People often keep bringing up the cost of the Academy as an argument for scrapping but at the time Waggott wanted to downsize the training facilities the net cost of the Academy was "only" about £1.3m I.e. £3.2m less a grant of £1.9m. May have increased a bit since then in line with everything else but I'd argue its still pretty good value and fairly small beer in the general scheme of things. Certainly doesn't account for £9m worth of "other" expenses.

That would be a slightly better way of doing it but I'm still not aware that Arsenal have an outright obligation to purchase Raya at the end of his loan.

Before Broughton fucked it up. Not really supporting your own argument there.

Every day.

Because Nixon had suggested it, and on the assumption we will get £5m when Raya moves permanently to Arsenal in the summer, Chaddy wanted to offer Brentford a substantial discount on the sell on clause by saying they could give us £3m if they paid us early in this window. Aside from the fact we'd lose £2m, unless I've missed something, whilst it looks like Arsenal will make Raya permanent they're not obliged to do so, so if that happened Brentford would be paying us then Arsenal could back out of the permanent deal and they'd be out of pocket. As if we could just afford to waive £2m at the moment as well.

I quite like Dolan but he hasnt kicked on as well as I expected. Do we want to?

You seem to be having a hard time following anything that's going on at the moment. Whilst the budget cuts are being enforced on the owners, the fault lies with them for spending money on things they shouldn't have done in the first place and I've said that more than once.

One of the alleged offers was from Nice wasn't it? Around £4m. The other two offers were supposedly sub £8m from Leeds and Everton. "Right Ben we've had two offers from Leeds and Everton. You can go now for £20 k p.w." Or you can join Villareal in the summer on a free for the same money and a £2m signing on fee. "I'll stay put thanks"

Different stages of their development, are you actually quibbling about one goal? Gallagher has only scored double figures once in his career.

Whether we did or didn't meet him you can't give anyone credit for players that don't actually end up here!!

If we're met with that question I guess the answer will be exactly the same as the excuse that will be given for not bringing anyone in - I.e. "We tried our best and thought we had a couple of deals over the line but the January window is very difficult"

If Szmodics stays as well. Who else is going to score any?

A couple of million is a fortune to us at the moment. We can't afford £500 k for the guy from Crewe.

"Sigh" So you think we'll no longer be under any restrictions by then?

Replaced by someone on loan with the plaintiff excuse "It was too late to get anyone else in".

I know we need them but if we're looking longer term we'd be better hoping we can survive this season rather than accept a heavily discounted sum now. It does sound like the thing a penny pinching short term operator like Waggott might try though.

What's the record fee for a League 1 or 2 player? Again genuine question as I have absolutely no idea. Edit: to be fair it appears to be Fabian Delph. 9.5m Euros. More than I expected but not what we'd hope for.

Yes, the Court would probably just say, you've got your £20m, you don't need to transfer any more money out of the Country now. For this reason I don't expect any real business either in or out will be concluded until after the funding is approved but I have to say I'm not optimistic thereafter. Especially with Broughton tasked with finding replacements.

How much would Adam Wharton be worth if we were relegated? Genuine question as I've absolutely no idea but I'd have thought you'd be lucky to get £3m. That's where the "model" of not putting any pressure on results falls down.

I'm guessing that this is not something that's a realistic proposition but a brainwave you've come up with. IF we did this we'd have to tempt Arsenal with a substantial discount - why would we want to do that when we're so strapped for cash?

Why do you think we could do that and why do you think Arsenal would want to do that? Genuine question as I've not seen that suggested anywhere before?

I'd suggest our position is a good deal worse than no man's land. You'll be uttering the immortal phrase "We're too good to go down" next!

He was decent enough upon the return from Covid and still very young at that point.

Should have had his contract extended years before to preserve his value. Nothing to do with accepting /not accepting offers at a later date. As far as the Club were concerned he was a £7m asset/development project, but you just let his contract run down because you don't want to upset a group of other players with no resale value? Good old Uncle Tone.

Brereton probably didn't want to go having had his eyes on going to Villareal on a pre contract agreement for some time. So yes, nothing you can do in that instance, you cant force a player to leave. Sorry you're unable to grasp that basic point. It has also been pointed out many times that you're judging that situation with the benefit of hindsight. He was our top scorer and we missed out on the play offs by one point so it wasn't that bad a decision, one more point somewhere over the course of the season and if we'd have scraped through the play offs everyone would have been saying what a brave and inspired decision it was to keep him. Extremely fine margins.