Alright then
@Beamrider lets get down to numbers.
Let’s assume we were to sign Isak - what’s the number is sales we need to achieve to offset - and let’s assume we make those sales as late as possible?
And if we make more purchases - what do we need to covrr we.
Assume old player contract doesn’t get renewed (ie Mo & Virg leave on a free on contract end).
I’ll let you figure out who gets a pay increase and the ramifications.
Kids sold,, even at high value don’t save money on wages.
What’s the number - what die we need - £50m net profit on sales consistently or what?
Looking at in in totality:
In years 4 and 5 we've added £300m in costs (over the 3-year FFP reporting period).
We need to cover that.
Some of it will come from revenue growth. How much? Who knows.
Some if it will come from player sales. How much do we get for those players, what are their wages, what is the amortisation saved? Who knows.
Those extra purchase of yours to replace the guys we sell? Who? How much? How long is your piece of string?
Sorry, but future trading is not an exact science. I can't give you numbers. And who knows what the transfer market looks like then?
In terms of timing, no sales before year 3 (2027-28) if they're to count for years 4 and 5.
However, if we look at Isak in isolation, we can be (a little) more specific. He adds costs of (at least):
Year 4 (three year count back): £140m (£62m wages, £78m amortisation)
Year 5 £133m (£55m wages, £78m amortisation)
So you need to raise £140m. Some of that will come from wage savings / amortisation (but if you make the sales in year 4 you only save 1 year of costs in the year 4 FFP numbers, 2 years of costs in year 5 FFP numbers, so most of the saving needs to come from profit on sale).
Like I say, it's not an exact science, but it is a huge number to cover off. In context, with all of our prospective sales this summer, we should be at about £190-200m, but that's after a clear-out.
If you want to look at it as what do we need to raise every summer, then yeah, it's not far off your £50m for Isak alone, but it's more like £100m for the total (net) summer spend. Historically we've tended to raise £30-40m each summer (average of £32.5m for the last 6 published sets of accounts - this ignores Coutinho who was 7 years back, obviously distorts things but as we know Barca still haven't paid us in full anyway).
