allani

If it was actually £8m up front rather than £10m then we've negotiated pretty well. Boro turn down £7.5m/£7.5m and we counter with £8m/7m and they accept.

Our previous offer was supposedly £7.5m up front and £7.5m in add-ons. So a £10m / £5m split is hardly suddenly caving in and paying whatever Boro asked for. The £15m total was finalised several days ago - most of the haggling has always been about how much is payable up front. Fingers crossed we can all look back in 2 years and proclaim this to be a superb bit of business.

OK - just read another of your posts on another stream and was already thinking that I may have possibly misread your post! It could be a very weird market for the next couple of seasons - especially if one of the "big" guys takes an FFP beating from the authorities. It presents a risk to us but I also think that it could present a really good opportunity for us. I do feel like we're in a great position both to tap into additional revenue streams and to gain access to a much wider pool of "achieveable" player targets (Emery and Monchi are names that more people have heard of).

Even a lot of our recent so called duds actually served their purpose very well at a very specific point on our journey to where we are today. No transfer will be a nailed on certainty. And we are in a position where we can / have to take a few risks along the way. Some will come off. Some won't. But it has been a long time since I felt confident that we had the right people looking at the right type of players. It's also getting more difficult now for players to break into our starting XI and immediately hold down a starting spot. So in some respects it will be much harder to sign a SJM / Luiz / Konsa because the quality of players that they will be trying to displace is so much higher.

Surely there is also a reason why there haven't been any significant departures? It's not like all our rivals have been out smashing their transfer records this window. What evidence is there to assume that we are in a different / worse situation to anyone else? Indeed if anything we have more potential to improve our revenue without having to resort to selling players than a lot of the clubs around us who already have suspiciously high sponsorship deals in place or who have budgeted on playing a significant number of matches in the CL and missed out on playing in Europe completely. More to the point Emery / Monchi have history when it comes to signing (unfancied) players rather than buying the best / most expensive players around. (Monchi's only question mark is with his spell at Roma where there is considerable debate about whether he signed the players he wanted or was made to sign the players that the owner wanted.) So it feels like they are better equipped to handle a tighter FFP market than managers / clubs who are used to just pulling out their wallets and playing top dollar for "established" players.

Chelsea have thrown a lot of big money at some pretty average players. I'm not sure that their recent record speaks volumes about how great players are / or how great they are going to be. I'm not saying that I don't think that Duran could go on to be a very good player (not convinced about becoming world class) - just that holding up possible interest from Chelsea isn't quite the slam dunk that it could be.

I do think that 2 years ago I would have been looking at this a bit differently. Actually probably in a very similar way to @est1874 is now (OK maybe identically to the way he is looking at it). However, everything I have seen from Emery and everything I have read about Monchi and the revolution that Lange started (and Monchi is enhancing further) has put me in a position where I am much more chill about signings, not making signings, etc. If we sign Rogers it will because very good people think that he's got something we need. If we don't then I'll assume that they decided that they could find a similar player for better value elsewhere in the next window. Either is fine. If Rogers goes on and has an outstanding end to the season and we go back in for him in June and have to pay more then that would also be fine because I would believe that our recruitment team and owners are convinced that that represents good value in the market at that time for a player with another 20 odd Championship matches under his belt.

The £15m will only be hit if he does pretty well for us. Man City bought him for £4.4m for him when he'd played no professional matches. We've offered around £7.5m for him after he's played 28 League 1 and 61 Championship matches. That doesn't seem like such a bad bit of business in comparison to the City deal. We've then offered to pay more if he goes on and performs well at PL level. If he doesn't then we'll have a player that would almost certainly either go on loan to a top Championship side or sold at a small profit to a Championship / lower PL team. In many ways I think there is an argument to say that the only thing that looks like a bad bit of business was Man City selling him to Boro for £1.5m plus a good chunk of any sell-on profit. It is also highly unlikely that they'd have sold him to us at a similar price (or that we'd have accepted the same sell-on clause that Boro did), so maybe the deal we could have done in the summer would have been closer to £3-4m anyway plus add-ons.

It's possible / probable that he was on a list. But maybe our priorities have changed in the last 6 months? Maybe there's more evidence to support his case now? If he becomes a first team regular then I am less fussed about us possibly spending £10m than £1.5m than I am on signing him for £10m rather than for £30-40m if he improves to the level we clearly think he can in the next 12-24 months or so.

Also Monchi has had another 6 months to review our recruitment strategies and conduct the scouting / analysis that he wants to prioritise (with Emery). Maybe if Monchi had been signed at the same time as Emery, Rogers would have been on our summer hit list. Maybe he wouldn't.

