To be fair the influx of players came about from circumstances because the new owners did not complete the takeover in an ideal time-span. Not exactly their fault I suspect as we now know that Baz was playing his own game. The players were untried by and large, recovering from long term injuries, or not likely to get into the squads of their existing clubs. By some sort of miracle GFZ found the talent that was there and devised a method of getting them to play an attractive and successful style of football. It almost brought about promotion to everyone's surprise, and I include the Pozzo family in that. If you owned the club now that a lot of the issues remaining from that man are being sorted and you had more time, then you would put all of your energy and required players into the club to ensure that it doesn't fall at the last hurdle again. A balance now has to be found between the three clubs as to who will play for who. Maybe we will see more proven players and less of the ones who are still trying to make their way.
I agree OFH, which is why i'm feeling pretty damn good about things at the Mo. New kit, new sponsor with 'the best commercial deal in recent years' and all the right things being said by the club. Just waiting for the transfers to start, which wont be for a few weeks yet, and then we are ready to roll. I wonder if we will play the same pre-season friendlies (B. Wood, Wealdstone, etc) and whether there will be some kind of pre season involving our sister clubs (are they sisters? why not brothers?). Roll on next season
Multiple club ownership in one single country is one thing... but they will then be dealing with European and international business and employment law and all that entails if they try to curtail this business. As someone said elsewhere there is nothing to stop the various members of the family signing the clubs over to each other etc. and still maintaining the business and football structure. It is a can of worms that the authorities really do not wish to open. Whoever loses, the lawyers win... and I reckon the Pozzo family have the best lawyers. Might get 'interesting' if we all end up in the same Europa / Champions League group in a few years time.
Exactly - Man City were a mid-table side until the Arabs came in so they got lucky - it could have been a Villa or Spurs. Lets see how many British players they buy or give games to - by that I mean regular action like Walcott and Phil Jones would get rather than 5 minutes here and there. The trouble is football in this country is based around short term thinking - instant results and expectations particularly at the top level. No doubt there are some of your own fans saying we need to do this and that quickly.. Of course we will have to adhere to the rules and accept them although if they really wanted to punish us the league would have said no overseas players surely? In reality even Zola said we had too many because we had to ship them in quickly. I'd be more worried if we weren't allowed to buy anyone because of the embargo. We could field a number of young players if we fancied - like Bond,Hoban,Thompson,Murray - all could do a job at this level.
Whilst the loan players mostly came in late there were promises that they would sign during the January window - apart from one, they did not. I think we would be reacting in a similar way to other teams supporters if the boot was on the other foot. I can remember the season before last when many on here moaned about Cardiff playing 7 loans & yet we seem to have rose tinted glasses when it comes to our own team. I'm certain we will have a team to challenge next season regardless of whatever rules are in place and I'm looking forward to how the 'project' matures.
Would we have been moaning though? Calling other clubs cheats? I doubt it. We were a mid table championship club going ambitions just to stay in the division. One club moving up the table based on loans rather than the tried and failed route of throwing money at the problem wouldn't have bothered us would it?
