Bethnal Yellow and Green

Government have been very keen to avoid a two tier society - those who have been vaccinated and those that haven’t. I doubt there will be a major policy shift to allow those who have received two jabs to start doing things while there are still millions yet to receive a single jab. Also, whether those who have been vaccinated still spread the virus has not been determined yet so I wouldn’t expect the vaccinated to be given any special treatment without that knowledge. With the aim to have nearly everyone given at least one shot by June there wouldn’t be a huge amount to gain by creating a two-tier system (which would likely be found unlawful in court anyway).

It’s just until the end of the season - there are always far more managers available in the summer than mid season. Especially good idea to give a new manager a proper pre-season to work with the players if they are targeting someone like Terry or Henry who lack experience. They know the automatics aren’t happening this year but they are very likely to make the playoffs.

Can’t see much similarity between Skipp and Makelele apart from the fact they are both deemed ‘defensive midfielders’. Makelele was exceptional at his role, but he barely ventured past the half way line and his passing was very limited. He was brilliant at anticipating where he needed to be and sniffing out attacks before they could even begin. I would argue that he and Skipp didn’t even play the same position as Makelele was nearly always in a deeper role just in front of the centre backs and generally had two more central midfielders in front of him. Skipp doesn’t have Makelele’s defensive nous quite yet, but is more of a two way midfielder (I’m not sure there is much space for a Makelele style midfielder in the modern game to be honest). If you want to compare Skipp to a French midfielder I’d say he’s more N’golo Kante - although probably not as mobile The player Skipp most reminds me of is Sven Bender who was excellent in Klopp’s Dortmund team working as part of the double pivot.

Prem everyday. While it is fun to be at the top of the league. It is only fun because it is not the norm. It would only take one bad season in the Championship to see things potentially unravel very quickly for Norwich. No Prem promotions and then there is no Emi, Todd or Pukki. Those players are only at Norwich due to the prospect of Prem football.

It doesn't say that in the Pink'Un article, which says Sky Sports reported that Birmingham offered an obligation to buy but 'that is wide of the mark'. i.e. Birmingham didn't offer it despite what Sky are saying. It sounds like Birmingham, who are looking for a striker, have phoned up several clubs and asked about available strikers and made a decision from there. Drmic was probably a back up option should other targets fall through. These type of enquires are fairly common and not usually noteworthy, but as there is so little happening this window they are getting reported on.

If no one has made an a bid acceptable to Norwich then it is entirely out of the players’ hands. With football finances squeezed across all of Europe there aren’t any clubs ‘taking a punt’ on anyone at the moment. It is incredibly hard for players to find moves at the moment (look how slow all the leagues are with transfers this month compared to normal) and it is especially hard for a player who has been frozen out at their club - it doesn’t inspire confidence in a buying club. Hopefully for the players’ sake they can get moves, but ultimately Norwich may have shots themselves in the foot a bit by freezing these players out.

Without knowing the full details of offers that have potential been made it would be rash to start questioning anyone’s ‘commitment to their profession’.

The new work permit system has brought back the ‘appeals panel’ in full strength. This allows clubs to fight their case when the player doesn’t meet the requirements - it can be a bit of a lottery at times but as more players go through the process it will become clearer what the FA expects. Soto had to go through this panel and has a nice letter of support from the US National Team coach to say he’s an ‘exceptional talent’ (a loophole to get a GBE). This route was heavily exploited in the system before the last one and managers would regularly come to the appeals panel and charm the FA suits about how great the player is and how he’ll definitely be a regular starter - only to never play them.

As Soto has a GBE now the work permit is a formality. The only reason he might not get one would be something as serious as criminal convictions or not having forged documents etc. The chance of him failing it is pretty much non-existent. It is more likely he is just having to wait for a Home Office appointment which can be hard to obtain at short notice or there are delays in Soto getting all his paperwork together. As he’s now lived in 3 countries over the last few years it is probably a harder application to put together than The Greek fella. The Home Office will want proof of addresses, bank account statements going back at least 5 years etc etc. If there is one mistake or one missing document they will throw out the whole application and you have to go back to step one. It’s an absolute nightmare.

Soto hasn't trained once with the Norwich squad, as he still legally can't work in the UK. He has a work permit appointment with the Home Office at some point this week. This is just a formality of presenting his papers and getting the sticker in his passport. It seems that Hugill's injury isn't that bad and Pukki is likely to be ready for next Saturday. Bubbles ended at the end of last season. Reports say that Soto will be in first team training but play for the U23s.

Such a nothing article. The 'source' quoted for Emi could be the interview he did with the Pink'Un or Athletic. This is pre transfer windowing baiting of Arsenal fans, many of whom want to see them sign Emi.

I think a unified position will be agreed - but the current system does give the EPL clubs a greater chance at securing work permits. In my view the work permit system is untenable in a post-Brexit world and squad restrictions are a much simpler way to go forward.

This is just a placeholder policy for the January transfer window and will be changed again come the summer. Although is probably an indication of the direction of travel. I suspect though we will end up with a change to the way squads work and that the whole work permit system will be scrapped. Impossible to maintain the quality of the EPL and EFL with this restrictive a policy in place. What will be interesting is how the rule will be changed to deal with when player's contracts are up for renewal. A work permit is only valid for the length of the contract, so it could be the case that once a player like Emi's contract expires no English club will be able to get him another permit. I could effectively make him pretty much worthless to English clubs. Those with Irish passports will still not require a work permit, as they have special dispensation.

Work permits are supposed to be done on a points based system (its all the rage with visas). There are two routes: Route A is to play a certain percentage of competitive fixtures for your country. The higher the FIFA rank (for what they are worth) the lower the percentage of games you need to play. Soto does not qualify through route A as he has played zero competitive games for the USA. The USA haven’t played a competitive fixture since the whole COVID thing so the friendly could possibly be taken into account, but that is unlikely. Route B is to get enough ‘points’ through hitting certain criteria. This includes being signed from one of the ‘big leagues’ in Europe (I believe that is top flight in Germany, Spain and Italy in Europe or Brazil and Argentina in South America); if a player has wages over a certain level compared to other players in the league; if the fee paid is over a certain level compared to other transfers made in the league. Soto fails on pretty much all criteria so is unlikely to get a permit this season (also he couldn’t be recalled until the transfer window opens anyway). Work permits do still have a weird way of ending up with players that don’t seemingly appear to meet the requirements though. Watford signed a young Brazilian striker who only played a handful of professional games and he was given a permit. There is still a bit of a dark art in permits despite the system used now supposedly removing that. The previous system used the international criteria and had an appeals process that was based on submitted evidence. This was very open to abuse as clubs would wheel out the manager to say the player was the best thing since sliced bread and appeals panel found it hard to rule that they knew more than the manager signing the player. Arsene Wenger was known to charm the panel and get permits for all kinds of players who never appeared for Arsenal. Gordon Strachan once described Koki Mizuno as ‘the best player I’ve ever worked with, including Kenny Daglish’. Mizuno made 11 appearances for Celtic over two years.

Omotoye was born in England - he is a dual national. But yes, don’t need English players to meet the homegrown rule. Seems they haven’t changed the homegrown rule to match the subs rule, so it is the same number of homegrown players required, but now out of 20 rather than 18. I don’t believe you can leave a space on the bench in lieu of a player.