we thought we'd still complied up to the end of 22/23 then we'd have surely just cleared ourselves via that method. There seems to be various outlets now quoting this £23m, trying to gather where it originates from and if its been confirmed.

Isn't the £129.4m the amount after PSR deductibles have been taken off? Pretty sure I read our losses over the 3 years came to over £200m.

The EFL have not once handed over a case to the Premier League and vice versa. I presume because there's very little benefit to the league taking it over, it's time and money for something they would rather not have to deal with. Whether that incentive with us would now be different but if not, the most the EFL would be able to do is a deferred points deduction or a fine.

Yes

But can only apply to clubs who were a Premier League club when that was voted in during 2023/24 I believe? And anyway, isn't it the EFL who handle this up to the end of 2023/24?

There's further complexities to what would happen if we've breached the 3 year period up to 23/24. As it would be down to the EFL to deal with this, unless there's a mechanism to hand over to the PL (this is the grey area).

These stats are pretty damning. Will be interesting to revisit after the next 2 league games. If we're still way off it then people's arguments for Cooper become very weak.

He quit. Said he was fed up with how loud I was.

If you could find any examples on episodes with the times and I'll get Jake to look in to it. Cheers

WELL I CAAANT SPAAAAKE

I seem to have properly got in to running again this year. Started the year extremely unwell and signed off work for 3 months where my fitness and health were at an all time low. Started trying a few gentle 5k runs as running has always been my go to exercise even if I've never done it very consistently. Mid April I was averaging about 28/29 mins, my PB recently is 22 mins 16 seconds. Training for the Leicester Half in October which is going well. Did my longest ever run after work yesterday from Canary Wharf to Kensal Green. Learnt a he'll of a lot, mainly thst I'll never take those horrid energy gels every again. Evil. Pacing was solid 5km and 10km. Slowed a little up to 15km and then the final few km started to get to me. All in all averaged 5 mins 22 per km which I'm happy with. Target is to break 2 hours for the half marathon which I think is achievable, maybe even 1 hour 50 on the day.

Anyone else have this problem? I'm usually being asked to be quieter but if the sounds shit let me know.

Still wouldn't be able to watch it now, hideous.

Dynamic pricing would need to reflect the football surely. Fans would be being charge 38 pence if it was aligned with Cooper's football

Couldn't have put it better myself sir

Because that should be the mandate from the board to the manager. It definitely seemed to be when Puel took over.

It'll be an interesting next few weeks. As I've said, this is the 1st time in 15 years we've had a manager start fairly poorly to their tenure. That's got more weight currently because how how poor pre-season felt but whether we've been very fortunate or not since Sousa's distasterous spell here, every manager has got off to a good start. The last time we were promoted, we played 2 of the top 6 in the opening 3 games and were sat on 2 points, we then won the next 2 (one of which was against another top 6 club). We then fell apart after that until April and the ridiculous great escape but we'll learn a lot in the next few games.

Which is precisely why some of us are anxious this doesn't fall down the list of priorities whilst we battle short term survival. So much hard work has gone in to this.