SR are clearly better for us than Gao. It isn't even close. Gao bought a well run top half club and turned them into relegation crap. SR took over relegation crap and have kept them as relegation crap. If we went down under Gao (which we 100% would have) I very much doubt we would have come straight back up.
There ain’t no way to know that is there? If it makes you feel better to believe that, then believe it. In some ways I’m jealous of religious people.
Fair point. Nothing is guaranteed. But Gao wanted out; and Semmens wanted out. Neither of them could be convinced to stay. So even if you were to believe that Gao was better for us than SR, the argument is kind of irrelevant, as only one of them actually wants to be our owner.
Also nobody mentions that financial issues started (or appeared) when Ralph Krueger came in, there was a big fuss about the state cortese left the club in. I think the decline started before Gao. It took a while to see the decline on the pitch.
Yeah most likely. I can't remember that clearly that far back, but you're probably right. The way I see it, is that it took about 5 or 6 years of mismanagement and underfunding to reduce us to a desperate, struggling club. I fully expect it will take about the same amount of time for us to get back to where we were. Just got to be patient.
I mean, one way of looking at it, is Gao never got involved in football matters. He didn't sign players, he didn't appoint managers. He left the staff on the ground to so to speak. He was very hands off, and gets credit from me for that. We can then halve his ownership era into 2 seperate eras; Reed/Kruger and Semmens/Crocker. The Reed/Kruger era is where it ultimately started going downhill for me, and we spend many years trying to shake off the shackles of this. A poor managerial appontment in Pellegrino, and a poor summer of 2017 in signing the likes of Hoedt & Lemina. Pellegrino gets sacked later that season, and Mark Hughes is appointed to keep us up. Job done by the skin of our teeth. Time to reset? Nope. We give Hughes an extended contract, lose Tadic and sign more dross in the likes of Gunn, Elyounoussi & Vestergaard. Results dont improve, and this is where the first era of the Gao ownership changes. Reed is shown the door, followed by Hughes a couple of weeks later. So then we go into the Ralph Hassenhuttl era. Ralph keeps us up comfortably playing much better football, Semmens gets a promotion at the end of the season. Big changes are promised in the summer of 2019, but ownership challenges mean we have to sell to buy. And yet, the 19/20 season was an improvement on what went before. Yes, we lost that game 9-0, but the covid lockdowns and the run we went on was fantastic and full credit to all those involved. We top the league the following season, following another blistering start. But we falter towards the end of the season, and the next 18 months or so we're bounding around, treading water and going on streaky runs. And then SR come in in the January of 2022, with great intentions and fanfare. We enter a relatively good run of form, and then that Villa game. We haven't been right since. What happened in February 2022 that caused Ralph to lose his mojo, and our form to nosedive? Was that the time that they started interfering? We know the previous regime were very much left to their own devices, so can very much see them being put out if SR are trying to get things done their way. Break what isn't broken and all that. I know people say that the previous regime squandered money as well, and made bad decisions. Yep, they did. Diallo, Salisu etc were horrid buys, we lost Ings, but that regime were making other good decisions off the pitch whilst trying to improve us with hands tied behind their backs ... the appontment of Ralph was a masterstroke for example. The playbook was a fantastic philosophy that embodied everything about our club and way we like to play. Yes, ultimately we probably would have gone down, but we'd have gone down fighting, not waving the white flag by game week 3. I just can't see how SR are good for this club. Every big decision they make ****s us up even more. We're somehow worse than we were 2 years ago. How have we got here? Yes, they got us promoted last season and full credit to them for that, but they're now on course for a 2nd consecutive relegation finishing bottom of the table with no fight and a record low points tally. Did they not learn from last time? There's just nothing to defend there. They're making us a complete laughing stock with their utter mismanagement, bad judgement and decision making. We all know there's a gap there between the divisions, I don't think any of us expected us to be pushing for Europe but I think we just want to see a team with fight, trying to win games. Not this. Perhaps if SR had come in, and not undermined and dismantled the old structure (and not just the board) we wouldn't be in this mess? Edit; and just to add to this, they seemingly had it right going into the summer just gone. Fans and club were pretty together. And they've ruined all their hard work and ruined that relationship ...
I mean ultimately the reasons for the decline go back to when Markus Liebherr died. He and Cortese had obviously put some money aside to fund the club for a while after his death but we progressed faster than expected on the pitch and Kat clearly wasn't interested in owning a football club so was a very poor owner. We managed to defy gravity for a little while but without an owner prepared to spend money we were always going to end up struggling.
Well she didn't buy the club in the first place and when Markus died it was said he'd "made provision for the club's future" so I'd say the first few years of her nominal ownership were really just a continuation of Markus as owner. I'm sure she felt some obligation to her father's memory but she couldn't or wouldn't put money into the club and had clearly been trying to sell it for some time before she ultimately sold it to Gao. Even in January 2014 it was reported potential buyers had been contacted.
