Your splitting hairs Karman. I said I was told Bruce spent £80m and we were relegated. Are you saying I made the story up ? If I did it's a massive coincidence I picked out the £80m figure isn't it ? Cannot you admit that sometimes, just sometimes, you might be wrong and decisions are made without the benefit of hindsight ?
Wasn't Livermore at least 8m, and Snodgrass 7m? Which is where I got 15m as the minimum from. I'm not blaming you for how they did the accounts, I'm talking about the splitting hairs when talking about the spend that window. Maybe it didn't come from you, I'm just skimming this last page. We spent a lot of money to go down, especially with one of those big signings in Snodgrass spending the whole season injured. It's understandable why they wanted to be cautious the following season, even if hindsight shows that we sold a number of those players for big money, including two that following window.
No you didn't. Here's what you actually said. There's a big difference between spending £80 million in a single season and £80 million on transfer fees and wages over two seasons. I don't think you made it up. I genuinely do think Ehab told you that, and Ehab being Ehab is either too thick to understand the accounts himself or told you a half-truth to make Bruce's spending seem worse than it was.
Your still splitting hairs matey not to be proved wrong. I was told Bruce spent £80m and we were relegated. . PS; does it really matter now ?
£80 million in a single season vs £80 million over two seasons (maybe more than two seasons since the 'At 1st July 2014' also includes players and their wages signed in the 2012-13 season and even before Bruce was manager) is a pretty big hair to split. I'm not wrong. You said, verbatim, "It was said that £80m was spent by Bruce in the season we were relegated", not "It was said that £80m was spent by Bruce, then we were relegated". You're backtracking.
Plenty of sides/managers have spent a lot more and been relegated. Some have even spent a lot more and never been promoted. 80 m transfer budget even in 2014 was no guarantee of PL survival.
Beyond just the money spent I think the volume of signings was a huge issue as it was done assuming we were getting into Europa which we then failed to do. I think I remember McShane at the time joking that we were hopefully done making signings when we signed virtually an entirely new back line.
Backtracking ? I couldn't give a flying ****. I know what I was told in answer to me saying I thought it was a mistake to let Bruce go. I have no axe to grind, no points to prove or make. The facts at the time of Bruce walking were he had spent £80m and the club had just been relegated. Your splitting hairs matey and I don't know why you are so desperate to be proved right ?
Whether it was Bruce or anyone else in charge at the time, was there really likely to be any net new investment following the fans victory over the name change and Allams infamous 'gone in 24 hours' statement? As soon as we came back down again it was pretty clear that they wouldn't be funding a new promotion push.
It doesn't include players wages. It does include fees paid to agents and any other costs involved in the transfer. A profit of £4.2 million wouldn't go very far in paying players wages or buying new players for a Premier League club. Especially one that was £100 million in debt.
I know, he had to be begged to stay for that season. I said that. Read the earlier posts. The relationship turned sour when Assem was ill and Ehab had to take over. The accounts showed that Bruce has spent £80m and the club had been relegated. If we continued spending like that, and Bruce wanted more, we'd were in danger of bankrupcy. The decision was made, without hindsight, to remove Bruce from the financial side of signing players but still find them. Bruce didn't like that. Now can we stop going around in circles in this ridiculous attempt to drag up the past and re write it ? Its gone, it's happened. Move on FFS.
You said Bruce spent £80 million in the season we got relegated, which isn't a fact at all. £80 million gross spend over two seasons for transfer fees and wages isn't extravagant in the Premier League by any measure. It's actually quite frugal and prudent. You also said if Bruce carried on spending like that, the club would go bankrupt. So how did the club still make a profit of £4.2 million in 2015? The fact of the matter is, Bruce had an average gross spend of £40 million per season on new players, including their wages. With outgoings, the net spend for 2015 was £27 million on transfers and their wages. That is more than sustainable in the Premier League.
To be fair to Urika, he's probably only repeating what he was told at the time. Whether or not what he was told was 100% objectively true or heavily spun to justify the boards actions isn't really down to him. He's just passing on what he was told at the time.
Your making yourself look more and more stupid the more you squirm,, The facts were, as I was told at the time, that Bruce had spent £80m and we had been relegated. I'll add more for you to pick to pieces, he wanted more, and, no.......I'm wasting my breath on you now because no matter what I post you don't want to believe it.
I don't disagree with your broader point, as I've said previously. I agree with that being the reason they changed the structure, moving from a manager to a Head Coach and Director of Football (which most clubs now have done, so hardly a controversial decision in the simplest sense), but also think that Bruce's record on the transfer front made it a foolish call that was probably done in the heat of the moment following relegation. As others have pointed out, we then almost immediately sold two players for huge profits that window, almost making a mockery of the decision immediately. A sensible (read: non-Allam) owner may well have reinstated Bruce as manager following the immediate bounce back, because even spending similar again wouldn't have bankrupted us as we were back in the PL.
