Here is the deal... If the club say SRL has gone A) because it was his dream move and B) because it seemed good business.. I could accept it IF they qualified the statement with something like this... NO OTHER PLAYER WILL LEAVE THE CLUB UNLESS THE NEWLY APPOINTED 1ST COACH/MANAGER AGREES THAT IT IS BOTH STRATIGICALLY AND TACTICALLY IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF PROJECTED FOOTBALL RESULTS.. TO CLARIFY.. FOOTBALL, NOT FINANCIAL RESULTS. Anything less is a betrayal..
If you say that, then you're giving the new manager a free ticket to spend like an idiot. Or, if he doesn't spend then the fans go crazy "We're getting relegated unless we spend 70m!!!" Spending all of your money just to spend it is how teams end up with Andy Carroll. Or in Tottenham's case, Lamela, Chadli, Chiriches, and Eriksen. Even if I had no debts and fully intended to reinvest all of the money from transfers back into other transfers, I would prefer to spend 70m on the best targets I could find over two seasons, rather than just the best of what's available in one transfer window. Hopefully the money actually is there to spend, and I'm still reasonably optimistic that it is. But I wouldn't commit to any sort of figure or statement on spending other than "We don't need to sell, we have enough money to spend what we think we need to spend."
But surely when we hire a manager, said manager will know what their transfer budget will be. And if we intend for it to be the totality of the money spent, they will be given a figure equal to that and will for the most part have free rein to spend it. Edit: not that it's necessarily germane to our situation in any instance...it's true that managers have that freedom in many places, but ours haven't really been the primary drivers of transfers.
I agree and in the interview did anyone else pick up on the fact that he has only just realised that he has 20 people talent spotting. Surely he should know every function in the company. Surely he approves budgets. I also wish he would stop calling Saints and players a product If we don't get him I am sure the players don't. I really want believe in him and KL but at the moment it's very hard
Whatever we think about Ralph and KL they arent stupid. They have both been successful in their spheres. Why come out and make the statement he did if the RL eal was being discussed. He said open and truthful with the fans. Lets see what he says next!
Well, that's the problem. Katharina hasn't actually been successful at anything, and Ralph's achievements have nothing to do with what he's doing now.
My worst fear is that we're in a similar situation to the printing press she inherited. In that case, she made 31 employees redundant and was accused of failing to set a new direction for the company. So far, we've seen two academy coaches sacked (potentially rightly), and a number of players speak about how they do not know or do not understand the club's current/new ambitions. Yes RK has come out and said that aim is still Europe, but has anyone actually told the players? Because there doesn't seem to be a constant message among the group. I think if Cortese was still here, a constant message would have been maintained, regardless of whether Lambert and Lallana were sold. Also, the news that Lambert was leaving on the same day as the season ticket renewal deadline was an amateur mistake. I don't hold this worry about the finances under Cortese. We've just earned around £77million for our performance last season. Even if under Cortese we had to be sustainable, I think we could have reinvested around £20-30m of that in players, which would have been reasonable to strengthen the squad and get us into Europe. I think the loan to cover transfers was simply because we don't receive our money from the Premiership until the end of the season (I believe), so a loan with payment guaranteed from the final earnings is not endangering the club in the long-term. Ultimately, both sides of the argument, for and against whether Cortese would do any better, is built upon rumours and speculation, with much of the information (like about him apparently willing to sell Lambert in January) just rumours and no hard proof. All we have to go by are the actions of the current board and players. So far, I don't think it looks good, they have to get this managerial appointment right to show that they know what they are doing, and reinstill some of the fans' confidence in them in my opinion
Agree with the last statement, but we know little about Katharina's abilities. We can't judge her by what happened when she had to wind up Markus's estate. He had been ill for a while and may have taken his eye off the ball. He may have been keeping nonviable businesses afloat, just because he had the money to do so. You don't close viable businesses...you sell them. The fact she didn't do so, may have been because they were haemorrhaging money. She may not have wanted such a diverse portfolio. These things happen when a big, big man dies. None of us know what she does and has done...she could be a brain surgeon for all we know.
Well whatever happened, whether her fault or not, it wasn't a success, so there's nothing to have earned our trust just yet. Besides, DTLW recently posted an interview with ex-MALI employees who weren't too happy with her.
True, but equally we can't proclaim her as a successful businesswoman purely for an inheritance either.....
Gotta say... The "everyone hates Les Reed" theory makes a ton of sense. Way more than asset stripping or absence of NC or team being cheap. I think Lallana and Shaw would leave anyway. But these guys are getting everything they want anyway so no need to rock the boat. And yet there seems to be some kind of united and concerted effort firm everyone to ring some kind of alarm. KL is the owner and doesn't much interact with the players, nor would they evocative her to. They don't really know Krueger and would see him as a non-football guy. it has to be someone they actively dislike, not just someone they are unsure about. And that 's Reed. Would also explain the strange Dodd firing, which has never made sense to me.
I don't think Saints would have sacked Dodd and Williams without a really good reason....the timing was crap and would obviously upset players and fans. It won't just be because of results, because, although disappointing in matches, was good if you consider the players coming through the academy. Replacements weren't already waiting in the wings as could happen with a managerial change. The board is also not ruthless like Nicola (who might have acted in an arbitrary way). I am an admirer of both men, but I feel that something happened that made the sacking unavoidable.
Agree with this, what spurs did was crazy - read a great comment on it being like selling an iPhone and replacing it with a torch, a watch, a calculator, etc. we need to have a sensible approach to reinvesting in the right players, everything we have actually been told so far suggests we will. And if the RK came out and said we will reinvest all proceeds from sales people would be saying he is a fool for letting the other clubs know the budget we are working to. It might be they really don't know what they are doing, but it's far too early to judge that yet.
