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Summer rebuild 2023

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I'm not a doctor but I think that I had such a horrible stomach bug that I got malabsorption of nutrients from my food. First I just had horrible diarrhea and barely ate, then I was left with fatty white stool. The healthy brown flush I love so much seems to be returning.

All in all, what a fun weekend on me tod, as my dad says.
White stool may indicate a serious underlying medical problem - usually a lack of bile or some other malfunction of the gallbladder. I would recommend seeing a doctor, or alternatively, generating a large amount of bile on SCM.
 
It’s either lash it on the credit card and pay it later like Chelsea seem to be doing, which is unsustainable. How do you think these 8.5 year deals will play out? Or cheat like Man City and risk being stripped of titles.

Neither are reasonable strategies for me.

Man U have had two decades worth of huge income on us, their stadium is crumbling, other facilities not up to scratch. Plus, they are shit. Hardly buying success right now.

Either spend what we make or cheat. As always with this subject, it comes back to our own resources and playing by the rules. Our issues lie with decisions made at club level and not ownership.

There are ways in which the money can be raised.... As you put it "lash it on the credit card and pay it later like Chelsea seem to be doing"... But no one is asking them to go to extremes like Chelsea. I am saying Just enough to secure Jude Bellingham and it be paid back out of a future transfer pot,or pots

Or why not give to to the club in the form of a intrest free loan..

Remember the stands are being enlarged which will porvide extra revenue
 
There are ways in which the money can be raised.... As you put it "lash it on the credit card and pay it later like Chelsea seem to be doing"... But no one is asking them to go to extremes like Chelsea. I am saying Just enough to secure Jude Bellingham and it be paid back out of a future transfer pot,or pots

Or why not give to to the club in the form of a intrest free loan..

Remember the stands are being enlarged which will porvide extra revenue
Say we max that credit card. Then we have the same issue but with defence or in goal next season. We can’t buy anyone because we are still paying off that credit card. Then everyone will be whining again that no money is being spent.
 
Say we max that credit card. Then we have the same issue but with defence or in goal next season. We can’t buy anyone because we are still paying off that credit card. Then everyone will be whining again that no money is being spent.

I am not say that we max out the card merely that we occassionly use it, and pay it off from the next transfer pot. Along the way toward a new pot we have extra gate money plus money form player sales
 
We’ve used it this past year haven’t we?

Bellingham would be maxing it out. Let’s see who we buy this summer before losing our minds.
 
I think this is right. I also think, and I've said this previously, that those long contracts will bite Chelsea in the arse - Mudryk (bang average so far) and W. Fofana (sick note) already look like guys you don't want hanging around on long-term deals. Enzo is a decent player but looks massively over-priced.

I think so too, don’t they have to pay some kind additional fees to the player if they sell without the player demanding a transfer and for a small salary elsewhere? Or is that only in some scenarios in old days.
 
I think so too, don’t they have to pay some kind additional fees to the player if they sell without the player demanding a transfer and for a small salary elsewhere? Or is that only in some scenarios in old days.
In practice, a player can just agree to sit on his contract, take his money and refuse to move. In the normal scheme of things, if a club wants to move on a player who is on too high wages, they'll end up topping up what he gets offered by his new club in some form or other, at least until the end of the contract he has with the selling club. That might be all in one go up-front (and possibly negotiated to a smaller number because it's paid up front) or by instalments.
But every time you hear about a player agreeing to a wage cut to join another club, it usually means the new club is playing a lower wage, but the old one is making up the difference for the remainder of the original contract.
The player might also get "loyalty" bonuses due under his contract because he didn't ask to leave.
 
