The more you look at our current situation the more you get the feeling that the team will be starved of investment as long as Bernie owns the club. Before Saksena was CEO we were playing the loan market to the extreme with the predictable outcome, once this policy was changed and players were bought success arrived almost overnight. It is not beyond the bounds of possibilty that a similar strategy will be brought in this season with two objectives: (1) Save money on transfer fees to maximise profit. (2) Push Warnock to the point where he walks away or is justifiably sackable. Bernie is loath to spend money where he can get away with it and I fear this 'Ebeneezer' type approach will be used simply to rack up as much profit as he can get before he sells. A budget of £10 million for new players is pretty pathetic these days and the £15k a week 'maximum wage' would be laughed at by many Championship players. I think our first couple of signings will tell us what the new season holds for us.
I have to laugh. Every time the papers print something negative or just plain stupid we start crying foul. We count the number of "perhaps", "maybes" and reports from "sources". So here I am, on our own message board, reading a similarly negative post, laced with the words "it is not beyond the realms of possibility that ...". We cannot castigate the press for creating scare stories to further their own agendas when there are quite a few people on here doing exactly the same thing. You want Mittal to take over the club and Bhatia and Saksena to run it. That is fair enough. But do you have to use the same gutter tactics as "The Sun" to gather support? The way Briatore ran the club was scandalous, but anyone with half a brain could have stabilised the ship with him out of the way. However, I have serious misgivings about Mittal, especially after having seen and heard things about his business dealings. I feel that we the fans have been, and still are being, played like a pawn in a chess game for control of our club.
The thing is, with this whole 'loans' system between Premier League clubs..... Chelski buy up hundreds of layers and loan them out. So do Man Ure and Man City. And when you play one of these clubs, you can't select the player you have on loan from them, so effectively someone else is telling you who you can and can't have in your team. Third party influence, anyone? 'Gaining an advantage'? All sounds pretty familiar. And that's why I'd always prefer to buy rather than loan if the option is there. Because it's going to be tough enough next season, without our not being able to field the strongest team possible, just when we would need it most.
So you think a £10 million budget (possibly including wages) with a £15K a week wage limit will keep us up then Eamon?
