Leaderboard

In an attempt to increase Norwich’s exposure in the Far East I’ve handed out a load of NCFC shirts to my wife’s family. Who knows, a stinking rich foreigner might see them and decide to invest millions in NCFC 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Not sure Webber passes his own policy, tbh.

The only avoidance available to them is image rights which are subject to income tax but not NIC. That follows the ruling in a court case many years ago involving a rugby league player. I understand that HMRC has a specialist department for Premier League clubs and will presumably know exactly what those rights are worth. There is nothing to stop a player having those payments made to an offshore company as Jose Mourinho did but he was caught by the Spanish authorities when he didn't declare income from his company. It's perfectly OK to use an offshore company in this way but you still have to declare any income from the company. More concerning is the Manchester City purchase of Haaland. It was reported that the agents fee was £45m. Quite what his agent did to earn that much is difficult to see but the agent is a Monaco resident so doesn't pay tax. And Haaland earns significantly less than Ronaldo. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about what happens to the £45m... In general though HMRC are going to be all over football clubs so I'd be confident that they are paying the right amount of tax in the vast majority of cases. I constantly hear people moaning about player's salaries but they are paid for by choice by customers through ticket sales, merchandising and TV subscriptions. All of that income attracts VAT and the major expenditure is wages which attracts PAYE. The Premier League pays over an extraordinary amount in tax and importantly its customers are fully aware of how their money is spent and don't have to pay if they don't want to.

The money in football now is obscene, it’s ruined the game totally, especially when you look at some of the transfer prices and wages. it’s why I don’t watch anymore tbh, as I think to myself about what this money could do for poorer people and countries

Very good in the Championship last season but almost £50 million is insane.

It's impossible to tell. My prevailing theory is that he's spent the last year making the same runs and been found 5 and a half times. It's unrealistic to expect he maybe isn't as peppy and electric to opportunities in those circumstances. Maybe we played better, maybe not having Rashica on the pitch, maybe he just really needed it to rain. But I think a bit of a rest, and another striker finally looking like they belong at Norwich (albeit only one game so far) could have a massive effect on the psychological pressure on him. When Idah briefly flared up last season Pukki also upped his goal involvements as well. As I said on a different thread, if it's Pukki or Sargent for a save-the-world 1v1 I'm still picking Teemu every time. But isn't it nice to be having the conversation about who should start, rather than who shouldn't because we only have one option.

That just shows it is perfectly possible for a medium-sized club to find an investor about whom there are absolutely no financial, ethical or moral qualms...😎

It is symptomatic of the instant change of opinion which seems to follow every single game, not just at Norwich by any means. It's crackers. Josh came on at Cardiff and did nothing. Did we look better then? Nope. Judge teams / players / managers over months and years, not single games!

Christ the ammount of people thinking we can just throw our striker who has scored 25+ goals at this level twice away is hillairously depressing. It's not Pukki's fault that Dean does not know how to use him and his team mates can't be bothered to support him

Dunno, sample size is too small. But I do think we're gradually moving away from a style of play that's purely set up for him to flourish in.

If Teemu can't get his boot on can't they send him down to Pilch's and get a bigger boot, they stock all the good makes, don't forget to ask David for a discount.

Who are we thinking should play? I'm going to go a little controversial to get a debate going..

What have Brighton seen of Billy Gilmour's performances in the premier League to suggest this would be a good signing? I wouldn't have him playing for us the championship. Billy is not the player he is touted to be. I didn't even see any potential.

We looked very shaky at the back against Huddersfield. I’m a fan of McLean but he is a rubbish left back. If Bryan is fit he should definitely start.

Only way he should play again at Carrow Road is for a visiting team. Hugely overrated.

I know it's unfashionable on this board to praise Stuart Webber, but the culture he's instilled at Colney and Carrow road of players being part of the club (list of every player to have played for the first team on the wall at Colney; pictures of the team in the tunnel at Carrow road) is really cool and it's great to have such a straightforward demonstration of what it means. Núñez is a Canary now.

