Bruce

He's contracted to Coventry for a long time, surely. Don't see why they would be interested in selling to us without us paying way over the top. Chris Willock looks to be the obvious target for us but he's struggled to play a complete season the whole of his career and he seems to have stalled as a player over the last couple of years. Could be that a change of club will re-energise him but there are warning flags. Then again, if there weren't warning flags, a Premier club might snap him up to see what happens. On the gripping hand, if Ipswich go up, I could see them taking a punt on him

They have just had £100m invested. I believe that a fair amount of it is for infrastructure but next season their only limits will be P&S.

and if Leicester had practised how to shoot and Norwich hadn't had a player falsely sent off we wouldn't be. You can't count all the points we should have won but didn't without counting all the points we did win when we shouldn't have. We're about where we deserve right now. A little unlucky because odds are we'll end up with enough points that some seasons would be enough for us to sneak into 6th.

I think they will have the money to hang onto their main assets: Davis, Chaplin and Broadhead. They do have a few fair important loans ending which will require a rebuild. Looks like their keeper and Morsy both have their contracts ending. Fundamentally they have the actual money and the PSR headroom to invest. Their problem will be the same one that we and Coventry faced when you have to rebuild too much of a team. I had a quick loan at their team versus us Hladky - contract ends June Tuanzebe - contract ends June Woolfenden Burgess - contract ends June Davis

Given that we won't have Ayling for the game after meaning no right back as Dijksteel clearly doesn't count, feels like we ought to go 3 at the back for this one. Doesn't look like Hackney will be risked as a starter. Not sure that Bangura is fit enough to be thrown straight back in so that probably implies something like. Dieng Ayling - RVDB - Clarke Jones - Barlaser- Engel Howson - O'Brien Azaz Latte Lath Barlaser tended to play at the base of a 3 man midfield for Rotherham so if he does that, Howson and O'Brien can be midfield enforcers with Azaz at the ti

I agree that it was bad decision-making but I can see how it happened. We had clearly rehearsed it and had been under pressure for a while. Dieng would have thought he could see the pass and that maybe with Hull pressing up this was the perfect time to try it again but like any accident, it was a series of small misjudgements that led to the goal. Carrick says "be brave" Dieng decides to be brave. O'Brien isn't expecting it so isn't moving but Dieng needs to act quickly. He should have launched it but he knows it just gives the ball back to Hull so he goes for the brave route. Slightly more aw

It was an almost identical pass to the one the lead to our first goal. Dieng short kick to Clarke, Clarke returns it. Dieng advances outside the area, O'Brien starts moving towards him, Dieng to him. O'Brien with first time layoff to Clarke. Clarke considers going back to Dieng but spots Engel and passes long to him. As soon as the ball goes towards Engel, Latte Lath starts a run. Engel gets the ball and chips it first-time towards Latte Lath. Latte Lath takes a touch then finishes. Perfect passing out from the back goal. 4 touches from Clarke to back of the net. Rosenior said after

I used to think that way but Ipswich have had a massive cash injection. Definite risk of them smashing the league next season if they don't go up. Leicester look like they are in a world of trouble next season so they may be less of a threat than Ipswich.

I literally say "mixed results" and that it's not a position he's played much before. There's no way that means I've "written him off." Personally, I think he'll make the grade. We've all seen that rare cases like Ramsey aside, it is very hard for players to adapt to Carrick's style.

That spot was roughly where Azaz played for Plymouth and it had been Rogers best position. The problem has really been #10. Azaz has moved there with mixed results. Greenwood has been worse at #10 than out left. Rogers was getting better at #10 but it's noticeable that Villa have been playing wide left. O'Brien is also good there. Ironically we have no lack of players for the wide left forward but the player who is most used to it, Azaz, is being shoehorned into the middle. If we didn't play with a #10 I think we would be fine. When we play Leeds, Ayling won't be available so I guess we'l

Like us, they struggled for the first 1/3rd of the season to integrate so many new players. These things are all relative. Compared to the same day last season, they are a point up so they have largely managed to keep level with where they were despite selling Gyokeres and Hamer. We're 10 points behind where we were this time last year so we have gone backwards. Coventry had about £15m more than us to spend and they seem to have spent it well. Assuming neither of us get promoted, then I think we will have more to spend than them this summer and ought to overtake them. But when

Yes and no. Next season we have a scenario where the profit from previous player sales is outstripping the annual "loss" from amortisation. This gives us a window where we can, if Gibson chooses, spend a significant amount on new players. If we do that and don't get promoted, then the next summer is more painful because we'll have to spend significantly less on players when we raise through sales. Then again, if we don't get promoted, Hackney, RVDB and Dieng will likely be off anyway so it's not really a gamble. If he sticks to only allowing the club to spend what it raises through sales

Yes, (possibly better in the PSR thread) but if we don't get promoted next season after a big spend this summer, at least 2 of Hackney, RVDB and Dieng will be sold. Even a fairly low selling price (say £30m combined) will see us comfortably dealing with the increased amortization. FFP/PSR isn't a significant problem for us now that the Monk boom has worked its way off our books. I'm sure Gibson would like to keep our PSR losses under £5m a year so he doesn't have to keep converting loans to equity but I don't see a world where that exists while you're trying to get promoted. Obvious

