Match Day Thread Premier League, Cups & Euro Watch

Probably a bit too long for you.
Oo-er, missus.

 

Me neither. I've never watched any so-called "reality" TV shows.

 

As an aside.

Arsenal improved a lot against the top sides.

They took 4 points from city and 4 points from us.

They however lost twice to villa, lost to Newcastle and that really wet craven cottage loss.

They also drew to Fulham.

When the title gets decided city will have dropped 4 points to a woeful chelsea team and 4 to lfc but the 6 point swing may well be the fact city only drew 1 and lost 2 against the non top 7 (so far)

If city win this title by a point by winning the last 4 they will have basically been 4 points worse off thant arsenal in the top 7 mini table bit 6 better off against the rest.

2 clubs will have cost arsenal the title. Fulham and villa.

 

Man Utd are putting all but 6 players up for potential sale.

Fernandes, Onana, Garnacho, Dalot, Hojlund and Mainoo are the only ones safe from cut.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ce96wzkgzpgo

 

Doesnt make massive sense given fernandes is the root of most of their stinking attitude.

Onana though. Dodgy dodgy

Mainoo and garnacho makes sense to keep.
Dalot is average enough but very good this season.
Holjund score a few but as expected was in and out with injuries.

Casemiro legs are gone
Varane never fit.
Maguire. Is Maguire.
Wan bissaka bang average.
Rashford not arsed

But yeah most dynamic and amazing team in the prem obviously.

Are they seriously going to buy 3 new defenders, a left winger and a midfielder minimum

 

Actually think AWB is alright. I think if you take him for what he is which is a solid defender who will get up the pitch a bit for support.

Played well at left back in recent years.

 

Jesus tonight - we're as close to Crystal Palace as we are to United when it comes to wages. United's wage bill is... 50% higher than ours! Don't tell me their revenue and income is 50% higher, because it isn't. Are FSG simply the stingiest ****s to own a Prem club, if that's not too much of a loaded, pejorative question?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...re-introducing-salary-cap-2025-26-season.html

 

No, it means United players are just stupidly overpaid and fsg have some sense

 

Was about to write something similar.
Footballers are already massively overpaid as far as I'm concerned, without pushing it further.

 

What players would you like us to pay more to? Most of ours don't merit any .ore wages at all and in fact our one big earner is over thr hill now.

Arsenal have gone on a massive new contract bender to retain all their young players

Chelsea have put huge amount of players on good wages even if none are massive.

Utds wages and fees paid for over the hill or injury prone players is astounding. Very little quality and all put to shame by 2 younger players.

 

They're demonstrating how not to do it, why would we replicate that?

 

Fair point. Doubling Mo's wages seems to have given us half the player we had.

 

Hmm, perhaps it was the way it was written, but I wasn't suggesting emulating Man U at all, but just saying that only Spurs of the so-called Big 6 pay less wages than us. We supposedly baulked at the idea of paying Bellingham's wages (and Mbappe's, but that one was probably a myth). My point is that we are ****ing rich club with huge FFP wiggle room (not that that will count for much soon - we saved our pennies for a rainy day that didn't come whilst others lived in the present). I support the club over ticket prices - that 'demonstration/protest' at home to Atalanta was ****ing appalling IMO) and that it has to be run financially prudently, but I see no reason why we aren't at least matching Arsenal, even though they're a London club. Our revenues and income is superior to theirs.

 

I see your point but I find it hard to agree with because I've thought for decades that players are overpaid anyway, so why would I want to see them paid more?
Football used to be a working-class game, but it's been hi-jacked by the money men. Disregarding the argument that it's improved the quality, it means that the people who made it into the cultural monster it is have been increasingly marginalised.
I don't support the ticket price rises because I think they're already too high. Too high so as to pay the massive fees and wages that I don't agree with in the first place.
I'm in danger of rambling on again here, so I'll just say that it's a global issue that seems insoluble, but there's no need to voluntarily make it worse.
As for Bellingham, as far as I'm aware the idea that we refused his wages is an unsubstantiated claim to explain our failure to land him, but even if true I'm ok with it for the reasons I've already outlined.
I have no idea how much money we have and I'm not going to speculate, but it seems to me we're run as a self-sustaining business and at a basic level I approve of that - but without knowing the details, I don't think any of us can say what we should or should not be doing.

 

I'm not sure thats fair.

We debated this at the time and it was always coming back to his age. We still got a good return from the season.

We have one more year at 350k a week or pay 18million before bonuses to him.

This is now purely down to will we get value for that and be happy for him to walk for 0 at the end

If we can make say 50mil this summer and save ourselves the 18mil then can we replace the output we think we will give next season?

That's imo the quandary. Sell and hope to replace or keep and then replace?

Does he want to stay forever? Does he now suddenly want a 3 year deal having only wanted 2 last year??? Who knows.

The club has to look to getting the very best return on the park and off it.

 

I'm sure we all agree that ticket prices are far far too high and the ordinary people are priced out.

Agents fees
Transfer fees
Player wages

All driven by greed and of course oil money.

 

Plus demand

 

Plus demand. Yes you are right. Plenty of other people who want the same tickets who are willing to pay it then sit there silently.

 

Stingy, or intelligent?

There are three main cash sinks for a Premier League Club. Wages, transfers, infrastructure.

The less we spend on wages, the more we can spend elsewhere.

(Of course that assumes FSG arnt skimming money off the top like the glaziers did, and I don't think they are, at least not to the same extent)

 

Don't we have one of the biggest agent bills in the league?