ClaphamFox

Those outcomes are very asymmetric. If we don't get promoted it won't be just the points deduction we'd have to worry about - we'd also have to slash our wage budget, which would make it even harder to get out of the division. Years of stagnation could follow. If we get promoted and come straight back down while complying with the PSR rules (whatever they are at that point), we'll be in a much better position to push for promotion again. We really need to get promoted.

On one of the Leicester facebook pages last night, somebody was arguing that we'll be absolutely fine 'because King Power wrote off the debt'. Others were claiming that if we get promoted we won't have to sell any key players because of the TV money coming in next season. Never underestimate the depths of some people's ignorance.

is Enzo's presser today or tomorrow? It seems to shift around a bit...

The rumours seem to be that Leeds are in a spot of bother but Southampton aren't. Other Prem clubs facing major issues include Chelsea, Newcastle, Villa and Wolves, as well as Forest and Everton (which we already knew about).

This is new to me - I thought reports suggested we’d likely have a points deduction irrespective of whether we got promoted or stayed in the Championship? If it’s more likely to be a fine, that changes the picture considerably. The next question would then be whether that fine would count in future PSR calculations or would be deducible…🤔

It’s clearly not just us. The reason we’re currently in the news is because we successfully challenged the EFL’s right to impose a business plan requirement on us and they’ve got the arse about it. If we’d have just agreed to that, negotiations would probably just be quietly going on in the background. I can’t imagine Leeds are in much better shape than us, so maybe they just agreed to the business plan demand?

That’s the dilemma. If we’d need to completely asset strip to comply, we may be better off just taking the hit on the points.

Who shot you down for it? I think a lot of people would be in favour of it. it would still massively benefit the big six too, so I can’t see them objecting to it.

That’s not true. They still calculate allowable losses over three years - it just goes down if you spend any of that time in the Championship. The problem is that unless a club is actively planning to get relegated, there is no way for them to prepare ahead for the reduced target.

Why would we avoid promotion? That would make no sense, Even if we got promoted, played with the development squad and got relegated with 0 points, it would be far better for our finances than staying in the Championship. In reality, we’ll likely just have to sell some players before June 30 before reinventing from July 1.

To be fair there have been rumours to this effect for a while. It’s probably best to just accept KDH will be leaving for less than he’s worth before June 30 and we’ll be left scrabbling around to find a replacement - unless of course we decide to just take the points hit.

Exactly. We could be in a position where we have to sell KDH on June 30 but would have the funds to buy him back on July 1 (although obviously that wouldn’t happen in reality).

In the article in the Telegraph, Percy writes: “Last year they announced record losses of £92.5 million for the 2021-22 season, and it is understood that latest financial accounts are also likely to report a heavy deficit when they are announced this month.”

So the story in the Sun was pretty much bang on, then?

A number of our key players won't be anywhere near the squad for that game.

There was contact but not enough to bring him down. He had the choice of staying on his feet (in which case he wouldn't have got the penalty) or throwing himself to the ground (which maybe gave him a small chance of getting a penalty). He chose the latter but executed it poorly, hence why the ref was unconvinced. Nobody falls like because of an arm over their shoulder.

Obviously promotion. Failing to achieve that could be catastrophic. Not winning the FA Cup won't be. No contest whatsoever.

Our players DO look knackered. The three-week gap between the Hull and Bristol City games will give us a great opportunity to rest them. I didn't see the Ipswich game but Leeds apparently looked dead on their feet last night too - their fans are very concerned about their game on Friday. Enzoball can be great to watch but it can also be boring to watch - especially when the players aren't fresh enough to play it properly. We just need to somehow get the win on Saturday and then refresh ahead of the next league game.

Just get the three points and give some of our knackered players three weeks off match duty until the next league game. Tell them to just stay in bed for the first of those three weeks, then gently ease back into some tactical work. Basically treat it as an early spring break.

What happened at the Leeds game exactly? It’s not clear from your post. I agree that folk in the north east are great company and I’m glad you had a good time. It’s a shame you don’t like people from Leicester if you support Leicester - I think most of us are pretty friendly. As for the chant, it wasn’t personal - I don’t think your personal hygiene habits are in question. It’s just the kind of thing that football fans sing to each other. It doesn’t mean anything. Have a safe trip back to Leeds!

Judging from their forum, Leeds fans are just as concerned by their performance tonight as we are with ours…

Apart from at the very end

VAR would have given it.

The Economist published this article on FFP/PSR last week. It's behind a paywall, but they basically argued that FFP rules are both anti-competitive and unnecessary because they are designed to solve a problem that barely existed in the first place. I found these two paragraphs interesting: "But a core trade-off remains: stability versus competition. By capping spending relative to club revenues, the rules limit the ways in which challengers can outmuscle richer incumbents. As a result an expensive but once-viable path to success has been closed off. Manchester City lost money for eight consecutive seasons between 2007 and 2014, before posting eight seasons of pre-tax profit from 2015 during which it won the league five times. Academics at Sheffield Hallam University have found that competitive balance deteriorated across the five largest European leagues after the introduction of FFP. Across all top divisions in Europe the number of different top-four finishers declined by 10%. "Advocates for the rules emphasise the devastation for fans when clubs go bust. Bury FC, a stalwart of English football’s third and fourth tiers, collapsed in 2019 and now languishes in the ninth tier, even after a fan-funded rescue. But most insolvencies are more benign. Stefan Szymanski, a sports economist at the University of Michigan, has compiled data on every bankruptcy in the top four divisions since 1945 and found no club that had vanished entirely. England’s football clubs are remarkable examples of corporate longevity. “It’s hard to imagine any other industry where there were 100 businesses a century ago and they’re all still around,” he says."

Maybe we can argue that our three recent losses on the bounce effectively amounted to a voluntary points deduction and ask if we can leave it at that?