I don't think her not buying the club because her father did it and then passed away too early in his life can really be relevant to her ownership as anything other than a positive. She could've cut and run several times sooner than she did, if she truly wanted to We got better under her ownership and had our best years, she didn't load up debt on the club, she didn't interfere and she retains an interest now, is an active member of the ownership board and still travels home and away (even this season) with her family. She wasn't a bad owner. She also smartly put in place and used a veto clause to avoid a fair share of absolute ****wits (including the guy at Burnley who wanted to purchase the club entirely on leveraged buyout) and crims getting hold of Saints when Gao was happy to give it up to just about anyone, before eventually green lighting a sale to Dragan Solak You can criticise her for selling to Gao, sure. But a 'very poor' owner? No way, not for me, sorry
There is no way to know that, but you can look at all the evidence and form an opinion. Unlike those choosing to believe in a religion, the evidence here is pretty bloody clear. Do you genuinely think we would have done better in the championship with zero investment from Gao that we did with Solaks money?
Her inheriting the club is entirely relevant because it means owning a football club was something that happened to her rather than something she chose to do. I have no doubt she tried to find a decent owner to sell to - as I say I'm sure she wanted to do right by her father's legacy. She didn't interfere because she didn't want to own/run a football club and was sensible enough to realise she had no idea about football. The club was also for sale for most of the time she actively owned it. In my view the first few years of her ownership were covered by Markus "making provision for the club's future" before his death and I think the short period of success we had after that was in spite of her ownership rather than because of it. We were already in decline by the time the club was sold to Gao.
No, but I’m not convinced we would have gone down. If the level of funding had continued, then yes eventually, but not in 22/23. Your opinion is speculative and hyperbolic. The decline when SR took over was significant and rapid, despite spending millions. Gao may have invested close to nothing but he kept the club in the PL.
Fair enough Puck, I don't agree with the conclusion but I understand the way you're looking at it Btw, the 'short period of success' after Markus' death ran from 2010 to early 2017 (8th and a cup final at Wembley) - and we only dropped into being a bottom half side after that point
I don't think it is hyperbolic to say a club with 0 investment, already falling down the table, would have gone on to get relegated and then struggle in the championship (if still no investment). If anything that is stating the obvious. Don't get me wrong, I don't think SR have a done a good job whatsoever. But I also don't think they have suddenly made us awful, this has been coming for a long time.
Pretty much how I feel about it all. It was coming, thankfully having SR on board meant we did have someone with interest and the energy to focus on actively pushing us back up (Solak) rather than falling down there with Gao himself. I'd love to hear Dragan's honest perspective on it all. He's another who admits he doesn't know enough about football to be a proactive decision maker, but he clearly trusts/trusted Kraft and Ankersen enough to led them lead the club. Would love to know how that came about and how he feels now
For me it’s quite simple really. We were a mid table club in like 2017, and on par with the mid table PL clubs of the time. Since then we had a load of lean years where all the other teams invested and we didn’t, causing us to fall down the table from “solid mid table” to “relegation threatened”. Maybe we would’ve stayed up with Gao in charge, maybe we wouldn’t who knows. The only things we do know is that we went down with SR despite them spending 9 figures and we look likely to do that again with them spending 9 figures. The big thing seems to be not having football people in charge. Our first PL relegation, Shields left in like October or something I think? We had a **** season. Then we appoint Wilcox and got promoted. He leaves and we don’t appoint someone, oh look we’re getting relegated.They’ve appointed 2 in 3 years who both got poached by bigger clubs so it would appear they have an idea of who to appoint. Why they didn’t replace Wilcox when we were going into such an important season only they know, but it’s crucial we get someone in for next season
Not replacing JW was a big **** up My read on it is that they pandered to Russell Martin by fudging the new 'football operations' role to Bitcon, as he was already in the building, and affording some of JW's work to Russell. He's a young coach and they believed in him and pushed their chips in on him, tweaking his role further towards 'manager' and further away from 'head coach'. I get why they did it, and why Russell would want that, but maybe it was a bad move for him as a younger coach They probably felt that bringing in a new boss above him, one who didn't hire him and he would potentially not have a productive relationship with, would hinder the team/club - but it is/was a misjudgement... again
Yeah I did think if they had put more trust in Martin about recruitment etc and were fine with him having a big say in it. Would also explain why they seemed so hesitant to sack him if they had given him the keys to the club behind the scenes as well Anyway that ****ed up, hopefully they get a new guy in who has his own Martin, like Wilcox did, but the DoF stays for longer then a year and the manager he chooses isn’t an absolute ****
Interest and energy yes, but for me the biggest difference in being in the championship with SR vs Gao is that we were financially stable enough to be able to play hard ball with player sales. If Gao was in charge we would have probably sold up much earlier and not reinvested any of it either. God knows where we would have ended up but I doubt it would have been pretty.
