ClaphamFox

We were clearly not going to sign anybody without a new manager in place and without selling anybody first. We now have a manager in place but we still haven't sold anybody, so we're going to have to wait a bit longer for any new signings to come in. Hopefully Cifuentes will know soon which players he wants to keep and which he wants to bin - and then all he has to do is inform Jon Rudkin and he will take care of the rest....

It doesn’t annoy me. Those baseless media reports of a deduction of 12 points or more have led to incredibly generous odds of 14/1 on us to win the division and 9/2 on us to get promoted. And when the deduction turns out to be much lower than predicted, it will cause such collective anguish and rage that they’ll have to set up a dedicated helpline. And I, as the phrase goes, am very much here for it.

It is possible. The club didn't seem in any hurry to sell players before 30 June, which you might assume would mean they were confident about not breaching for 24/25. However, experience suggests that in the case of our club that might be a dangerous assumption.

I think they actually started the season on minus two points - the punishment was decided the previous April, when they were still in the PL. But theirs was a very different case to ours.

We may not know until November, possibly even not until 2026 depending on any appeal process.

I suspect Winks will be central to his plans.

There’s a history there.

I want it to be six simply to be able to witness the collective mental breakdown on social media from fans of other clubs who'd convinced themselves it would be 15 or something...

Interesting. Where have you heard that?

It’s hard to know what to make of the Dorsett comment. I haven’t seen the clip, but it sounds like he just casually dropped the claim about -9 points into a conversation about the appointment of Cifuentes. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t chosen to publish a story on it or tweet about it, which you would fully expect him to do if it was a story he’d just uncovered. . The reason I don’t think it can be dismissed entirely is that Dorsett is a cautious journalist who only tends to write or say things that he’s pretty confident in. I also get the impression he’s one of the very few journalists who occasionally obtain genuine info from inside the club. On several occasions in recent years he has been the first to shoot down inaccurate stories about us. Somebody at the club talks to him. It would be interesting to see the clip. I’d like to know whether it’s just Dorsett’s personal view (in which case it doesn’t mean much), the view of the PL/EFL (which would likely be an overestimation of the final deduction) or the view within the club (in which case there might be something in it).

That's from the 26/27 season & only the PL, I think.

Those kind of companies do not offer enough money. The reason that so many clubs have taken out sponsorship deals with obscure foreign betting/trading companies that aren’t licensed to operate in the UK is because they are subject to ludicrous PSR restrictions that make it very hard for smaller and medium-sized clubs to compete. The authorities have created the conditions that have led to this by introducing a system that is blatantly biased towards the richer clubs. You may well believe that our club should take a moral stand and refuse to take part, even if it means handing rival clubs an advantage (and that is fair enough), but it isn’t hard to understand why such deals occur. The main culprit here is PSR, which is deeply unfair and not fit for purpose.

Explain your reasoning.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Rudkin says to him, “So Marti - let’s talk about the transfer budget! How much have you got in your bank account?”

Oh there’s a very pleasant side to you A side I much prefer It’s one that won us the league Remember Vardy’s first against Sunderland Yeah, that got things off the ground And it was up, up and away But it’s right hard to remember that on a day like today When you’re uncommunicative, and we’ve got no manager…

Lies.

As Enzo proved the last time we were in this league.

O’Neil may be a nice guy and even a decent coach, but he’s shown he does not have the authority to manage a football club. Two lost dressing rooms in the space of a couple of years tells its own story.

You'd seriously take Gary O'Neil over Cifuentes?!

Cifuentes' basic philosophy is very similar to Enzo's, but he sounds more pragmatic and willing to play more direct if the situation demands it. If only there were were a Spanish coach available to us last summer who matched that description, wanted to join us and was available for a few million in compensation...

"Also Marti, just one more thing—our wifi is currently down. It's being sorted today. Or possibly next week. Soon anyway. But in the meantime, would you mind writing your own press release and uploading it onto the site from your phone?"

Nobody has told me anything

Do tell

They also basically played their reserve side in that game whereas we went much stronger.

Why sorry? He's a very good Championship player. albeit nothing special at PL level. If he has another season for us like he did in 23/24, we'll have one of the best midfielders in the division.