Icecream Snow

Bethnal making some good points on Twitter

So how much of that was to do with Kieran Scott ?

Well it means you get to start another thread 😅😝

Cantwell was fit enough to play 90 minutes for the U-23s today 😉 Norwich City: McCracken, Mumba, Bushiri (C) (Giurgi 84'), Warner, Stewart (Springett 73'), Khumbeni (Earley 73'), Gibbs, Rowe, Cantwell, Dickson-Peters, Kamara

I'm hearing a lot about "investment" but case in point Wes Edens co-owns both Aston Villa and the NBA team Milwaukee Bucks who won the NBA Championship this year. Edens bought the Bucks in 2014 with a partner, and even factoring a dip for Covid, turnover was doubled since he bought them and they won a Championship. Compared to the Premier League, where even with Leicester's successes they had a turnover of £180m in 18/19, Brighton's was £148m Burnley's was around £138m. Man United was £500+m (I'm ignoring 19/20 as it was Covid impacted). So it highlights the gap between the "Big 6" and the rest of the Premiership, largely because of their branding, marketing and international merchandising sales. Tony Bloom has allegedly paid £300m into Brighton ( and Eddie Davies spent £180m at Bolton ), yet that's still smaller than the revenue gap in one season between Brighton or Leicester and Man United . There is money to be made from football. Kroenke and FSG supposedly take out 7-10% of the revenue as profit, but I struggle to see it outside of the Big 6.

Wouldn't get a work permit. Needs three of the last five years as a manager in a "top league"

I have idea what's going on with Cantwell, but I believe we've always struggled with his agents (the same guys who got Josh Maja to run his contract down at Sunderland)

The guys in Yellows are very good at burning the burgers.

Honestly I think our recruitment team have dined out on the success Pukki and Buendia for far too long. When we went down we were targeting to come straight back up as first or second, we knew that Leitner, Trybull, Vrancic, Tettey and Stiepermann would never play for us again in the Premiership, yet we started the window with only McLean, Rupp and Sorenson (and wanting to ship out Hernandez and Placheta). Covid has to be factored in to some degree, but the teams that have been successful Leeds, Sheffield United and Brentford had a strong core that they could bolt a few players onto. We went up without that strong core.

Kraft Heinz says people must get used to higher food prices https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58847275 The cost of ingredients such as cereals and oils has pushed global food prices to a 10-year high, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. During the pandemic, many countries saw production of raw materials, ranging from crops to vegetable oils, fall. Measures to control the virus, as well as illness, limited output and delivery. As economies have restarted the supply of these products hasn't been able to keep up with returning demand, leading to higher prices. Higher wages and energy prices have also added to the burden for manufacturers. Mr Patricio says this broad range of factors is contributing to the rising cost of food. "Specifically in the UK, with the lack of truck drivers. In [the] US logistic costs also increased substantially, and there's a shortage of labour in certain areas of the economy."

Wonder what happened to Moy? It's just Swindo and RTB left to fly the flag

I'm not sure who else would have been interested though. Villa knew Grealish was going for £100m+ and wanted a creative midfielder with Premiership experience, and Norwich wanted the deal done early. Villa also picked up Ings and Leon Bailey and had Jacob Ramsey come through from their academy. Buendia's strengths and weaknesses are well known: his intelligence and vision versus his lack of pace and height, I don't see another year really helping him, and I don't see the same money coming in for him in a years time, irrespective of his season. I doubt he regrets it, he's got a five year deal on allegedly £80k a week, and if we'd gone back down he'd be back to £15k a week in the Championship.

Interesting comments from the EU side about how they are trying to tackle driver shortages there. Most of the complaints I've seen from UK drivers are about the working conditions : the lack of facilities, having to sleep overnight in a layby etc, rather than the £30k+ a year average salary, and that the facilities on the continent were already far superior. https://inews.co.uk/news/hgv-shortage-eu-drivers-snub-boris-johnsons-uk-petrol-crisis-brexit-visa-offer-1217320 “There are driver shortages right across Europe as well, but the EU has committed to improving driver facilities and haulage companies are committed to improving pay and conditions. Until the UK offers the same pay and working conditions as drivers have in the EU then many will stay away.” Earlier this week, Brussels committed to a financial package to building new truck parking areas with improved facilities across the EU. Last year, the EU also introduced new rules on road transport to end the distortion of competition in the sector while providing better working conditions for drivers. The pay disparity between drivers from western and eastern Europe has also been levelling out since Covid and the logistics sector has face a huge rise in demand.

Well technically she's not wrong, there is no fuel shortage. We have plenty of fuel, we just don't have the HGV drivers to deliver that fuel to the petrol stations 😛

A lot of BP forecourts are already empty because they closed the petrol stations for fuel 😛

Interesting comment from Keiran Maguire https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58604851 From afar, they appear to have really let everybody else down. The profligate expenditure since Mel Morris took over, wages effectively trebled from £16m in 2014 to £47m by 2018.

Mel Morris allegedly pumped £200 million into the club. Always seemed like a bit of retirement home for players who had accepted they couldn't make it in the Premiership.

Wouldn't get a work permit. South Africa are ranked 75th.

Yeah, he always seems so lazy to me

This is screenshot of their most recent Serie A articles. Championship is limited to us, Watford, Bournemouth, Derby , Forest and Sheffield Wednesday.

Seems a weird article, just an excuse to say the word bum every other paragraph. Unless it's going to be a prostate cancer awareness thing?

Looks like it's legit.

they would troll me like this. Can other Athletic subscribers confirm if this is a genuine article or not?