A good read Sparkey. There are a few positives to be taken, but slim pickings. When they talk about player sales, even the Bobby Reid sale was just getting back what we paid for him the year before. It's been a huge failing of ours. We've not bought in, developed and sold at a profit for ages. Can't remember when. And the last youngster we brought through and sold for good money was probably Ramsey. It's one thing our cousins our west have done consistently. They put us to shame in that regard. Our academy needs to start developing and our scouts need to start unearthing some rough diamonds. And our coaches need to start raising the standards of individuals. The infrastructure to deliver that needs overhauling. I don't see any of that happening without the footballing nous at the top table being boosted.
It can also be argued that the club would probably not be in the top 30 or so of the English leagues without Tan's investment. If we were lucky, without him, we would be a Div 1/2 club at best, non-league or even out of business at worst. What hasn't been detailed is the money wasted on players who were ultimately sold for peanuts or just released. No need to list these as we all know who they were. They probably account for £50m or more in fees plus wages and contract settlement amounts, that figure doesnt include Sala. Just think where we might have been had those signings done the job they were paid to do. While Tan is at the top of the pile and probably signs off on high figure signings the blame must go to Dalman, Choo and whoever sat on the transfer committee. Naivety, lack of knowledge, poor research, too easily persuaded by silky, tongued agents, panicked into making last minute decisions and more. Never mind decisions on managers the above must have made major impacts on the club's financial performance and the ability to progress. Tan is between a rock and a hard place. Does he stick with what he has and hope they have learned - they haven't so far - or does he twist and have a board clear out. Better the devil you know? The £25m or so owed to Dalman's company will have an influence on this.. The article quotes £98m of debt but does not account for the amount Tan has in shares - £100m maybe and increasing every year. Many on here wish for Tan to sell up but how realistic is that? Unless he is prepared to take a loss - something that wouldn't sit easily with him - loss of face and all that - then a magic, rich prince is needed to stump up £200m and probably pay off Dalman. As well as provide ongoing running costs for the club. Not an attractive proposition for anyone with an once of common sense. Unless they want to asset strip the club, sell the ground to developers and ground share with for instance Newport County. To sum up, the club needs to be successful again to be attractive to any would be investors, ideally as a Prem club. To achieve that we would have to be incredibly lucky with signings or Tan will have to stump up megabucks for good players. Will he fancy that? And then there are FFP or whatever is in place now rules to consider. I wish I had the answers but unless Bulut has a master plan with a further improvement to playoffs or better next season I can see us doing no more than bumbling along as an average Championship club for the foreseeable future.
Today's WoL article on Bulut's future. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport...kCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar Interesting comment by Siopis.
I certainly appreciate the financial commitment Tan has made to the club. The issue is with his bloody-mindedness over the footballing side of things. I doubt that any other businesses he owns are managed with so little subject matter expertise on the board. On the shoulders of giants and all that. Surround yourself with people who know the business, then manage them, not tell them what to do.
City have by hook or by crook got to the PL twice and blew it each time. I can’t recall reading of any interest in the club from would be investors then.
True Nin. We can but hope. The key would be not just getting there but staying there and getting established as a Prem club.
Indeed but it would be likely third time unlucky if Tan is still the owner unless he puts faith in changing the way the football operation is run by bringing in experienced qualified and proven experts in their field who have a vision and can deliver a sustainable and progressive club which as you state becomes an established PL club.
I don’t want him next season. His refusal to give some youngsters game time is irritating and inexplicable. Meite was hopeless as was his replacement. What harm was it to bring on Ashford? Ralls and Siopis were both poor so why not bring on young Colwill?
I know I'm flip flopping but I'm now in the get him out camp again. Once their first went in heads dropped. No one made any effort to get them back on track, especially Bulut. He seems incapable of lifting the team when we fall behind at home. Some awful substitutions yet again. I don't see Meite in the same light as Nin. He is not a goal scorer but roughs up defences and they know they have been in a game. Against that Diedhou does feck all. Ashford deserved 15/20 minutes. He could not have done any worse than Diedhou. Door and taxi for Bulut.
