Ric Flair

Stefan Borson said it wasn't much of a defence though, I'd be surprised if it got us off the hook (if we have breached)

Unless I'm way off I still don't think our transfers in in 2022/23 would have dented much on the P&L as spread over 5 years Faes, Kristiansen, Souttar and Tete's loan fee would have been about £10-11m + signing on fees and wages for half a season so max about £20m ? That's quite possibly why we had to balance the books even further with the June sale of Maddison but we are still being told to get ready for us having breached in 2022/23. If all of what is being reported turns out to be correct, it seems that we were pretty much destined to breach unless for a dramatic change in our income during the season, which although there are variables I don't see how it could have transpired and that's with selling Fofana and clearing £35-40m in the P&L on him (about the equivalent of the drop in revenue from the previous year as the difference of European football and a higher league position).

100% we are the victims of our own success but unfortunately we are also the masters of our own downfall. The irony is we achieved what we achieved by getting it right both financially and largely in recruitment and then we tried to build on that by making decisions that were perhaps a change to what we'd done previously and ultimately we didn't have the flexibility for it to go wrong. I think that's the most frustrating thing. We were so close to CL football twice which may have given us the financial boost that could have kept us on track but we also were becoming blinkered in our grip on our progression. The effectiveness of Rodgers was massively sliding on a squad that were becoming disillusioned and wanted new challenges, whilst their value diminished and we seemingly had no answer to how we could refresh the squad to get them or other fringe players out and new assets in. Also to think the sheer amount of transfer fees we did generate on the likes of Mahrez, Maguire, Chilwell, Fofana etc on top of the European football campaigns and major honours and we still seem to have breached PSR.

There'll be no magic formula, it'll be purely dependent on the starting point of their wages to what it grew to over a few years, the revenue generation and then the differential between booking sales in the year they are sold and the amortisation of incomings over the length of their contract. Villa for example, they spent at least £250m in the first 2 seasons but that would be maximum £50m on the book across two years. In the third years they sold Grealish for £100m which is pure profit and probably bailed them out for perhaps going close to the maximum allowable losses of £105m. It'll have caught up with them now, they need 1 or 2 huge sales and/or CL football.

I'll repeat though, we're being told that we have likely breached 2022/23 and the 3 year period and the only impact from relegation for that period would have been the differential in prize money for finishing 18th as opposed to whatever the club modelled in to their strategy at £2m a place. This despite us selling Fofana and Maddison (he was sold before 30th June) for huge profits. So whilst I agree the business plan for sustained long term growth was dependent on expansion of the ground, commercial revenues and hotels etc it's quite clear that we'd gotten ourselves in to a huge short term financial problem with very little financial flexibility and I'm not convinced that would have been quickly resolved for the long term strategy to take effect.

I'm not so sure our club does knows when it can and cannot spend because we are being reported by many reputable outlets that we are expected to have breached 2022/23 and on course to do so for 2023/24. As I've said, we sold £110m worth of players (less of Fofana's book value and sell on to St Etienne and Maddison to Norwich - probably more like £80-85m profit in the accounts) in the 2022/23 accounting period if Maddison counts towards it and booked only an additional £11m in transfers in in the year. If we have still breached PSR for that year then we were always going to and the forecasts must have rejected this right back to the beginning of that year and well before Top's statement. The not signing anyone in January 2024 is quite possibly because it would incredibly remiss of us to know we had breached 2022/23 (if we have and simply waiting for the maximum deadline on which we publish the accounts) and have been in a battle with the EFL about their desire to see what our plan is for 2023/24 which they think we'll breach and we've not said we won't breach it but that we don't have to tell them yet.

Yes sorry, not bigger and was largely done in part to offset the delay in TV income from when football was suspended, but it was reported at the time that the impact of covid was likely to lead to more licence of items being deducted from PSR and give clubs more leeway for the huge losses as a result of the pandemic.

It was beyond reckless IMO because it wasn't even the drop in revenue from failing to qualify for Europe (or the different European tournaments) but the massive increases in wages that were happening at the same time. It became essential we qualify for Europe and that is pretty unrealistic to project with little flexibility if we didn't.

