Saudi takeover poll

Oh shut it, you sap.



















Well you did say it would be unpopular and I was just wanting to be on the majority side.

 

In a perfect world, I very much doubt anyone would want a Saudi takeover. Nor for that matter, Russian, Chinese, American or Kosovan.
If this club wants to be a big hitter in the 21st century, we need a billionaire owner who wants to invest in the football club, root and branch.
The beauty of the consortium is they appear to bring different qualities to the table and it's likely to benefit the city as well as club.
Yes, there's more than a hint of sportswashing, but I'm happy they wish to wash their sports at Gallowgate laundrette instead of Seven Sisters Road.

 

Its amazing how suddenly Ashley isn't all that bad because 6 other owners in the league have done something a lot worse than him.

His clear intention has always been the minimum investment required to keep the club milking the cash cow that is the Premier League. A couple of times he has gambled and lost and had to invest to get us back round the table but he is as guilty as the Big 6 owners of losing sight of the fact that a football club isn't just a business but also a competitor in a sports competition and an entertainment provider for thousands of people every week.

I have my doubts about investment from Saudi but I feel far more comfortable with them than an American owner who has no feeling for the game and its traditions and has been brought up on a sport as business philosophy. They may be sports washing but, to do that well, they will need to invest in the playing staff, managerial staff and facilities and that's exactly what I want and the club needs.

So its a yes from me.

 

After the apathy of Ashley I totally get why people want this takeover. If it was millions and millions instead of billions and billions I would be far more comfortable with it. I am also torn because of the local non-football investment it would bring. God how this area needs that. It will never come from London unless they think there's a by-election coming up they might win and they can throw a token effort at it.

 

If it happens the level of dosh they can throw at it is limited by both the PL rules and UEFA, you can only set fire to £105m over a 3 year period. I.e. make 3 consecutive financial year end losses that total no more than £105m.

It’s been put on hold during COVID but will be back next season. We’d have fallen foul of it this last season had it not been for the suspension due to COVID.

So the Billions thing and dreaming of MBappe was always somewhat overblown, as what we saw happen at Chelsea then City has been effectively outlawed. So what you’ll get, is a set of owners who’ll put some cash in every year, and so will be better than Ashley in that respect, but it’ll be a gradual thing due to the limitations in place.

That said, not many seem to understand how transfer fees are accounted for, and so there’d be nothing to stop them making an initial larger outlay, say £100m on 4 players all on 4 year contracts, and the hit to your accounts in year one would be 25 % of their cost i.e, £25m plus their annual wages and signing on / agents fees.

I expect it’ll go something like our takeover did tbh. Whether it goes better will depend on the calibre of the appointments they make as manager and DOF.

 

I think the reality is that if we don’t get this takeover it would just be someone else buy with the same type of baggage.

We need the investment because we have been chronically under invested and badly ran for 14 years and we are just hanging on in there.

I want a Leicester type football model and I believe this is what we would be getting with PIF, AS and RB. The fact that AS and RB are involved makes me feel comfortable about it because they appear to be connecting with the fans prior to a takeover.

My concern is that it won’t happen. That this power play might put the PL off more. But the double standards are staggering.

 

Exactly this. Their is also the potential for increasing commercial revenue which has gone backwards for nufc since Ashley started. This on its own could generate an additional 50m a year easily.

So between that and other investments in the youth, training facilities, management and structure we would be a better all round well ran club.

There is no guarantees in football but all we really want is progress. This myth that bar code fans want champions league football is just utter bollocks.

Less of Joe Kinnear, Steve Bruce, Steve mclaren etc

Less of the selling our best players.

Actual youth players coming through after years of investment.

Less of Ashley.

 

Yeah they can do similar to what we did and get Usmanov to pay us £12m a year to sponsor the training ground lol.

He’s just lobbed us a further £30m so he can be the preferred bidder for the naming rights for the new stadium, that’s 3 years off. Some clubs have apparently dobbed us in for that one, so we’ll see how that goes.

