Silvio Dante

I ****ing love that man. Its like having an extra player. You beautiful, beautiful scouse shithouser

I think you may have it.

I think that would be the only thing that would put it in doubt. Boro would have been scheduled to come down today, likely by flying. There’s a fair chance they’ve had to travel by other means, but as long as their coach has made its way down today, I think we’ll be fine.

For clarity pop, I wasn’t suggesting lost player sales could be included in acceptable losses but stadium revenue could be, and that makes up a huge part of our incomings - and more pertinently, in normal times is reliable.

And again, I’ll then say in terms of football what is when the turnstile money doesn’t cover things? We have a “guaranteed” stream. Non match day stadium income. But Covid stopped it and caused a lot of our problems. So, what is Mr Jordan’s guaranteed stream that he points to outside of our current strategy?

Tbf , most businesses run on the basis of selling goods for more than they’ve paid for them, so the “buy low, sell high”. The trick is generally ensuring your stock is accurately valued I think the big thing that Jordan’s missing (and it has been lost) is that our model isn’t based solely on sales and that also isn’t the difference between FFP or not. Our major income generator is the stadium, and if you look at the income lost through Covid, that’s the difference between meeting and failing FFP. And I’d bet that the “acceptable losses” will consider this and we won’t fail FFP on that basis. Lets flip the question. If Jordan doesn’t believe a good model is income generation from the stadium and player sales as the latter isn’t guaranteed, what does he believe is? Match day income doesn’t cover costs, and parachute payments also aren’t guaranteed long term. So, what is his better model? Or is he just being a Cuprinol faced **** again?

So Simon Jordan thinks a strategy of buying low and selling high is a poor one. Thanks for that Simon, I’ll go for the “buy high, sell low” strategy that led Palace to administration. And Simon also thinks we can’t blame Covid when the financials he’s referring to are 20/21 when Covid was in full flow, and we’re now out and adjusting - ie not blaming Covid currently. I’m not sure Simon understands accounts are published retrospectively. There’s a reason I don’t listen to Talksport. I’ve probably just identified it.

This probably sums it up:

Just as a non spoiler tip. Theyve clearly realised yesterdays “power language” site word was made up. So if you’re on Wordle without a manual refresh, it now has yesterdays NY times word as they’ve done the correction. So, I’m guessing if you just have PL open and don’t manually refresh (which takes you to NY times), you’ll be running one day behind from now on.

It was pretty much an assault by Weston’s LB! Thought on that game a 1-1 draw was just about fair, Yate started superbly. Weston’s keeper kept them in it for me, but then the second half was a bit of a damp squib. Fantastic result today. Yate are small at this level and Paul Michaels done a fantastic job. Been down about 5 times this season and will no doubt add by season end.

Ipswich supporting mate of mine at MK Dons today. He’s just messaged me from the ground…

Sorry Dave. Consider me the anti-Ian Gay.

I’m pretty positive on the whole to be honest. Scott, HNM and Semenyo are the obvious ones - somehow, we’ve generated about £50m of assets from nothing (or not much), and huge credit has to go to the management there. I also think we’ve been pretty smart in the transfer market - Tanner and Atkinson have upside, Klose looks good and the only real bomb has been King (I class Simpson as last year), and that’s not been at huge cost to us I’d imagine - will also likely transition to coaching. Joe Williams getting back to fitness will be huge for us longer term as well, and he’s being managed carefully and well from what I see. Its also obvious to state that our big earners contracts now have one year less on them. It’s a small but important step to financial stability. Being back in the ground has to be on the list also. I think the bottom line for me is this. I take where we are now and compare it to where we were a year ago, pretty much one year since NP was appointed, I see more of a plan, a younger, more exciting squad, and I think he knows the areas for improvement to kick it on. I genuinely don’t think we’re miles off tbh.

