OhForAGreavsie

You state that as known fact. Sounds good if true and would explain a lot. We're just helping Everton drum up interest in the player. Let someone else buy him and bank the cash. Far rather add £30m to the transfer kitty, than Lukaku to the squad.

To be fair to Rom he has made some good judgements in his career so far. Joining Chelsea was the right choice, as was the decision to leave again. Now, wanting to move on from Everton is once more the right plan. Just so long as he doesn't end up here that is.

Surely to goodness this tells us all we need to know. Where are Barca or Real or Bayern or Paris or Juve or Atletico or the Manchester clubs or Arsenal even, in the chase for this wonderful striker? Nowhere to be seen it seems. I'm inferring that on the assumption that this story is true, because, if it is, that's the only explanation for Rom preferring Chelsea. If any of those clubs put their hat in the ring Rom would undoubtedly be at least considering them. Trouble is for Rom that those clubs have seen him play and that fact is, I'm affraid, always going to put a ceiling on his ambition. Rom has some highly desirable attributes but he lacks the one quality which, ultimately, all of the great strikers possess, high level technical skills. That shortcoming dooms him to being ranked among the good, not the great and the good is not what I want Chelsea to be chasing in the transfer market. Not at £65m, not even at £28m. Buy good players, keep buying good players then buy enough good players and you end up 10th. Unless of course you end up 11th. Like Everton. If we really are contemplating this stupid move there can be only one of two explanations to my mind. Either it suggests a dangerous nativity on Conte's part; it's England so let's get a big lump up top, or it is someone in the decision making group wanting to prove that they were right all along. Bringing Rom back would be a very expensive way to prove that they were not.

When he left I said it was ridiculous to keep Maka and let this bloke go. No one agreed with me then and I bet no one agrees with me still.

Thank you again TW.

Thank you TW. Where do those ratings come from? I'd like to find Kennedy's ratings from the same source. Since I know what I thought of Kennedy when I watched his youtube videos I would then be able to calibrate their ratings with my own and have a better idea how to interpret what they have said.

I really like the look of this lad's technical skills. He carries the ball very impressively with a bit of quickness about his thinking and his movements. As usual it's impossible to tell from youtube just how effective he is, but it can be seen that Lima has the tools that should give him a chance to be a big contributor for his team. The questions I'd therefore like to ask our Brazilian members, or anybody who watches Lima regularly, are: - Where's the catch with this bloke? With skills like those, why has he not made a bigger impact up to now? Why has he been on the sidelines for the Sealcao while others played? Why has no European club stumped up enough cash to prize him away? Is this bloke as effective as he looks like he could be?

They must have been making the mistake of actually watching Rom play.

When Rom was here I said that I did not think any manager of a Champions League quality side would ever be satisfied with him as his starting striker. I felt that while Rom's attributes and intelligence would enable him to make a contribution, such clubs would always be looking for a player with better technique. I still believe that this is true so I don't want him back at any price. Costa and Lukaku as a two pronged spearhead costing a combined £100m makes no sense to me. Indeed, I wouldn't be unhappy if Costa was sold. Pairing him with Lukaku would be yet another stupid mistake. In terms of Rom's goalscoring rate, I have never subscribed to the theory that the player who scores more goals is the better forward. I look for the man whose personal contribution makes the biggest positive impact on a team. That in my opinion, will never be Rom. I'd prefer pretty much any of the other strikers we are being linked with. Certainly AM, certainly GH and certainly PD but there are others too.

Howard Webb reportedly thought that third goal was on side but, in the one replay that has been shown, it looked off to me. Want to see it again. P.S. Webb & the ref were right. I was wrong.

Having read many hundreds of your posts, I know that this is the case. It is not your style. I did however tell you that I understood the concept in a previous post during this conversation. As I said, you are talking about a question of timing; sign the new CB now or sign him later. I never doubted that differences on this are a matter of legitimate football opinion. If we are unable to fill the position from in house, we will, sooner or later, need to sign a CB. I simply said that, given we are going to need to buy a CB anyway, it makes no difference financially if we do it now or next summer. One possible reason that we appear to have been miscommunicating on this could be that you are talking about a backup CB whereas I thought we were discussing a first choice replacement for JT. That difference changes the priorities about if and when the purchase is required.

