Tag Archives: news

Ignore the “PSR 4”

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Another transfer window, and the so called PSR 4 are at it again. Chelsea, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Nottingham forest. All doing these strange little deals with each other, summer after summer.

Whilst fans of some of the clubs look at England’s 6 biggest clubs and cry “cartel”, the PSR 4 have shown time and again over recent windows that they are in bed with each other, overpaying for average players to move money about and satisfy accountants.

Their fans “celebrate” selling and buying players at hugely inflated sums like it is a trophy. But the truth is they have all gone backwards since they begun this game.

At the centre of the PSR 4 is Chelsea. Now without a major trophy in 4 seasons, they have finished 12th, 6th, 4th and 10th since they began playing financial games.

Chelsea are now in a spiral where they need to keep doing these questionable deals to keep the business running. It could all quite quickly collapse around them and in 12-months they could be in serious financial trouble.

Whilst their fans “celebrate” these new players, Chelsea’s business these days basically involves them having to buy players they do not really want to sign and selling players they do not really want to sell. Each transfer window, they buy and sell more, giving those fans a new signing endorphin hit. But every summer their squad, their team, gets worse.

Aston Villa fans are amongst the biggest cry babies in football. Their owners have refused to invest in the infrastructure of the club, which would have led to increasing revenues. Instead, they opted to overspend on wages which left them close to spending more on players salaries than they generated in income. Whilst their fans cried that “our owners can not invest what they want”, they failed to recognise that their owners have no interest in investing. If they did, stadium enhancements (which sit outside financial rules) would have already happened.

If have lost count how many dodgy deals Villa have done. And selling Morgan Rogers and gaining Alejandro Garnacho and Nicolas Jackson sums them up.

They basically sold a player they did not went to sell, for a higher fee than they would have likely accepted. Fair enough. But to make the deal happen they have signed two players they do not really want. And the result will be they have also overspent, and their fans will be crying about how it is all unfair. It is their owners choice the route they went down when spending money.

Aston Villa may have seen some success, and risen to 4th in the league, but their financial dealings is now catching up on them. They have lost 4 key players this summer in Rogers, Ezri Konsa, Youri Tielemans and Lucas Digne. Emi Martinez and Ollie Watkins could also be out of the door. Their slide down the table is inevitable and these silly little deals with Chelsea, etc will not save them

As for Newcastle fans, they are only slightly less annoying that Villa fans.

They cry about “having to sell Eliot Anderson due to PSR”, but ignore that around the same time they recruited Joe Willock, Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali. Maybe they should have developed their own rather than trying to just buy their way to the top.

The Newcastle project peaked in 2024/25 when they won the League Cup and finished 5th. Last season they slide to 12th and this year it looks no better. Whilst their fans celebrate “getting one over the Premier League” by being involved in PSR 4 deals, their squad continues to get weaker.

Finally Nottingham Forest. Just signed Liam Delap for huge money. I would not be surprised if Morgan Gibbs White now goes the other way. From 7th to 16th, I now have money on them to go down this season. Each time they did one of these questionable deals, they sold better players and recruited worse – just like all of the PSR 4.

Whilst fans of Chelsea, Villa, Newcastle and Forest celebrate these deals, it will eventually come to bite them on the arse. They are simply moving debt around, and not resolving their underlying financial issues. This summer, none of them have improved their squads despite huge spending. I think at least one of them will go down. And that is a victory for common sense spending over what these guys are doing.

Compare to the likes of Brighton and Brentford. Well run clubs who are both in Europe this season. You never hear their fans moan about financial unfair play or do these hugely inflated swap deals to increase revenue. They just got on with running good businesses. And they will be a success for it.

What I would say is let the PSR 4 have them transfer window endorphin hit. Ultimately, they are all becoming weaker through this alliance and things will only get worse. Their fans though will keep celebrating their transfer business because it is all about spending big in their heads, not caring who they actually sign.

Keenos

Zero enthusiasm for 2026 World Cup

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Every four years, the World Cup arrives with a level of excitement that seems impossible to escape. It is your TV time set for the month. 3 games a go. No need to flick through Netflix to decide on the next boxset. Football is on.

I am usually caught up in the excitement. Will watch almost every game. Head to the local for the group stages and then meet up with those I go down The Arsenal with when we reach the knockouts.

This time, however, I find myself feeling something different: exhaustion.

I have tried to put my finger on the reasons why I am not up for the World Cup. I have come up with a couple.

Football fatigue

After the Champions League defeat, I was exhausted.

