The Football Thread.

BigBearKris

guitars4you said:

TTony said:

Fingers657 said:

I was having a discussion with my mate about how good the Ipswich manager has been at creating a excellent team of players for next to nothing.
He's  worried he will get head hunted if they go up.

I've been to Portman Road more times than any other ground - good to see Ipswich going well (again) this season.

It'd be a huge stretch for them to survive in the PL though, after back-to-back promotions and without any PL experience in the side.

Some press talk about interest from Man U 

Just been having a look at their owners - Gamechanger Ltd - No shortage of money - Their estimated worth rivals that of Arsenal owners and exceeds Spurs and Liverpool - So no shortage of ambition if they want to take such a club in the direction of say Brighton, Fulham, Brentford etc - And to be fair to Ipswich they have a 'bigger' history, albeit a few years ago now, that exceeds that of Brentford, Fulham, C Palace, Bournemouth etc 

Yeah, but we (cherries) are writing our history now. Ipswich are great this season but nobody "deserves" to be in top leagues - you have to play well and fight your way through.

guitars4you

BigBearKris said:

guitars4you said:

TTony said:

Fingers657 said:

I was having a discussion with my mate about how good the Ipswich manager has been at creating a excellent team of players for next to nothing.
He's  worried he will get head hunted if they go up.

I've been to Portman Road more times than any other ground - good to see Ipswich going well (again) this season.

It'd be a huge stretch for them to survive in the PL though, after back-to-back promotions and without any PL experience in the side.

Some press talk about interest from Man U 

Just been having a look at their owners - Gamechanger Ltd - No shortage of money - Their estimated worth rivals that of Arsenal owners and exceeds Spurs and Liverpool - So no shortage of ambition if they want to take such a club in the direction of say Brighton, Fulham, Brentford etc - And to be fair to Ipswich they have a 'bigger' history, albeit a few years ago now, that exceeds that of Brentford, Fulham, C Palace, Bournemouth etc 

Yeah, but we (cherries) are writing our history now. Ipswich are great this season but nobody "deserves" to be in top leagues - you have to play well and fight your way through.

100% correct 

joneve

Massive win for Forest last night. 1st half performance was the best we’ve put in since promotion. Absolutely unstoppable. 4 pts deducted over the international break and 4 points gained in 4 days. Cant really ask for much more. 

Lestratcaster

Job done vs Luton. Nice to see Smith Rowe get a start as he's hardly played this season even when fit (12 games as an unused sub). He had a very good game and was involved in the goals so good to see. Hope Arteta doesn't sell him in the summer. The changes were right for the team too, and didn't disrupt the momentum too much. 

Hopefully Saka is back on Sat vs Brighton but we've shown we can manage without him (against City earlier this season funnily enough).

LionAquaLooper

Chelsea v MU. Match of the season....if you're a neutral or Chelsea fan  

guitars4you

LionAquaLooper said:

Chelsea v MU. Match of the season....if you're a neutral or Chelsea fan  

Both teams going for it - You could argue for good attacking options or poor defending - But exciting either way

CHRISB50

LionAquaLooper said:

Chelsea v MU. Match of the season....if you're a neutral or Chelsea fan  

Indeed. Take a bow Cole Palmer.

40 mill vs 115 mill for Caicedo. Lol. 

guitars4you

Strong talk that the old FFP (now PSR) rules are going to be significantly changed and the change could be very soon - Huge sigh of relief for Man City - Google 'Premier League To Change FFP Rules' and you'll pick up a host of recent articles, only a day or so old, that will update you further  ie https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/football/premier-league-luxury-tax-explained-as-arsenal-chelsea-and-tottenham-brace-for-ffp-decision/ar-BB1l4NFQ - But a 'luxury' tax could be brought in to those who over spend similar to an idea in place in the NFL - The worlds biggest sport league and co owners of some of our PL clubs - It will also allow the Man City approach of 'we are your owners and major sponsors' so we can pay what we want to as a sponsor to help put more money into the club - Great for Newcastle as well 

As the 20 PL clubs are effectively the shareholders of the league then it won't take much for them to vote such changes through - Initially it looks like a case of Vivian Nicholson's famous phrase 'spend spend spend' will be good for many - But were will it end  

TTony

guitars4you said:

Strong talk that the old FFP (now PSR) rules are going to be significantly changed and the change could be very soon 

Seems completely fair to me ... those who can afford to spend, spend, spend will now have to spend just a little bit more to pay the overspending tax.

Should ensure that the biggest richest get bigger and richer and that the game gets ever less interesting if your team is outside that elite.

Kind of like the European Super League, but without those foreign clubs messing the place up.

[edit]
Just for clarity, that ^^ was sarcasm.

guitars4you said:

As the 20 PL clubs are effectively the shareholders of the league then it won't take much for them to vote such changes through 

There should be an interesting split in the voting between those who want to be able to use their backing to buy their way out of trouble, against those who don't have that same level of funding.

guitars4you

TTony said:

guitars4you said:

As the 20 PL clubs are effectively the shareholders of the league then it won't take much for them to vote such changes through 

There should be an interesting split in the voting between those who want to be able to use their backing to buy their way out of trouble, against those who don't have that same level of funding.

Not so sure about that - The likes of Forest and Everton will get their points back and Everton's policy is obviously spend at all cost to avoid relegation - Wolves, Spurs, Villa are all currently borderline on FFB 'inspection' and more to follow - Chelsea will totally smash any PSR rules when their accounts are released for 23/24 - Makes a mockery to the likes of Brighton who have just made record profits - A rare word 'profit' 

Plus fear of a points deduction has effectively created a 'no buy' policy on the last transfer window - You can't sell to reduce your losses, as no one has any money left, within existing  'barriers' to buy - If they buy they exceed their own PSR, so a kind of stalemate 

The way I read it is that if Man City pick up a luxury tax bill, some of that tax will go to say Brighton for being 'good guys' 

TTony

guitars4you said:

The likes of Forest and Everton will get their points back and Everton's policy is obviously spend at all cost to avoid relegation 

Only if the new approach is applied retrospectively *and* before the end of this season - which is going to be chaotic already with the appeals and on-going investigations affecting the relegation teams.