OK, because I'm something of a sad bastard, I've been taking a detailed look at the new UEFA FFP rules. I'm not sure they're that well understood so here's a quick overview to begin with.
Firstly, there are two tests - a profit test and a football spending ratio.
The profit test is not a million miles away from what we have now, a basic €5m loss over three years is allowed, but the definition of profit excludes a fair few bits and pieces. But this limit can be extended to €60m if covered by owner contributions, and by a further €10m for each of the three years under review in which certain ratios are met - so in theory, you could lose up to €90m over three years and still be OK.
The football spending ratio is calculating by dividing the player / manager costs, by an adjusted revenue figure. The costs broadly include wages / benefits, amortisation and profit / (loss) on sale of players
The revenue figures are basically all revenues that are bona fide football club revenues, less some costs of sale (so for retail, for example, you'd only include revenue less cost of goods sold). The target ratio is 90% for 2023, dropping to 80% for 2024, and then to 70% after that (NB the costs are calculated baed on calendar years, not financial ones, which will present all kinds of complications and means clubs won't be able to use the January transfer window to get themselves out of jail).
However, the calculation for profits on sale of players are based on the average of the last three years, not the actual for the previous 12 months. This means that, as under the current rules, one big sale every three years can potentially keep your neck above water for that year and the next two.
The consequences of failing are penalties based on a percentage of the overspend, with a sliding scale for severity and repeated failure. More severe sanctions would kick in for more serious / persistent failures.
There are some fair value provisions in their to pay lip service to the piss-taking by the oil clubs, but we all know they won't be enforced properly.
I think there's a good chance that some clubs will look at the penalties as worth incurring, rather than making a serious effort to comply.
So I looked at LFC in recent years and made some fairly sweeping assumptions on the adjustments as a lot of the finer detail isn't apparent from the accounts (i.e. there is a fair margin of error). So for example, wages in the accounts included all staff, but in the UEFA ratio it's just players and manager (interesting it doesn't include assistants / coaches etc).
Summary results are that the profits test wouldn't be an issue, even without the need to increase the acceptable amount of losses we could incur.
On the squad cost ratio, I reckon we're in the 70s for the last 3 FINANCIAL years (but fuck knows what calendar years look like), and if the 70% limit were in play we'd be looking at penalties of up to £10m in each of those years, but likely a fair bit lower than the top of the range. Obviously with the much higher limit for the current year, and the transition downward, all would be OK for now.
BUT....
We need to consider the make-up of our future squad costs. In the last few years, our amortisation charges have been fairly steady (in a range of £102m - £112m p.a.). Our wages, on the other hand, have been hiking upwards, and our player sale profits have been in the £27m to £45m range. So to meet the rules long term (and avoid financial penalty), we need to:
- Get wages under control (should be down this year due to lower bonuses, but we also have Mo's new deal)
- Grow revenues (probably down this year due to performance)
- Keep amortisation under control (which means lower transfer spend) - NB Chelsea's 8-year contract trick won't work after this season
- Generate profits by selling players (who would you sell that would raise a profit?)
All of which makes a squad rebuild an interesting proposition. And in an ideal world, what this would point towards probably looks something like:
- Make hay while the sun shines by buying players now while it's possible to get a bit of extra expense under the radar without penalty (increases amortisation and wages) - player purchases will need to be funded by pushing the limits of our debt facilities / negotiating good payment terms with selling clubs
- Sell players when we get close to the limits (reduces amortisation and wages, plus generates a profit on sale) - NB this would mean that some players might have to be sold at the end of year one and that the squad might be thin, or else you need to sell a big star and replace with a lesser name
- Move on the players who are over-paid to reduce the wage bill, even if that doesn't generate huge profits. This may mean paying off some players to leave, in knowledge that this means the costs of those pay-offs can go through now while the limit is 80-90%
On that final point, to illustrate what I mean, if we have a player who is on £5m a year, but is worth £3m a year, and has three years left to run on his deal, you sell him now (probably no material profit) to a club who will pay him £3m a year, and we pay him 3 x £2m = £6m to do one. That means we incur £6m cost now, but save £2m per annum over the next 3 years when the ratio may be tight. We replace him with a new guy using the transfer proceeds and paying £3m a year (the broad assumption being for that price you'll get the same performance level as what you're selling). You could even build in some incentives for the new guy based on performance which would hopefully pay for themselves (but they need to deliver 1.42 (1 / 70%) times as much in revenue to keep the ratio in check).
Where's the short version?
 
Was listening to Darren Bent earlier this evening and he said some which resonated. How many players who’ve cost over £70 million have worked out? Only van Dijk and Becker (who’ll actually cost less than that), apparently!

Pepe, Maguire, Lukaku, Pogba, Neymar, Coutinho, Sancho, Grealish (despite recent flashes), Mudryk, Enzo Fernandez, Anthony …. the list goes on … have all been busts. Likely because they weren’t £70 millionplus players in the first place.
 
Was listening to Darren Bent earlier this evening and he said some which resonated. How many players who’ve cost over £70 million have worked out? Only van Dijk and Becker (who’ll actually cost less than that), apparently!

Pepe, Maguire, Lukaku, Pogba, Neymar, Coutinho, Sancho, Grealish (despite recent flashes), Mudryk, Enzo Fernandez, Anthony …. the list goes on … have all been busts. Likely because they weren’t £70 millionplus players in the first place.

Zidane, Bale, Ronaldo, Mbappe, KDB, Suarez, Rodri all done alright. A few jury is out on still like Grealish etc.
I don’t think it’s particularly the case, if they cost over 70m they are more likely to fail, it’s just more it’s more expensive mistake.
 
@Beamrider

What’s the deal with owner providing “loans” at 0%.

If it’s a simple as that, why didn’t City owners just do that - or are you saying that’s capped to an extent.
 
@Beamrider

What’s the deal with owner providing “loans” at 0%.

