Ashley is up to his old tricks. Trying to destroy a popular manager.
I’m not convinced at all on that. He’s mentioned, by name, Rafa on numerous occasions and has given him all the freedom he wants. Mikes hopeless as an owner and a bastard for most of his decisions, no doubt whatsoever. He's ultimately culpable in the overall scheme, but not necessarily responsible for the current failure.
We run a really basic model - club can spend what it makes. How it spends, and on what, is where we're struggling. We should have more money, that's down to Mike mainly. I don't know who owns that decision but whoever does is to blame 99% for the **** we're in. Rafa's made some poor decisions on recruitment, no doubt. We've not spent that well.
The club lacks leadership and direction. The takeover has further stalled things because an already hapless CEO knows his time's up.
None of it's particularly conspiracy-theory, it's all pretty obvious. What is frustrating is the media coming out with uninformed crap:
- "Mike's gotta spend or he'll lose Rafa."
Mike doesn't 'spend', the club does. And Rafa's on £5m a year, and bulletproof, where else is he going?
- "They spent more getting out of the Championship than on staying in the PL"
We also balanced those books a lot better. Player sales accounted for a lot of that spend. Last Summer was net spend, and we had fck all in the bank. I don't agree with a complete lack of speculation/ambition, but I understand and the club is transparent.