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Well, I apologise @Dean Coneys boots, I said your last thread was one of the most stupid i've ever read. This one absolutely takes the biscuit.

I'm sorry i just think this hawking Tzolis around is a complete and utter failure on the part of our club, Webber and the coaches we have. This kid is 19. He was very highly rated when we picked him up. Yes we can probably all say in hindsight it was the wrong signing at the wrong time but what message does it send when we are trying to ditch the player 1 year into a long contract just to try and recoup some money for him. Smith is supposedly well known as a good coach and a guy who is good for young players. If so lets back him to turn Tzolis's Norwich career around. We are playing at a more forgiving level where there is a good chance his confidence will be restrored so lets give that a chance to happen. I just find it immensely frustrating that we appear to be jettisoning a £10m player without giving them a chance or without really giving the whole relationship a chance to work. I want us to keep him, back his ability and back the ability of our coaches and club to bring the best out of him. You just know if we sell him then in 2 or 3 years time he's going to be making us look stupid by moving to some massive European club for a feee way in excess of £10m.

So, in rough round sum terms, the club receives £100m of the £170 in the season they are in the EPL. It is estimated between £70 to 90m of this is paid out in salaries to players, they being paid the going rate for EPL. The other £20m went into the transfer pot (at rough estimate post Buendia receipt a net outlay in season of £30m although some of this may well hit cash flow later). The operating expenses therefore are paid out of the other income generated, c £20m. The remaining £70m is paid out over 6 instalments as parachute payments over two years. I think the payments are received in September December & February. What this means essentially is none of this £170m is available for the current transfer window. Sure, the club could borrow against the parachute money to come, but the Board do not want to borrow any more money. Thus transfers have to be paid out of cash flow. Yes, that basically means unless fee payments can be deferred until the parachute money is in the bank, transfers have to be paid for out of cash received from sales (which in turn may also be subject to deferral). Does this help understand why there is no "magic" pot of money? In short players and agents have had it already. Of course in the EPL we could continue to pay Chumps wages, but then we would have no chance of staying up. Forgive me for sounding frustrated about having to repeat myself, but it really ain't rocket science why we don't have oodles of cash!!

Loans are a way of obtaining players that might not consider a transfer to a championship club. It worked OK for Forest last year: Keinan Davis, James Garner, Djed Spence, Philip Zinckernagel were some of their key players. We would be crazy to ignore the loans market just because we got it wrong last year.

I agree about that Newcastle game. Yes stuff didn't come off but in the space of 45 minutes he had a goal denied by a blatant handball, had a couple of decent shots and set Sargent up when he somehow managed to miss from a yard. He makes decent runs, gets in good positions and does make things happen when he plays. I thought it was a bad decision to sub him off. In fact Smiths decision making in that game was iffy full stop and it was obvious that what we needed to do was get Dimi on alongside Tzolis and stretch them down the left yet we waited until about the 80th minute. He was pretty good in the first half at Arsenal as well. I am certainly struggling to see why some players get endless opportunities whereas he is being written off after a few 45 minute cameo's in a sh*t team.

It would be great if this move would hurry up and happen if it’s going to…if only so that we can move in from these threads!

Not a kit launch, but a new range of bobblehead figures.

OMG I love stuff like this, cryptic messages, hype, excitement... Can't wait for the disappointment in the morning! 🙂 I may have a mars bar on standby.

So he built his team around an exceptionally talented British player and this means he loves and prefers British players? Mate, that is moron level logic.

Exactly so, I think many of us have felt this conflict for quite a while, between wanting Johnson to get the bullet he so richly deserves immediately, and the longer term perspective of him continuing to damage the Tories' electoral prospects right up to the next election. The long term option certainly has its attractions - the possibility of the Tories suffering an electoral humiliation of historic proportions but as you say the country continues to be damaged further whilst he is there and you can't help but wonder just how bad things are going to get in the next 2 years if he does manage to hang on. Also to return to the 'when will we re-join the EU ' theme, it is already becoming clear that even some Tory MPs are beginning to have second thoughts about Brexit, or at least Johnson's very damaging version of it, but it's also clear that Johnson's exit is a pre-requisite (though no guarantee) to the UK adopting a sensible policy towards improving Johnson's appalling deal and negotiating honestly with the EU to achieve that aim.

