juanpablosaliceband

Not at all. I watched the last review of our accounts with Kieran Maguire and it didn’t look like a healthy picture overall. Basically that we’ve been making consistent losses which wouldn’t have been sustainable without the Grealish money. There was a sense that we need to grow our revenue significantly to allow player budgets to grow much higher. I am not saying there aren’t ways around it and that we aren’t going to spend big. But I don’t think our finances are as good as some make out. Having billionaire owners doesn’t make the club self sustainable, which is pretty much the basis of FPP.

I think our finances are quite unhealthy. The last set of financial results looked pretty grim.

We paid something like 30 million for him. If you look around the league, you’ll see what could have been done with that sort of money. Six goals in two years and an endless supply of rubbish performances. We’ve made some terrible signings but few have been as costly as this one.

I’d guess Unai might have planned to give them a half each as Bailey was just returning?

I think he’s definitely one of the worst signings we have ever made. Possibly the single worst considering his fee and value for money. He’s abysmal. When is the last time anyone can genuinely say he played well for 90 minutes? Scoring a goal every 10 games or so doesn’t make up for that. He should be one of our best players. He’s no better than Trezeguet or El Ghazi. Possibly worse. It’s like playing with 10 men at times when he’s on the pitch. I was really excited about this signing but he’s been a disaster. I don’t see how we can dress it up as anything else.

I know he’s only back from injury but that performance was borderline disgraceful for a premier league footballer. Couldn’t even manage a simple 1-2 with Martinez and then kicks it over the sideline. Messed up at least three other simple passes. Id release him on a free if we can’t find a buyer.

The sooner we sell Bailey the better.

I hope our players have more resilience and appetite for a battle than some of our supporters.

7th is a very decent bet. 6th is still an outside bet.

We are still in it. In spite of Luke Shaw, I still expect us to be within two points of Brighton on the last day.

Still all to play for. I’d be stunned if Brighton are more than two points above us going into the last game with the fixtures they have to play.

Much too early to say that.

Buendia. When he’s bad he’s awful.

At least. Went straight though him.

We are all over the place. Goal coming if we don’t sort it out.

Did you miss the other night where Messi was being discussed as a genuinely attainable target!

Dean Smith was our manager in this fixture last season with Kourtney Hause firing us to 8th in the table in Smith’s last win at the club. Has there been a more hectic and eventful period between two fixtures in living memory!

10 would be a great return. There’s also a certain comfort in knowing our rivals have all these extra games to play, some against each other. Brighton have to play all of the top four.

I know. I meant including six points from Man United and wolves. It would still mean two of our rivals have taken points off us.

I think who we take our points off could almost be more important than how many we take. For example, 9 points from Liverpool, Spurs and Brighton, while losing the other two, could almost be more valuable than 10 or 11 points while beating man United and wolves but dropping points to the other three. Such is the nature of the six pointers.

What a feeling it is to use up one of your poorer performances while taking three points. A month or two back, I thought 55 points would be a great return for the season. We now have 54 with five games left. I’m not sure I buy into the fatigue talk. We might be low on numbers right now but we have lots of fresh legs out there. We had no European competition and hardly anyone at the World Cup, with the squad having a mid season break. Young, Digne, Moreno, McGinn, Donk, Buendia and Luiz have all spent plenty of time on the bench this season. Even Watkins had some rest but he’s super fit. Mings and Konsa barely had to break a sweat tonight. We should have plenty in the tank to finish the season strongly.

I’m starting to get Stevenage vibes off this.

If Brighton win the FA cup, they take one of two europa league places. We would have to finish fifth to take the other place, unless Brighton finish fifth and we finish sixth.

But if Brighton win the FA cup, we are screwed.

Fifth place can’t earn a champions league place in itself. The maximum number of English teams allowed in the champions league is five. So if Man City won it this year and hypothetically finished outside the top 4, five teams would qualify including Man City. If two English teams won the champions league and Europa league and both finished outside the top four, they would both qualify for the champions league and the team finishing fourth would go into the Europa league. If Man City win the champions league this year, the top four teams only will qualify as normal. An extra spot doesn’t carry to fifth place.