Jesus! That's horrendous mate! I'm sure everyone on this site wishes you all the very best for your recovery.

Hi Billy

Why the spite against Billy? He never gave it less than 100%. Sure he struggled. But he didn't want to struggle. So why the spite?

I really don’t get the obsession, he’s long gone now. Yes he wasn’t good last year, neither was he as bad as many like to make out in a woeful team. Webber and Farke brought him in, it didn’t work, not his fault. I know both Chelsea and Scotland fans have been absolute **** about him but again not his fault. Not sure why people seem to want to see him fail and even care either way whether he does at this point.

I'm actually waiting for a call from someone that I was passed onto by the ptsd therapist about my legal standing with my employment etc. So fingers crossed I'll have more concrete knowledge of where I stand legally and what my options are.

Personally there would be no changes. So McLean at left back and cantwell ahead of Onel.

Unfortunately the story forever more will be “Norwich ruined Gilmour” when he flops at his next move.

Something that has always fascinated me is, what was classed as the first Rock n Roll track? There are several contenders, but exactly where R&B stopped and R&R began is anyone's guess Here's a contender for the title... Oldsmobile actually gave him one of their Rocket 88's for promoting the car!

On Twitter the Chelsea fans reckon the club will regret selling him. Somehow I think it might be the Brighton fans feeling regret.

Indeed, don’t get me wrong, Pukki with the right game around him has been brilliant for us, but this season you can see a frustration in his face, maybe Smith game just isn’t fully suited! But I’m a great believer in form, if Sargent deserves to be dropped fine but Tuesday he did enough for me to start. The pressure is on Pukki to come on and then take his chance, good place to be!

He got like 12 goals and 10 assists or something at Championship level which is very good but not £50 million good. If he's worth £50 million then I'm at least worth £6 million, and I'm f*cking terrible

I’m sorry but Pukki has had a few chances in his games which he hasn’t buried! What makes you think he would have done Tuesday?

About £150m but they’ll be way off FFP at the moment. Though if they go down they can see if they can hit administration more spectacularly than Derby did.

He's doing ok but not sure what I was expecting really. Nunez however has hit the ground running and looks more like a £11m player! Sara needs minutes on the pitch, lots of them.

I'd add Sara & Ramsey to that list.

Yep, good comparison. I personally think it's time to evolve somewhat but there are strong arguments on both sides. My stance is that for Pukki to really fire, it needed Buendia and whilst he did well in the Premier League second time around without Emi and we'd need a Buendia replacement. It could be Sinani and Nunez between them, with a fully focused Cantwell floating around and Dowell in the squad. But we also know that he needs a break, and we need a plan B. Farke's excellent Plan A could only have so many tweaks with the standard of players we have relative to the PL that another style was bound to be needed. And I see Smith here as the manager brought in to do that.

Or we should just learn to play better with Pukki on the field. But its comments like this and others which just show how flipant and flimsy people are from week to week with their opinions. If Sargeant has one bad game you'll be crying for Pukki again.

We played just as well at Hull, who are arguably are stronger side. When fit, Pukki should still be the first name on the team sheet. Be interesting how he fares better with Sinani behind him, who seems to play the kind of balls forward Pukki thrives on.

I wouldn't throw him away, he is the best striker we have had for years.

Brighton in for Billy Gilmour according to the BBC this morning.

Alas .................. 😉

Thankyou, but honestly I didn't write it for sympathy or well wishes (as welcome as they are) I wrote it as it's Been a shïte morning and the opportunity to get it all out there to others instead of the dog (as the missus, my mum and even the brother in law are all at work) means it clears my own air slightly. Lol

Well he took up a valuable spot in our first xi and we got relegated. And certain circles said he unsettled Todd, believe what you will. I dislike the lad for showing zero effort and swanning about like he was cr7

I think Dowell is underrated and will play an important role over the season. Starts for me. Onel off the bench again. Can't see Byram being thrown straight back in - perhaps 15mins at the end. Sara also a run in the second half, 25/30mins Also think Cantwell has done just about enough to keep the jersey for the moment, but he needs to deliver a bit more "end product." Assuming no knocks/fatigue, same 11 again I would think. Use of the bench very important.

