So that’s Delap, Carvalho and Philogene - 3 of our top 5 scorers from last season who’ve gone for a combined £65.5m this summer (including add-ons). Crazy
How many games did we have all four of those players on the field at the same time? Not many at all, Philogene and Delap had long spells out and Carvalho didn’t come until January. Plus, just because some club has overpaid for a player doesn’t retrospectively make them better, £27.5m for Carvalho is wild given Summerville went for the same amount and he was the best player in the division.
Leicester, Leeds and Southampton still had better squads and Ipswich had the momentum, The gap between those four teams and the rest of the division was huge. I think top 4 would have been a tough ask but we would have edged out either West Brom or Norwich for a Play Off place for sure.
2013 squad had more skill, quality and experience, by far. Last season's squad had a lot of unproven potential. I'd pick 2013 Thudd over 2023 Seri any day of the week. Missing out on the top 6 last season was a poor show, but we were also fishing in different ponds in 2013; the majority of those players came in on Prem money.
Not sure where to put this as its a transfer of ownership rather than a player but Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones have agreed to hand over a controlling share in the club (85%) with no money changing hands. They said they wanted to act in the best interests of the club when finding a new owner. Pretty amazing that they've effectively given away millions of pounds for the club they support! Not many owners out there who'd do that in the modern game. https://www.canaries.co.uk/content/...nt-to-enable-majority-control-of-norwich-city
Not saying we should have got autos But 7th was def underachieving Its pretty crazy that Players we had last season have cost like 82m including tufan Whether theyre worth it or not Some clubs thought they were worth paying for
And getting away from a lot of debt, same difference. The purchasers are agreeing to convert to equity 59m sovs for a start. Devil is always in the details. I doubt Delia is that philanthropic - how much is she actually worth, probably not enough that these numbers would be petty cash.
Not really, Delia and her hubby took out loans to support the club, and are now converting those loans into new owners equity. I dare they they secured the loans against the club and that liability is as part of the process being removed from Delia and her hubby, so basically they are off the hook. In simple terms the new owner gains control of 85% of the shareholding but with those loans associated with Delia settled, and a club with reduced or no liabilities in the form of loans.
To be fair he could have played without this interest looming over. I could end up eating my words but that Hazard looked terrified trying to play out from the back
Forgetting about final league position, we underperformed in a lot of games. We also played very well and won some we perhaps shouldn’t have on paper but we definitely dropped more unlikely points than we gained. IMO
Agreed…think we were top 6 around Xmas…then it went wrong for a while, always an outside bet, but nice to be in the mix for a while!
I know it was mentioned we lost 95% of the goals scored last year during this summer... looks like thats just happened to Blackburn too..