To ex[ect us to not have any loans is just ridiculous, no teams get promoted without loan players. Over the last 5 years seasons the promoted teams have had an average of 4.6 loan players (according to Transfermarkt), the majority of which weren't made permenant. I love the fact we are trying to do things differently with the self funding, but that is already tying one hand behind our backs compared to rivals, if we did it without loans as well then we woiuld not be able to compete at all... 21-22 Fulham 2 Bournemouth 6 Forest 5 20-21 Us - 4 Brentford 2 Watford 2 19-20 Fulham 6 Leeds 6 WBA 5 18-19 Us 1 Sheff Utd 7 Villa 7 17-18 Wolves 6 Cardiff 6 Fulham 6

Get out more Cambridgeshire, it’s summertime. Do some pubbing and clubbing, empty your pipe perhaps too. It beats living on here.

Birmingham - 0 Barnsley - 2 Blackburn - 1 Blackpool - 0 Bristol - 3 Burnley - 1 Cardiff - 9 Coventry - 1 Huddersfield - 1 Hull - 0 Luton - 3 Boro - 3 Millwall - 1 Us - 1 Preston 1 QPR - 2 Reading - 2 Rotherham - 3 Sheffield Utd - 0 Stoke - 3 Sunderland - 1 Swansea - 4 Watford - 0 West Brom - 3 Wigan - 1 Without looking through each transfer I would imagine at least a handful of these are youth signings and a lot were free transfers. You could say it's just been a slow start to the window in general or I suppose we could sack the board and set the stadium on fire.

That's another photo for Lakey's shrine... OTBC

And as for the rational for being "pro-life" but in practice only for the unborn, here's an interesting perspective.

Republicans may be wishing that this particular "dog chases car" issue didn't actually mean the dog caught the car.

Yes but you miss the point, Shef. If enough of the players we had bought had been brilliant we would have stayed up! So it's all down to the club for not buying enough brilliant players! It's blindingly obvious to all the fans that this is what we should have done so why can't the club see it? 😉

Dalyo doesn't understand much.😇

Politics have been a huge part of music for many a decade

The problem is the jump from 'he played them over Tzolis' to 'he played them because he gels with them on a personal level because they're british' is such a giant leap that people are understandably want some evidence.

Its the new EPL Trophy and when we will be winning it. Handles are a bit too big really.

To be fair that was a great kit

Is Todd doing the clubs socials now?

Not that I have history or anything… it’s pretty easy to work out when it’s gonna happen 😂

Indeed, I’ve recently been to Spain and looking to sell my rental property in the near future and purchase a second Spanish home, near Valencia. If things carry on as they are I really don’t want to living here in a few years. I’ll keep my current home and possibly rent it out to top up my dwindling pension! If we didn’t have so many ties here with elders requiring our help we’d have moved a few years ago!

It comes from thin air because it doesn't stand up to the remotest bit of scrutiny. Smith worked with and signed players from all over the world and hasn't shown any preference towards British players in his career.

Fair enough, best carry on posting then.

... Would you settle for a Chinese then?

You say assumption, we've seen him go from playing against Liverpool in the cup, to having a finger pointed as the reason we lost, labelled "Naïve", and called an "emotional" Greek. ....Very shortly went to not playing at all, barring injuries to other players. It's not such a wild assumption to see that he's been horrendously mis-managed. Even if we play the scenario where he's not settled in England, what do you think is the best course of action in that scenario? To force him into training each day and then sit on a bench some weeks, others completely overlooked? 46 minutes since the new year, in a squad getting it's **** handed to them most weeks is somehow conducive in helping a player in that state? If he's down we failed to support him and show him belief, if he's too confident we should've cashed in on that attitude and played him. Truth is Farke had an un-necessary public blast of him, and Smith loves his British players. They tried to push him into U23's and he refused as wanted to be first team - Them be the facts.

No, we don't know. That's the point of my post. You seem more than happy to assume that the club wants to force him out the door though. It's the double standards stuff again from you.

Instead of continually beating round the bush, why not tell us what the problem is.

