Ralph Krueger speaks

I couuldng give a **** about the training ground and stadium refurb.
Is this a bloody joke !
I want a decent team and perormaces that dont compel everyone to leave before the final whistle

 

Suppose the owner does not actually care ?

Yes he may / will lose money , but what if he just after land re-development , I hope and think I am wrong , but it COULD be his plan .

 

I do think Les and co have been too slow, and not proactive enough in many cases, however it seems more and more to me that they are themselves constrained in what we can achieve by the owners. Kat was generally reluctant to spend beyond sales (I'm not having a go at Kat for that, it was never her project, but it is a constraint) and it seems (I'm assuming by the very little that we've actually heard) the new owners want much the same. Given how much we make in tv money alone, just spending what we make in sales isn't enough to keep us competitive when other teams are generally just spending extra money to player sales to improve their team and squad. With us, it's one step forward and 2 steps back.

 

Indeed. At the risk of taking the conversation back into dangerous territory the one thing I always felt Cortese understood was that, as good as things like training ground improvements are, the performance of the first team is the most important aspect of a professional football club.

 

The new owner must have had any plans affected by the fact that he couldn't get his money out of China...he bought Saints with money held or borrowed outside his country. That must put constraints on spending.

 

Not going to comment on Gao as know nothing about him yet. But people have to remember Kat is still there and was rumoured to have some sort of a leverage to still run the club as she sees deal when she sold a lot of stake

So people saying Gao doesn't care or he has no cash maybe very mistaken

 

Oh I agree , but the silence from the owners is concerning to me , but that's probably just me

 

Just read that part 2 interview in full. Hard to put into words how much I hate the way Krueger talks. So much bullshit.

 

Not just you Jasper, Gao’s silence has been deafening, although I imagine he is speaking through Krueger, who is now his mouthpiece. Katharina still managed to have her own say occasionally though, and like you, I’d like to hear some sort of statement of intent from Mr Gao, even if it’s through an interpreter.

 

Where is she now though?

 

Just read the 2nd part of interview about infrastructure spending. I have no problem with that as businesses have long term plans, so no reason to get upset that money is planned to be spent elsewhere....all perfectly normal in business to have money assigned to different areas. Kreuger, however, has made the mistake of thinking football fans will see this as positive. Football isn't like the average business where you tolerate losses in retail sales (for example) if your hotel income is good. For the fan, there is only one measurement of success. He was trying to make us feel better by telling us that the owner is planning to invest, but to tell fans (who are in serious pain) about buildings and improvement in experience is a PR error.

 

I have always thought the bloke was a bit of a berk. Sorry.

 

May not be in business (don't know).....but business speak and ignorance of football is tolerable only in the good times.

 

No idea, but it’s not really relevant as she’s the minority shareholder. Gao is the important one now, but he hasn’t said a word since the deal went through. It’s very strange.

 

The real problem is the timing. If we were 8th on 30 + points fans would see this as a good thing. But nope Ralf does it when we are in a relegation fight and playing complete ****

 

Even though she is the minority shareholder she has the same amount of power as Gao. As I said Kat has stuff written into the contract that gives her leverage over Gao. Gao can't not simple do what he wants, Kat has to agree as well

So she is very relevant

 

That's how I see it...completely misunderstands the situation. We loved all the talk about the training ground and talk of spoiling the team and taking our own beds with us for away matches in the Cortese era....the difference being that we were doing well.

 

Can you elaborate on that? How can a 20% stake have an equal say with an 80% one?

 

She had loads of stuff written into the contract that Gao had to agree on. Until Kat is happy Gao wants to carry on her work and sells the other 20%, she very much is a huge part of our club. Why do you think Ralph is still here?

Kat has some sort of veto were she has a say on everything

 

Which makes her equally culpable right now.