I'd expect that in the unlikely event of us getting promoted the Yanks would set their sights on the Holy Grail of the Premiership, which is the only way you're going to make real money.
Excellent post on another forum tonight spelling out that we now have the second lowest number of outfield players in League One …second only to a club (Reading) that is just fighting hard to keep the lights on. Nobody is advocating stuffing the squad with yet more dross, but isn’t this transfer window so blatantly about cutting costs so Methven can achieve his mythical break even KPI.
Yesterday was a textbook operation from a group of venture capitalists- stripping an already very weak asset base to the near bone. We now have only 21 players including 2/3 keepers - we are literally sunk if we pick up a couple of key injuries. This has never been about strengthening the squad in the areas that need it for a promotion challenge, but making the club so small that the costs become tiny & is also that much easier to sell on, if necessary, as a distressed asset. That’s where CAFC is now heading - Losing money No assets Very small squad, of very little value Declining attendances Methven & Co showed their hand yesterday, and as some of us suspected all along, it had nothing to do with football.
Excellent post Nick. I have had enough. Can’t find anything positive to say. Methven and Co have pushed me off the precipice.
It will be losing around £8m a year less. Far more likely to attract a speculative punt from a Sandgaard-type.
We'll have to lose more players before we significantly eat into the losses, and it will have to be those who will fetch a decent fee, which would probably send us into L2. We won't have got much for REG. Leaburn doesn't look the player he was either, although he's got time on his side. I don't have your optimism about being able to sell the club for what they paid for it, let alone enough to get their money back. Our only hope as I see it is that we turn out to have a golden generation of kids coming through. Which has happened, and we sold them for peanuts.
I reckon they have shaved between £20,000 - £25,000 a week off the wage bill in this transfer window . Getting on for £500,000 by the end of the season. You can see the trajectory. Next season will be even worse if we stay in L1, the new rules on spend >> turnover kick in.
Another weakness in their strategy is that by making it obvious that we're all about cost-cutting we get into a weak bargaining position when it comes to selling players. Which you must assume is what they are planning for the summer. No way would they turn down £2m for TC. They'd bite your hand off for half of that.
You’ve hit the nail on the head really - the only way they have any remote possibility of making this work is if the Academy throws up 2-3 Lookman / Konsa / Gomez types. Otherwise they sell & cut to make ends meet.
100% If it was about the football we'd have not bought more inexperienced players, as for trying to get the geezer in from Sunderland. I'd wager the two brought in nobody on the staff has seen them play live.
The small coterie of pro Methven cranks & botty lickers emerged from their bunker yesterday. The January window was nothing more than brazen cost cutting. At least £20,000 a week shaved off the wage bill. Methven will make sure he hits his KPI & gets his bonus from the investors, even if it means Nathan Jones doesn’t get his. As for the Methven Cultists, “we will be in a stronger position next season” is risible bollocks when you look at the age of many of the players, and the fact that 2-3 will be sold this Summer, just like Alfie May was last Summer. Methven & Scott are not building anything, you naive geeks. They are merely paddling hard, treading water, and hoping to get lucky before the investors finally turn the taps off.
Fair play to Birmingham City - their match day tickets are extremely good value. Only £20 for Under 25s on Saturday, seating or standing, and only £25 for adults over 25, seating or standing. Not only are BCFC’s genuine US billionaires pumping a lot of money into the club for new players AND a new stadium, they are also doing it without fleecing the fans. What a contrast to Methven & Charlton, where a half decent season in the CE is £31.50 if you book in advance.