Thank you Choulo and good idea to move the conversation. Forgive me but you are being patronising. I understand all you have said perfectly well and have done since long before The Football League, followed by UEFA and then The Premier League introduced regulations which made it relevant to discuss this basic accounting principle in football conversations. I don't know your age but I was dealing with amortisation in my working life before most users of this forum were born. Your key point is about a question of timing and I'll talk about that next but I'd like to quickly observe that the example given supports my suggestion that the decision about when to purchase a new CB is a nil item in FFP terms. Whether that player is bought this summer or next, your example shows that we end up at exactly the same place five years from now. The same new players, the same cost. I'll stick with those sample figures in the rest of this. You are arguing that it makes a difference in timing; that, by renewing JT, we can spend £2.5m of the FFP budget on a player for another position of need this summer, instead of waiting until next summer. There is an assumption there that I'll come to in a minute, but my case is that this saving is balanced out by the fact that we then have to use £2.5m of FFP money for a new CB next season. If buying a new CB now restricts our ability to strengthen a different position in 2016, then buying him next year will likewise restrict our spending in summer 2017. Whether we start paying for a new CB in 2016 or in 2017, he will still cost £10m over four years. £10m = £10m no matter how you slice it. Whenever we sign him, the new CB comes at the opportunity cost of buying someone else instead. I'd say this hints at a possible reason it has taken so long for a new contract to be offered to JT. It will have been necessary for the new boss to make a serious assessment of which existing squad members he can rely on, which development players he can integrate, if any, and which players he'd like to sign. He and the club will then have investigated whether those players are likely to be available to Chelsea this summer, and if not, whether Conte would be prepared to wait for a particular individual for a season. All of these plans will then have had to be costed in FFP terms and decisions made about what money would be spent and when. That really is a complicated process. The assumption I spoke about plays in to all of this as well. Would it be right to assume that JT can offer the side as much as we need next season, or is CB a position of urgent need right now? That decision does not come down to money. You have shown that in FFP terms it makes no difference, the costs are the same (As I said ). What it comes down to is an assessment of the needs of the team. We all have thoughts on this but it's Antonio's opinion that matters.

I understand amortisation perfectly well and it makes not the slightest difference to the logic here Chou. If we are not paying wages and amortised fee for a new CB over, say, four years, starting in July this year, then we'll be doing that starting in July next year. Such a player will very likely be needed and so the money will have to be spent, and accounted for, at some time. In any case, amortisation is just an accounting practice. It almost never reflects real cash flows. The real amount of money leaving one club's bank account and arriving in another's also has to be budgeted. You sign a player this year or next year, he still has to be paid for. For example, I imagine we are still showing the last dribbling of Mikel Jon Obi's transfer fee on our FFP accounts despite the fact that United and Lyn Oslo danced off into the night with their swag many moons ago. (Not sure how much of their booty Lyn got to keep by the time the legal processes worked themselves out.)

Spend now, spend next year, the fee for a new CB will still come out of the budget at some point. More to spend on other players this summer = less to spend on other players next year.

I'd say this is a nil item since if we don't buy a replacement this summer we'd almost certainly but one next summer. Either way, there's an FFP hit coming. Only possible way around that is if Christensen, Tomori or Clarke-Salter are able to take JT's role in the squad.

I'm surprised to read such positive comments about Hughes. There was a lot of noise concerning him around the time of our FA Cup tie at Derby two seasons ago so I watched him a couple of times, including in that game. He looked very ordinary to me, like one of those youngsters who is horribly overrated just because he's got a little bit of technique. If these glowing assessments are accurate then either he has come on a lot or I was just plain wrong back then.

Nate needs a permanent transfer. Not good enough for the side we want to be.

CB is his position. He played just a few games at fullback.

You made it sound like you were disappointed that a manager with a good reputation had joined the club.

No, not in the sense that they are underdogs but in the sense that they are behind and are playing catchup. In any case, I'd argue that looking at Premier League budgets and concluding that PL clubs should automatically do better than non-Premier League sides is not an entirely reliable equation. It's not entirely unreliable either but, just like the misleading 'fact' that average Bundesliga attendances are higher than average Premier League gates, the raw numbers need some analysis before accurate conclusions can be reached. I'll give some examples of what I mean in a moment but first let me be crystal clear that I agree with your general point. Premier League clubs have underperformed relative to their budgets and they should be ashamed of themselves for it. The examples I mentioned: - UK work permit requirements mean that Premier League clubs must spend more on transfer fees and wages to buy the same calibre players as non UK clubs. Cultural factors mean that PL clubs must significantly outspend some continental counterparts to attract the better players. Until recently, UK tax legislation meant PL clubs had to pay much higher gross wages to match the net incomes available to some players in Spain. These factors make the Premier League cash advantage much smaller in reality that it looks at first sight. There are other considerations too.

Alas?

Woah! Hold a minute there boy!

^^Wow, what a lot of interesting stuff in there.

Yes, if I were to have a preference it would probably be for the up and coming brand because of the impression that they might try harder.

Must be to do with it being our 5th offence vs, their 3rd. Otherwise the decision would be inexplicable.