OhForAGreavsie

Being young can't be the only qualification for getting into the team. Players have to offer more than their birth certificates. Yes, mangers can give young players development minutes. Minutes they might not fully deserve on performances alone, but that should only happen when the manager judges the player's potential is worth developing. It seems Frank believes this is the case with Mason, and fair enough, that's his decision to make. In my opinion however, Mason has to do more to earn even 'development' minutes, and a great deal more to keep his place purely on merit.

I have not yet seen the first half, and may not bother now, but from what I have seen I think we are more deserving of a point today than we were at The Bridge. They played much better that day and absolutely battered us, especially second half.

Mason is benefitting from the ghost of KDB, from the fear of repeating the same mistake. Thing is it is clear, and always has been, that Mason is not as talented.

This game is very worrying for the Premier League. Third and fourth?

Quoted the wrong post? Think you must have. Oh, I get it now.

Lol!

Strongly disagree with you about Emerson but I reckon we'll both be glad if there is an upgrade in the summer.

I've never personally said that he can't, but one delivery proves nothing either way of course.

Such a shame but good luck to Tariq. He deserves this and I hope it goes brilliantly for him.

The interview I think I remember was about the permanent move, not the loan. Absolutely agree.

I agree that Jovic on loan would be worth consideration. Am I remembering correctly an interview in which Kova explained he had made it clear to Real that he was not interested in going back there? If so, it's probably more true that Kova's stance sorted the move than that we did. Either way, if Madrid recruit one of the big hitters then Jovic probably won't see much future there either so I think you are right about us having a chance.

This is really something. Let's hope the club can build a truly exciting side which will cement this interest into sold fandom. If we can, it'll be an increasingly important boost to our profile, and therefore attractiveness to sponsors, in coming years.

Well they seem a more relevant sponsor than Yokohama on the face of it. In the end though, most of what I care about is the money.

I did say above that I think it's a legitimate subject as far as its impact on transfer regulations is concerned, but I'm obviously happy to go along with whatever the majority wants on this.

Fiscally, it does not matter where a taxpayer was born, just that he or she pays in to the revenue. All established Premier League players are multi millionaires and if a club is unable to fill its squad with overseas footballers it will fill it with domestic ones instead. They will still be paid and they will still be required to pay taxes. It might be tempting to argue that salaries for non domestic players will be higher, and that tax revenue from those players will therefore be higher too. I'm not sure the data bears that out however. The cost of employing homegrown players is already disproportionately high and driving up demand for their services would drive up their costs too. I don't know what the data shows regarding this next point but it seems to me that non domestic players are more likely to set up legal offshore pay arrangements for a portion of their earnings and avoid income tax altogether. What must be sure is that they will spend much more of their disposable income outside the UK. This means that indirect tax revenues will be lost, as will be the economic benefit of their spending circulating in the UK economy. Lastly, there is the clear win for UK revenues of transfer spending staying inside the country and that money circulating around our clubs generating more transfer levies and further economic activity. It can't simply be assumed that fewer overseas players means less tax revenue for the government, or reduced economic benefit to the UK economy. It could even be that the exact opposites are true.

Not the brexit issue itself I agree, but the way brexit might impact transfer regulations is a legitimate, and interesting, conversation for this sub-forum I think.

I was never a fan of Rom's. When we signed him I posted that he 'shouldn't be here'. When he was sold I was fine with it, and when he was slated to return I was dead against it. Rom is a better player than Tammy.

Better yes and that is true of fans of all clubs.

Well yes and no. On one hand it was bad, but on the other, it always is so it was no worse than usual. After 50 years of watching this club play I think I'm entitled to an opinion on this; Chelsea fans don't know how to support their football team.

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You think more of Emerson than I do but surely, as soon as there is an opportunity, we'll upgrade at left back.

Well if we're 9th on the rich list we are 9th. That list reflects turnover however, and turnover is not wealth. In any case, cash is not the only currency. Juve are a more storied club than we are. Much more. All things being equal, players would rather play for them than for Chelsea. Even if people think I'm wrong in this specific case, that players do not find Juve a more desirable destination than Chelsea, there definitely are some clubs higher up the food chain than we are. If we're to tempt players away from such clubs, the reality is we have to pay them more. This means having extra cash helps little because we have to spend more to attract the same level of talent. The club is in Roman's hands. He cannot escape the responsibility and I don't believe he would want to.

PSG will till the end of the season so the arithmetic he has to do is six months @ £360pw + a new contract with some team somewhere from July, or eighteen months @ who knows how much with a new club now.

Sergio Ramos should sack whoever it was that translated that comment into English for him. If he did it himself, he should hire someone to handle translations for him. If it was google; no it can't heave been google. It isn't that bad.

BBC highlights of yesterday's 4-1 demolition of Arsenal Women. (May be geo locked.) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51080655 Goal highlights from a YouTube channel. (Lower quality but should be viewable everywhere.)