That's changed now though hasn't it with the ceiling being close to 200k or whatever it is that Harry is earning?
So this summer which is passing us by..we can pay the wages to some real quality signings or signing. Here's hoping Levy trusts that Poch will do the rest.
Having a full pre-season would probably be ideal but it still doesn't guarantee the success of a player. There's been success and failures in both early and late signings so there's no real correlation to determine the best time to sign someone. Paulinho, Janssen and Soldado had pre-seasons yet were **** but Vertonghen, Wanyama and Alderweireld had pre-seasons and were great. Equally with late signings, GKN and Llorente were **** yet Eriksen and Lloris were great - VDV was probably the latest signing we've made in a window and he turned out to be one of the best players to don our shirt in the Premier League era. We've primarily been linked with a lot of domestic signings (Zaha, Martial, Grealish etc) which I think will work in our favour as they shouldn't need too much time bedding-in. It's still a lottery though, we just never know until a player gets a run of games. I'm still banking on us being a bunch of very happy fans come the end of the window.
.....or we're negotiating to buy Martial, Zaha, Kovacic, Bailey, Grealish or similar? Citeh have bought Mahrez, which was pretty much done last January. United have bought Fred and a young right back for Mourinho to ruin. Chelsea have bought Rob Green. Arsenal have bought a job lot from an Old People's Home. Keep calm. We will buy.
That just sounds like excuses for not buying people early . You might as well say theres no point paying big money for players as that doesn't guarantee success (it doesn't). However, it's all about risk and gains. Players coming in earlier will have more chance of making an impact on the team if they settle down and get to see Pochs methods and learn the style he wants to implement (especially as Poch has a definite way of playing) as well as seeing how his team mates play.
Not exactly misfortune. The PL didn't schedule all those successive Monday night games. The pundits weren't interested by the pressure piled on by playing after the team already in the lead - possibly because it went against the fairytale (TM). But you can be sure if it was ManU or one of their favourites pursuing Leicester that suddenly the pundits would have realised what a factor it was.
Did you miss the first line where I said a full season would probably be ideal? As I said though, Bob, there's no real evidence to suggest signing early or late in a window guarantees any chances of success over the other. One seems more ideal but it's not definitive.
i did. Jumped in both feet . Disagree with your theory though, you hear managers complaining about this sort of thing with january signings (who aren't integrated into the team straight away). What i will add is that since you've grown into a CL outfit, you boys have tended to have pretty indifferent starts to the season. Now you can't always get off to a fast start but 3 out of 4 seasons just haven't been good enough for a club of your stature
Some of it was unavoidable because Spurs were in the EL and Lesta had no UEFA competition. That meant Spurs were going to have sunday games regardless. However, tis noted that the spread of who played first in 2016-17 was equal between Chelsky and Spurs, which as well as neither having UEFA competition then was IMHO the reason Spurs managed to get the gap down to 4 pts and keep it til week 36.
January's a different beast though bro. New signings are either coming into a side that are hoping they can provide a magic spark which could cause too much pressure on a player or some are coming in at a time where things are rosy and won't get much of a look-in. In pre-season it's a level playing field. Once Super Jack arrives and blitzes **** up while Wilf the Wizard lights up the show, all will be good
£1m is nothing to Spurs in the current transfer market. Even if we bought in 5 players early that cost us £5m in extra wages. If those 5 players having a full preseason with us is the difference between finishing 2nd vs 4th then the premier league prize money would cover it. If it's the difference between finishing 4th and anywhere below 4th then saving that paltry £5m looks very silly indeed.
Villa's new owners have decided to retain Steve Bruce as manager. Given his underperformance in the transfer market in his 2 years there, I'd guess that the new owners aren't going to be pouring unending amounts of money into new purchases. New owners in? ......Check. Manager in place?.......Check. Time to sort out who leaves and who stays?............
I’ve got an epic GIF ready and waiting. New owners won’t actually be able to pump too much into new signings will they? They’re still in breach of FFP so wil surely need to sell (a lot) before being able to buy, or have I misunderstood something?
I think that the punishments are not too bad if you actually get yourselves promoted, where they have no power over you whatsoever. Villa's problem is that Bruce ****ed up getting promoted, so they'll be assessed under FFP. If you 'Pull a Brucie' and don;t hit the targets, you get a transfer embargo, which they won't want. Leicester completely ignored FFP when getting themselves out of The Championship and as they managed to stay up, they got no punishment at all until they struck a deal and paid a fine of about £3m a year or so ago. It's **** all considering that one season in the PL is worth 50 x that. Someone else did the same thing recently, maybe Bournemouth? Villa are estimated to have lost £50-£60m last season with a £50m parachute payment coming in. Next March is the time that their FFP compliance will be measured, as it's run on a rolling 3 year assessment. This season they have to break even to hit the worst allowable performance and their parachute payment is down to £15m. So, they've got to find £40m from somewhere and keep everything else at an even keel. If they're not intending to buy certain promotion, and sticking with Brucie suggests that isn't it, they've very few options but to sell him but I think the most important thing is that Grealish wants to leave for Spurs. Going by Madison's move to Leicester, it's about £25m plus add-ons.......if we actually want him.
Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit... The story doing the rounds is less that he "left" Spurs and more than his scholarship was terminated due to him smoking weed inan Instagram photo
