MrBlack

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The website is terrible. I get the impression there's a really old school back end behind it all (and probably the same for the app) that makes everything overly complicated. Trying to navigate the account section, linking your fan ID to your profile... its all needlessly complicated. Not sure we can monetize the website much so maybe not one for commercial revenue thread, but the link to social media point is definitely one we can take advantage of to increase our exposure. And yes, a better website isn't going to put people off.

Pretty much. If they were at the club for 3 years between the ages of 15 and 21... they're club traines/homegrown. And that let's them make up the last 4 spots available from numbers 22 to 25 in the squad. Players registered between numbers 18 to 21 have to have been within the country between the same age range.

Those costs don't come out of our FFP budget though. Having seen how much the owners pumped in up to their allowed levels so far, I don't see them scrimping on the youth facility side of things to save money. To put it another way, they won't be selling them to fund the youth facilities... but they will be doing it to fund our signings.

Sheffield United need a striker. A few others down the bottom of the league could benefit from one too. They might not be interested i guess. And if Boro don't want to meet the asking price they won't be getting him. Maybe they'll settle on an easier buy back and higher sell on clause to get us interested at ~12m Not sure I'd sell him though.

Indeed, feels like a Monchi special. Doubt we'd have got that under any of our previous regimes. We'd have held on to him, not played him, then sold him for 2m in 2 years time.

Barry wasn't even our academy really. The numbers are low because our academy was terribly run until fairly recently. But it is right that we shouldn't really expect more than 1 academy player to be in the first 11 at a time except in freak years.

If that's the choice I agree. But I'm not sure selling Archer is the key to us having the FFP room to sign a new striker though. Davis would be a better option to drop. Then keep Archer, and buy a new striker :).

He's not been given much opportunity here to prove it with the first team. Very few minutes in pre season. I trust Emery' opinion though, so assume if he's made that call he's seen enough in training to make his mind up that he's not going to offer what we need at this stage. Could also just be paper bollocks

And the same squad with ECL Uefa restrictions becomes a 24 man squad. I assume we lose Hause from it to comply... 2 GK: Olsen, Martínez 8 DF: Chambers, Digne, Moreno, Carlos, Mings, Cash, Konsa, Torres 4 DM: Dendoncker, Tielemans, Kamara, Luiz 7 AM: Coutinho, Traoré, McGinn, Buendía, Bailey, Ramsey, Diaby 3 ST: Davis, Archer, Watkin Those in bold meeting homegrown criteria. If we lose Archer and Davis, we cant add anyone to that ECL squad that wasn't with us for 3 years before 21, unless we lose someone else over 21. I'd guess Traoré would be the obvious dropout to accommodate a new striker if we sell Davis or Archer, but then your squad becomes 23 players.

But if we replace him with someone that wasn't at the club for 3 years before 21, then we lose a man from our ECL squad.

There were only two strikers better than him in the champ last season, and both of them were in their prime. Yes, Ramsey was the better all round player, but the only reason they'd have been OK without Archer is because one of the other two strikers that was better then him was Akpom, who was also playing for Boro. They didn't have an equivalent replacement for Ramsey's all round creativity. They were both exceptional talents for their own reasons. And both are worth 20m ( or slightly less if we want a buy back)

They do. If we don't have 4 we can only name 21. But anyone under the age of 21 we can include regardless. Fwiw Archer retains his club trained status if we sell him, so if we bought him back he becomes one of the 4 again and let's us name at least 22 (23 assuming JJ is still here)

Same person you saw posting @JAMAICAN-VILLAN?

Why do you think we are getting 14m+add ons for Aaron Ramsey but wouldn't get even close to that for Archer? Either we will, or he isn't going

Not to mention strikers, especially ones with a strike rate as good as cams, always bring with them a premium. I don't see us selling him for less than we bought Jhon for. There'd be no point.

He's a villa fan. His uncle has confirmed it before.

Wondered why they didn't start him first game. Must have been in the pipeline already.

Or more likely (given the top 4 will probably win the FA and League cups): Top 5 - Champions League 6th place - Europa League 7th place - Europa League 8th place - ECL If West Ham had won the ECL and also finished 5th this year....would there have been an extra place for the Europa League for England?

Knew there had to be a link in there somewhere. £40m, regardless of the financials of the company in question, is not good value for money. No independent company is offering that. When you throw in the fact the company doesn't turnover that much anyway, it becomes a clear example of the linked ownership.

Why not put 1 or 2 of the December games in the other months? Or are those two week gaps all for international breaks?

Weird signing this as they don't really need him. I guess it's a gamble that he'll rediscover his best form somehow. Seems they pulled an Ings on this one and kept it completely secret. Saw this on twitter too, which is quite the fact...

Of course they'll only get a fine from the PL. The old owners aren't there so you can't punish them. The new owners didn't do anything wrong (at least not in terms of what is being investigated currently) and reported the breach themselves. There's no way they'd justify giving them a points deduction that impacts them sportingly. In the case of Man City, the same owners are still there, and they tried to hide whatever they'd done wrong... so whatever they hit Chelsea with, Man City should get much worse.

I'd take any of those (not 14th) as long as we're progressing to the latter stages of all the cups we're in. Ideally a final and winning one of them. Does winning the FA Cup get you Europa League?

I agree. Much like when he was decent at Leicester before his United day's. He's still going to have more than his fair share of brain farts but they probably won't be caused by trying to play out from the back quite so regularly.