I don't know why you believe it isn't sustainable. We actually operated like that for well over 10 years and it's what allowed us to regularly compete beyond our level, we since abandoned it and tried signing players that didn't either fit the league or the manager's style or our own general ethos and we've been in limbo since, with Kane and Son regularly papering over those cracks and mistakes. What several players were they? The only player I can remember saying was excellent value was Soucek, no one had heard of him and for a solid two years he was comfortably one of the best midfielders in the league.
Chelsea are closing in on Madueke for about £35m... Talk about a kick in the bollocks. You just know he scores against us when they come to The Lane too.
Seems like a very risky one, to me. He's had a very poor injury record recently. Only played 472 minutes across 9 games this season, scoring twice. Missed about half of last season too, making 18 appearances in the league. Big talent. Big risk. Big fee for his current situation.
I'm not knocking Trossard, but I don't think we need a signing in his position. Son, Richarlison, Perisic and Gil are are strongest in that role, in my opinion. Surely we have other areas to address first?
They have to be investigated soon surely. I know the way they’re circumventing these FFP rules is by spreading the transfer cost over ridiculously long contract lengths (amortisation), but they can’t keep doing this every window….surely? There’s literally been no outgoings whatsoever, either, their squad is going to be insanely bloated.
Conte doesn’t favour Gil, Son’s awful at the moment and Richarlison is Richarlison. Trossard’s also a better WB than Sessegnon. Can play just off the striker(s) too if Conte ever went 352. I think he’s a solid squad option type signing, I don’t rate him as much as CK does but I rate him higher than a number of players we have in similar positions.
I'd be inclined to agree, if we hadn't stupidly let Reguilon go and kept Sessegnon instead. Reg as first choice at lwb (which he should be) would've made us less reliant on Perisic (who hasn't got the legs to play the role anyway) and allow him to play further upfield as cover or competition for Son. Trossard is also comfortable playing behind the striker and linking midfield to attack, another role we are currently sorely missing. A player of his quality and versatility for £21m in the Jan window is a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned, and sadly Arsenal have done a smart piece of business. The fact he won't be first choice there either indicates that it was never a deal-breaker for him, contrary to some reports. I also begrudgingly admire the fact that they got the deal done in less than 12 hours, whereas we still piss about for weeks on each player we take an interest in.
You think he’s still involved? To be honest, even though a lot of their players are young and talented, they are putting an extraordinary amount of faith in these young players fulfilling their potential. If they don’t, they’re stuck with underperforming players on massive contracts. Then again, these pricks will probably find a way to absorb the costs by cancelling their contracts or loaning them out to the Eredivise, paying their wages and never hearing from them again. I read Swiss Ramble’s piece on it earlier: https://swissramble.substack.com/p/will-chelseas-transfer-spend-break Didn’t do much to encourage me they’ll be proportionally penalised for this madness. In fact, I know they won’t based on the measly fines City and PSG had in the past. I appreciate Chelsea aren’t the only ones guilty of this, but it seems far too easy to manipulate the accounting figures (which seems to be allowed).
When did American owners ever come in and start spending like money is toxic? I suspect that there's something that we don't know and it involves Abramovich.
Because there is no way in any walk of life that you keep a technical advantage for very long when there are others with deeper pockets who can replicate what you are doing or design something even better. I know it's something we seem to have been good at in the past but that is much more likely a random blip in our favour. Even if we have a slight edge it is going to get us from 5th to 4th at best and won't be a game changer. I thought you had mentioned Coufal as well plus one of their forwards but I may be misremembering. Again, because of probability, a bang average player is likely to have one or two good seasons in their career. For the same reason a very good player can easily have two bad seasons.
Amortizing transfer fees is standard practice. Chelsea are gaming the system a bit this window by hanging very long contracts (7-8 years) which accounting-wise spreads the cost better but obviously is a massive risk for the player and the club especially if there’s no release clause. I don’t believe they’re breaking the rules as it stands but they probably won’t be able to get away with it after this window as the evaluation period will change for PL FFP and, more importantly, European FFP, which is stricter.
Swiss Ramble’s blog on the matter suggested that they have ways of getting around European FFP as well as PL FFP. Just seems a bit useless really if Chelsea are allowed to operate this way continuously.
In this case they are not really manipulating anything. If they give someone a seven year deal then it is perfectly proper to amortised the fee over seven years. If they offload that player at a loss then they will have to take the hit in that year so they could be in real trouble if the players don't perform. Edit as usual @The Huddlefro makes the point better than me
Amortising the figures isn’t manipulation as all clubs do it. But the grace periods they have and the ways they can record a significantly lower loss (or in some cases small profits) on the books feels like manipulation, considering the way they’re doing things right now. I guess it helps when their ex-owner just writes off £1.6bn debt casuallly and when Chelsea know, even if they are found guilty of breaking any FFP regulations, the punishment will barely be noticeable.
Everyone can and does operate this way. Chelsea’s figures for the evaluation are skewed because of their transfer ban, I believe, and this skew ends this summer when the evaluation period changes. Therefore they’re doing business now.
Clubs with deeper pockets don’t look for rising or unknown talents though, or even players with semi-respectable reputations, they just target the players already established as established players essentially come with a reduced risk of flopping as well as immediate commercial bonuses. Two years ago Chelsea wouldn’t have scoured Ecuador for Caicedo as a possible first team signing, now he’s shown his quality with Brighton they’re rumoured to be happy to spend £50m. 5th to 4th is a game changer though. That’s the difference between earning a minimum of around £60m to about a maximum of £20m when playing in the CL compared to the EL. And if Spurs as you say are the 5th biggest/ 5th best/ 5th richest, then that one extra spot via better club alignment and strategy gets us Champions League football. I probably mentioned Bowen being someone who was on our radar for a while that we could've taken a punt on, especially as we’re low on HG players (and good ones at that too) but as far as I can remember Soucek is the only one I felt was brilliant scouting on their part and a player who would’ve made our XI at the time. I still think he’s a good player for what it’s worth but he’s not really someone who’d fit our profile of CM now.
Do they? Hoarding a bunch of young players across Europe and putting them on 8 year contracts, with massive wages, doesn’t seem like something every club does.
Unless I misunderstood, the glaring loophole is that amortisation is only applied in one direction i.e. fees on players signed are spread across x years of the contract, whilst players sold every penny is tallied in the profit margin with immediate effect, despite the fact that 80%+ of that money won't materialise for many years to come. That seems grossly unfair to me, nor does it discourage fiscal recklessness.