Modern football never really stops anymore and we had a 9-month slog where we won the league, and made 2 further finals. That 20 days from West Ham away and the disallowed goal through to the Champions League final defeat was incredible. Through in that night in Islington when Bournemouth drew with Man City and my liver took a hammering.

The come down from Budapest was incredible, and I needed to take a step away. I have not had a drink since.

With what we did, I think I need a break from football to recharge those batteries, and that has led me to having no interest in the World Cup.

“Commercial World Cup”

This does World Cup does not feel as if it is one for the common fans. It is a commercial World Cup for sponsors. It is Americanised which is not a surprise as it is in America.

The tournament has expanded from 32 teams to 48 teams, which is just an attempt to create more matches, more games on TV, more sponsorship exposure, and ultimately more revenue. More games mean more advertising slots, and more television rights income.

The tournament is being hosted across three countries—United States, Canada, and Mexico. The United States, in particular, represents one of the largest sports and advertising markets in the world. The commercial potential of the US market has played a major role in shaping the tournament’s scale and presentation.

World Cup 2026 is a culmination of where football was already going: larger competitions, more matches, global marketing campaigns, premium ticket pricing, and greater emphasis on entertainment value and television audiences.

The ticket prices, the travel prices, and more. It is all aimed at maximising revenue and giving sponsors airtime. And do not get me started on the 30 minute half time.

I am comfortable in admitting that I do not have the energy to immerse myself in the World Cup like I would have done previously. Maybe I will watch a few games. Maybe I will catch the highlights. Maybe a dramatic knockout match will pull me back in and remind me what all the excitement is about.

Or maybe I will simply let the tournament happen without feeling the need to follow every second.

Keenos

Where have the 1,000 missing Crystal Palace tickets gone?

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I am on 52 credits.

Over a decade of going home and away, although in recent years it has been a little less than normal.

I have never missed out on a ticket for Crystal Palace ticket before, and when the sales phases were announced by the club that they would start at 60, then drop to 55, before going to 50, I was confident I would get a ticket.

West Ham away, with 3,001 away tickets allocated, went to 30+.  For Palace we were allocated 2,687 tickets. Just 314 difference. So it was to my horror when the club announced after the 55+ sale that “only an extremely limited number of restricted view tickets available for this game.”

I spent yesterday evening looking into this, and checking out X accounts of those in the know. The only conclusion from everyone was that around 40% of away tickets had been held back by the club. Over 1,000.

Now it is usual for tickets to be held back and given to players, coaches, support staff and sponsors. It was never normally an issue, although the last few years the amount held back seems to have increased.

By 10.01 this morning, by the time the website had woken up, all remaining tickets were gone. I had been logged on since 9.30.

So around 1,000 tickets will not go to away fans like me who have followed the club loyally through some very dark days. Been to your Stoke’s, Swansea’s, Sunderland’s and Cologne’s. Thousands spent, arriving home in the early hours of a Monday morning with work a quick nap away.

Instead, we will see more tickets going to friends and family of players, and plenty held back for sponsors.

We will get a cousin of William Saliba from Paris who has never been to an Arsenal get game a ticket. Some Instagram tart who doesn’t care about football, just footballers, who a player gives tickets to because he is trying to get in her knickers. Someone who works for whichever dodgy betting or crypto company we are currently partnered with getting tickets, and probably selling them on for huge profits, and so on.

I have no issue missing out on tickets if those getting them have been to more games, have got more credits. But to lose out because the club have decided to hold back 40% to appease those who have not done their time leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Especially when you consider over the last couple of years the club have gone on the attack against the away fans.

First they got rid of the away scheme. Then they introduced disruptive ticket collections. All under the guise of that tickets were being used by the right fans, the fans that were going week in, week out.

On the tele against Palace, the TV cameras will zoom into your kids. This will be celebrated by the club like it was against Bournemouth a few years ago. But these young kids would not have been to enough games to have the 55+ credits, so how have they got a brief? Through a sponsor? Through a player? Or just gifted by the club.

It just is not right.

And what is most annoying is I will go again next season. Do my time. My travels. And it will happen again. Non-regular fans will queue jump just because they work for a company that has a box. Distant cousins and family members will get tickets despite never having been to a game. And all the while the club will continue their attack on the normal away fan.

The final point is “where were you when we were shit”.

My biggest frustration right now is fans only complaining about tickets now that we are doing well again. They were no where to be seen in those dark days. And once those days come back again, which they will, these players families, those sponsors, the drips with their Club Level season ticket that they got 3 years ago will disappear. They will find another hobby. Meanwhile I will still be there. Hoping for us to have good times again, with the knowledge that when they arrive I will be screwed over again.

Thanks Arsenal.

Keenos