Aaah, **** it.😳

Well I did read your posts on this thread and the assumptions you make are baseless. That you have now responded with this ‘irrefutably’ confirms that fact. You say ‘what’s made up?’ then proceed to say ‘of course I don’t know’! You are of course allowed to theorise but you look pretty silly if you leave out many fundamental issues that may affect the situation as you have here and I don’t think that you left them out conveniently either, more likely it seems don’t understand human nature and football at that level. Whether we should cut our losses or not is another matter and the club may be right in moving him on but I don't see that its necessarily his fault and based on all the evidence, the fault lies with the club for poor acquisition, (he wasn't what we needed at the time) and possibly poor scouting if he wasn't as good in reality. A chance isn’t the odd game here or there, it’s a run of games, an opportunity to get used to EPL football (which in itself can take a full season), to raise confidence and to thrive. Now he never had that and frankly no one in an offensive position was ever going to gain confidence or thrive last season. The reason was it’s a team game and this team was just dysfunctional. Rashica did as well as could be expected until even his will was broken. Asking any forward to thrive in that set up was asking too much. We are talking about a very young kid, far from home away from family and friends (they are all human factors) trying to get to grips with a standard of football that even the experienced players failed to do. He had high expectations of himself and on him and when the Liverpool game came around, fair play to the lad for wanting to step up and try to take his opportunity to get more of a look in. It wasn’t the right thing to do but he wanted to impress. I can understand his eagerness at the time. Farke didn’t handle that situation well in my opinion. When you say he’s ‘played worse’ since; worse than what exactly, only there is no body of work to base that on in the first place. Don’t quote Bournemouth, a game against their reserves! Now I don’t know what you understand about the impact confidence has but it is crucial in high level sport. With the expectation he undoubtedly had (as many had for him) at the outset, he came in having played very well the season before starting games, scoring and creating goals. His experiences in the early months, not getting selected may well have dented that confidence and that would be a valid reason for a poorer performance if there was one. Against Newcastle away he started that game, held a position out wide and Williams failed to find him constantly whether he dropped out or made runs inside… Williams was absolutely woeful that day as he was generally when going forward. Tzolis tried, did ok, would have scored had it not hit the lads arm and still got dragged at half-time when we desperately needed to use the width. That was on Smith, he let us labour without intensity against 10 men. Now, to my mind anyone that picks Platcheta at this level of football has questions to answer, even at Championship level he’s proved incapable. Whilst I am hopeful with Smith, the signs aren’t great. That Tzolis was missing out on opportunity to Platcheta, it’s understandable if he got frustrated. Its simply not unreasonable to argue that his experiences with us this year have had an impact on his confidence, his desire and his attitude. The fact he is so young and in his circumstance makes it all the more understandable. With confidence drained, Rowe and Springett then overtook him in the pecking order, again understandable if he got further demoralised. So are you criticising him when you say he lacks ‘mentality’ and ‘resilience’, a 19-20 year old lad in a foreign environment. These aren’t football issues but human ones, natural ones that impact a person in different ways. He can’t help how he is but the club has to do all it can to alleviate that, whether they have or not I don’t know but based on all of the above, I would always give the lad the benefit of any doubt and not be critical. As for your last paragraph, dear me. All the above explains why that is nonsense. Consider Sorensen in that scenario… clearly doesn’t train well by your logic since he never gets selected, yet turns up on the odd occasion, does a very good job for us then gets dropped. Tzolis hasn’t had that opportunity as yet. I hope he gets to stay and gets to prove himself but if he doesn’t, good luck to him but he doesn't deserve your kind of character assassination..

I presume he's been told to leave his golf clubs at home.

Nah, you’re all wrong. ‘Not a kit launch’ will definitely be how we are getting Todd off the books for good. cryptic post to provide ironic tribute - check Cannon - check aerodynamically braided hair - check a sh** tonne of gunpowder. - check Just need Todd….. wait…….. he’s got a slight illness so might not make it tomorrow. Sorry guys

Could it be that "not a kit launch" is hinting that the kit has already been launched? Basically, a return to an older kit. (ASICS?)

Sounds like a great plan.👍 With my old man passing proper ties to the country are now gone (my brothers can look after themselves) but funds, and age, is my problem (I didn't bloody listen to my parents advice on pension plans etc.🤬) so I'll have to find somewhere that has a decent supply of work to make ends meet.

What we have to accept is that this style means the wheels will come off now and again. But our record up to now has been woeful anyway. Test cricket has to entertain or it will not survive. Already the Women's game is virtually snubbing Test cricket. It isn't as entertaining but people will watch the Hundred. The purists may not like it but the ball crashing to the boundary even if the bat is way away from the body is what the modern audience wants.