That haircut makes him look a bit more Blaby Batty (David)

We posted a massive loss in 2021/22 but the covid years of 2019/20 and 2020/21 there was an offsetting to essentially combine to allow for bigger losses. However when Top wrote that statement or at least put his name to it the eventuality of 2022/23 finances should or would have been largely forecast already. The signings of Faes, Kristiansen, Souttar and Tete would have added around £10-11m to the accounts for 2022/23 but we are led to believe we sold Maddison before the cut off and we'd ha e banked the majority of that £40m as he'd have had minimal book value left having been here 5 years and we only owed Norwich a few million sell on fee. We surely cannot have forecast finishing in the European places given our lack of transfer business and our horror start to the season, so although we perhaps were forecasting to be midtable and instead finished 18th, the reduction in prize money would have been around £10-15m but the significant reduction compared to 2021/22 which again would have been known was no European football TV and prize revenue. But they'd have forecast that when Top made this statement.

What was?

You trust the club after Top said this back in the summer of 2022 and then pretty much every outlet is reporting that we have " likely " breached 2022/23 PSR (despite selling Fofana for £70m and Maddison for £40m) and 2023/24 too without significant sales in June. How?

Our strongest team has been crap though recently 😂

He's the sort of technical and versatile attacker/midfielder that could be of use to Enzo but at the same time he might be being primed to cash in for a few million in to Europe to help keep the wolf from the door.

At the time it was a very ambitious decision and I got it, but there was obvious risks like there are with any significant infrastructure improvements and expansions. Bottom line is this training ground does not befit a team outside of the Championship, we simply cannot allow ourselves to be exposed to being outside of the PL for more than the occasional season in our short to medium term future. We are hopefully going to see the rewards via our academy, the blueprint was to have the best facilities in the country, attract players at youth and senior level and enable them the best opportunity to improve as a result. It requires a bit more than just the facilities and I've been concerned we've not seen the obvious improvements in coaching staff at the academy and senior levels that we visibly see but then again the lower age groups in our academy are extremely well regarded and that's equally as important arguably even more so for academy development.

And we've been caught up in having to pay them more as a result, not to mention the sheer increase in the number of staff to not make it look like a ghost town.

This is it, the things you let slide when the Blue Army are taking care of business is extraordinary. Its only when they play up that you realise the other stuff in life that's unacceptable.

What's your thoughts on pre school children being served an array of different fish dinners every Friday? It's not on is it?

It would need to be, otherwise its once again a further barrier for anyone outside the greedy 7 because they're worse off for qualifying to Europe and having more games to compete in.

I follow a clear pattern, when things are good I will go over the top with my praise. When things regress/are poor etc then I probably go over the top in my criticism. As always somewhere in the middle is fair. There are other fans that do the 1st part and then staunchly defend any criticism and I'm not sure that in the long run does any good either. I'm not saying Enzo is crap, all I'm saying is the last month he's showing his inexperience/making mistakes and I expect to see a change after the international break. He's going to get things wrong, especially when he's new to being a manager but I liken this to a player going in and out of form. We'd discuss a players performances both good and bad and when bad suggest they need to get their finger out/be dropped and I don't view managers much differently. I'm confident Enzo will find a solution in the next few weeks for the final run-in.

Dreamt last night Emzo gave Silko Thomas his debut against the club that released him and he was an absolute menace. Caused a 22 man brawl and then VAR ignored him punching one in the net after being sent off and we went through to the semi's. I fancy it.

That's not going to cause any trouble is it. Dear me.

Josh is writing some really good articles for The Mercury. Further to add to this, I've been informed that the club are no way to blame for Nyoni leaving. His Dad didn't think there was a pathway for Trey to play first team football at Leicester, so wanted him to move to Liverpool. Pretty sure they all support Liverpool and obviously for a big club they have a track record for hoovering up 16-18 year old from other academies and they get a fair chance of breaking through but there is simply no way Trey wouldn't have got his breakthrough here and probably would have played a good amount under Enzo this season, let alone future seasons. Unfortunately it is very difficult to stop players of his age or younger from choosing where to play, hence we try and get financial agreements in place Trey leaving though sets a dangerous precedent, we've also lost Tyrese Noubissie to Man City too although we agreed a fee with them and seemingly conducted everything to suit all parties. There will be many clubs eying our academy talent, and a lot of good work could be lost, especially in light of our financial predicaments. Fingers crossed we keep giving academy players a chance like Enzo has and they see their futures here whilst they at least break through and make it in the top 2 divisions.

I disagree. Yunus is incredibly frustrating with how wasteful he is in front of gosl but his ability to press and retain possession in tight spaces is something we either lack in general right now or certainly struggle to maintain for the entire 90 mins. He doesn't work as a pairing with KDH but as a replacement for him and/or pushed as a 10 with someone like Ndidi or Hamza dropping in alongside Winks gives us an able option.

No mate, we've had some temporary trouble with streaming live on twitter the last 2 weeks. Will get it sorted.