what do you think Written by Flash The Mackem Since wor Niall Quinn placed our beloved club in the ‘safe’ hands of Ellis Short we could have been forgiven for having absolute faith in the passing on of the baton. After all, Quinny has always had our best interests at heart. On the surface I don’t think we had any reason to doubt him. After all, the only blot on Mr Short’s copybook was an unsubstantiated arrest by South Korean authorities for the alleged illegal purchase of one of their banks, but the charges were dropped. His career history pointed to the fact that he had made a habit of taking over struggling businesses, turning them around and eventually making a profit. All good so far, although perhaps we should have guessed that he wouldn’t spend much with him as owner based on his CV. Having said that, Mr Short told us: “I have never taken money out of the club. In fact, I have funded significant shortfalls each and every season”. Then went on to say: “Since I have been involved, the good news is that my investment has kept us in the Premier League for nine consecutive seasons. The bad news is, for the amount of money spent, we should be better than we are and no one knows that more than me”. So let’s have a look at the investments in the playing staff: 2008-09: Nett Spend: £19.76m 2009-10: Nett Spend: £22.34m 2010-11: Nett Spend: -£11.41m 2011-12: Nett Spend: £1.73m 2012-13: Nett Spend: £21.13m 2013-14: Nett Spend: £10.38m 2014-15: Nett Spend: £13.83m 2015-16: Nett Spend: £49.93m 2016-17: Nett Spend: £17.22m Total Outlay over 9 seasons: £144.91m Average seasonal nett spend per transfer window: 8.05m TV & Prize money 2016-17: £99m 2015-16: £71.84m 2014-15: I stopped researching at this point because I think the point has been made. To summarise, and of course this is only my opinion, I’ll add the following: I am not grateful to Ellis Short for his purported investment in the club. In fact, I’m absolutely furious with him. One of the most overused statements in business is that you “need to speculate to accumulate”, and I think the above figures prove that he has speculated nothing at all. In the current climate it is inconceivable that a club with ambitions of succeeding in the Premier League can spend less than £25m in 8 out of 9 seasons and in one of those seasons actually register a profit in the market. If we were Spurs, selling players like Bale, perhaps a case could be made. But for Short there is no case for and plenty of cases against. If indeed he HAS been subsidising us, then that can only be down to gross mismanagement on his part. The money has been there, the support has been there and to an extent the managers have been there. I don’t know what his ultimate goal is – I presume it is to sell us to a bidder who will repay the high-interest loans he’s authorised to us from his own company – but what I do know is that clubs like Wolves (for crying out loud!) are being bought by investors who will be putting their money where their mouths are. We must be one of the most attractive propositions outside of London given our potential, yet folk aren’t even taking a sniff. Well, to me, that stinks. Right now Mr Tightwad, I think you’re a Tosser.
The bloke has spent money. Simple as that. Anyone who argues against that isn't interested in facts. He's spent a **** load of money during his time here. He's spent big on transfer fees, agents fees, signing bonuses, contracts, so on and so on. The problem is he's spent it badly. He's hired clown after clown, pretender after pretender. He's spent money of sack of **** players who've moved on for nothing at all. He's spent like a ****ing moron, not like a billionaire businessman. He's spent and lost a **** load of money, he's incompetent and he's surrounded himself by incompetence.
Aye. For teams like us to succeed in the Premier League long term we need to buy decent players, improve them, sell them on for a profit, and repeat. We've bought average players, high fees, high wages, and theyve been in no rush to leave, often sitting on the bench letting their contracts wind down, while doing so we have had to invest in more average players. Like using a thimble to throw the water out of a sinking boat. Eventually the inevitable has happened. I'm hoping our relegation has getting us out of this vicious circle.
I'm hoping Bain is the man to break the cycle, there's a little evidence to suggest it might be the case. Fingers crossed.
Copied from your OP vince: 2008-09: Nett Spend: £19.76m 2009-10: Nett Spend: £22.34m 2010-11: Nett Spend: -£11.41m 2011-12: Nett Spend: £1.73m 2012-13: Nett Spend: £21.13m 2013-14: Nett Spend: £10.38m 2014-15: Nett Spend: £13.83m 2015-16: Nett Spend: £49.93m 2016-17: Nett Spend: £17.22m Total Outlay over 9 seasons: £144.91m What about wages? Let's say average of £30m over 9 seasons is another £270m - and I reckon it's significantly more than that to be honest! Flash is wrong - Ellis has spent money - and, as has been said above, he has spent it poorly! Very poorly!
