Getting back up again when relegated is pretty much a given and Rafa should have held back money safe in the knowledge that we would bounce back in exactly the way Norwich and Villa did alongside us and in the same manner Boro, Sunderland and Hull are this season. There should be no credit whatsoever given to Rafa for that as it is a given which happens every season. As for Gayle with his shoddy 23 goals in promotion and potential resale value, we should have signed the 33 year old tax-dodging Murray with his 16 goals instead. Rafa is such a clueless ****tard, I honestly do much better on Football Manager with only a minimal amount of cheating.
So, basically, club makes £120m on PL revenue & player sales, gets relegated, spends £60m on players, the rest on mitigating the disaster and higher salaries getting out of hole Ashley creates. Then club then makes £30m from promotion campaign, so club spends £30m on players ahead of PL campaign, in which it will make £100m from TV revenue. If we scrape survival, the club will then spend it. If we get relegated, we will need to put a chunk of it into mitigating the disaster again. This, for you, is a well-run football club to be lauded?
As opposed to spending beyond your means in the hope it helps you escape relegation, but looking at the table or getting an injury, probably not. Then getting relegated anyway, maybe not enough to get promoted or having to rely on the owner to put his own money in again having spent some of your TV money, making an actual sale of the club further away than ever. Er yeah basically
He does the defending basics well. Never going to be an attacking wing back but as long as we have one ahead of him it works. Always said he was a better centre half than full back but we have more options in the middle. He suits Rafas style of play and so will get plenty of games until we sign someone better.
Yours is all supposition, though, mate. I'm just stating what has happened, not what might have happened. I could just as easily say "if Mike released money he was going to get from the PL TV rights early enough to buy players, we'd never have gotten relegated and would now be under the ownership of Jeff Bezos...". Sadly I'm all about the.... FACTS!!!
Excellent if we are just sticking to facts we are in my domain rather than the usual hearsay on here. The fact is Rafa took a job based on having transfer funds that we generated as a club. The fact is he has had those funds right up to the end of last window. No speculating ahead hoping for survival. Do the job you were employed to do with the funds you knew you’d have. So far he is doing an ok job of it to be fair. Sorry your facts are not actually facts as they skewed by fudging figures to suit and missing out spend incurred. We’ve spent what we can afford to as a club. As promised. We havent speculated as you and others would like putting the club at risk but then the club never said it would. Best to get over it and accept we are simply one of the many small fish of the PL. The Keegan and Bobby days are over and, newsflash, no one is to blame. We simply can’t afford it and no one serious wants to buy us and change it. Welcome to Sky’s vision of how football should be.
I didn't realise you were involved in the recruitment and contract process. Can you confirm the rumour about the clause on the requirement for Rafa to pay a contract termination fee if he leaves early or is that confidential (and only you, and of course Windy know).
Dummett has always been a good defender. I'd go as far as saying he has shown signs of being a very good defender. He was far too easy a target for the boo boys and I never understood this. A defender's primary job is to defend and he did that well. He does have limitations going forward, but so do many other left backs. The problem for Dummett was that these were exposed more often than a left-back playing behind higher quality players. He has also been labeled as slow by some. This is so far from the truth it is laughable. On Sunday there was a comment on the BBC live text that it was 'amazing' that he had just outsprinted Martial (I think). This was no surprise. In the season we went down, the fastest recorded sprint of any player in the premier league that season was Dummett. Sometimes the facts don't fit our perceptions of players though, so they get ignored.
I don’t think it’s fair for me to do so on a Paul Dummett thread which is being derailed by silly anti Ashley agendas. Back on top, I’m really pleased with Dummetts form.
- We've been relegated twice - was Rafa responsible? That's what I call putting the club at risk, not spending money in January you are legally going to get in February. - Did we spend everything we could as a club on players at the right time? - Have we generated enough commercial income? These are three simple questions even you know the answer to, but back to your stuck record point (again); The crux here is your point on speculation, as you put it. This would be based on success you may or may not have, such as borrowing in the event of qualifying for Europe a la Leeds. I and everyone else is saying we should spend money we have already gained access to. The payment, the actual money, doesn't appear until the PL makes its' payments in Oct, Feb and May. However, if the PL are going to pay £100m for the season 2017/18, that's what should be available to spend. Why? Because it means you will give yourself the best possible chance at having £130m to spend for 2018/19. We spend what is in a bank, which isn't the PL money and isn't even sponsorship money. So when we bring up player sales, I'm afraid it's entirely valid because - thanks to Mike - it's the main source of income we get access to. Nobody in football waits for the money to be in the bank, because it's clearly a stupid, stupid idea. It's not a high street shop aiming for profits, not a balance sheet business based on profit & loss, for chrissakes - it's a football club!!! Money, more of it, only comes from sustained success and sustained success only comes from investment on and off the playing field. The current model means we wait til the money is actually, physically deposited, and this happens each time after the transfer window and in three instalments. The utterly, blatantly obvious problem here is we're constantly playing catch up and leaving ourselves open to relegation, which has happened twice and is a possible for a third time. The failure of this model is an inarguable fact as has been documented by our problems through the last 10 years of Ashley ownership. The clear problem of playing catch up and only spending what's actually IN the bank is we then in turn have considerably less to spend even if we get promotion, as when we return to the PL we don't have a pot to piss in.....until they pay us in October! Every other club that has come up over the years, such as Bournemouth, Burnley, Watford, Brighton, etc., have all spent the money they are legally bound to get. This is not speculating. The PL money is not designed to support relegation. It is there to get you the best playing squad and facilities. I cannot for the ****ing life of me understand how you cannot get your head round this. Unless you genuinely think that the best business model for a football club is to prepare for relegation rather than arm yourself with the tools needed to stay up? All any prospective buyer needs to do is come in, spend the money the fat tosser has been saving (if we stay up, else it's just paying for the relegation AGAIN) then spend the money we will definitely get from Sky and WHAMMO - instant hero. They wouldn't have to dip into their own savings. Couple this with some decent commercial agreements, Sports Direct ripped from the walls and employ some genuine executives and HEY PRESTO - a football club to believe in. Your Mike love in is nothing short of embarrassing, mate.
Good post... Now stop feeding him. He's not had so much fun since his Pardew love posts were able to get all the bites.
TBH if he was called Dumbledenio or Dummet-rescu and he was Brazilian or Romanian most fans would be saying he is the next best thing. Hes a good player for a mid table premiership side. Nothing special, just does the basics well and keeps it simple!
