Just seen a thread regarding our spending capacity and investment of Ellis Short. Now, before I begin and get slated, I valued Shorts involvement at the time the same as everyone and there can be no doubt that he has added benefits to the boardroom team. However, it was to Quinn that we all looked for inspiration (even when his mouth ran away with facts with him at times) and it was Niall that has inspired and motivated us all to rekindle our affair with the club after the humiliating 15 point debacle of 5 or 6 years ago. However, I raise some interesting thoughts here which I would welcome comment to regarding the current merits of Shorts involvement at the club. 24m for Bent in January. 20m for Jordan in August. 6m for Gyanâs loan; Anton 4m; season ticket money 10m (estimated) Sky TV money 30m; Sponsorship 2m = Total 96m in sales & Incomes. Gardener 5m; Wickham and Ji 10m; Offloaded wages of Onuoha, Mensah, Muntari, Anton, Nos, Killgallon (today) and of course Gyan and Bents wages. If we say it cost 5m for all other loans deals then its only wages for the new players that have increased. The wages of Bent and Gyan would off set most of those coming in I'd guess. So, a conservative estimate would be that there is 44m from sales and that leaves 52m for wages and costs. Shorts actual hand in pocket investment is minimal to say the least for what he has got back. That no big names were signed in the summer, despite promises by Quinny that they would break the club record, or look likely to be planned for in January other than no-bodies and loans, I'd say Short has done a Mike Ashley but with much better and well hidden PR. He's off loaded big wages, sold the company jewels and pocketed the dosh. We have gone backwards in the last 12 months imo, having lost both Bent and Gyan in that time and seen the likes of Welbeck slip through our fingers and maybe more importantly, seen Quinny himself sidelined in this 'newly created' and hastily arranged new role. There is much discontent amongst us at the moment, as I am sure we all thought in January this year the club had turned a corner in recent history and made some significant steps forward. We sit uncomfortably close to the relegation trapdoor at this time and if we fail in the next 4 games, I think Bruceâs time will be well and truly up with the majority of supporters. However, I also think many fans will start to question the relative merits of having Ellis Short as a wealthy benefactor, if he allows this to just happen all to easily under his watch. Short is seen by many as the saviour of the club but maybe he is no better than Mike Ashley just with a far better PR machine and a much more subtle technique. I hear a lot from Niall and Bruce about the money he has pumped in but precious little about the money he has definitely as yet simply pocketed since Bents departure in January last year. He must have put at least 30m in his sky rocket in the past 10 months which seems to have gone totally un-mentioned. We shall see his commitment in January with either Bruce or a new man at the helm and we will know by then by the calibre of that new man, just what his intentions are. Will it be a sensational new appointment of a top class manager; limited funds for a failing Bruce or even less funds for another Mick Buxton sort of appointment. I have grave reservations and fears that it will be the latter rather than the former and may end up just wanting to keep the middle option, totally against my better judgment but better the devil you know when the money is tight. Short is as much under the spotlight as our failing manager imo and without Quinny to buffer him from the fans, he is going to have to be much more forthcoming in future to explain the decisions he makes, as we question directly the clubs fall from grace. Huge let down either way once again from the club that promises much and delivers so little - decade, after decade, after decade............!
Surely its not as simple as those figures. The transfers seem to be massively spread over longer periods of time so not sure we have cash up front for Bent or Henderson. I think Short did invest quite a bit up front, the summer we signed Bent, Cana, Cattermole etc we spent quite heavily. On the back of this I think he realised the club was unsustainable on the wage bill we had so since then he has wound things in a bit. At the end of the day he is a business man not a fan, he isn't going to blindly throw money at it again and again. I have full faith in the bloke. Clearly he sees profit in us, and to do that we have to be successful.
I'm not having a go I'm just not prepared to sit and accept anymore ****e form the club mate. I've been promised jam tomorrow for 36 years and no more so than under the current regime. I was told back in January when we let Bent go that we were not rushing into replacing him at the time but rather we would take our time and scour the market place, breaking the clubs transfer record if necessary but instead all we got was Welbeck going back to man Utd, Gyan being allowed to **** off without a whimper and a panic stations last minute loan deal for Bendtner. Someone is taking the piss on a huge scale at the club and now its Ellis Short that has to explain as he has moved Quinny sideways. At least Ashley is up front about reducing wages, selling players to pocket the money and not investing anymore money than is recouped from sales. Short hasn’t even done that this year and has pocketed a small fortune, all whilst maintaining the false facade that we are a progressive and ambitious club. We are far from an ambitious club mate and I am merely pointing this out. As ever, some fans wont want someone poking around with a big stick but burying my head in the sand isn’t my thing. I'll keep poking my stick in until I get some answer that are credible and don’t just take the piss. All is notn well at SAFC but the PR machine employed by Short is still churning out the crap.
We have sold Bent for a near 10m profit; Cana we got our money back and Catts cost 6m. That makes him a net profit of 4m. Next!
