I understand the model, buy low sell high essentially. One thing I do not know as I never look at the clubs accounts due to them just being jibberish to me but as far as I know we have made a profit on buying selling players every year for the last 5 or so. So where is the extra money going? I understand wages have increased in the last couple of years but that has coincided with TV deal going up aswell. So if we are in profit from buying/selling and then on top of that we have been getting PL TV money for the last 5 years then surely we should have a **** load of cash knocking about? Other teams not much bigger than us in terms of revenue regularly post large losses overall when it comes to buying/selling yet can continue on. If our black box is so great at identifying players then imagine if one summer we went and spent a load on getting loads of players from their with a large negative net spend overall then just think how far we could potentially go.
We have posted overall profits (total revenue - total expenditure) every year since being back in the premier league. These profits most likely go to share holders or paying off debt - although I read somewhere debt has grown recently.
He may be good, but an untried 21 year old is not a replacement for an experienced campaigner, esp with the VVD saga and Yoshi on the last year of his contract (I think he is anyway)
Paying money to Kat Paying off replacement for Vibrac loan Staplewood... Probs had to give Claude a few mill too Plenty of places it could go, though I agree that even factoring all of the above we should be sat on a fair whack.
How could debt grow if we are running at a profit? Why would we need to take on more debt? Something just doesn't seem to add up to me. I understood that we were paying back (or may have paid back now) a loan that the Liebherr's put into the club awhile ago, but I can't imagine it being that much in the grand scheme of things with the stupid money flying around the PL (even more so now). If we are to be run as a business looking at P and L and winning the balance sheet trophy every year than that is fine, if we want to improve and compete for maybe CL places regularly then something will need to change, but I think we all know this anyway.
Fraser signs new 5 year contract (basically just adds a year to his existing one) https://southamptonfc.com/news/2017...w-southampton-five-year-contract-announcement
I did say I'm not 100% on the debt growing in fairness, I just recall reading something about that. I agree that it is odd to make big profits every year and not to have all, or most, of the debt paid off. I do believe the profits are going out the shareholders but that happens in all businesses. I think we should have invested more on playing staff in transfers and wages recently, but these longer and bigger deals we have handed out recently may be an indication of this happening more.
The same reason that Conte has signed a new contract without extending the length of contract (in his case)....just to reward people or to reflect the wage scales of other players/managers. Makes sense to lengthen contract as we are in a better bargaining position come time that Fraser moves on. I think we can be pretty certain that we haven't increased his pay without a good reason.
Not wishing to be rude to you, but once again, like every summer, fans are questioning why we don't spend more money. Spending loads of money doesn't guarantee anything and even if it did, it isn't how we do it. How long will it take for fans to realise that. It's the choice the club make, surely you're used to it now?
Under this current ownership, they have said how they will run the ship. Like it or not, it is how they want to run it. Every summer it gets questioned. I don't know why, because unless a strategy change happens, the club runs how it always has run in the Liebherr era. They want to try and progress doing it this way (until taken over). You can say it won't work, but no point questioning it because that's what they do.
I am used to it, I understand how the club wants to operate which is fine, I was questioning where the excess money goes. There is also a direct correlation between money spent and league position btw, so whilst not guaranteeing success the clubs which spend the most tend to be the most successful. You are one of the more level headed posters on here I find, I am 100% sure we will never go further than we have done with the model the way it is, and it will be a very good achievement to stay where we are with other clubs spending way more than we appear inclined to, that doesn't bother me personally as I have accepted what we are. It is when the club comes out (though admittedly I don't recall them doing it too much recently) stating that we want to get CL football/being a regular in European competition that surely you can see why some people get pissed when we don't spend/sell our players?