OK so I think it is 27s.... final answer.

Don't worry - Monchi will include a buy-back option for 50% of the initial transfer bid that will become mandatory the first season we finish above them.

Assuming that a good chunk of the £15m is in add-ons. In which case we aren't paying £15m for a player who has played half the games in the championship, we are paying £15m for a player who will have played a meaningful number of games over a particular period of time for Aston Villa in the next year or so. It could be that the deal is £7.5m up front with the rest due when he plays 30, 40 or 50 games for us - hits a certain number of goals or assists, etc. In which case £15m for an attacking midfielder who plays in 50% of our matches over the next 12 months would probably be regarded as a steal. Especially when you look at how much "back up" options have cost us / clubs around us in the past.

The "rumour" is that the 15m includes add-ons. So you would imagine that if the deal ends up costing us 15m then all the add-on targets must have been hit - which would mean that he would have played a significant number of games for us and potentially secured a number of goals/assists at the same time. Let's say (for arguments sake) that it is 50 games - £15m for an attacking midfielder who appears 50 times for us would seem like an absolute bargain. If he doesn't do as well then presumably a lot of the add-on clauses wouldn't be hit and so it would make it more likely that we could recover most of the fees paid through an onward transfer / extended loan(s). The structure of the deal in this instance could be very interesting and make a significant difference between whether it is an expensive "gamble" or not.

Doesn't this bit slightly prove that player swap deals are complicated? I mean we have all the ingredients that you suggest should make it easier (willing players, seemingly willing clubs and a similar timeframe) and yet 1 deal has been done and with 3 days of the transfer window the other hasn't as yet. It would be an added risk (probably more so for us than Boro) if the Azaz deal was still in the balance because we were still trying to negotiate / resolve a couple of sticking points on the other deal.

Is there also an FFP complication now that makes them more unfavourable? I can't quite get my head around it but if Player A is signed for £20m on a 5 year contract and you sell Player Z for £5 million then might you have a smaller hit on FFP in Year 1 than if it was £15m + Player Z? I would assume that both clubs would have to agree on the nominal value of Player Z as part of the deal - so in theory it should come out with the same answer. But it really wouldn't surprise me if two separate transfers somehow ended up with a slightly different FFP calculation for both clubs then completing a Player + cash swap.

I would imagine that, within whatever period the buyback option applies for, that it would not be possible for Burnley to sell him without us having first refusal.

Really difficult to tell what position he plays from the video highlights above - it looks like he plays EVERYWHERE. Left, right, central - up top, in the hole, deep...

Have to say that I thought the Honorary Anniversary Board announcement was very good. Some excellent names on the list - a good blend of administrators, players and fans. A good mix of the ages with players from different eras too. Hopefully, it is a good sign that there will be some really good events planned through the year.

I think there's an awful lot to feel good about in terms of what is happening off the pitch. We've raised a good chunk of funding and some excellent business contacts within the media, comms and sports arena in the USA through the VSports minority ownership investment, we've got out of a poor deal with Castore and signed with a big brand which opens up some good opportunities, we're binning Fanatics and bringing some retail back in house (through the club shop and I assume the online store) and I actually really liked the Honorary Anniversary Board announcement today. I think the redevelopment plan decision is a sound one (but appreciate that you don't). I have doubts on the crest but also think that the issues are partly down to the fact that the version of the round badge we came up with last year was not fit for purpose (but again understand that others have a different view on that) and that has created a difficult situation to retreat from. I think he's got a lot more right than he's got wrong. Maybe his American style comms at time aren't the best. But he's not here to be popular - he's here to take the club forward and improve our revenue streams so that Emery and Monchi can continue to improve our on field performance. If he delivers anything like the revenue improvements that he has done elsewhere then I'm happy to put up with some odd comms / lack of comms every now and again.