Lot of talk about being an improvement on last season and I can understand that, but in all honesty that wouldn't have been difficult given the ****e side we were. As far as I can see, the big question still remains - where do we go from here? Seems like two steps forward and one back - maybe even one and a half back with the club being run from 6000 miles away. Not sure how to evaluate Bulut's influence other than he was instrumental in bringing Goutas and Siopis with him to the club. Although sometimes variable, both have had a major influence in our overall performances. Nat Phillips apart, other imports/loanees under his tenure have been variable to say the least - is it them or is it him? I'm desperately looking for a way forward in style and quality. Not only on the pitch but also the immediate decision makers who stand on the touchline, and the longer term ones who sit in the stands. We've talked much about root and branch changes such as a Dof, but that's unlikely to happen until we get someone else paying the bills. To his eternal credit, Vince has always come up with the goods on that front but it's taking us nowhere whilst he haemorrhage's cash - when will he accept that?.
If he's hemorrhaging then I hope he has very good key person insurance written in City's favour with an element of index linked critical illness cover should he survive.
I find it all really difficult to get my head around. From Bulut's perspective, he now sees his boss as no longer being his line manager. Instead he now has the owner holding up a decision on a contract for next season. In Bulut's position, I would be thinking that Tan is holding out so that he doesn't have to pay off another manager and that my job is gone at the end of the season. Hardly a motivational situation and that feeling is bound to trickle down into the dressing room. Uncertainty breeds so many concerns. It's almost like Bulut is paying for the manager recruitment debacles that have gone on before. Now I know I'm supposed to be grateful to Vince for "saving" the club but it increasingly feels like a stay of execution as the money pours out of the club. Having done a little bit of reading on him, I get the impression that he's got rich by knowing people especially Malaysian politicians. There doesn't seem to be any personal expertise from him other than the ability to grift. One thing is certain an that is his lack of nous or feeling for football and our club. I know it's not going to happen anytime soon, but I wish he'd sell up and pass the club into the hands of someone that knows what they're doing. So again it seems like I've made a statement in defence of Bulut and perhaps to a extent that's true. However, I'm also conscious that he could simply be another mistake in the saga of our managers. To my mind, no matter how you spin it, Tan is not doing well for the club. Just my humble opinion of course.
I think you're quite correct clingo. It's probably fair to admit that Tan kept us in business as a club about 14 years back - has it really been that long? He got rid of Hamman and the Langston debt, paid off other creditors and has funded the club out of his own pocket since then. It's also a matter of record that we've never played lower than the Championship level in that time whereas other "established" clubs (Leeds, Ipswich, Sunderland, Wendies etc) have all slipped into League One. Having said that, not only the substantial benefits, but also the historic poor managerial decisions lay with Tan and his reluctance to recruit real football expertise at a higher level to oversee the clubs progress. Regardless of whether Bulut is the "right guy" for us, is he going to pay the price for the inept way Tan conducts this circus, or is it just the supporters who'll continue to suffer as we lurch in a different direction? Personally, I'm not at all convinced that Bulut is a good fit at this level, but the lack of an overall footballing strategy at a higher level is appalling.
I feel both points are correct. Bulut not the right man, but nobody at the top who might know what the right man might look like. Seems as if Tan is playing manager bingo. Old dinosaur, tick. Bright Young thing, tick. Clueless lower league manager, tick. Foreign manager, tick, tick. What's the odds on a female manager next?
Today's Bulut update. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport...kCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
You have to love how easy it is to spin facts/numbers to suit the narrative you are trying to push out... The article states about us winning 6 of our last 9 games which of course is perfectly true. However, the other day (ahead of the Brum game) articles were talking about us losing 3 of the last 4.... Even after the Brum game we could say we've only won 2 in our last 5! Guess this is the writers equivalent of projecting a glass half full or glass half empty narrative... Shows how easy it could be for the media to influence things though as those less educated fans (no one on here of course - well apart from one seemingly quiet poster perhaps) readily swallow up the headlines with next to no interrogation of any wider facts or context.
Well said sir. Football like most aspects of life is now almost totally media driven in one way or another. That's not a good thing in my book.