Whether it's a seamer's pitch or not, they're still far and away our best seam bowlers and you're always going to pick at least three quicks in your XI... but I accept that the analogy doesn't hold up to extended scrutiny 😉 Taking cricket out of the equation, I did see periods of play on Tuesday (especially in the first half) that were quite reminiscent of Farkeball, with patient movement around the final third, lots of neat interplay and then going back to the centre backs on half way to start again if necessary. Obviously Pukki doesn't prefer to play against a low block (which we'll see a lot of this season), but he's still extremely adept at finding small pockets of space in a congested penalty area and getting accurate shots away. With the midfielders Smith has signed, I actually think we're moving more towards that style of football; Sinani and Nunez both look extremely keen to try killer passes in the final third, we know Cantwell has that in his locker, and we've not seen much of Sara and Ramsey yet. I am hopeful that once our new midfield is bedded in (and obviously that includes the insurance of Hayden in front of the back four), Pukki will get plenty of opportunities in front of goal – and he'll score plenty, too. I just can't convince myself that he somehow has to win his place back from Josh Sargent; Sargent is a great trier, an excellent and adaptable squad player, but in no way a starting number 9.

I think Sargent keeps the position until his form dips or he does not score We keep the winning side and Formation Pukki is not getting thrown away Pukki lost his spot due to injury and the player who came in did well and scored Pukki will get his chance again and i am sure he will take it but until then he is just like any other player if we signed a left back would anyone want Gibbs dropped for Mclean ? i wouldn't how about if smith dropped Sinani for Rashica ? If players do well the reward is you start next time easy as that

Exactly. And let's face it, he is slowly coming towards the end of his career, so it makes perfect sense to start gradually evolving the team's style of play unless a completely identikit striker is found.

Hilary Clinton kept documents with the highest security classification (Top Secret) on her private email server, and it was proven her server was accessed by those without security clearance yet the Attorney General said at the time, it was not in the public interest to prosecute. The Democrats are pursuing this story as they want to stop Trump from running in 2024. They could try running on a series of policies that improves the lives of American citizens but instead prefer to create conspiracy theories such as the Russian influence hoax in order to smear their opponents. Still, this is the party that has used murder to rid itself of troublesome people since the early days of the Clinton presidency so rigging an election is small beer in the greater scheme of things. Well hopefully the American people can overcome the anti-democrats in the Democrat party just as we over this side of the pond have our own deep-state problems to overcome.

Only came across Billy Stewart about 10 years ago. Heard his version of Summertime (added here) and that was it, I had to hear more. Tragic death at no age of 32 in 1970 when the car he was driving plunged into a river. All 3 band members killed too. He left a lot of great songs but just 3 selected.

Tested negative today but annoyingly still have what could politely be called 'covid tummy' 🤢 Really want to be back for Friday though, hate missing any games but under lights are my favourite. Hope you are soon covid free and fit for the game.

Different type of player though. Rashica was bought for the [theoretically] fast-countering 4-3-3 in the Premiership where we wouldn't have much of the ball. Sinani is much more suited to games where we have a lot of possession against a deeper lying defence - a sort of Buendia-lite - which he wouldn't have seen for them as much last season. Ironically Rashica would probably have looked better for Huddersfield last night than us - I imagine the sort of goal that the young lad scored for them is what Webber envisaged Rashica doing for us last year ... But at the moment, no contest - Sinani all the way.

This is gonna end in heartbreak😂

I wonder if they roll up on Friday evening to watch us play Millwallkee?....