We'll be Champions League in 5 years and he'll be back ;-)

Why are so many people struggling to understand that without the £30m release clause we wouldn't have got him in the first place?

We make £12m profit in one season an see a £27m swing in our favour regarding PSR/FFP.

In eutopia we'd have had a £100m release clause, and have Mbappe and Yamal on the bench!

Blueboy1981 - one of the highest paid managers? Where are you getting that?! And you’re living 50 years ago, the world’s moved on. If you can’t, you’ll continue to be disappointed.i don’t think anyone is easily satisfied, just realistic.

Oh the magic of hindsight!

I am surprised Widnes or St Helens didn’t trigger his release clause !

In several different respects - this is no big deal . . .

Put your money where your mouth is blueboy1981. I’ll bet you whatever you want that we finish top 6 next season. Obviously you know so much that you’ll snap my hand off for that bet. Easy money for you surely. I’m sure we could ask someone to hold the cash.

Seems to be a lot of financial gurus on here!

Does anyone know if we can have a sell on Clause so if he gets sold again we get say 50% of the profit

This has been done to death yet people are still looking to pin the blame for a £12m profit for one year on the club’s incompetence. If Saints were offering a similar deal what were ITFC supposed to do? Oh I know, stick to their guns and say our terms or take a hike. That would have done it!

It’s actually a shame that Delap didn’t go to Southampton. That way the tears of rage, stamping of feet and damp underwear would all have been saved and the world would have been a better place.

ITFC should have known that what was signed as a probable 21 year old no 2 striker would be worth £50m by seasons end. For the money Aston is paid, he should have the gift of foresight and a crystal ball at the very least.

Great to get it done. And it ends any PSR debate. The revenue would have been really useful through 25/26. Taking it through 24/25 puts to bed the ‘we are well within PSR’ discussion.

If we were, we’d push it through 25/26 (from July) and have the revenue for the EFL, and an additional year PSR/FFP.

I really wish we could get more transparency.

We all saw what happened to owner/supporter relations in the Evans era…, great when he was spending money, but not getting good value. Toxic the second he couldn’t spend anymore, and we were losing games.

Under EFL regulations, if we were to fail to go straight back up, the consequences for 26/27 aren’t great.

We’ve traditionally run up to 100% wages to turnover in the championship, and that’s without £20 million liabilities from our 24/25 spending spree, spread over the next 4 years, and KM’s significant salary.

Losing the parachute revenue (if it comes to that) will have huge impacts on the squad.

At least if we had more honest and transparent conversations now, fans would be more understanding if that scenario plays out.

The owners have been nothing short of world class in terms of their backing, and if we do end up in that situation, patience will be required.

I also see some senior people at the club, promoting narratives that only give a fragments of the full picture (talking about last seasons finances, when they have 95% of this years visibility through our management accounts) are in self preservation and media training mode.

Evans was world class in his first few years. Investment wise.

Let’s not repeat the same mistakes.

It is OK to rightly think this is an awful deal and we were not 'well protected' - no idea why ITFC fans seem to be so scared to criticise the club....

darkhorse28 …. so very, very true - but you’d lose many in decifering that, such is the level of understanding of some.
No one is even allowed to suggest a negative !

Wolfy - it's not a terrible deal at all.
Could we get more ? Yeah, probably but no one thought he would be worth 30m in a years time. When he signed, most of us thought he was going to be a second striker .
We doubled the fee and got him for a season .
Blueboy, it's ok to criticise at times but you do it ALL the time and most of the time it's totally unjustified.

Glad that is settled now move on .. Delap is history .. the only people loyal in football are the fans ! COYB !

virginblue …… pretty obvious you have more Money than Sense - so, put in in thr direction of the Club, in which you have such confidence.
Put your surplus where the Club could use it - or are you another that is all TALK - but No Money ?

It is actually 9mill profit when you take man cities 20% sell on fee!
Anyway we have put on a 10% sell on fee if chelsea sell him and chelsea put delap on a 10year contract

Sorry 20% of our profit which is £15mill means we make 12mill
And chelsea will be great with delap as there main frontman as nicholas jackson aint nowhere near delaps qaulity

Darkhorse28. Owner supporter relationship was absolutely zero from the moment he slithered up to the moment he scuttled away. He didn’t even show his face for years until somebody took a picture. The nearest he got to communication was a load of bullsht in the letter accompanying Season ticket begging letters.

His investment amounted to what he’d agreed when he bought the club. After year two he allowed the club to hollow out and die. Mediocrity was a hope, but further relegations were a certainty.

Equating quick flip Evans to the current ownership is wrong and actually bizarre.

What’s negative? We make 12 million at least after paying Man City in one year. There’s no guarantee he will improve either. His agent would’ve put a realistic ceiling for us to secure a transfer in the first place in case we went down if we hadn’t agreed to that we wouldn’t be sitting here with a 12 million pound profit would we? Not sure why people can’t see that. Let’s also be honest it could’ve gone the other way as he hardly scored many for stoke or hull and if not for us could’ve been in the championship again worth NOWHERE near that price. Some people on heres glass is always half empty.

Darkhorse28. You're wrong f with ur evaluation regarding tge psr/ffp situation. This will actually allow us to spend more in the 25/26 season. As for the parachute money? We arent going to lose it. Despite rumours of it being stopped, it isnt gonna happen. They are under review and may be reduced at some point but are not being scrapped.

Best thing is most the people moaning now didn’t think he was even worth 15 million we paid and I quote ‘he didn’t score many goals in the championship’ ‘we need someone better ‘ blah blah blah

Blue boy it’s because EVERY POST from you past two plus years is negative.

Tractorboy58, ain't that the truth. Players come and go, managers and their staff come and go, owners come and go, one thing remains constant, the supporters. Whether we think we've been conned or done a great deal with Delap, that will never change.

My take on the Delap situation is that there was no way we could have been sure how he was going to perform in the PL, but saw the potential. We did what we did, got a successful season out of him, possibly wouldn't have kept hold of him even if we stayed up. We get a profit on the deal, not as big as some would like in here. It is what it is, time to move on, just like LD!

12 million profit in one season on a player is a club record, unless someone can correct me!

I think if the club could have signed him without the release clause i am sure they would have. Now lets see who's coming in to replace him!

I for one am glad this is done quickly, whether it turns out to be the right move for him time will tell, but frankly not our concern!