Jimmy Henry

@asim_lfc @Husnain10232289 @Carra23 I assume this was pre Leeds??

@Husnain10232289 @Carra23 I don’t have a problem with people choosing the likes of Kenny, Barnes, Rush etc in the top 5 but at least be consistent about it lol.

Wait a minute… @Carra23 🤔 #LFC

That’s the type of decision that gets managers sacked. Absolutely no logic to bringing on Jones instead of Rio!! Not alone is it illogical it also pisses off the fans. For his sake it better not back fire. #BHALIV

Super finish from Kerkez!! Fair play! #BHALIV

1st attack and Brighton score. Jones f**king around on the ball yet again, keeper plays an unnecessary stupid ball to Konate who completely misses it. Throw in, cross and goal. 🤦‍♂️ #BHALIV

@Biggies_MaIIs Imagine we had needed that!!!

I can’t believe they’ve disallowed that 😂

How can the ref think that’s a foul on the keeper? I know they give a foul for any touch on the keeper but VVD didn’t in any way impede him & cleanly won the ball. AND why didn’t VAR intervene , it’s exactly what VAR is there for to correct clear and obvious errors #LIVGAL #UCL

This one is a football accounting gem. I promise you will love it. In January 2023, Chelsea signed Mykhailo Mudryk from Shakhtar Donetsk for £88.5 million. The deal was jaw dropping on its own. But what really made the football world stop and stare was not the fee. It was the contract length. Eight and a half years. The longest contract in Premier League history at the time. Journalists questioned it. Rival clubs complained about it. And most fans had absolutely no idea what Chelsea were actually doing. But let me tell you. They were not being reckless. They were doing math. Very clever, very deliberate, very legal math. And the tool they were using is called amortisation. This is part of what football insiders consider during transfers. Are you with me? Good. Here is the simplest way to understand amortization. When a club signs a player, they spread the accounting of the cost of the transfer fee over the period of the contract signed by the player. So for example, when Harry Maguire signed for Manchester United in 2019 for £80 million on a six year deal, that did not show up as an £80 million expense in year one. It worked out as an annual amortisation cost of £13.3 million per year. That is the entire concept. Think of it the same way you think of a mortgage. You do not pay the full value of a house on the day you move in. You spread it. Football clubs do the exact same thing with players, and it is not a trick or a cheat. It is standard accounting practice used across every industry in the world. Check it. It's International Standard 38- used for accounting for intangible assets. The reason it matters so much in football is because of Financial Fair Play and Profitability and Sustainability Rules, which regulate how much clubs can lose in any given period. Amortisation costs are added to the profit and loss account each year, so the lower your annual amortisation figure, the healthier your books look. And here is where contract length becomes a weapon. Now let us do the math together. By using amortisation to complete Mudryk's transfer, Chelsea were able to record his £80 million fee as just £9.41 million per year for UEFA's FFP calculation. Had they signed Mudryk to a four year deal instead, his fee would have been recorded as £20 million per year. Same player. Same fee. More than double the annual accounting cost just by changing the contract length. That is the power of what Chelsea figured out. They did the same with Enzo Fernandez, signed for a then-British record of £106.8 million on an eight and a half year deal, which translated to an annual amortisation expense of approximately £13.4 million. And Moises Caicedo for £115 million on eight and a half years. And Wesley Fofana for £70 million on seven years. Repeat this across an entire squad and a billion pounds of spending starts to look manageable on paper. Did you get that? Now let's look at another part of amortization- the book value piece, because this changes how you think about every transfer you have ever watched. Book value is the difference between the transfer fee spent on a player minus what has already been amortised. For example, after two years, a £50 million player signed on a five year deal has a book value of £30 million. Any sale above £30 million is recorded as a profit. Anything below is a loss. This is why clubs can sell a player for what looks like a loss and still report a gain in their accounts. Take this example: a player is signed for £40 million on a five year contract. He is not a success and is sold two years later for £26 million. At the point of sale, his book value is £24 million, meaning the club actually books a £2 million profit on the deal. Fans see terrible business. The accountants see a gain. Same transaction, completely different reality. Manchester City lived this with Robinho. He was bought for £32.5 million on a four year deal in 2008, with annual amortisation of £8.1 million. He was sold after two years, leaving a book value of £16.3 million. City sold him for £18 million and claimed a £1.7 million profit on the sale. Supporters spent years calling it a disaster. The finance department called it a profit. There is one more trick worth knowing: contract extensions. If a player signs a new contract during their existing deal, the remaining unamortised value is spread over the length of the new contract. So if you bought a player for £60 million on a five year deal and after two years you extend his contract by three more years, the remaining £36 million book value is now spread across five new years instead of three. That reduces the annual amortisation cost and can reduce FFP losses by millions per year. Extending a contract is not always about keeping a player happy. Sometimes it is purely a financial decision dressed up as a vote of confidence. Back to Chelsea. Other clubs eventually complained loudly enough that UEFA had to act. UEFA amended its Financial Sustainability Regulations in July 2023, introducing a rule that limits the amortisation of player registrations to a maximum of five years, regardless of how long the contract actually runs. The Premier League followed in December 2023, when shareholders voted to apply the same five year maximum to all new or extended player contracts going forward. The loophole was closed. But crucially, the rule could not be applied retrospectively, meaning every player Chelsea signed on those long contracts before December 2023 continues to be amortised over the full contract length. Chelsea were already finished with their biggest spending windows by the time the door was shut. The timing was not a coincidence. As I conclude, always remember this- the contract is never just a contract. It is an accounting instrument. And the clubs that understand that are always three moves ahead of the ones that do not. I hope you enjoyed this. Tomorrow, by 7AM WAT, We get into the wage bill, and why a £50 million transfer can quietly become a £150 million commitment before you have blinked. Thanks for reading. My name is Ajoje. I am a FIFA Licensed Agent and International Sports Lawyer. I write on the Law and Business of Football, a lot. Repost and Follow if you want to read more posts like this.