Applying retrospectively would open the can of worms; how far back to you apply it; do clubs who have stayed within the rules object because they have effectively lost out by staying within the rules; etc?

And if the PL change their approach, does the EFL have to do likewise, or do you have two different rule books?  And happens (Leicester) when a club breaks the rules in one competition but gets promoted/relegated and has to have penalties applied in the other competition?

Fustercluck.

guitars4you said:

The way I read it is that if Man City pick up a luxury tax bill, some of that tax will go to say Brighton for being 'good guys' 

With their sales in recent seasons, Brighton have enabled some (well, Chelsea mainly!) to break the rules ...

guitars4you

TTony said:

guitars4you said:

The likes of Forest and Everton will get their points back and Everton's policy is obviously spend at all cost to avoid relegation 

Only if the new approach is applied retrospectively *and* before the end of this season - which is going to be chaotic already with the appeals and on-going investigations affecting the relegation teams.

Applying retrospectively would open the can of worms; how far back to you apply it; do clubs who have stayed within the rules object because they have effectively lost out by staying within the rules; etc?

And if the PL change their approach, does the EFL have to do likewise, or do you have two different rule books?  And happens (Leicester) when a club breaks the rules in one competition but gets promoted/relegated and has to have penalties applied in the other competition?

The EFL and PL are already 2 separate sets of rules - Leics latest set of accounts, plus previous, when combined, now smash current PSR and are for time spent in the PL - Currently the PL can't impose any points deduction on them, but can do so for the start of the next season, if promoted - Last time Leics were promoted and abused EFL FFP rules, once they were promoted they offered a smaller settlement on a take it or leave it basis to the EFL, knowing they were now untouchable - You'd think there would be a closer alignment of such policies 

pt22

I’ve been railing for a luxury tax in the premier league for years now. It worked great for baseball, and will be of significant assistance to the smaller teams and allow for parity and increased fan bases and revenues for the non big six. 

I’d be much more in favour of the tax being linked to salaries rather than total revenues though, and the same on the other end. Earmark the money to be used for salaries and put in some sort of minimum payment limit to ensure owners at the bottom don’t get a free ride. 

I do agree though that this must come with a hard look at ownership rules as well. You can’t have a sovereign wealth fund with limitless capability owning a team. Or you could put a combo luxury tax and hard cap. Maybe set a luxury cap level, increasing penalties, then a hard cap at 200% the luxury cap. 

Lestratcaster

Was hoping the Blades would do us a favour last night but sadly not to be. 

Great game between Chelsea - Utd though!

guitars4you

pt22 said:

I’ve been railing for a luxury tax in the premier league for years now. It worked great for baseball, and will be of significant assistance to the smaller teams and allow for parity and increased fan bases and revenues for the non big six. 

I’d be much more in favour of the tax being linked to salaries rather than total revenues though, and the same on the other end. Earmark the money to be used for salaries and put in some sort of minimum payment limit to ensure owners at the bottom don’t get a free ride. 

I do agree though that this must come with a hard look at ownership rules as well. You can’t have a sovereign wealth fund with limitless capability owning a team. Or you could put a combo luxury tax and hard cap. Maybe set a luxury cap level, increasing penalties, then a hard cap at 200% the luxury cap. 

Yes a strong influence of the NFL/USA structure - My daughters degree is in sports/business and filled me in with quite a few details of such a format 

Without looking, I assume sovereign wealth is not applicable in say the NFL, other USA leagues and/or IPL - I don't think it is allowed in the German league either - Think they have a 50% limit on any 'sugar daddy' ownership - Not sure about the Spanish league - Italian teams are generally owned by the Italian's, USA or the odd Chineses team 

Lestratcaster

Very happy with the result down at Brighton. Once we got the first goal I felt we were always in control. Havertz had his best game for Arsenal I think, starting to pay back some of that £65m we paid for him.

Can see some maturity and learnt lessons from last season, calmer and collected as it was this time last year we started to demise. Keeping Saliba fit is key though, as his injury last season cost us with no replacement.

But yeah its great some key players are now back from injuries so we can rotate better, think the only player to still come back is Timber.

thecolourbox

So the annual West Brom bottle job seems to have begun - two 2-2 draws in a week against lower half teams, we've got already-relegated Rotherham who are 19 points behind the team one place above them, so I imagine they'll play a blinder and beat us as well haha

We've got 6 points on 7th place and 5 games to play (although Coventry in 7th have 6 games remaining...). Hmmm

guitars4you

thecolourbox said:

So the annual West Brom bottle job seems to have begun - two 2-2 draws in a week against lower half teams, we've got already-relegated Rotherham who are 19 points behind the team one place above them, so I imagine they'll play a blinder and beat us as well haha

We've got 6 points on 7th place and 5 games to play (although Coventry in 7th have 6 games remaining...). Hmmm

Out of our hands as well now

Lestratcaster

A man has been stabbed outside the Tottenham stadium in the early hours of the morning. Game still going ahead though.

And I'll be supporting Man Utd today for 2 hours only from 3.30-5.30pm. Come on Utd help us out!

DesVegas

Lestratcaster said:

And I'll be supporting Man Utd today for 2 hours only from 3.30-5.30pm. Come on Utd help us out!

Man U don't stand a chance .. come on Liverpool (hoping this ages well!)