.... will the club be able to sort itself out? Despite the 'fact' that Short is looking for a buyer there's no guarantee that he'll find one he sees as acceptable or be able to agree a price. He has no option but to continue to run the club and attempt to stabilise it, produce a promotion bid and begin to sort out the debt. We've no idea what the figures & terms for a sale may be or how keen Short is to get out of Dodge. So we may have an 'Ashley' situation whereby the club can't be sold and the owner has to plough on. Will he invest, will the manager be allowed funds or will we just see a massive sale to cut the debt and reduce our interest payments ...... imo Short will be here until 2020, at least, so we need to learn to live with the situation. Otherwise we'll all be at war with the owner until he eventually goes, no good for anyone.
God only knows Smug. He's got two years to settle a 3rd party debt to a bank and three years to stem losses, clear a huge chunk of debt to bring the price down, build a team capable of promotion and sell the ****ing thing before the Para payments stop or we and him are in big big trouble. Tough ask like.
Well that's cheered me right up! 2020 I think our scenario is more Villa than Mag. My concern is that he didn't sufficiently invest last summer or in January. Why would we expect him to do so in the Championship?
Notable difference is you lot haven't protested against your owner (yet) for not letting your hero manager buy Henry and Beckham. Some of the toon fans went into a frenzy when I suggested protests will be detrimental to finding a new owner, however I was clearly wrong and it seems they were right, they found a new owner easily...
I'm not one of these who believes that Short is solely responsible for our situation, although he has been badly let down by people that he appointed..
In hindsight I think Moyes was resigned to going down when he came and is deliberately being inept. Just like his signings. Its not all down to our injuries his recruitment has been dire imv. No premiership ready players. Short is not totally to blame but as owner he takes the can - hopefully the takes the glory next season. I'm not confident though.
Depends what you mean by forgiven. I doubt most fans will ever be fully 'ok' with him (and no I don't really fancy going back over old ground on this as we all know the story) but Ashley seemed to have turned a corner before we went down (the last relegation was poor purchases and management rather than anything to be laid at Ashleys door really) and if he continues in the same manner people will rightly leave him alone in the main. I think Short is more emotionally involved with Sunderland to be honest and his mistakes aren't all from cost-cutting and penny-pinching but naivety. Where from here? It doesn't look good and it's hard to predict whether he invests to go back up, sells players and staff to cut costs or sells the club for whatever he can get. In all honesty I wouldn't blame him for any of the three courses of action I just hope he doesn't invest money that isn't there and gamble the future of the club in the process - if it all goes tits up would he bail you out? I'm not convinced he would now.
From what I've heard (around the campfire so to speak) our players almost all have relegation wage cuts or minimum fee release clauses written into their contracts. This could help for the coming season or 2 as it may drop our 70+% wage bill considerably (not sure of the exact details but certain that this is what was put into place) - for that reason we should be in better stead than Villa - should being the operative word. I can't imagine that the bloke wants to **** things up for us - even if he is annoyed at the (deserved) stick he's got from some fans, from a business perpective, there is no use in cutting off your nose to spite your face. Or, to directly answer your question smug - ****ed if I know - welcome back fella by the way - glad your account is sorted
The owner wasn't the issue when SA steadied the ship and looked to be kicking on. The owner has given us 10? consecutive seasons in the premiership, more than any other owner has in my lifetime. David Moyes is the main issue, at the moment. He's been an absolute disaster for our club.
Something Quinny introduced if I'm not mistaken. A relegation clause is installed into every players contract, again if I'm not mistaken. What percentage I don't know.
Feel sorry for Short tbh he has been badly let down by a string of managers, his choice yes, but the blame is not entirely at his door, and I hope he has a change of luck soon, it is not beyond the realms of possibility, a good start next season would be fantastic and give us something to be positive about.
Base next season on the U-23s with some experienced players kept and a bit of fresh blood brought in and we should be able to compete without breaking the bank. All we need do pro tem is steady the ship after clearing the decks and hope we're due a bit of good fortune manager-wise. We've had some good ones come in without changing anything, so Moyes at least has a clean slate to work with. If he ****s it up we'll know who to blame!
Nobody can accuse him of being a nasty man. But I can't see how blame can be put anywhere else when he is the sole constant throughout this. Nobody at the club has been here as long as he as. Lads, his judgement stinks, it's not malicious, it's just ****. To not blame him is like saying nobody is to blame, but we didn't slip over and end up 170m in debt. His company, his investment, he has the chair in his own company and has done since MoN, he's head honcho, number 1, top of the tree, it's on him, that applies when things go wrong as well as when things go right.
I couldn't give a **** anymore. More things to worry about than a twatting football club. Nice to see you back smug.
The biggest sellable assets we have are the ones we will need to be build our future team around. Even if we do go down we may not need to be buying many replacement players once the injury list is cleared.