Tottenham were without: Micky Van De Ven Cristian Romero Joao Palhinha Yves Bissouma Conor Gallagher Dejan Kulusevski James Maddison Mohammed Kudus Destiny Udogie Lucas Bergvall Wilson Odobert Rodrigo Bentancur Ben Davies AND STILL MANAGED TO GET A POINT AT ANFIELD.

All of the current bottom six have now visited Anfield in the Premier League this season. Three have earned draws and one strolled to a 3-0 victory. There was also a defeat away to Wolves and a draw at Leeds Not exactly a recipe for securing Champions League qualification 🤢

@JamesPearceLFC You mean ANOTHER dreadful performance James!!!

FT: #LFC 1 Spurs 1: Boos ring around Anfield at the final whistle and understandably so. Dreadful performance from Slot's side punished by Richarlison's late equaliser. So much wrong with that. Spurs deserved their point. Major blow to the Reds' hopes of CL qualification.

Only thing worse than this game is the officials.

Liverpool practically begging Spurs to score. #LIVTOT #EPL

Absolutely dross football. Dead flat atmosphere. No urgency from 2 teams that there should be lots of urgency from for different reasons. Liverpool need at least 1 more because they’ll definitely gift Spurs one. #LIVTOT #EPL

The day prime salah, mane and firmino stomped on the Roman Empire, humbled Alisson and convinced him to join Liverpool.

🔴 A Liverpool fan in Istanbul unveiled a banner featuring a quote from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: "Peace at Home, Peace in the World"

@gertigj @DaleJohnsonBBC Then off keeper, then off Van Dijks heel and in. 🤷‍♂️

@DaleJohnsonBBC Which replays show it wasnt true 😂😂😂. After Konate's arms it bounced off Gala's defender chest. 😂😂😂

Ok, so the VAR is saying that the ball hit Konate's arm twice. Firstly from the corner delivery, and then after the ball came off Van Dijk's heel. If that is the case, it would make it Konate's goal, and correct to rule out Liverpool's goal without an on-field review. #GALLIV

@CathalRobinson @C_Hannan7 The Porto teams we swatted aside at this stage a couple of times are miles better than them!

@C_Hannan7 Klopp's Liverpool beats them easily

In any normal season we swot that Galatasaray side aside, they’re absolute garbage. Put proper pressure on them and they’ll give it away, press them and you’ll win it and go - we just don’t do either well anymore.

@NenaghTipp0 😭😭😭

@RedTilDed Try supporting the excuse of a team that is Spurs 3 down after 16 mins

The worst thing about this isn’t losing it’s losing to a very average team who are just having a right go!! #UCL #GALLIV

@ncahill1 Keeper made 1 good save. His kicking and distribution were awful apart from one occasion I can remember. He nearly threw one in. Kerkez was very rash and naive picking up an unnecessary booking.

@RedTilDed Keeper and kerkez were good. Rest were poor

Van Dijk, konate and Wirtz really poor