What we need to know is what our 'business plan is' . In other words how much: - First, what is our current expenditure and income, and how much is ES prepared to fund a first team squad wage bill over and above Expend> Inc, if at all? Secondly how much is ES prepared to spend on players? We could do with getting Bendtner on board in Jan plus another striker and a speedy LW. I doubt we will never know the answers to these 2 questions directly and so we can only guess from past events. As to Income and Expenditure as Bent Gyan etc left I guess we do have some sort of salary cap, whether it is an individual one and or a total one or both, I am not sure. By the end of Jan we will have a fair idea of net capital spend, IIRC someone has calculated we actually atm have not had a great overall net spend although we have had a great deal of churning with players going and coming. Certainly recent past events have indicated that ES is not prepared to over commit cash to SAFC and as Cest says that inference, more than any 'spin' about shopping in 'Harrods' or 'magic carpet rides' should dampen any speculation that the club is going to quickly rise up the league on the back of expensive player purchases. So yes we were sold somewhat of a line in the past few years that did raise our hopes and expectations somewhat, well our feet are firmly on the ground now. Anything less than 2 wins from the next too games and a tough relegation battle awaits.
we havent recieved all the money for Bent though - it wasnt an up front payment. Short is a business man, and will want to be captain of a stable ship so to speak, especially with the FFP rules coming in. No owner is throwing millions into clubs at the moment, with the exception of Man C owners, as football clubs (and their owners) are more aware of debt levels and wages/transfers costing more than the club is able to bring in as revenue. Who would you have instead of Short? Murray? kept the drumville consortium? Ashley? I cant think of a single owner that I would swap Short for (again, with the exception of the Man City owners).
I don't see how you let welbeck slip through your fingers, he was only a loan and im sure ferguson knew his potential. or did they offer him to you and the club refused to pay?
And we havent paid for Wickham or Ji up front either so our capital outlay is actually minimal. I'm not advocating that we should want rid of Short but we have to take off the blinkers sometimes. I'm not going to accept being fed some bullshit line that we are shopping at Harrods and will break the transfer record one minute and then look to replace Bent and Gyan with players of a sub standard nature. All I ask is that Short comes clean and tells us as it is. If there is **** all to spend then fine, I'm not saying we should hock the club and put it in finacial danger but I also dont want to be taken for a mug either. I feel like I have been so far this year.
I agree with Cest up to a point. There is definately something wrong at boardroom level. And also at management level, haway man why the **** can't we keep a hold of our strikers?
What I mean is EVERYONE knew Welbeck wasnt going to be ours permanently when he signed as SAF had made it well known all along. However, he was allowed to slip through our fingers in that a credible replacement was never sought as Bruce clung vainly onto the hope we could get him on loan again. When we couldnt, it was too late to recruit then Gyan dropped his bombshell. Bruces planning is ****e and he is caught out so often with lame excuses about it always being someine elses fault. We all knew Gyan wasnt fully committed when he signed and Welbeck was short term. Bruce knew Cana was unsettled; Bent wanted away last SUMMER and was told Gyan was pissed off back in May. He simply fails to plan EVERYTIME then flaps around like a tortoise on its back.
It's not a question of starting on Ellis IMO. I think we can all agree we'd be far worse off without him. We have all debated Brucey's worth for months whilst not once questioning Ellis's motives. Does he want SAFC to really compete? If so only he and his vast wealth are currently in a position to achieve anything like top 6. Without heavy investment we are destined to be a mid-table (at best) club for ever.
Selling Bent raised his transfer fee by approx £2.4m due to sell on clauses, also with the Bent deal being over several years this amount had to be paid to Spurs on him sodding off to Villa. Quinn said at Rainton Meadows that Bent leaving actually made him the record transfer over Gyan because of these clauses. As for Short, I'd rather be a financially sound club than a club run into massive debts for a hope that they get into the Uefa cup, get there for a couple of years then plummet in terms of finances and league positions... Just look at Leeds, Portsmouth, Newcastle almost even as big a club as Liverpool were very close to having debts spiralling out of control. So to sum up, unless you have someone worth upwards of £5 billion then massive transfer fee's etc isn't going to happen. Oh and who's going to pay for Man Citeh's bills when the owner gets bored?
pretty much my main thing about bruce, he always leaves things so late that he has to look to loan signings. its a short term fix. becuase in the summer, when bendtner leaves, you will be back to square one looking for that striker to fill the void. newcastle have no loans in and around the first team now, it helps us to settle and look to the future. you need to find the players you want, pay for them to sign permanently, then you can look to tweak the squad in one or two places instead of being on constant replacement lookout.
How did we know Gyan wasnt fully commited when he signed? If he had left of for Man U, then fair enough - but so uncommited that he leaves for the middle east? no one could have guessed that
Cest conveniently forgets that Short had to pay money up front to buy out the Drumaville consortium. Of course that would not suit his argument. Some people have very short memories, and that's not meant as a pun.
How did we know Bent would go the way he did? How many people thought Cana was unsettled? Apparently Cest has some inside information I think he should share. Or is it yet ANOTHER "Bruce out" diatribe diguised as an article about Ellis Short?
It's hard to argue the fact that under Shorts ownership a string of top players have left for more money elsewhere. This "cherry picking" will undoubtedly continue if we rightly or wrongly continue with our wage structure as it is. Is it any coincidence that the top six clubs in terms of Gross spend over the last ten years are also the clubs who will almost certainly make up the top six league positions come May?
Without Short we would not have been able to pay for the players to come here in the 1st place.... Do you think that a) SAFC should be run as a stable business, where spending does not exceed revenue - especially considering how the FFP rules will influence club spending in the future or b) Short should bank roll the wages and transfers, so we can break into the top 6 next season even if that means not playing in Europe anyway, as we would fail the FFP rules (not to mention the risk of doing a portsmouth) The answer is simple for me -> I would choose option a. I believe that Short is planning for the long term future (>3 seasons) instead of gambling on short term success (no pun intended). edit: Option a, imo, does not mean no success, it only effects our chances of immediate success.