I agree Gibson is likely to fund the running costs of the club with about £15m. The last couple of years, the operating loss of the club (before transfers and ignoring player valuations) was £12-£13m and I see no reason to think that will have changed much. This season he has clearly made the entirety of the Akpom and Payero sales available to buy players. I see every reason to think he will do the same this summer with the Crooks and Rogers sales being made available to spend plus whatever else we make from sales. I think he will be prepared to fund an extra budget for transfers over and

I had a couple of 6 hour train journeys so listened to some of the price of football podcasts by Kevin Maguire. Learned a lot, especially about PSR punishments. In short, he says that the EPL never bothered to agree a standard set of punishments for breaking PSR limits so, when Everton appealed against their initial deduction the independent body had to invent a standard punishment for the EPL and they largely followed the EFL. This became 3 points for any breach with extras for aggravated circumstances and reductions for mitigating circumstances. On that basis, Everton's original decisi

I see Ayling has 4 assists in 15 games for us which is equivalent to Giles over a whole season. Those 4 assists have also coincided with our unbeaten run. It very much looks like Ayling took half a dozen games to get up to speed and adapt to our system. Since then he has arguably been one of our most consistent players. I don't know if he could keep it up for a whole season next season but if Carrick thinks he can it's starting to look like a 2 year contract for him would allow us to concentrate elsewhere or maybe bring in a development project who would have time to actually develop. I do thi

Agreed, when you're that far in the hole there's no point in trying to get out. They could have been deducted 12 points this season and still be 15 points ahead of us.

I don't think so. I think some clubs will test us with low offers especially as Wharton seems to be doing well at Palace. However, a lot of the lower end clubs are going to be watching P&S very carefully and I don't see any club being willing and able to offer £20m+. I don't think we'll sell him for less than that and I see no reason to think that Hackney will push that hard. Maybe in January if the season isn't going anywhere but I'm about 80/20 that we'll hang onto Hackney and RVDB this summer. I can see Mcgree and maybe Forss (if he is looking to leave) going but no more key playe

Leicester are in deep, deep trouble. (archive link: https://archive.is/r4cd2) A loss of £90m last season despite the sales of Fofana and Maddison. That's absolutely nuts. Looking at Swiss Ramble (https://swissramble.substack.com/p/leicester-city-finances-202122) Leicester made losses of 2022: £92m 2021: £32m Although 2021 is a special case due to covid, they are looking at a 3-year loss of around £210m against a P&S limit of £105m. Take off something like £35m in credits but they have absolutely blown the doors off it. That's going to be a 6 point deduction but it sound

Agreed in part. I'm on the fence with Greenwood. 23 starts with 5 goals and 3 assists is decent for a first real season for a player but he's had a long stretch of looking useless and it's unclear what his best position is. I think it might be the left-sided attacking role. If McGree stays then Greenwood is maybe an ok back-up. Neither of them are the standard of a Diallo or Ramsey, which is what I think we need if we're serious about promotion but we have seen it can take a long time for players to adapt to what Carrick wants. I think our biggest need up front is a #10. (To be hones

I've been against the likes of playing Greenwood because it seems like it prevents us from building a team with players who will be here next season. Occurs to me though that if Leeds are promoted and Greenwood's wages go up he may be back here next season on loan. Leeds won't want him and no one is going to be willing to pay him his Premier league wages. Greenwood's certainly not going to move for a wage cut. At that point Leeds' only option is to stick him back out on loan again. From our point of view, anything which enables us to minimise the rebuild in the summer is a good thing. Ye

I think it depends on what happens with Smith. Not sure we want both but It is clear that Ayling is a big presence in the team. His celebration with Latte Lath for the own goal was bonkers. Credit to Ayling, he could have phoned in his performances after joining us but he hasn't. You also want that kind of over the top character on the pitch to drive the others on.

I have issues with Carrick's refusal to use the academy in any meaningful way but you can't argue with 17 points from the last 21. Since we got a massive stroke of luck against Norwich we have conceded just 1 goal in 600+ minutes of football and not lost. We might never look convincing but football is a results business(tm) and it's hard to do much better than that. In theory, if Leeds beat Hull by 2 goals, we'll overtake them and we still have to play them which means we could end the season ahead of them. Do that and there's the faintest chance of sneaking into 6th place up for grabs.

Got to wonder what on earth the point of putting him on is when we have Willis. I'm coming to the conclusion that Carrick won't play an academy player under any circumstances. See also Hoppe and Muniz.

Carrick is limited by his options but I really don't like the way that Gilbert can't get a start no matter what. I can only assume Finch is injured. Although Engel can't have any complaints about being dropped but I see no reason to play Thomas unless Engel is actually incapable of playing a whole game. I'm finding it hard to be positive about Carrick's judgement at this point. Hopefully the game will prove me wrong.