I reckon Rafa is the most valuable asset at the club. The fact remains though that for him to sell at all there has to be a buyer and I am afraid there isn't one on the horizon ATM. Therefore his valuation is irrelevant! What concerns me more than anything is the fact of if Ashley does gamble and Rafa walks (he has a year left on his contract so can in theory go next year) what will the implications be: - Any manager coming in afterwards is going to be at a significant disadvantage because of Rafa's goodwill. - The value of the club would surely go down and therefore it would be likely Ashley stays. - We lose the ability to attract better players (I believe Rafa has a pull factor). - Toxic crowd syndrome would come back, thus putting off not only new players and destabilising current ones but also potential buyers. Man I can't cope with another year of uncertainty!
Everyone is putting the cart before the horse here. If a bidder does not materialise, and if the club does not give Rafa everything they can, then that is the time to get on Ashley's back. We don't actually know what his valuation is, only what the Chronicle are leading everyone to believe. All we do know is the club is more valuable than it was in January (well in most peoples eyes). Even after the takeover scenario there are still many possible outcomes: 1. Ashley gives Rafa everything the club has and he stays 2. Ashley gives Rafa everything the club has and Rafa decides its not enough 3. Ashley keeps a load of the money and gives him a small budget Rafa stays 4. Ashley keeps a load of the money and gives him a small budget Rafa leaves 5. Rafa gets a better offer and leaves 6. Ashley goes crazy and invests some of his own money to make a bigger budget and Rafa stays 7. We get taken over and Rafa has healthy funds 8. We get taken over and it turns out they are going to run it as a business too giving only what the club can afford 9. Ashley takes on outside investment and gives a slice to another person to increase the budget There are many others on top. To start building towards a negative hysteria about transfers and next season in late April is just crazy. Especially when most of it seems to be based on older approaches from this regime. I think the most likely scenario is Ashley will strike while the irons hot and sell. If so I think we will see some decent investment. If not I think No.1 is most likely based on the last 3 years. Rafa will probably have a piss and moan how he'd like more, but then managers always do.
Much as I don't like it, this is entirely expected and normal. Ashley had a somewhat distressed asset in January. He set a value on it. The asset is no longer distressed. He has increased his asking price. That is what any one of us would do. If any potential buyers are caught by surprise, they are muppets.
Simply ignores that Ashley would not have reduced his price last time around as he wouldn't have seen it as a "distressed asset". Also that he is simply increasing the price because others would have seen it as a "distressed asset" and it's a chance to get more money. To think otherwise is, given his history, naive to say the least.
Fredd is right - he is increasing the price because its worth more now. However am sure he wants to sell - not as Free-Bor says because he doesn’t think he can take the club any further, but because now he should be able to get best price for it. I still think there will be interested parties now. He won’t get 400million but its just his starting offer.
Price is too high, but that's just in keeping with football. Probably worth more, because whilst the TV deal was a little lower, commercial opportunity is still on the rise and streaming services still haven't been involved. Nobody knows what fatty actually wants, though, so we can't moan. Typical media stirring ****, for the low-brows to give it the old "aye, that fat get just gets greedier, man". Technically the higher the price the better; should sort out the real buyers and mean anyone with that kind of cash is pretty serious. He does want to sell, but if he doesn't our kitty will be ok for a club with our present ambition. I don't expect Ashley to control transfers, withold funds, etc. Either way there's not a goddam thing any of us can do about it.
I have taken two things away from last night :- 1. go out to the pub to watch more newcastle matches, thus widening the odds of us winning on an occassion when i do venture out 2. don't go out to the pub to watch a match that I have started a match day thread off for...it's just asking for trouble. I'm not going to the pub to watch the WBA game and I said if we lost last night that I was nominating Chippy to do the next matchday thread. Based on his one letter responses to posts, I think it will probably look something like this :- W ^^^ means win.
It's no different to moving the lawn, and putting a pot of coffee on when you are selling your house and the buyers rock up.
I forsee that if Ashley goes then the Sunderland lads will have a Warm Glow thread of their own six months hence.