On a related subject, this shows why broadcast rules need reform. For the tech savvy, it’s easy to get a VPN and circumvent the overseas requirement. If people want to watch from home, they will. However there will be less tech savvy people who may want to watch, and would just pay for a UK stream. I’m not sure that allowing streams to the UK would harm the paying attendance, which was the prior argument - but it may increase the exposure, and ultimately get those fans through the turnstile

He has my sympathy for his mental health issues - nobody is immune, no matter how much money they have. However, being a bit of an arse and having mental health issues are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Tomlin gets stick because he’s been an arse - the cheating with the nanny, the downing tools and putting on weight here etc etc. Its possible all of those things are linked to mental health, but it is also possible he’s a bit of an arse when he’s not suffering. What I’m saying is that it’s easy to be binary. But on the same basis that I don’t excuse Collymore battering Ulrika because he has mental health issues, I think it’s not a catch all to say Tomlin should be immune from the times he’s been unprofessional because he has mental health issues at times. It is accurate to say he’s performed when he wants a contract, and then drops off afterwards. Its not implausible to say that only happens because of mental health issues. If the black dog hits him, that’s horrible. But his career follows a similar pattern at every club and it’s not unfair to opine that he may, in addition to suffering from a condition I hope he gets help for, be an arse at times.

(I know, it’s an old gag) Lee Tomlin: Ex-Cardiff City forward training with Wrexham https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60335049

I think that’s bottom line. I’ve not seen anyone make a case that he did anything exceptional yesterday or even exceeding base expectations - indeed there have been people pointing out (not just me) the at times poor kicking and failure to come for balls. To me, and using @Davefevs scale of a 6 being earning your money, it was a high 5/low 6 out of 10 - probably just about met base expectations. That people are spinning his performance, at that level, as a positive says to me again that he probably isn’t the answer long term, much as we’d like him to be.

Interesting move as he was in the frame for us (and not an unpopular choice) recently. After an Ashton clashing spell at Ipswich, he has now rocked up for a second time at Non-League Chesterfield. Seems to be below the level you’d expect him to be punching at.

I think he’s being given a run in the team, to see if we need a new number one, and to flush out what are the good and bad points. Bentley deserved to be dropped, no questions there, and you have to give the replacement keeper a run in the team. He’s had that run, and I don’t think it’s wrong to say that he doesn’t command things - and also it’s not wrong to say that I wouldn’t be confident with him as #1 next season for that reason in the main. That’s not “not rating him”, it’s saying there is more to the game than regulation saves and catches which is what he did last night. It’s also fair to say Bentley only returned to training on Tuesday post Covid. I’d ask, if from what you’ve seen, if you think he’s good enough from the long audition he’s had to be our number one. My answer is no, and every player has weaknesses - surely part of a forum is discussing those?!?!?

Hmmm. I didn’t think he was bad, but it probably reaffirmed for me that he’s not going to be someone I’d be overly comfortable going in as first choice next season and I think he’s a notch or two below Bentley currently. The big deal for me on Max is command and responsibility. If I look at last night, the crosses he took (two notably in the first half were hooked free kicks in from our RHS) he collected very deep - didn’t come, waited for them to be on top of him. I then look at general positioning - when we’re up the pitch, he was pretty much glued to his 18 yard box. I commented on the O’Dowda thread (and not excusing COD) that for me when COD got caught in that awful event of not running the ball out, it was Max’s ball in the first place - but he didn’t take responsibility for it. A good goalkeeper also keeps pushing his defence out. Everyone would say we got deeper and deeper last night - probably the deepest we got all season. That’s not solely on Max, but he should be the driver to push his defence up (put it this way, if he’s playing 10 yards out then the centre halves aren’t going to be 12 yards out). Did he make any mistakes at face value? No. But there looks to be a clear deficiency which isn’t getting better.

Yeah, echo. Very impressive, committed, good on the ground as well and confident. Need to see more to make it a longer term engagement but done himself no harm IMO

I thought Pring outside of the two goals was poor. Often went down blind alleys and gave the ball away, also looked to be blowing a bit (remember playing LWB where he’s had stamina issues whereas at LCB he hasn’t). I don’t disagree with the decision to hook him but we had a very inexperienced and unbalanced bench.

Although I think he was bad, I do think on the “incident” when he didn’t shield the ball out a modicum of blame has to go to Max. That ball goes a long way, and O’Leary is very deep. Which is common (see how deep he is on our corners for example). In the first phase decision, I’d expect it to be keepers ball - and the only reason it wasn’t was because Max’s starting position (and I think willingness to take responsibility) was poor. Once O’Dowda goes he should do a million times better. But I also think it’s fair to say, holistically, that the situation should not have arose with a better positioned goalkeeper.

Ah bollocks. I’m still claiming it, and expecting royalties every time anyone else tries to say it’s theirs!

That’s Accra-ate.