moose

Maybe it's up to PL to attract a few more Milner/Young/Downing/Cahill type players to the club that we can improve and then perhaps not sell!

If there's one thing I am hoping for, it's that PL's search involves going outside of the UK, and avoiding Norwich at all costs.

Onwards and upwards then. Sod the bitter Naaarwich fans. Manager gone, top scorer wanting out. Smells like a relegation battle to me.

If he has quit his job there then surely we don't owe anything. If they'd of agreed to let us talk to him earlier on in the week then he wouldn't of quit and then we would owe them something.

If I quit my job then surely my company can't make me stay?

At the end of the day Lambert signed a 1 year rolling contract, if you quit your job there is likely a clause where you should give say 4 weeks notice (whether you uphold that or not is up to you I guess). Lambert's notice I guess would be 1 Year (if accepted), If he doesn't like that he shouldn't have signed a rolling contract.

Luckily for him football contracts now favour the person and rarely work to the clubs advantage.

It's not an ordinary job, he signed an official contract (and likely received a signing on fee for doing so) to say that every day he is in the job he is effectively committing himself to that club for another 365 days. From the clubs point of view he should uphold that.

That said if they have broken a clause in his contract then it's their own fault and we can do as we please. (my ASSUMPTION is that this clause is something to do with him being allowed to talk to certain clubs and it was very well planned out that Villa would force their hand i.e. starting with our CEO leaking to Sky - I could be wrong but we clearly tapped Eck up in a similar way and tried the same thing with Blues).

P.S im not against the Lambert appointment, very much in favour of it I just hate the contracts in football and how all the power is with the player (or manager in this case). Whether it works in our favour (like now) or against us (like every summer when somebody forces a move) I **** hate it.

Thank you for saving me the time and effort of typing that explanation up on an iPhone.

You make an interesting suggestion that it's not "an ordinary job, he signed an official contract".

Actually, you'll find that IS quite ordinary. Most people have jobs that have a notice period in their employment contract which means that every day they too are on a rolling break. Now the difference with PL is that his notice period is 1 year, rather than us mere mortals who are probably on anything between 7 and 90 days.

The other issue is compensation. Realistically, AV are under absolutely sod all obligation to pay anything at all, the contract is between PL and NCFC and if there is a dispute of any kind it would a breach by one or other of them and it would be up to one of those parties to compensate the other.

The ONLY reason Villa would pay is that at the end of the day is to pay on behalf of PL because he would have to stump up to settle the dispute and walk away, but is PL going to write a personal cheque for a million quid? I don't think so.

As for power on contracts, that goes both ways, Contracts are there to protect a commercial relationship and either side could break them. If Norwich wanted to sack PL, the contract protects him. If PL decides he wants to bugger off, the contract protects NCFC.

It is fair to say that contracts in football are for the most part pointless and irrelevant, because the party wanting to break it could simply start to perform so badly towards the other that they start to cause the other party harm. Players can "lose form", managers can pick the worst starting line up possible, equally clubs can banish players to the reserves and damage their career by letting them rot. You can see quite clearly that the contractual power under these scenarios is probably far more weighted to the players and managers than the club!

So - to conclude. If PL has declared that NCFC have broken one of the terms of his contract, he can request that court declare that contract null and void in which case PL can walk away from the contract without penalty. The issue is that getting to court would take forever and a day, so the easiest answer is cash.

If he should sign a contract with Villa prior to things being settled with NCFC then I bet he'd probably instantly be in breach of it, as one of the clauses in employment contracts is that you have to confirm you are freely available to perform that contract, and being under a contract elsewhere, whether disputed or not, means you are not in a position to confirm.

I suspect this is why there has been no announcement as of yet - PL is simply not in a position to sign a contract because his lawyers know that the wording means he can't. And we know Villa, they won't announce anything until the ink's dry.

Interestingly the OS's list of sponsors now says "Genting" and I am quite sure it used to say "Genting Casinos" - maybe it'll be a subtle change on this year's shirts?

Norwich Chairmen wants over £20 mil for Holt !!

I hope he's gone away and thought "wtf did I say that for?"

Chelsea don't care about FFP it seems.. I doubt City will either.