Probably a bit of both. But I do think that the Everton investigation and punishment has made a few clubs - who might have been sailing a little bit close for comfort / or who thought that they might be able to claim an exemption for a "minor mistake / miscalculation" / or balance the books with a key sale at the end of the season - take note and err on the side of caution. Especially if Forest and (allegedly) Wolves find that they are in line for punishment too. There aren't many clubs who can afford a 10 point penalty (or worse) without it having a pretty significant impact. FFP is pointless unless failing to comply means less points. Clearly the other big factors still at play are Man City and Chelsea. So whilst the PL are already backing themselves into a corner / building a case for precedence with their punishments for "simpler" breaches - I also think there are a few chairmen / CEOs making sure that they are watertight in terms of complying with the rules so that the biggest risk to the PL isn't Man City suing them or appealing any judgements but actually the other clubs fighting back if City are either found not guilty or escape severe sanctions (unless they can categorically prove that they acted within the rules). City will almost certainly "threaten" to remove their backing for the PL / wider UK economy if it looks like they might be severely punished - the "only" real counter-balance to that is for 18 or 19 of the other PL owners / investors (plus a handful from the Championship) to be stating that failure to adequately punish City when everyone else has been playing by the rules threatens the value/validity of their continued investment. Not to mention the backlash from fans and supporters along the lines of the ESL demonstrations.

Agreed. The concept is great. Unfortunately a handful of clubs were able to exploit the period before the rules came in to massively tilt the balance in their favour. Rules that allowed them to go massively into debt, build new stadia, etc which has given them a massive revenue advantage using methods that are now "banned" for everyone else. The rules would be fine if certain elements of the revenue that the game in general brings in were more fairly shared within the PL and the lower levels of the game. The trouble is that every element of "revenue" is skewed in favour of the teams at the top which makes it harder and harder for anyone else to grow. As well as being sustainable, clubs need to have the capacity to grow and develop. Unfortunately there are now a lot more clubs who are "stuck" at a certain level with no realistic means of being able to (sustainably) grow. It is crazy that the Championship play-off match is worth £100m to the winner. That doesn't promote sustainability - it almost encourages the opposite. I mean how does the 24th best team in the league grow sustainabIy when a one year "all in" gamble could generate so much more income? If more of the combined money were shared more evenly then you could have a much fairer system where (well run) clubs could make more sensible decisions on planning for their future (sustainably) rather than being forced into selling assets at below market value because it is the only way to balance the books. At the same time successful clubs would still be rewarded for their on field performance and for doing a better job at marketing / raising revenues themselves. Dr Xi nearly cost us our club. But the lack of fairness within FFP also almost got us relegated at a time when we could clearly afford to sign a striker but instead the only option we had was to sign a reserve player from Swansea. On the flip side - the current / future FFP rules might start working in favour of redressing the balance. How often can Chelsea afford to miss out on European competition before it starts to cut into their revenue position? They are already probably at the point of having to sell players they might prefer to keep - this will only accelerate if they continue to perform badly on the pitch. If we had a genuine Top 10 rather than a Top 6 (and we seem to be getting closer to that if clubs like Brighton, Newcastle, us, maybe West Ham can disrupt the Sky order) then the FFP rules could start to kick in and actively reduce the difference between the Sky 6 and the "new kids on the block". That said I do think a lot of clubs (us included) have been quite lazy when it comes to looking at revenue streams and how to generate more income. We can't blame FFP for that. We can't even blame other clubs who started looking at those streams well before we did. It feels like there is a lot we can do in this respect pretty quickly and pretty cheaply that will hopefully mean we can start eating into the revenue gap that currently exists. After all I think we've got more untapped potential than others who have been quicker at expanding into those streams and so have already claimed some / most of the benefits and will struggle to extract more income - the classic 80/20 model whereby you can quickly make significant improvements but then eventually every 1% gain becomes harder and harder to achieve.

Happy to stand corrected - especially if they are the minutes released by the club. It does (as your original post said) put a very different slant on things.

OK thanks. Like I said the only quote I could find was the interview on the 19th. The above looks much more definite - especially if these are the official minutes published / agreed by the club. If they are unofficial minutes then it is still possible that someone said a few / a couple and someone's written that as a more definite two. But either way it's a very different message to the quote in the interview that I'd read.

The first job is to find as many "quick wins" as possible in terms of raising revenue (the added investment / minority owners, change of shirt manufacturers, Warehouse plans and the new shop / bringing some of the retail back in house - are early examples) so that we're in a better position to strengthen the team and shoulder the burden of bigger projects. The clubs around us are all in relatively new stadia and so will not be expanding any time soon - possible exception being Newcastle - so delaying redevelopment won't mean that we're falling further behind as the other clubs won't be adding in more numbers themselves. The minority ownership thing was quick to implement, probably cost very little to do and had an immediate plus £80m line in the books of VSports. The money generated in basketball, etc where the stadia are considerably smaller suggests that there's plenty we can do better in the short-term that will reap benefits quicker. Sort that out and then like you say it's possible to then look at Villa Park and re-visit the idea of expansion, redevelopment, replacement or relocation. But let's do the easy stuff with immediate wins first.