Almost entirely agree with that, are the owners not entitled to expect those they pay handsomely to do their jobs to do them properly though? Either way, if we get things right from top to bottom, we will do well regardless of whether we have less revenue than certain Clubs. I still maintain that our overall revenue stacks up well against all but a few Clubs after the owners contribution is taken into account.

When you get over your huff and log back in tomorrow, could you explain what infrastructure costs we have that PNE and Bolton don't?

Don't spoil the narrative with any facts.

Completely agree. I posted similar a week or two ago in response to Glen. I managed to come up with a long list of stuff I considered to be detrimental. As I said at the time "What have the Romans ever done for us?" but in reverse.

Yep, the mods can correct me if I'm wrong but there seems to be a whole bunch of brand new posters popped up in the last few days eager to defend Waggott and tell us nothing is his fault. That's not suspicious at all. What's more baffling is the established posters on here leaping to his defence when his record across all areas has bee atrocious.

Don't be silly. That would call for a bit of ingenuity and thinking outside the box.

Good post JH. It's all too easy to throw your arms up in the air and say "We can't compete, we've done all we can". Anyone could do that. All we're seeing at the moment is failure to secure our better players on new contracts resulting in them leaving either at a discount or for nothing, failure to bring in players of equivalent quality to replace them, and now seemingly an inability even to sign up our better Academy prospects. If we genuinely can't compete and secure our better players, bring in the right quality, or hang on to our Academy prospects, then why are we paying a CEO a salary commensurate with solving these types of problems? If there's nothing we can do anyway, we'd be better off bringing in someone on £50k p.a. and use the saving to pay an extra player or to reduce the FFP deficit. I'm not exactly sure what Broughton's role in this either, if his remit is to get more Academy lads into the first team we could have told someone to do that with the cream of the crop. We didn't need to bring someone else in on hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to do it.

Obviously not. If he'd rather do that than play regular first team football in the short term that's up to him.

On the other hand, Markanday came the other way and joined us from Spurs so that rather shoots a hole in your argument......

Bit of a smart Alec reply from you but theoretically the way to get him to sign is quite obvious isn't it. Offer him a bit less than Spurs are offering on the basis that the prospects of regular first team football will probably be a lot higher than there. And allow him a release clause so that if any PL Club wants him badly enough he can have his dream move and we get a decent fee. Everyone (fairly) happy. IF we've done all that, then fair enough. I'd rather wager we haven't though.

It might, it might not. It's impossible to have a definitive view on the situation without knowing the full facts.

They have to pay gazillions out to the likes of Son and Kane as well though. They won't be giving it all to Phillips.

We wouldn't think twice about offering another loanee like Poveda £10k p.w. I wouldn't imagine. I'd far rather it went on one of our own securing a fee for him in future as opposed towatching all that money go to waste when the player walks out at the end of the season.

Not sure you can say Waggott has done all he can etc without knowing what we're offering. Seems likely Phillips is a generational talent who in today's market could be a £50m or £60m asset to Spurs in years to come. I wouldn't mind wagering we've offered Phillips the same terms as any other Academy graduate when in reality we need to be showing the sort of flexibility we didn't show RN DL JR etc. If the other youngsters who aren't as good or sought after don't like it, tough.

Any add on clauses would have to be triggered EITHER by a sale or a large number of first team appearances to prevent that happening.

Might be a first for us, but agreed.

Didn't Fulham get in excess of £4.2m for Elliott via tribunal? If that's the case then we should be looking at a couple of million easily for Phillips minimum unless the tribunal is biased in favour of the "big" club.

In my opinion when the shit hits the fan he just tells people what they want to hear to ward off criticism. Lenihan about to sign a new deal, Phillips situation under control, new £2m state of the art pitch for next season etc.

That question was actually directed to another poster but sorry for previously upsetting your delicate sensibilities.

OK thanks. So if the worst came to the worst, complete bollux we can only get nominal compensation then?

I'm guessing the above is pure speculation on your part, but are you saying then that he is entitled to walk out tomorrow? Or, does he have to wait until the end of his scholarship? Very awkward situation for all concerned if that's the case.

Why is he still here then if he's not under any form of contract? He could have just walked out on his 17th birthday if that were the case.

Wish people would stop citing Forest as if that's likely to happen to us should we be in the bottom three by the end of September. That sort of thing happens once in a generation AND they had to change managers to get there.

Im not an expert on it either but I thought there was meant to be a benefit to having a Cat 1 Academy in that PL Clubs can't just cherry pick your best youngsters for the compensation calculation but I'm guessing that doesn't apply when (yet again) we've allowed the player to get out of contract. So in recent times that's Armstrong (reduced fee) Nyambe, Lenihan, Rothwell, and now potentially Phillips. Impressive going if it comes to that.

How can he do that, he has one year left on his contract here doesn't he?