Jack Grealish likely to miss the rest of the season, confirms David Moyes

Andrew, it is.

It’s depressing watching what could be a great opportunity slip through our fingers because of the owners’ total lack of ambition. Kinnear can blow smoke at us, but anyone with a brain has been able to see we’ve needed full-backs on both sides for three years, at least.

Sad really.

We missed the James Rodriguez season because of that damn lockdown and we have another genuine top class player on a season long loan which is effectively done halfway through.

We are playing with fire now thinking it was ok to let this month pass without any reinforcements, all we need is another injury to someone like Ndiaye and we’ll be scraping the barrel.

Jim

I was thinking the same. We were 4th around Christmas then James pretty much missed most of the rest of the season. But this is the gamble when you invest a lot of wages on one big name 31 year old. Moyes saying it’s “far too early” to talk about him staying indicates it’s not on the horizon based on the existing agreement with City. If anything I imagine we will wait and see if lack of interest causes City to drop the asking price plus I’d imagine Jack needing to take a hefty pay cut.

Mike,

What is your educated guess on how much the owners will spend in summer?

I imagine you know more than me on PSR in asking that question.

No idea, John. I believe it will depend on how much revenue they have generated, and therefore how high they have raised the PSR ceiling and are allowed to spend under those regulations. And they certainly won’t share that number with us.

Mike,

Maybe I’m a hopeless optimist and a fool but yes, I think with a small number of canny incomings we COULD compete for top 4/5 next season.

Pickford, Branthwaite, O’Brien, Garner, KDH and Ndiaye are top quality players and IF (I know, IF) Barry, Dibling, Armstrong, Alcaraz and Rohl develop as we hope they will we wont be far away from a top 6 eleven at least.

Two quality full backs (maybe Aznou could join that list above) and a decent striker would not make it such a quantum leap, in my blue tinted vision.

A lot depends on the coach, as well, naturally, but I’m not going there.

I just think we have the makings of a very god side.

Thanks Mike,

My main thoughts is will they spend all revenue generated ?

Or will they slot some for themselves as in the case of the recent sales.

Time will tell I suppose.

PSR becomes SCR ( squad cost ratio) next season.

We can spend upto 85% of our revenue on player cost I understand.

So the higher the revenue the more we can spend. Hence the importance of the new stadium and commercial revenues.

We will still be dwarfed in revenue terms by the bigger clubs. Though clubs in European competitions have a 70% SCR.

Different way of assessing financial stability, but doesn’t seem to level the playing field a great deal.

I’m sure someone will correct me if I have this wrong.

James Rodriguez is available on a free right now, I see. Sign him up, play him as a 10, with Garner and KDH behind him, Ndiaye on the left, Dibling on the right, Harrison back to the championship.

Kidding, of course…I think.

That’s all spot on, Ian #10. Plus Everton and Chelsea both spiked their revenues by selling their women’s teams internally, a loophole that has now been closed. The internal sale of Goodison also counts as revenue.

But you’re right about the tilted playing field. The RS, City, Arsenal and United all generate almost 4X the revenues of Everton and thus can spend that much more. There’s not much we can do about that except bag some big US sponsorship deals and maybe book a whole lot of concerts at Hill-Dickenson. (And sell some shirts in the US!)

John #9, I would expect TFG to spend up to the regulatory limits IF they find what they consider to be good investments. When they took over at Roma, then a Europa League team, they spent about €120 million on Tammy Abraham and three other players to try to get into the CL. Abraham had a spectacular season with 27 goals, but the other three were busts, and the team never got any better — they finished 6th again, and then again, and then again. TFG spent much more conservatively then. Now Roma is finally a genuine CL contender, and TFG just brought in two new attackers to help.

Murph #8, agreed we have quality players and promising youth. IMO we just need a whole lot more to compete for and in Europe. I don’t believe a “small number” will do it.

Jonathan, haha, I saw the same article and had the same thought!

For a moment. Only a moment. Then reason returned.

Mark

surely if we’re not far from a top five side 12 months after facing relegation then some credit needs to go to the manager who as well as overseeing the canter up the table, has the final say on all recruitment?

Kevin, I did say “I’m not going there”, for a reason..

It’s starts off the whole shebang again.

The difference between having an opinion, and saying something is fact, even though it often isn’t really fact, aren’t quite the same thing Kevin.

I’ve taken a little bit of a backseat and have actually started seeing the funny side of some of the things people actually quote as fact, so it makes me smile when I remember that old adage about if people say it often enough, then it suddenly becomes true!

Keep going anyway Kevin, because although I agree that some of the arguments can become monotonous, at least we agree about Angus Kinnear!

Mike G @ I liked your insight into TFG and their spending at Roma.

It might just be my sceptical mind, but is it easier (cheaper) to get a CL qualified team in the Italian league compared to the PL ?

We spent roughly the same 120m this summer, will it even be enough to get top 10 ?

To get to be genuinely challenging for CL in the PL, £120m doesn’t really cut it does it ?

Not when teams are paying that for a single player. The rewards in PL are greater, but the risk & investment needed is equally greater.

It has to be a sustained, continuous investment over several seasons.

We will see come the summer if they go again at the same or greater levels to improve the squad.

David 22, I would think it all depends on where you’re starting out, your revenue, and whether you’re also selling players on for profit at a decent clip.

For us over the past decade, the profit on selling has been minimum (Onana, Iwobi…hard to think of others where we actually made much money..Moise Kean), our big buys have often been terrible, and our revenue is middle of the pack. If we were buying low, selling high à la Brighton and Bournemouth, plus a £120 million investment with an already well established squad, that might take us over the top. Another £120 million now gives us a shot at the top 6 only if all the buys are on point, but even then we’ll struggle with depth.

Given how threadbare we were last summer, we now still need a good mix of buying development and established players, and we can’t afford to spunk it all on £50 million players. What will be interesting is to see what we do this summer when the big clubs come calling for Ndiaye and Branthwaite.

Johnthan. Yes we’ve sold a few at profit, but those profits were eat up by the huge mistakes.

Those you mentioned plus Gordon, Richie, don’t think we made a profit on iwobi.

I’d take 5 x 20m gambles on players like rohl, aznou & Barry over 1x 100m player at their peak on massive wages every time.

I suspect we we have already seen the maximum TFG would be willing to spend on Dibbling,

Long term, loads of scope to improve, to develop and increase in value.

Everton named as next Raheem Sterling landing spot, £19

0 a week would you have him?

I have to wonder just how involved TFG are other than looking at the bottom line in order to calculate the share dividend.

One of their interests, Everton, are, or should be, on the look out for a striker while another of their interests, Roma, have just sold a striker to a Turkish club to whom he was on loan for 11M and without playing another game was sold on to Aston Villa for 18M.

Still, would want to foul the European competition waters, eh.