FFP

[Behind Bluenose Lines]

A lot is fair but he marks himself as the the chippy prick he is with reference to us getting relegated if that Sheff Utd goal had counted, despite it being before half time and with several league matches still to play.

He's Mr Wise After The Event.

Funny how "that" disallowed Crystal Palace goal never gets mentioned in this sort of article dragging up "that" Sheffield United game...

[Crown Hill]

Mostly cliche rather than analysis but not sure i can get too bothered about a remote comment piece about the Villa in the Guardian.

As for our PSR position I’m wary given so many presented such an optimistic view ahead of the summer which didn’t come to pass!

[Beard82]

I think the article is a poor piece of writing and misses the whole point of the frustration that teams like Newcastle and Villa have over FFP.

The argument of, well wouldnt it be awful if we had no FFP is both lazy and contridicatory.  No one is suggesting we have no FFP, just that the current ones are fatally flawed,   It also ignores the fact that many of the current artifical cartel are only there because they followed the same path.  Where Leeds failed, Man City and Chelease succeeded.  Man City may have broken the rules - but nothing has happened. 

We missed out on UCL because we finished 6 rather than 5 - there are dozens of things that contributed to that over the course of the season.  Emi's poor decisions was potentially 1, the refs decision was another.  We can point to every dropped point and look at reasons for it, but its false to say FFP didnt contribute.  We went into the season with a squad weaker than the previous one, with more demands based on it.     

It also misses the other limitations of the rules - creating an artifical "crisis club" - where clubs are trying to get us to sell below market value.

Yes we have spent unwisely at times - but its a model that is used in all walks of life, but the fact of the matter remains we are trying to compete with a squad that is weaker than 2 years ago with a net-spend of 0, where the clubs we are competing with have spent 100s of millons more.

Im quite happy with where we are, possitive about the prospects of the seasons - but that is just because we have world class owners and management that has let us navigate the rules so successfully. 

[eamonn]

A lot is fair but he marks himself as the the chippy prick he is with reference to us getting relegated if that Sheff Utd goal had counted, despite it being before half time and with several league matches still to play.

I did think about mentioning that as the only blot in the piece, but he doesn't quite say that. He says it would have put us a goal down in a game that had we lost, we'd have been relegated.

So it's more in relation to people saying "we'd be in the Champions League had Rogers' goal counted" - we wouldn't, we'd have been a goal up in a match we needed to get a result in, much like the Sheffield Utd "goal" would have put us a goal down in a match we needed to get a result in.

The weight of argument is stronger for a game with 20 minutes left versus a season with nine and a half matches still to go.

[eamonn]

Interesting to listen to Bardell and Tanswell's latest chat. Apparently The Athletic have multiple writers for the big clubs, including Newcastle, Villa just have the one meaning Jacob T is happy to have one club all to himself to cover. He's 15 or 20 years younger than the average football analyst at The Athletic. Hopefully he sticks around covering us for a while, he's the best media rep we have.

[Beard82]

I agree - Tanswell and John Percy are the two I will always try and read.  I like the Guardain as a paper, but its football coverage (apart from the Cartoon they do) is pretty shit. 

[Percy McCarthy]

Interesting to listen to Bardell and Tanswell's latest chat. Apparently The Athletic have multiple writers for the big clubs, including Newcastle, Villa just have the one meaning Jacob T is happy to have one club all to himself to cover. He's 15 or 20 years younger than the average football analyst at The Athletic. Hopefully he sticks around covering us for a while, he's the best media rep we have.

Yes, he’s so much better than Gregggg Evans was.

[Percy McCarthy]

Mostly cliche rather than analysis but not sure i can get too bothered about a remote comment piece about the Villa in the Guardian.

As for our PSR position I’m wary given so many presented such an optimistic view ahead of the summer which didn’t come to pass!

I’m wary too having been positive about PSR, and then being hit by UEFA’s SCR & FER. Difficult to post about specifics without up-to-date accounts and analysis, but the head winds are good. There are three pillars of revenue that always get mentioned - broadcast, matchday and commercial. Broadcast we’re okay and leads to us being firmly in that Deloitte Money League top 20. Matchday and commercial we’re behind but improving. But I’m massively optimistic about a fourth pillar of income that we do well in - player trading and academy sales. I’m convinced the current crop will either save or make us a fortune. We’re second only to Chelsea in recent years and I believe there’s serious talent among the present up-and-comers.