If it’s a simple as that, why didn’t City owners just do that - or are you saying that’s capped to an extent.
They tend to use loans because they think they'll be able to get their money out nice and easy at. later date, but of course that rarely happens. Interest free is to avoid an extra charge going through the profit and loss account that suppresses profit for FFP. Fair value principles would say a loan should always bear interest so a charge should be assumed for FFP purposes but you can get around that if you make the loans repayable in demand with no fixed repayment date - just accounting trickery really. Does make the credit risk profile look worse though as the debt will show as due within one year so it'll make your solvency ratios look bad.
And then if they need to they can convert the loans to shares at a later date to allow for a higher loss for FFP if needed.
Point is that putting the cash straight in as equity is a one way ticket that leaves little flexibility, but the more pragmatic owners will do it if they know they're already up against the limits or they realise they won't get their money back out anyway. That was probably what Abu Dhabi thought.
My view would be that it's best to lend and then convert as it gives you flexibility to time the equity conversion to suit what you need for FFP, when you need it,, and you could do it with the balances from historic cash injections so no need to provide fresh money to cover losses.
Of course some try to play both angles - eg Moshiri put his (Usmanov's?) money into Everton as loans but then managed to persuade the auditors that it should be classed as equity regardless as it wasn't expected to be repaid. But he then converted some of it to shares shortly after so I'm guessing the initial argument for equity treatment didn't hold water for very long.
 
Zidane, Bale, Ronaldo, Mbappe, KDB, Suarez, Rodri all done alright. A few jury is out on still like Grealish etc.
I don’t think it’s particularly the case, if they cost over 70m they are more likely to fail, it’s just more it’s more expensive mistake.

Of those players, De Bruyne, Suarez, Zidane (barely), and Rodri cost less than 70m GBP.
 
Was listening to Darren Bent earlier this evening and he said some which resonated. How many players who’ve cost over £70 million have worked out? Only van Dijk and Becker (who’ll actually cost less than that), apparently!

Pepe, Maguire, Lukaku, Pogba, Neymar, Coutinho, Sancho, Grealish (despite recent flashes), Mudryk, Enzo Fernandez, Anthony …. the list goes on … have all been busts. Likely because they weren’t £70 millionplus players in the first place.

To a large extent the flips consist mostly if those bought by Man Utd. They're specialists though.
 
Zidane, Bale, Ronaldo, Mbappe, KDB, Suarez, Rodri all done alright. A few jury is out on still like Grealish etc.
I don’t think it’s particularly the case, if they cost over 70m they are more likely to fail, it’s just more it’s more expensive mistake.

The germane point was many of those £70 million plus aren’t worth that at all and are mostly vanity signings with many prudent clubs not paying those fees at all. Many players now deemed worth that much had only cost a fraction of that the previous season or even half season. Hell, even Real Madrid is probably thinking that Tchoumanéni was not worth that £72 million.

KdB and Rodri cost less and, yet, have massively improved Man City. Grealish, sorry, is not playing like a £70 million plus player however you may want to spin it. Bale (arguable), Zidane, Ronaldo. (first time found) and Suarez, definitely yes were successes. Mbappé? Excellent player but PSG has still to win the champions league and, a serious question, has it done significantly any better since he moved there? Vanity signing.
 
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The germane point was many of those £70 million plus aren’t worth that at all and are mostly vanity signings with many prudent clubs not paying those fees at all. Many players now deemed worth that much had only cost a fraction of that the previous season or even half season. Hell, even Real Madrid is probably thinking that Tchoumanéni was not worth that £72 million.

KdB and Rodri cost less and, yet, have massively improved Man City. Grealish, sorry, is not playing like a £70 million plus player however you may want to spin it. Bale (arguable), Zidane, Ronaldo. (first time found) and Suarez, definitely yes were successes. Mbappé? Excellent player but PSG has still to win the champions league and, a serious question, has it done significantly any better since he moved there? Vanity signing.

KDB and Rodri cost over 70m euros under City’s accounting. Whether Grealish is a 70m player is not is questionable, he has been one of the best CMs in the PL so his asset value I would say is still over CM.
Bale scored in two CL finals and won 5 champion leagues, I would say he was a successs.
Ronaldo - big success
Mbappe - His current value is still protected, RM bid last year was around what they purchased originally with a year left on his contract. Regardless of the fact they haven’t won CL or not which is on PSG more than him, they have won the league many times over and he has been at the fore front of that. His current asset value stands.

When you value the impact of a transfer, all factors should be considered including end on field performance, current/exit asset value, commerical impact etc.
 
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A willingness to back the manager and invest in players.

If they were to give Klopp a pot of 250m and Bellingham were to push that cost to 300m to back Klopp and pay the money even if it means advancing the extra 50m the extra 50m from the next window

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