Ben Johnston

I remember hearing on a podcast recently that the original model was for gate receipts was they were split between the two teams.

I really think that would be such a good mechanism to keep prices under control and stop the bigger clubs running away with it all.

I think Villa suffer more from early injuries in games than most others do. Like Emery has a game plan and spends all week working on it. Then McGinn gets injured in the first 20 and he has to throw it out the window. Add to that nothing on the bench and it messes everything up.

Hopefully playing more regularly will help him maintain fitness.

This wording is so vague. Guna be interesting to get Ornstein and Tanswells take to understand whether Ozcan is on top of Abraham fee.

I think that's the most galling thing with all these PSR/SCR rules. They specifically allow clubs who are owned by gulf states to completely distort their finances. While at the same time forcing crazy anti competition rules on private companies and individuals.

This was my big takeaway too. Really need to hope we did the same this year too. But I haven't seen any big announcements that will move the needle.

Yeah I felt that was likely. Presumably the sale of the women's team excluded too. The big questions are, did our amortization go up significantly with the purchase of Maatsen and Onana? Have we managed to further increase non broadcasting revenue to compensate for not getting CL football.

Yeah me too. I don't really read any of them other than the villa one. But happy to keep the subscription purely because the level of detail justifies it.

Having said that we made losses of 145m in 23/24 excluding transfers. That was off 120m less revenue so it stands to reason that we may actually be about there.

Though whether they would be enough to ensure we break even or keep losses below €60m I have no clue.

Would that revenue likely include any profit from the sale of Duran and Ramsey? Or is that treated differently?

In the Swiss Ramble model (which I can DM you if you want) they assume that transfers are separate.

So with the sales of them we would be at around SCR 70% for 2025 and passing.

@mattburton72.bsky.social You seen the Deloitte money league table? We hit £375m revenue last year.

Any clue whether that figure includes player sales? How do they get treated in accounts like this?

my fag packet our SCR is at about 81% prior to player sales. Following the Swiss Ramble methods.

If we could get almost any money for him it would free up a LOT of funds for a replacement. If we pay his replacement only £100k we could spend up to £30m replacing him in the summer.

I think so. But that would depend heavily on how important we feel he is for the dressing room. It wouldn't surprise me if the squad were a little sick of his antics too and he hasn't been that good this year (though the stats say he has).

He is on £150k with about £5m left on his transfer fee.

It is stunning to me that he has found a way to sound tough while threatening to raise taxes on his own people.

Imagine if Starmer wandered around saying "If Mauritius don't offer us a better deal I will raise VAT by 2 points"...

No Sancho is super interesting. Either we are stupidly unlucky to get an injury to him after we sold Malen. Or the vague rumours that he wants to go somewhere on a permanent transfer could be true. That would free up a lot of money. TBC if we could actually spend it in Jan. #avfc

I'm so grateful that I get to watch the team do everything that it is. After the days of Lerner and Xia it's almost miraculous. But it is so exhausting how fleeting it all feels. The rules are stacked against us but we don't seem to help ourselves. Thankfully Unai is working his magic on the pitch

Hmm. I assumed it was different hence they refer to the 2025 reporting for 26/27 sporting sanctions. Regardless I don't think it makes much difference. The wording states "club has a football earnings deficit in reporting period 2025". Does that mean any deficit at all, or does it mean >60m

Correct but it is 2025/26 now. So the 2026/27 situation depends on whether we managed to break even in the 2025 reporting (which I gather is to December 26)

Though how on earth we replace him without missing out on European football in 27/28 I don't know.

I guess that list A restriction will apply in 2026/27 as I can't see that we would break even on football earnings in 2025. Though I guess we could make a big sale like Rogers for +£100m this summer and that would mean many of the sanctions would go away in the longer term.

Yeah. They seem extremely tight. Suspect we will be hoping to move on a lot of higher earners who aren't starters like Mings, Bailey (permanently), Digne, Barkley, and one of Martinez or Watkins. But we will struggle to replace them with a big sale I guess.

I was re-reading the Swiss Ramble summary on our finances from the start of the season. Makes for grim reading tbh. Really don't see how we can hope to comply without another summer of sales. I suppose because of the work we have already done we shouldn't have any issues with the new PL rules.

Yeah I was very surprised how crazy undervalued Iroegbunam was in that deal. Dobbin was known to be okay. Tim was one of our best prospects.

You think Dobbin won't go for much? He is still young and I thought he was having an okay season. 7 goals and 5 assists in 17 games would seem pretty good for a 23 year old. Maybe £10m is a stretch but he's certainly not crap.

I make that 16 successes, 6 meh, 7 flops, and 3 TBD.

Of the flops Guess and was the most expensive.

There has obviously been a lot of reading and I would like to see that settle down. But in general it's a very positive picture

Exactly. There is a report from Ornstein that he preferred Spurs cus he would get game time. But I think that is just to keep their fans happy. If we had an offer accepted Emery would call him and explain his plan for him. He would pick us, all things level. No way he chooses Spurs & their "manager"

That strikes me as narrative to fit the circumstances from Gallagher's camp. My suspicion is that he was happy with either option. There is no way he would have chosen Spurs over us. Who is even signing him the "manager" or the board? Suspect he just wants out of Madrid and both options seemed okay

I wonder to what extent that is true. It hasn't seemed to do anything for West Ham or Fulham. I wonder whether being the biggest club in a 70 mile radius could help level this a bit. London will always be bigger, but it is also a very crowded market.

I have mentioned elsewhere that I always get nervous about these links. I have a theory that the club keep one eye on succession planning when they make signings. And I would be concerned that spending any money on Gallagher would imply a summer sale to either a starting CM or McGinn.