[Stu]

I think the article is a poor piece of writing and misses the whole point of the frustration that teams like Newcastle and Villa have over FFP.

The argument of, well wouldnt it be awful if we had no FFP is both lazy and contridicatory.  No one is suggesting we have no FFP, just that the current ones are fatally flawed,   It also ignores the fact that many of the current artifical cartel are only there because they followed the same path.  Where Leeds failed, Man City and Chelease succeeded.  Man City may have broken the rules - but nothing has happened. 

We missed out on UCL because we finished 6 rather than 5 - there are dozens of things that contributed to that over the course of the season.  Emi's poor decisions was potentially 1, the refs decision was another.  We can point to every dropped point and look at reasons for it, but its false to say FFP didnt contribute.  We went into the season with a squad weaker than the previous one, with more demands based on it.     

It also misses the other limitations of the rules - creating an artifical "crisis club" - where clubs are trying to get us to sell below market value.

Yes we have spent unwisely at times - but its a model that is used in all walks of life, but the fact of the matter remains we are trying to compete with a squad that is weaker than 2 years ago with a net-spend of 0, where the clubs we are competing with have spent 100s of millons more.

Im quite happy with where we are, possitive about the prospects of the seasons - but that is just because we have world class owners and management that has let us navigate the rules so successfully.

Yeah, mostly this. Also the self-satisfied smug argument of clubs voting in the rules themselves so shut up and enjoy 5th place is ridiculous. That vote and the financial limitations it introduced was 15 years ago in a different time, a different world to now. It’s a fucking specious line of argument.

[Chris Harte]

We didn't miss out on Champions League football because of an unnecessary red card at Old Trafford.

We missed out because we failed to beat the likes of Ipswich Town and Brighton at home.

[pelty]

I think the article is a poor piece of writing and misses the whole point of the frustration that teams like Newcastle and Villa have over FFP.

The argument of, well wouldnt it be awful if we had no FFP is both lazy and contridicatory.  No one is suggesting we have no FFP, just that the current ones are fatally flawed,   It also ignores the fact that many of the current artifical cartel are only there because they followed the same path.  Where Leeds failed, Man City and Chelease succeeded.  Man City may have broken the rules - but nothing has happened. 

We missed out on UCL because we finished 6 rather than 5 - there are dozens of things that contributed to that over the course of the season.  Emi's poor decisions was potentially 1, the refs decision was another.  We can point to every dropped point and look at reasons for it, but its false to say FFP didnt contribute.  We went into the season with a squad weaker than the previous one, with more demands based on it.     

It also misses the other limitations of the rules - creating an artifical "crisis club" - where clubs are trying to get us to sell below market value.

Yes we have spent unwisely at times - but its a model that is used in all walks of life, but the fact of the matter remains we are trying to compete with a squad that is weaker than 2 years ago with a net-spend of 0, where the clubs we are competing with have spent 100s of millons more.

Im quite happy with where we are, possitive about the prospects of the seasons - but that is just because we have world class owners and management that has let us navigate the rules so successfully.

This is pretty much how I see it, too.

[eamonn]

We didn't miss out on Champions League football because of an unnecessary red card at Old Trafford.

We missed out because we failed to beat the likes of Ipswich Town and Brighton at home.

Brighton are good. Ipswich but Bournemouth at home especially, this month last year, Barkley lazily conceding a free-kick deep into injury time. They sling it in and gain an unlikely point.

[Crown Hill]

The point lost at Manchester City was worse. All we had to do was boot it to row Z!

[Chris Harte]

We didn't miss out on Champions League football because of an unnecessary red card at Old Trafford.

We missed out because we failed to beat the likes of Ipswich Town and Brighton at home.

Brighton are good. Ipswich but Bournemouth at home especially, this month last year, Barkley lazily conceding a free-kick deep into injury time. They sling it in and gain an unlikely point.

I purposely omitted the home Bournemouth game as it followed the Bologna Champions League game.