alex7783

This, this and this - why do Man Utd Liverpool etc have considerably higher revenue, even if you exclude Euro comp income? Because their global and domestic fan base is increased by their consistent exposure in the media. Therefore young kids, who’s allegiance to a team is, like it or not, more likely to be dictated by what they see on the internet/social media/Fifa 24 than geographical proximity, are being consistently exposed to just a handful of clubs. This enables those clubs to harvest those ‘customers’ through media exposure. Like it or not Man Utd benefit from all those ‘clicks’, that people don’t care about as that is what the advertisers pay sky for and why sky put more Man Utd games on TV for which Man Utd get paid more for. This increases Man Utd revenues enabling them to outspend us even though performances on the pitch are worse. Essentially media exposure = increased revenue (direct from media and increased fan base) = more money to spend within FFP = more success on the pitch. Going ‘under the radar’ maybe more satisfying, and have a short term benefit, but in the current FFP/PSR regulatory climate increased media exposure is a vital part of growing the fan base to increase revenue to be able to compete.

Villa pushing to qualify for the Champions League for the first time, with a record breaking season, Unai Emery extends contract and what are Skysports website headlines, in order, - Man Utd, Man Utd, Liverpool, Liverpool, Man Utd, VAR, West Ham Manager, EFL, Arsenal/Man City, Arsenal/Chelsea, Arsenal/Liverpool, Man City/Liverpool (WSL), Man City (WSL), Man Utd, Arsenal (U21's), West Ham Manager (again) and then the first sub headline without image - Unai Emery Signs new contract. They really do want to ignore little old villa not keeping in their place....

Because Salzburg and Udinese have to comply with FFP so can’t buy players for £millons and then loan to RB leipzig or Watford and just keep booking losses

Add to this that we also now have a national media fawning over them and even lauding them for using 'savvy' betting sponsorships to navigate FFP whilst we were heavily criticised for BK8 - to be clear I'm no fan of the BK8 deal but it is double standards to criticize us for betting sponsorships while praising Newcastle. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/10/06/newcastle-united-saudi-takeover-two-years-on/

There is consistency - the consistency is that it is always used to justify a decision going in favour of one of the big 6 teams, with the occasional decision against a big 6 team but only where the beneficiary is one of the other big 6. When offside was binary, you are either off or on, then it made manipulation to favour the big teams impossible. If you watch the Dermot Gallagher video it is sooo obvious that he is trying, at great lengths, to justify the decision to favour Liverpool but his arguments have no validity. The corruption is so obvious now that it just can't go on, can it.....

This, this, this One thing I don't understand is why clubs like Villa, though appreciate that I think Brighton did something last year, don't combine forces and put together a legal case, by trawling through all of the above type situations and presenting them to the PL and PGMOL, threatening to sue for loss of earnings due to negligent/corrupt PGMOL/VAR decision. Gut feel is that they know that if the playing field was levelled then the Sky 6/7 would just up sticks and, with the financial backing of PIF (see LIV golf), set up the EU Super league with 25% of games played in the Middle East and the PL would be no more...

Appreciate that this is going to sound full 'tin foil hat' esque but... I think this is the whole point of these rules and VAR combined - the vague offside rules create sufficient subjectivity for PGMOL to use VAR Lines, a 'scientific' and 'absolute' approach, to legitimise bias decisions. Drawing lines on a screen is absolute, the player is either on or off, however the rules then allow VAR to decide where to draw the lines (sleeve, elbow, knee, hair) or decide that even though the player is offside he isn't 'interfering with play' at a time that seems to vary in order to achieve a desired outcome. Similarly 'clear and obvious error' allows PGMOL to apply different criteria to virtually the same scenario to get different required outcomes depending on the team. Fans of Sky 6/7 clubs and PGMOL will obviously then point to decisions where VAR/ref decisions have gone against them however, and someone with far more time (maybe one of the non sky 6 clubs) could look into this, these decisions tend to be ones where neither of the two above can be applied (albeit last night didn't even adhere to this unwritten rule) and/or it occurs at meaningless times in a game ie Man Utd already 2-3 goals ahead and don't get a stonewall penalty.

Or you have, up until about 3 months ago, unprecedented build cost inflation, as a result of the Ukraine war, with an anticipation in the development industry that build costs, and certainly contractors profits, might start to reduce over the next 12-18 months ago. Getting planning and then holding fire for a year or so to potentially reduce build costs would be a very sensible business decision.

Dad says hi

I think your missing my point It doesn’t matter who is manager - the league is rigged to protect the favoured clubs. we are not one of those clubs and the football world knows it - we are therefore never going to be able to attract top managers in the same way we can’t attract top players.

Let’s think about this logically: 1) We lost our best player for the last 20 years 2) £100m doesn’t touch the sides when it comes to replacing a player like Grealish 3) The PL is rigged in favour of the media’s preferred clubs and as much as we bitch and moan, we aren’t one of those clubs and never will be - we aren’t in London or the North West. 4) Who can we attract that is better than Dean - no-one. The best shot we have is to stick with Dean, bring through the kids and accept that we are a mid table premiership team and the game is rigged so we have to stay there. Unfortunately the closest teams like us are allowed to get to the big time is being proud that we developed the players that go on to win the CL with Man City, Chelsea and Newcastle next. Modern football is f**ked!

Is it fair to say we are struggling without Grealish this season, asking for my dad?

Maybe - but that means we implemented the ‘JG leaving’ plan from the off, so must have known he was leaving much earlier than we have been told…

To be pedantic that is kind of a) But yes that is likely the case and therefore suggests we are going into the season with a gap in the squad that we were hoping to fill

There is one thing that is confusing me about this window and the Grealish sale - if we don’t sign anyone else then our plan for if Grealish was sold (both DS and CP were adamant that there were two transfer plans) was to just buy Ings, as this is the only transfer that happened after it was obvious that JG was leaving, which doesn’t make any sense as we needed a striker anyway. Either that or a) our plan for if JG was sold hasn’t been able to be implemented due to price/availability of targets etc b) it was known at the end of last season that JG was offski…