Lillehamring

I assume Cover is playing the Winks role - any know if he's done it in the academy? Or isn't going to be more of 4-1-4-1 look, with hamza in the holding DM role?

Tell that to maidstone....

More reasonable than earlier comments, but there's still a lot of speculation here. I'm not bothered about him going if there are signings lined up - but even a positive chap like me would be inclined to think this isn't the case, and certainly it's cutting it a bit fine if it is like this. Whatever happens to the market between now and the next window remains to be seen, but it stands to reason that his price will increase simply because he is a PL player (assuming we go up), in the same way barnes and maddison's price dropped. I can't believe that the club are so uncertain about our chances of promotion that they'd cash in now, just in case we didn't go up - and as we've all conceded, selling him would no doubt have an impact on that likelihood. I have faith in the board that they do know what they are doing (not that i believe there is any plan to sell him) and that if he does want to go they will sell him on their terms, not his and not brighton's.

Perhaps he was pissed off with his performance?

But again, selling him now is not as good as selling him in the summer, so it makes no sense. Oh, but right, the club has no sense etc etc

Apparently they do and we're all fools for not believing them

Oh, so i assume the subsequent information came from Susan Whelan, otherwise it's still just some bloke on the internet. The manager has suggested that we need to sell before we buy - this may or may not be true, he's hardly going to say 'oh we can spend what we like' - and even if it is true he did not say for what reason we had to sell, he certainly didn't allude to us being 'in deep financial shit'.

For example?

Again, literally nothing to back up this statement.

But we haven't spent all the money from the sales we made, even if they hoped to sell daka and soumare there's nothing to suggest we now have to cash in on KDH to cover the costs of the summer's purchases (or whatever other debt we allegedly have)? Even if this was the case, there's still no need to sell him now - firstly we'd make more on him if we get promoted and secondly a sale at the end of the season would go on the same year of accounts as selling him now - there is not one molecule of sense in selling him now.

There's nothing to suggest that we need money so badly we'd be prepared to jeopardise the cash cow of the premier league. There seems to be some arcane knowledge amongst posters on FT of the exact financial status of the club.

....

Fofana said he wanted to leave - that's hardly insider knowledge!

Who the Føkk exactly is Cosbeh and how the føkk does he know the intimate workings of the clubs finances? You are literally basing you're entire world on the basis of 'wot some bloke on the internet said'. Chocolate Teapot, indeed.

I'm sure you're joking, but it actually highlights another reason why this seems unlikely, and that is that, according to maresca, winks has taken KDH under his wing - why jeopardise such a connection?

Which would make sense if we were desperate to bring in new players. We are not, if we don't sign anyone we'll still be the best/strongest team in the league. And the only player we've been linked to plays the same position and only cost 2M. If the rumour is true i suspect it has nothing to do with being a necessity to bring in someone else - if it was for that reason, in footballing terms, we'd be robbing peter to pay paul!

But that contradicts current thinking. If we were prepared to spend 37M on the strength of future sales, then surely we could spend 2M on the strength of literally selling anyone in the future?

But if FFP was a problem in 2023, why would we be spending when in 2022 (when it actually was a problem) we spent nothing?

Exactly, and look how quickly we sold players to facilitate those purchases. If they were genuinely prepared to sell KDH they'd have done it weeks ago.

for exactly the reasons that i suggested

Totally different thing - they took a decision to abide by FFP rules (clever now when we see how everton have been punished) with the hope that they would still have enough to survive (which, on paper, was a reasonable assumption at th etime). A KDH sale is about the idea of risking a payment to really strengthen our FFP position just to make a quick hit that will have a far more limited impact on FFP. If they made that first decision to follow FFP, it would follow suit that they would go for the big boost rather than the minor

Because it seems unlikely and out of character. He's playing the best football of his career under Maresca, a guaranteed starter in a team looking likely to be in the PL next year; and i can't see it being a massive pay rise to move to brighton, there doesn't seem to be an obvious indicator that he's looking to bail so close to being back at the top level.

The FFP argument doesn't make sense. Take 30M now and severely weaken our chance of getting promoted Or get promoted and have a 100M TV income boost. From an FFP perspective there's a huge advantage in not selling. And even if we sell, there's no guarantee that Brighton would pay the whole amount up front, so it's unlikely it would improve our current FFP balance.

If Cole Palmer can attract a value of 50-odd million, i'm sure we could ask for something similar for a guy with several seasons of regular first team football.