Transfer Rumours The Summer Transfer Rumour Thread 2016

I agree, Leicester has spent big in this window plus the extended contracts, that a lot of money going out and a big risk that they can maintain their level from last year, could end up doing a "Pompey" and being deep in debt. There is a fine line between over spending and under achieving and under spending and over achieving. We have done the latter well in the last 3-4 years and only time will tell if we can maintain again this season. It depends if the manager can find the right formation and getting the new faces to gel. If not going to be a nail biting season for me and a worn out carpet from pacing nervously in front of the TV every week-end.

 

I don't think anyone has a problem with a long-term plan that involves running the club around break-even with a sustainable debt load.

 

N

This was the notes from last year's financial accounts:
The gross debt of £62 million includes £32.7 million owed to the owner Katharina Liebherr (up from £14.7 million the previous year), a Swiss loan facility of £15 million secured on the owner’s personal estate plus a £13.9 million loan with Macquarie Bank (replacing a Vibrac loan on better terms).

So they switched the Vibrac loan to another bank. The other £15m loan secured on Kat's estate is an odd one to me. Certainly ties her to the club, but I can't see how it's tax efficient or the benefits to anyone, apart from that Swiss Loan company (friend of the family?)

 

Strange that Cortese's area of expertise was sports finance and yet whatever he was doing was enough to panic the owner into setting up a board reporting to her. Her father trusted him more than she did. Obviously nothing criminal because she was happy to have him on the board, but under her terms. Had the power gone to his head or was the club just too big to run if you insisted on micromanaging.

 

The benefit, according to that bit of text is that the loan is on better terms. And I was under the impression that it was Liebherr's money that enabled us to get those better terms.

We owed let's say 20m to Vibrac at 10% interest. We borrowed 20m from another bank and used that to pay the principle owed to Vibrac. So now we just owe that other bank 20m instead. But the interest rate on this new loan is only 5%, because Liebherr put her own money up as collateral.

 

I think she was more risk-averse than Cortese was. He was spending heavily and leveraging debt, thinking that we'd get it all back and then some by achieving consistent CL football. Of course, it was a huge gamble. One that I would not have felt comfortable with, either. Or at least, I'd want that money spent on players instead of luxury flights and the finest 10000 thread linens at all hotel rooms, or making sure Staplewood had the finest quality Bubinga wood panels.

Cortese used to talk about Saints winning titles. Krueger says stuff like "I don't know. We're not a big club, but we're going to run ourselves well, and try to grow and just keep trying to improve and see what happens... maybe someday." It was a pretty big change in attitude.

 

Probably missing the point here but surely we've spent way more on players post Cortese.

 

Haven't we had a net transfer profit each season?

 

Net spend
It goes back to the summer of 2013 where we purchased Lovren, Wanyama & Rocksvaldo for about £35m without any significant sales.

Since then we made a profit in 2014, a small loss in 2015 and another profit this summer

 

But that's only happened because we've sold our best players which wasn't in anyone's business plan.

 

I've said for some time that I think it IS in our business plan.

We're building up a stock of funds in a sustainable way that will allow us to progress without injections of money from our owners. We do it by buying low and selling high. So I genuinely do believe it's planned.

This way we make money to allow us to move up the pecking order plus being seen as a stepping stone means we get young hungry up-and-coming players keen to showcase themselves by playing their best for us.

No accident, in my opinion.

Vin

 

That's fair enough if that's the plan but I have doubts about our ability to be able to replace 3+ players every Summer. We done brilliantly in 14 but I even said back then I don't think we can do it every year. We'd only have to get it really wrong once for us to drop into the bottom 6 imo. The stock of funds won't be much use to break into Europe if we have to use it to get out of the Championship.

My concerns with this is twofold:

1) It relies on maintaining a 80% hit rate on recruitment, that's difficult in any industry, let alone football.

2) It makes it harder to maintain team spirit which was a big part of our rise and success. In fact it's almost vital for any of the smaller clubs to succeed in this league, look at Leicester.

 

Bedding in a few new players is one thing, but add to that a new gaffer & it can become slightly more difficult. If this is our plan, then we maybe need a cease fire on sales when a new guy comes in.

 

Agreed completely.

 

The bottom six don't go down!!

 

Bingo, this is my point on team spirit etc.

In 2014 we had Fonte and the double pivot of Morgan & Vic to help see us through the tough times.

In 2015 we had the same manager and skipper Jose to see us through losing Morgan.

In 2016? We've still got Fonte, though he wanted to leave by most accounts. New manager, next longest servant, Steven Davis?

In 2017...?

 

Choppy waters, I'd take 14th right now. (and a little cup run if you don't mind my greed)

 

I think it's our plan, as well, though whether we'll continue progressing remains to be seen. Part of it is really a messaging problem; the club's actions speak to exactly what you mentioned, but every public statement suggests a much different plan. We're financially healthy and don't need to sell players; we then sell players, leading to speculation that we aren't financially healthy. We're going to be aggressive in the transfer market to cement our European standing; we aren't. We're perennially five years away from Champions League.

Perhaps it's because they think that fans would react badly if they stated exactly what you laid out, but fans tend to react pretty badly when actions diverge from stated intent, too.

 

VVD, Tadic, Fraser, SD, Ryan. All strong characters who have been here for "a bit".

 

I knew someone would pick up on that when I re read it afterwards!! No they don't but half of them do.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying we're going to get relegated (though it could be possible at some point). I'm just saying that imo we can't be replacing 3+ players every Summer without dropping back big time. At which point we're in a worse position to attract the players we need to push on to the next level, and also it makes it even harder to keep our players.