Will they ban these two clubs (and potentially others)? I don't see it.

I don't either, Man City effectively sponsoring themselves has found a loophole. Whats stopping the owner giving a gift, its such a shoddy rule it's untrue.

Yeah it's a huge loophole, but it's one that means owners who are pumping money into clubs have to accept it is not increasing the value of their investment, and its not putting the club into debt.

Accounting treatment matters greatly and whilst it looks like a massive fudge, it does represent a quantum shift in how the owners of football clubs are expected to finance them.

My take on the £20-25m is that amount is how much a manager is allowed to commit, not necesarily on transfer fees but if they sign someone for £1m but put them on a 4 year contract at £1m a year, then that's £5m out of the pot, not £1m.

I get the feeling some people are expecting us to spend the entire pot on transfer fees. Then again, my thinking might be wrong (I still look at the £68m on Villa's balance sheet that's going to hit our expenditure over the next few years).

The FFP will only come into play for Euro competitions!

Yes, and wouldn't a new owner throwing money at the club expect us to be in such competitions? OK I guess you might just find someone who's happy "just to win the league" and can't give two hoots if we are banned from European tournaments, but that would be highly unusual.

With the FFP rules coming in, if we were going to spend £80m then we'd have to find £80m of income, not investment. Not sure how we'd manage that aside from the usual dodgy stuff like stadium naming rights or an owner effectively sponsoring himself.

I thought he fell out with another player, not Lambert?

Waste of money, and going back to raid your old club is lazy transfer policy.

I really hope this "Lambo" nickname doesn't catch on!

Alternative suggestion?

The Butler

Phew, was starting to think I was alone in not wanting Holt! If we're going to be spending ony on players there's only on word that springs to mind - defenders.

I just hope he doesn't bring Holt...

Why do people keep saying this? 17 goals last season was it? How many goals did our highest scorer have?

Because 1. he'd be the new Heskey and 2. It shows a complete lack of imagination and forward-thinking on the part of the new manager

@INCOGNITOAVFC

Communication coming from Villa is that they will hold off on announcement until tomorrow so that they can take full advantage of the season ticket price increase

EFA

Pat murphy said on the radio earlier that he has a clause in his contract which allows him to speak to another prem club. Norwich refused to honor that clause so he resigned instead.

Thus creating breach of contract. That'll keep the lawyers busy and might well allow Villa to get him without having to pay a thing.

I'm definitely going to the Norwich away match this season - just to hear the reaction from the home fans.

Holt would be the new Heskey. One last huge paycheck from a "rich" club before trundling back off to the lower leagues.

If we're going to have a manager who's a miserable media-unfriendly sulk then at least we can sign some exciting sounding players from Brazil and China or something.

What's the equivilent of ITSOTP for a manager, not a player?

HASIFOTH

Given his contract is supposed to run out today, there is always the scenario that he's not "quit" he's just let his contract run out (although NCFC must be mental if they had a rolling contract that didn't have provision to give notice of non-renewal).

Sky now saying Norwich wouldn't let PL talk to Villa because we're "not big enough". At least the journalist doing the papers has just said that we ARE a bigger club.

So BR goes to Plop, RM stays at Wigan, and Sky *somehow* deduce that our number one target is PL. **** genius.

The flight to Jersey that Martinez would have been waiting for was scheduled at 1215 but only left Manchester at 1541, so I guess he didn't bother going.

Lambert is hardly vibrant, compelling or exciting

So if it's him those words were either just plucked from a dictionary or it's more club spin and assuming the fans are all retards

Yeah sadly this. Got to give the guy a chance but I just feel the board have played it all far too cautiously if PL gets the job.

I'm still wondering who this third candidate is. Benitez? RDM? Poyet? Laudrup? AVB?

OGS?

ESPN Soccernet ‏@ESPNSoccernet

Roberto Martinez was set to meet Whelan in Guernsey, but is delayed in Manchester by fog. Whelan has had no contact from anyone at Villa.

Surely we would've contacted him by now if we wanted to speak to him?

I am in Bolton. There is no fog here at all.

Maybe not, but the flight from Manchester to Jersey is showing as delayed by two hours from 1215 to 1415.