Bob Singleton

Norwich City had Lotus as a sponsor not long ago.

Was about to post the same

That would have been me a few days ago. Regarding wages in relation to FFP, they are every bit as important as the initial transfer fee, and are amortized in the same way as the transfer fee. The difference comes when the player is sold. Whilst the incoming fee goes into the 'income' column in full, the wages for that year still go into the 'expenses' column. Any savings made on wages are what we no longer have to pay in future years, now that the player is no longer at the club. So whatever we "saved" in wages by selling Koulibally, for example, don't show up in this year's accounts (as we've paid him for this year); they just allow more wiggle room in future years. In terms of what we needed to do by 30th June to stay within FFP rules for the 1st July 2020 to 30th June 2023 accounting period, the money from player sales would count towards that, but obviously not the "notional savings" of not having to pay their wages in the future.

Chalobah is a right-footed, right-sided centre back. He'll be fighting for a place with Wesley Fofana (also right-footed, right-sided) Colwill (left-footed and left-sided) will up against Badiashile. If Chalobah is to be sold to allow Colwill a better chance, then someone, somewhere, needs to take a second look at where they play!

Pulisic pretty much done bar the official announcements, it would seem.

I find the Chalobah story a bit odd. While rumours have circulated about TC looking to move or the club wanting to sell TC, the underlying reason given is that, if playing a back four rather than a 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 for example, Pochettino will only want 4 central defenders (Silva, Fofana, Badiashile and Colwill). Given Silva's age and the likelihood that this will be his final season, who replaces him next season? Selling Gallagher also makes no sense given Mount, Kovacic, Loftus-Cheek, Kante and - in January - Jorginho have left. It looks like Caicedo may cost us £100m (or will we walk away?) and while we've been linked with a couple of other midfielders, it leaves us rather light in terms of players with PL experience in the middle of the park.

Lukaku is due to report back for pre-season training on 12th or 13th (Poch wasn't sure when asked during the press conference), so we have about 5 days to sort everything out with Inter if we want a happy dressing room.

@Holymoly I think most sensible people knew that the "conspiracy theories" were nothing but a load of b*ll*cks. The fact that the money we were getting was close to the 'book price' of the individual players rather than over-inflated fees suggested as much.

"I disagree!"

No idea to be honest, but I'm going to suggest the most likely scenario is that it's Winstanley & Co rather than Pochettino given the coach has only just arrived.

There are loads of stories regarding Veiga being wanted by a multitude of clubs NOT written by Steinberg. Just three examples for you, but there are others regarding Newcastle and Liverpool amongst others: https://frenchfootballweekly.com/2023/07/05/psg-rushes-towards-gabri-veiga-the-stops-multiply/ https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12915401/gabri-veiga-can-be-unique-midfielder-former-celta-vigo-head-coach-explains-why-spaniard-is-premier-league-target https://www.manchestercity.news/man-city-could-now-land-their-next-david-silva-by-securing-transfer-deal-for-amazing-34m-player-opinion/

Meanwhile others are reporting that the club have no intention of selling him. They see him as a 'leader' within the group (given his experience) and they're looking to hopefully add one more wide player (as well as a striker and likely two midfielders) not get rid of one (Ziyech and Pulisic are no longer considered squad players currently)

The logical fallacy that something that costs more should be better. The "cost" of a footballer rarely has any determining factor on his level of performance. Firstly the player rarely has a say in his "value". Some may insist on 'release clauses' in order to not be 'priced out' of a move. Other times the club will insert a release clause in order to say 'this player is not for sale'. For example Andreas Christensen has a €500m release clause, but whether you bought him for €5m, €50m or €500m you'd get exactly the same level of performance. Instead of fixating on the cost of players, maybe you should consider why, having spent so much money on a player, he was entrusted to managers that made little to no use of his skills and talents by playing a system and style unsuited to him? Let's see how things pan out with Pochettino before we write him off, eh?

Looks like Andre Onana might be United bound. We're still discussing with Brighton over Caicedo (with whom we have agreed terms) CFC looking at around £80m Brighton want £100m+ We're still monitoring Romeo Lavia, though Liverpool seem to have moved to the head of the queue for now. Rumours of Dybala as a back up 10/second striker to Nkunku seems to be strengthening. Milan and CFC continue to negotiate over Pulisic. It's said that both sides are now reasonably close, and it's more about the structure of the fee rather than the final number (around €22m/23m) Al Nassr offer for Ziyech is still open. Initial salary is 40% of original offer following "failed" fitness test, BUT if he stays fit, he gets the full €15m.

A Lamborghini Urus costs more than this Jeep... using your flawed logic, on that basis alone it should cope with this terrain without any problem!

More and more mid to lower level teams are starting to press higher up the pitch on a regular basis. I know many people here think everyone plays a low bloc against us, but that simply isn't the case (otherwise why would Mendy have struggled with his footwork so often, for example?). If we get Caicedo to play alongside Enzo, we'll have two press-resistant midfielders who are very capable of launching attacks that should suit the likes of Mudryk, Madueke and Nkunku.

It was the perfect "send off" in my view.

I very much doubt he'd be kept on if Pochettino didn't want him. It's not as if assistant coaches are on the same £200,000pw wages players are on, after all!

Looks like we're making our position clear; buy him outright or walk away. I fear this could drag on and on and on and on...

An assist... ... and almost another...

... so have most Chelsea fans!!!

Probably because your natural reaction is to attack me 😉

I think you'll find it was @Michael Tucker who asked not to use abbreviations, not me!