Which players we wanted turned us down? Olise couldn't wait to leave , sorry is now very happy to stay after a meeting with Parish, who is supposedly useless.

Players must have turned us down. Roy said a couple of weeks ago we need a few players so where are they? Our club has no long term plan or ambition. Parish and the board are at fault by appointing a manager they decided to get rid of 2 years ago!!

I don't follow you rikz.

Zaha got paid 5.2m a year. Each of those 5.2s came from the budget for that particular year, so him leaving didn't put any money in our account, it just saved us five million this year. That money can go towards transfer fees and wages.

If Franca gets about £50k a week that's 2.5m this year. Plus Lermas wages, plus Olise new contract and bang, all the saved Zaha wage money is long gone.

Then you have to find the 20m for Franca transfer fee.

Based on our average spend every year for the last five to eight years (during which time our income has remained fairly stable, and given that the club accounts show that we spend all that we can), the Franca fee is the lions share of the yearly budget for transfer fees, presuming we spend only what we have and don't risk too much of next year's money now.

Perhaps, as you say, we have staggered the Franca transfer fee over the life of his contract, but then perhaps we did the same thing when buying Eze, Anderson, guehi, Doucoure etc, in which case we have no more money available just because we haven't had to pay for Franca in one go.

By the way, I've not got any greater understanding of the club's accounts than the next man, but you don't need much insight to get the drift. The club accounts show that Palace spend every penny they can v on players, wages and transfer fees included. Sometimes they spend two or three years worth of money in one year, sometimes they spend very little because they spent so much before, but the average spent on transfer fees, after sales, is around £20m to £25m a season.

That's what we've got.

Edited by TheBigToePunt (28 Aug 2023 10.07pm)

Jeez , give it a rest Sarf , we have a great starting 11 your negativity is really monotonous .

We need to somehow replace Wilf's goals but last season only 10 players scored more than 12 league goals. Considering our resources and general appeal we're unlikely to attract any of them and most other clubs are searching the world for these goalscorers which may explain buying the best goalkeeper we can - keep as many clean sheets as possible, go for 1-0 wins and keep the goal difference to a minimum. It might not be an exciting approach but it is pragmatic.
Even if we did unearth an unknown who bangs in 20+ how long could we keep him?

Excellent post.

It's not about getting the missing bits of the jigsaw to turn is into a top six side, it's about doing everything possible to get enough talent on the pitch to win enough games to have another go next year.

At any one time we will probably have no more than four, maybe five players at most who are good enough for the top six. Often it has been a lot less.

How we play is dictated by what bits of a top six side we have at the time and, critically, we will lose those as quickly or quicker than we gain them.