General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

comparing grealish at villa to kane at spurs is a bit of a stretch tbh.

It depends on how you do maths really. Most people would say 21.5m (Beto) added to 11m (Chermiti) would be 32m.

Given the absolute state of their finances any money from sales needed to be used to service the insane debt they had. They instead chose to spend it on strikers.

They are reaping what the sewed and if anything the league are being fairly lenient.

Emery's been incredible given the depths Villa were at for years prior. They went 12 years without a top half PL finish before he arrived. Magnificent job, head and shoulders my pick for manager of the year so far anyway.

Liverpool joint top I see 😎

Some gap from 5th to 6th. Didn't realise it was that big. With English teams probably getting the 5th placed CL team, doesn't leave much to get excited about there.

Chelsea could still get Europa league through the FA Cup, if not European places all go to the league?

I see Barca are starting their annual tapping up of players. Mad that they are allowed to still sign players when they haven't a pot to piss in.

7th !!! behind Newcastle and Chelsea :)

Huge amount of question marks around the team. Losing their best ever (certainly PL era) player.
Kane went late enough as well so there was that extra stress. I definitely wouldn't have been predicting top4/5 for Spurs back in the summer.

Ange has done a great job all things considered but the hard work starts now as they need to reinforce now to stay in the CL spots next season. A big summer for them.

united have the 3rd highest revenue in the world to service that debt, while spurs have the 9th highest revenue, and as titian points out above, the spurs debt is the result of building a world class multi use 62850 seat stadium.

It’s all relative.

ok.
Spurs actually have a stadium that cost 1bn and that has contributed massively to their overall debt and their 9th highest revenue in the world.

What stage is Everton’s stadium at that may cost 800m?

Well it's due to open next year so I'd imagine they've spent 500/600m so far to get it to this stage

You're a bit scattergun there with trying to reflect to random other clubs with their debt. First of all, most of those clubs are extremely sustainable and have the revenues to support their spending.

Spurs owe money on their stadium. Every single Everton fan seems to forget that Stadium developments costs are excluded from PSR accountings, so that clubs can develop their infrastructure independently. And at the same time they seem to use their stadium as cause for breaching PSR rulings.

Man Utd earn some of the biggest revenues in world sport, let alone Premier League football clubs, so trying to compare them to Everton in terms of sustainability is laughable. They can actually afford the wages they put out. Because their owners chose to pay dividends to themselves rather than service the debt is another story.

What Everton fans fail to realise is that they were doing mad things like giving James Rodriquez massive contracts (estimated at 200,000 a week) to lure him away from Real Madrid after they finished 12th in the table. When he left, after Everton finished 10th, the manager said that it partly because of PSR rulings why he was being released, as it was not sustainable.

Newcastle were a mid table club, finishing 13th, 13th, 12th, 11th. They weren't in Europe. They vastly expedited both their transfer spending (net spend 300m in 18 months) and wages spending, thus rushing their race to the top. It was via a new sugar daddy owner with a questionable human rights record to put it mildly. Given their owners social interests, they could pull the plug at any moment. Who would foot this bill as it certainly isn't sustainable.

Trying to plead the poor mouth for Newcastle is laughable. They spent well above their means and instead of sustainable growth over a period of time, tried to 'cheat' their way to the top via same-party ownership deals and by na injection of cash from outside influences. This wasn't a local businessman wanting to see his hometown club do well either. It was a sportwashing vehicle.

I'm not surprised that Villa might have to tighten their belts a bit this summer as they have had large spending on both wages and transfer fees since they got promoted a few years ago. Sold Grealish but re-invested that on a squad that gave them a base to work from. Some worked out some didn't. They have bought well the last few years, especially last summer.

The question more for Villa is do they want to continue spending at an unsustainable rate (paying CL level clubs transfer fees and wages while in the EL) or do they want to grow more organically (buying smartly from EL clubs and wages while in the EL) and ensure that base grows and grows still naturally you're better than 15 other squads. If they want to do 1 then they might have to sell Watkins and reinvest very smartly. If they want to do 2 then can keep Watkins.

And clubs that have qualified for the CL, and then selling their star player is not a new thing. Just look at that summer where Spurs sold Bale (or Kane), or Liverpool sold Suarez (or Coutinho), or similarly how West Ham sold Rice.

Or when Liverpool sold Share and re-invested the money for a better squad, on paper. It didn't work on that time but the next time that a star player was sold in Coutinho, they built the spine of a PL & CL winning team. Liverpool are probably the best example of a club not outspending their means over the last 15 years and still growing to be sustainable yet competitive at the top end. No sugar daddy there and no sportwashing. But 'had to sell their best players'. If anything the biggest gripe from Liverpool fans on the owners is that the club could have actually spent more on additional players when the team was left short in a couple of seasons, which wouldn't have affected their PSR totals at all. I think the club are actually something like 400 in the green at moment or something mad like that, in terms of PSR allowance.

Spurs had only been in the CL once when Bale was part of the team iirc, but when they sold him for massive money and reinvested in the squad overall they got lambasted for spending it badly. But over the next decade the club actually became a somewhat regular in the CL with 5 appearances including the final. Maybe this was down to Harry Kane being in the team but they sold him and spent the money on trying to make the team better again. They might just have a better squad now than last season and qualify for the CL again.

West Ham have a far better squad after selling Rice that will properly be realised when Moyes leaves. They're in the last 8 of the Europa League now with greater attacking options spread across the team. Whether they can hold onto all these players or not is another question but selling 1 per year and reinvesting smartly might prove to be ok for 2/3 years if they can get their purchasing as effective as it was last summer with the likes of Kudus, JWP etc.

Organic growth of those 3 clubs has helped them to have a bigger base to build from. Obviously there has been infrastructure development from the 3 clubs over the years that have also helped, on different levels, but those costs are excluded from PSR. The 3 clubs has to sell their best players but they grew over time instead.

Newcastle had something like 700m wiggle room to spend pre takeover as Ashley spent nothing and all commercial deals they had were free advertising for Sports Direct! Hate the Saudis all you want but it was a club that probably were the best to take over at the time!

It works so well in the CL. Way better than waiting for 3 lads to draw line on a still image
Can't wait to see how they make a balls of it in the PL 🤣

I use comedy as a defense system.

A lot like Jurgen Klopp.

💣😂😂

When Everton were found guilty they didn't know what punishment to hand out cause there's no guidelines. They ended up copying the EFL. I doubt Man city's lawyers are overly worried.

Doesn't really address city's fake revenue streams

it was a really bizarre match. I watched it in Thailand and was shocked at how good Atlanta were.

I will hold my hands up and understand I don’t come into this thread with clean hands where Liverpool are concerned. But in the PL there are 3 teams that deserve to win. We have to play all 3 but that’s irrelevant. Klopp is a superstar and he deserves all his laudits.

I hope my joke was taken in the good taste it was made.

You'll never enjoy the highs if you don't get the lows. It's why we follow football, for the emotions attached to it, without it really mattering at the end of the day.