A few things really. As for Jonjo above you can add Cabaye to that list and probably Mitrovic soon. I wonder how many English teams have beaten our £17m record transfer - I suspect at least 15, probably more than 20. As for the financials above. The increases you are correct on but the wages I doubt, we are probably paying more than we were as the run of the mill players will be getting much more than they were. The merchandising point is a one often overlooked, it is my understanding that a reasonable amount of it goes through SD and that is money the club used to get but now doesn't. There is also the free advertising for SD and the fact our international outlook has stalled compared to all other clubs of our stature - Ashley and his regime have missed a ton of tricks in that regard and saving relatively small amounts through costcutting everywhere has almost certainly cost us overall. Ashley took over a probable sinking ship and was right to prioritise balancing the books. His absolute refusal to speculate to accumulate is stunting in the extreme (to an extent I can accept it in the transfer market but our general marketing has been atrocious) and odd given his background and seeming business acumen. Everything about his regime is low risk and yet why not then pay off the debt? The only reason I can think of is to justify not selling the club.
Is there any proof of this? As far as I have seen in the accounts a couple of years ago, we pay SD a fee to do the back office part of providing the merchandising and we utilise their buying power in return. I've not checked more recent accounts. I think I recall that myth being debunked in a fans forum meeting a couple of years ago too.
You may be correct. If someone could clarify either way with some factual links I'd be happy; i thought it was the case but can't claim to recall how I thought it.
Not sure what you’re expecting to get by way of a striker for £5M but Jos is probably a good example.
You can release the funds. You can take that risk. You can spend it all on the never never. However you have to accept a large risk now. Ask Villa or Sunderland. I mean Villa went down and tried to buy their way out. That failure last summer is now crippling them and they can pretty much forget rejoining the PL this season. They could even be staring at a difficult season of negativity spreads. League 1? Certainly you can risk more than our owner does but he has already told us that won’t change. What we generate we give to the manager. He won’t take out loans, he won’t loan the club himself and he definitely won’t throw his own money at for a laugh. I don’t think he ever would have and certainly not after the unrecoverable damage down to the relationship between fans and owner many years. Just as our fans will never forgive him and make up all kinds of weird and wonderful conspiracies and negative stories about him, he won’t ever forgive the fans and break away from his tight self sustaining business model.
We should have been paid 5m to have him. He’s awful and not worth anywhere near 5m. We have to remember also Rafa chose to spend all our budget and leave himself short for a striker. He would say he was proven correct to do so. I reckon he could have taken murphy and Joselu money and spent it on one striker. Maybe Richarlison for 11m.
Murphy I will wait to see how he develops this year. Clear IMO that Rafa was expecting money to be available for a decent striker. Also we were in the last few days of last Summer’s window looking to loan/sell a number of players with the expectation that a good striker was coming in. As we all know Jos came in at the last minute. Spend £5M and he’s what you get. Clearly not Rafa’s first choice which suggests either we weren’t attractive enough to first or probably second choice ( probably wouldn’t pay the wages despite clearing the decks) or wouldn’t pitch in with a non tyre kicker bid.
"Phew... that whole slave labour/3rd world exploitation section was a toughie... now to the future plans section of the fit and proper persons test application form... hmmm... this one's a thinker.... will I hold the club hostage if some fans say some nasty things about me?.. A) No B) Yes C) Yes, but here's some money to pass the test... hmmm... I'm putting a lot of C's...."
Mike Ashley needs to take plenty of flack if he hasn't got the cashflow in place to support a wage structure for a championship squad. That is the basic element of business. There is not a business alive that does not borrow to grow, so he's mothballing and stagnating his own investment.
It’s growing. It’s grown from Championship dweller to mid table PL. Next Europe. Then PL champions, then CL champions, then the world! One step at a time though.
I think it's fair criticism to say we could have more pennies for the 'every last penny' policy. The free stadium advertising shouldn't be indefinite and there are probably commercial opportunities we aren't exploiting given that other clubs have grown their commercial income by far more than we have since Ashley took the reins. I also think there could be a loosening of the purse strings this summer, not to go crazy and throw money around like confetti, but to make sure we can compete for the next level of player on wages and fees. That might be happening, or it might not. Time will tell. I fundamentally disagree, though, with borrowing to buy players. It is unsustainable in the long run and it's what happened with Shepherd and it put the club in a bad position financially. For capital investments, like training ground and stadium development, where we are likely to see an increase in revenue and grow the business by enough to cover the interest incurred, then yes borrowing is a valid option. It would be great to have a rich Arab pumping money into the club via bullshit over-inflated sponsorship deals but that isn't our lot in life right now and probably never will be even if we are sold.
Surely pretty much every club, bar those with crazy billionaire benefactors, will borrow to buy players? Possibly as a bridging loan against TV monies. It makes sense to me in terms of liquidity. In my mind, and I am far too into using Mike Ashley as an excuse for our lacklustre lot in life to check, but he is operating on a policy of building capital reserves and skimming a small proportion to use for investment in assets. As a banker, those types of business piss me the **** off
I actually have no problem with the club living within its means and only spending what it generates ........................ but Ashley needs to put a management team in place that are commercially astute and allow the club to absolutely maximise its commercial revenue streams ..................... not hamstring the club by cutting off its biggest potential income generator by taking the majority of the prime advertising for free. People cannot argue that Ashley is doing the right thing and protecting the club by not overspending without recognising that he is also not allowing the club to grow and prosper by not having a proper management structure in place and not exploiting commercial revenues and concede that this is hurting the club. Ashley does what is best for MIKE ASHLEY .................nobody else.