If you want someone to answer a specific question, it’s probably best just to ask that question, maybe explain what you think the answer is and leave that one question to be answered. If you scattergun ten different questions in a post and then more in your next post, you’ll never get them answered. Repeatedly demanding that people “answer the question” when you’ve posed 15 of them isn’t helping debate. Moving on to what seems to be your main question: IMHO, it’s is possible for us to win promotion and then stay up. We’ve seen multiple teams do it, often not for more than two seasons, but it is possible. Yes, most of those teams have spent more than we have. But just as you believe our scouts should do better choosing young players, maybe our scouts should select one or two candidates who are what we need in the short-term for one season, rather than eight or more players who might come good over a year or two. Maybe even using a loan to buy agreement. Then the rest of the team may have enough to deliver 17th place or better with existing players who are (maybe lower) PL quality and some who are only Championship level, but are good enough in a team when playing with better-quality players. Then rinse and repeat next season, buy a couple more. This is obviously speculation, like your preferred option, but there is precedent for it. What you describe hasn’t been done before and as several of us have said, has issues with it.

Seriously what is in the water at the moment? Nobody suggested there was going to be a squad rebuild. In fact that noise coming from the club has been the opposite. We've addressed our ibggest glaring weakness and we're yet to sell anyone. How is this that hard to understand?

Smith wouldn't even be in my top 10. He was failing with a team with players we'd give our right arm for. Was blessed with Hourihane, Abraham, Grealish & Bolasie in the promotion from championship, squad value must've been double ours yet we ran away with it, and they were languishing in playoffs. He's such a change in mindset vs Farke too, no continuation of style, stripping us of an iconic manager that we've become accustomed to. He's just so boring and hard to get behind , feels that we've lost this whole "togetherness" that made us great. The more I read on building around players like Dowell and losing the likes of Cantwell & Tzolis sends out alarm bells also. I just don't find him to be the sort to challenge and push for what he needs, rather a yes man who was thankful to jump back into a prem league job so fast.

I would dearly love an interviewer to ask one of the Government schmucks who is reeled out each morning, if their conscience is pricking them by defending Johnson and if they really pretend they have the good of the country on their minds, then why don't they have the bottle to come out and say what Dowden did and that there has to be change. To listen to the imbecile over the weekend, pretending that he personally is standing up to Putin and that he is the flag bearer for the G7 makes you want to vomit. You have a crisis at home. Unless of course he genuinely believes he hasn't.

Or alternatively, the player wants out, has wanted out for a while, doesn't feel settled in England and we're just not trying to force him to stay against his will? It's not always the club being big bad meanies Jim, remember that occasionally 🙂

I was chatting to my friend last night and he was explaining how easy it would be for the Daily Mail reading set to pooh-pooh the barristers strike. 12 hours later and this pops up. Does anyone do the slightest bit or research or simply jump to the laziest, thickest conclusion?

CD - Everybody I think has a lot of sympathy and likely support for the BA check in staff who want their 10% 'cut' restored (I'm not sure if that is just the core issue or there's more to it an that) but the Labour party is not the union or indeed the employer. It has, as any government should, be the 'referee' and to try and get all sides together for a solution not a direct participant if the law hasn't been broken If you want Labour to simply be just be the Unions delegate in parliament then fine but it will never be seen as an independent voice again and the wilderness awaits. The Unions are quite grown up enough to fight their own battles

Now is the summer of our discount tents. https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/camping/tents/sal:view/?gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAjwquWVBhBrEiwAt1KmwhapyZ96eJiSofk_QgZce3LV_NS8ZjgRm_CXsXflXGtG7LGZO7ukwxoCBrIQAvD_BwE

Loan to buy is an excellent way for a club like NCFC to do business. It gives us an opportunity to bring in PL capable players who might otherwise be reticent to sign a contract potentially committing themselves to 3-years or so in the Championship. For the club it means they haven't splashed out multi-millions on a player if we don't get promoted. What's not to like?

I think this may well be your best ever post Lakey.... 👍😄

😀 Where's the money go? It's in the accounts. Yeah, but where does the money really go?? It's in the legal, signed off accounts. I bet Delia siphons it off and fills her hambag with used oncers?! No, it's all written down in the accounts by a professional accountancy firm. I don't believe the accounts, surely someone's pocketing the cash!! Nobody cares what you think, sod off. Repeat ad nauseum, year on year.

One lonely new loan player in, all last year’s loans returned( thankfully ) two possibly going out , squad looks awfully poor.