We ****ed up by hiring managers and DOF who literally set fire to his cash. We brought in Walsh from Lesta straight after they’d won the league as DOF and then hired Koeman. Both looked decent shouts on paper, but they collectively ****ed it clean up. Then Fat Sam to keep us up, spunked a cheeky £45m on Walcott and Cenk Tosun in his only window, who we still ****ing own Then on to Silva who was an awful shout, before we finally got Don Carlo, who for me is defo the right calibre and we should finally get somewhere.

My only worry for you, is that Staveley and Reubens have precisely zero experience of running a club, and could easily make the same kind of mistakes we did, and the fans get a bit titty lipped, as you’re treading water for a bit. As despite what you say, I think there’s going to be a massive lift in terms of expectations, from the minute they walk in.

 

Maybe but they would bring in Jamie Reuben who must have learnt a thing or two at QPR

 

Just stick with Ashley man he's doing OK now

We've got bruce and Jones lost once in 8

 

They will make mistakes your right. But I hope they appoint the right people. Like your lot eventually getting to Carlo. He knows his ****.

You see a lot of people don’t rate Rafa but I do. He’s the one to start the project for me.

Really all we are after is to not have to be looking over our shoulders every year. With maybe a few games where we control possession. And no Shelvey.

In fact that would be enough for me. Just Shelvey-gone!

 

Mate I feel you have turned to the dark side. We will however assist in in coming back.

If Ashley remains we are doomed.

 

I think we've turned a corner since they brought in Jones on the pitch and I think off the pitch Ashley's much improved in terms of bringing players in.

He's got to perhaps do better with the attention to the training ground and the maybe get a sponsor rather than use it fur free sports direct sponsorship, but I think he's been much improved over the past few years

 

Do you actually watch the ****ing games mate? Seriously? Those 8 games have been ****ing horrendous to watch, some more than others but each and every single one of them....and many more before that !! Jones or no Jones one man and one man alone is causing all of these problems for us and it's the bloke who takes training 3 times a week and picks the ****ing team each week!

Turning into a ****ing Ashley sympathiser is flopping on an epic scale...even for you! Have some ****ing muesli man!

 

Absolutely I do watch them and our possession stats have improved since the appointment of Jones despite injuries to 4 of our best players in Wilson, almiron, Saint Maximin and schar.

The improvement was there for us all to see from Everton away and was only hampered by those in absentees.

Low and behold they're coming back into the side and results are slowly coming.

We might aswel just stick with Ashley if he keeps up the spending.

He's spent 100 million the past 2 years and these owners have what 250 over 5? It's not the great amount people are expecting.. It would be better that's for sure, but we'd have sold our souls to Satan in the eyes of the world outside our city.

Ashley is far from ideal, but he's definitely improved

 

Its hurts me to say it but Chaos has got a point here. If you look at our results until Jones arrived, to those after Jones arrived there is a clear improvement (he joined on 27th January). I think it was lost in that run of 3 games where we drew them all when we expected to pick up a couple of wins and then the drubbing at Brighton. It was the December/January period where we really lost our way.



However think it's a bit of a stretch to say it works now with Bruce and Jones - I would prefer to say it clearly wasn't working with Bruce and he is surplus to requirements.

 

If Ashley wasn't into experienced British managers and built a new training ground I think he'd be where he needs to be..

 

That lot doesn't equate to Ashley being anywhere near where he needs to be or where the club should be. He has had 13 years and has shown no hint of trying to grow/improve the club. We have effectively stood still for that 13 years and been overtaken by the likes of Leicester City, Wolves, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Southampton and caught by Burnley, Brighton. I want an owner who wants to take us forward and Ashley isn't it.

 

Leicester is a one off, wolves have big money, so really there's only about 3 or 4 we could look at and think why are they better than us.

I would ask where we think we can get to? Look at who's above us..

We could maybe be above Palace, Southampton, Leeds, West ham, but I'm. Not sure who else and a probably will swap places with those sides as we have over the passed few seasons..

West ham have has a good season and so have we once in the same time period.

I think the clubs not far from being as high as it can get basically.. Other clubs have more money.. We're where we are