Whatever has happened in the past is done now. He's shown now that he isn't willing to put any money in and wants away. He'll be quietly trying to flog the club whilst sending his puppet Bain out saying he's still committed to the club. I've defended him over the years but the sooner he's gone the better
He's tried to cut corners and do things on the cheap, and it has blown up in his face When he does sanction large fees (AJ, Fletcher, Graham, Lens, Rodwell) he has employed an idiot to make the purchasing decision. Not good enough, or a poor professional
I thought in contracts the wages was included if not how do you account for Neymar. £30m Pickford, £21m for Bent, £20m Henderson and so on, and around £900m t v money, then merchandise and Season card sales over 9 seasons. And the poor players brought in have caused this not the spending, should we have done an Everton last season ? no 6 years ago maybe before the debt starting racking up. These players come here and saying we are a great club when? how? the supporters are great yes please. Explain that and don't embarrass us please. And as for spending that is because the wrong managers were brought in time after time.
Your tarring a lot of decent managers here to be fair to Short, most if not all were at the time of appointment well received and included many long time favourites ie MoN, Moyes and Big Dick and Sam, or is it the DOF's you refer too, he has been badly let down in my opinion by a lot of people. I would like to see more transparency in transfer deallings tbh, ie who is responsible for the deal, and its true cost, these issues are now clouded in so much mystery it almost impossible for the man in the street to know what is going on, this leads to a lot of guess work mostly wide of the mark.
Aye, to be fair the only manager that I had serious misgivings for at the time was Di Canio. All the rest of them lay somewhere between me being extremely happy to a shrug of the shoulders.
How much did the mags spend in the season they were relegated? Numbers don't tell the whole story, If only running a business was as simple as spending some money. We need to factor inflation and the way it was spent, how much and who our rivals invested in compared. Add the fact over half of those windows were maiden transfer window for new managers. Short's cut throat hiring and firing, three different recruitment infrastructures set up and scrapped which has led to not just a revolving door of managers, but coaches and scouts too. Put it all together and you get a complete car crash of a club which doesn't know it's arse from it's elbow.
Principally referring to DoF's yeah. The De Fanti idea was to do things on the cheap, and we ended up with a squad full of sub standard players Congerton brought in Rodwell But the one that I can't get away from is O'Neil. He bought Fletch, AJ and Danny Graham. That was a transfer outlay of £26m + massive salaries for 3 players who were financial and footballing disasters. Flawed characters / not good players
I've posted it several times before so won't do so again, but there's a Telegraph (I think) interview with De Fanti where he claims that it was Short who wanted players brought in on the cheap and that he was only following Short's orders. The amount that Short has or hasn't spent isn't the issue for me. Its the continued poor decisions made under his ownership. Most of the managers we've had should have been able to succeed but they weren't supported in the right ways. The two exceptions to that are O'Neil and Moyes who were both big-named has beens who's best days we're long behind them and no longer had the desire or fight that we needed.
Fletcher might have had his flaws but at the time it seemed a good signing. He scored 23 goals in 94 matches for us (1 in 4 ish) (according to wiki). In a better side he would have scored more. His success for us was on a knifes edge and eventually, for one reason and another, he fell on the side of waster. Maybe, like many others, playing for us sapped the life out of him. I mean there will be players being bought for more money since who havnt been as prolific as him. Johnson & Graham I fully agree with though. I've said in the past that the only way we have attracted 'next level quality' players is if there has been some sort of baggage with them. Whether it be laziness, being injury prone or being a nonce. Fill a team up with this sort of baggage and we were always in trouble. In hindsight we should have targeted more hungry championship players. We probably would have still struggled but I can imagine it being less hurtful for the fans and the clubs purse strings.
I can't ever agree that AJ was a bad buy either. Yes it lead to a horrible end but the lad won is a whole heap of points. He was never as good for us as for previous but he was a match winner for us and we'd have gone down sooner without him. He paid for himself.
I'll say the same about Rodwell - I thought he was a great signing at the time that we bought him - always highly rated in his younger days and poached from Everton by Man City when City were making their way. Only hindsight has proven me wrong there. Can anyone on here honestly say that, on the day we signed Rodwell, they thought it was a bad signing? Very few iirc If he turns out to be very good in the championship, that £10m is the going rate for above average championship players now!
I thought it was next level and then some, and I still think a year at the lower level he may find his feet and turn out a good buy. He was decent in spells last season.
How can so many of us have been so wrong? I thought exactly the same - "Here we go lads - massive signal of intent signing one of the best young english players around" I do think he'll be good int he championship though - he is mobile (when fit!) and puts a shift in! Likes to get a shot away too
I genuinely think it's all confidence mate. He had a bad injury and never looked right carrying the ball since. At Everton he was bursting from halfway line to box and finishing, exactly what we need from midfield now.
Sadly, I always ask myself "what would Murray have done?" If Bob had had Short's money.............................. We'd be in Europe now x
