Pliskin

“I’ve had a mince pie and a free water, that’s more than any other owner has given me, I’ll have nothing said bad about any of them”.

Or inside…..

How will they drink their cabbage soup at half time if they’ve been using clappers all game?

We can all argue this to the death, but the one clear message from all of this is that the PL are coming for the wrong clubs, an established PL will eventually be driven out of existence by this rule, and then perhaps they will change it…… World football is in disarray, which is why it will drastically change in a few short years, and it’s probably for the better…. The sooner we can get rid of the “big six” the better. Let the EPL collapse and recreate a good old fashioned football pyramid away from the greedy kits of the super rich.

Surely the accounts are per annum, and not just for the “season”…. Otherwise what’s the point in having three years rolling if you’re going to forget the summer period between the seasons? The accounts will surely fall in line with the usual business year and we have until June to get the books in order… so that would suggest part of 2023 accounts will be relating to the EFL. Which means the EPL have no business asking to see the entire of our accounts from the financial year 2023, because the latter part of said year was spent as an EFL team. The financial year is the financial year, and clubs operate throughout this period, the summer transfer window being a prime example. So surely with all that in mind some of the 2023 data will relate to this current season. I think the crooks of our argument are, the PL have no business asking for us to produce documents to them when we are not an EPL team, they’re governed by different bodies and have slightly different rules. We’re governed by the EFL rules, who can’t touch us because half of our 2023 accounts relate to the EPL, and then in turn, surely the EPL can’t touch us because half of our accounts relate to the EFL….. it’s a grey area that neither governing body knows what to do about it….. so, the EPL have basically just said “**** it” and have had a go. We will certainly be dragging this out for as long as we can, and I’m not wholly convinced that the EPL have acted above board here, which our lawyers will be scrutinising.

We’re not obliged to supply the premier league with any information relating to the time spent in the EFL. Which naturally significantly impacts our finances, because we’re not a EPL team. They can’t just change the rules as they go along, originally they couldn’t touch us, but funnily enough after the EFL got shot down they come for a second bite of the cherry? No chance that’s legitimate.

They can offer a defence, the defence won’t necessarily be about when the alleged breaches are, it will likely be abuse of processes by the EPL, listening to Keiron Maguire, it seems the EPL have only decided to make this charge now because the EFL failed with theirs…. So it’s likely that the EPL have illegally tried to obtain information from us, similar to the EFL…. This is where cases will fall down, not the dispute over which league we were in, more the processes used to obtain the details not being the proper process.

Listening to Kieron Maguire response to this, it sounds very much like the EPL have got a case of the “****ems” and have just done what they want. Because the EFL had their charge revoked, the EPL have gone, “**** it, you can be charged by us then”……. The facts will remain we were neither an EFL club or an EPL club for the entire period these charges cover, so rightly, we’ve said, hang on, you can’t do this, and we will dig our heels in. It’s the premier league essentially doing what they want, which is why I’m fairly confident following legal advice, we will probably end up with their balls in a vice and they won’t be able to do anything with us.

My point exactly!

That’s the point of the statement. They’re not so much questioning the legality of the charges, more highlighting areas that they are clearly considering. It’s a bit like saying, “I am surprised that I have charged with burglary, considering I was at home during the alleged offence”. It reads a bit like a pre-written statement just offering a slight defence, without revealing the full picture, and then a line suggesting their compliance and willingness to sort the issue out. It’s definitely a letter drafted under the guise of a legal advisor.

Nothing will happen to Man City, they are too valuable to the premier league to punish.

It’s got nothing to do with having no money.

Reading between the lines, “Even though LCFC is not currently a premier league side”….. I definitely think they’re mounting a defence with that in mind. Reads like a prepared statement to me, as if they expected this response “despite the clubs efforts to engage constructively with the premier league”….. It’s all planned, they’re biding their time, rather than just going along with what the EPL want.

There must be something the club are willing to test the PL for. Any decision will be made following legal advice, so if there’s something they’ve picked up on that they feel they can challenge they will likely run with it. All I can see happening, is eventually this FFP in its current form will collapse and have to be completely re written.

Is it a lack of responsibility, or is it following legal advice? This is all unprecedented, the EPL and EFL are keen to implement the rules, but I’m pretty sure they probably don’t understand the rules fully themselves… We are currently sat in a grey area, we’re not a premier league side, so it’s likely, like we did with the EFL have followed some advice that’s said “let them make the first move” almost like a disclosure in criminal law, see what they’re saying and then prepare to counter. We won’t just be sat around not knowing what we’re doing, we’re probably hiding our time because we feel confident there’s a loophole in the regulations that we feel we can exploit.

I just don’t think this will stick, I think we’ve purposely sat and waited, we would have gotten legal advice, and potentially the advice might be just wait and see what the EPL do, the EFL were hasty with their decisions, and now the EPL have been hasty with theirs. It’s okay criticising the club saying they haven’t got a clue, but, perhaps the legal advice passed was to just sit and wait and see what happens, who makes the first move. I’m pretty confident the premier league can’t go imposing charges when you’re not even in the premier league, there will be some sort of loophole there, that we will probably have hoped would happen. This is all early days, and the premier league are blindly pursuing all of the wrong clubs, but our case is not as cut and dry as Everton’s and Forest’s because we got relegated, so technically for half of 2023 we were not an EPL side…. I’m thinking that they’ve potentially screwed themselves now because they’re that desperate to throw their weight around they still don’t fully understand how they’re applying the rules.

We have a point though…….. could this premature announcement come back to bite them in the arse?

To be fair, I think they may have ****ed themselves. I can see us wriggling out of this because of the EPL’s eagerness to drag us through the mud.

It’s okay though guys, I’m sure we will get a free beer out of it. #bestownersintheworld.

Like it’s a surprise, we all knew it was coming. But why release this now? Why not release this in the summer? It could **** our season up.

This x 1000.

We’ve the highest wage bill in the league….. still potentially significantly higher that most in the lower half of the premier league. We have players like Vestergaard, Faes, Ricardo, Winks, N’didi, Vardy, Kalechi all players who are far too good for this league. We’ve also spent significant money at this level on Hermensen, Coady, Winks, Mavididi and Cannon…… I will accept nothing other that 1st, 6th would be completely unacceptable… the squad we have is far too good to be playing at this level. This squad used properly should be streets ahead. And for Farke, next season is irrelevant he’s excellent at getting teams promoted, which is what his task is. Maresca may not have the squad he wants, but he has a good enough squad to achieve the goal, he just needs to realise this and put it before his philosophy.

Ricardo has been a huge miss. We are so much better with him in the team. But we’ve hopefully got them all back for 9 games! Get off to a good start V Bristol and we could see something incredible.

Vestergaard has been brilliant this season, and I completely agree with his ability to break the lines with a pass, however…… since Leeds the inverted fullback hasn’t been working, and we’ve looked quite poor in transition, especially through the centre of the pitch. The problem will forever be Vestergaard’s lack of pace, which though no fault of his own is being exposed at the moment because the fundamentals of our style have gone stale. Faes has been ****ing diabolical of late his head has gone and HAS to be taken out of the side, he’s costing us soft goals and we’ve simply got to have some leadership in the side, I’m frankly baffled that Enzo hasn’t called on him yet…… let’s see if he learns anything this break.

Because Faes and Vesty have been brilliant 👌