What a joke this owner is…..taking more high interest loans to basically allow him to kick the can down the road and to allow him to fund the club.
He cannot afford to run either a Premier League or Championship club. He’s got himself in a right mess now. He missed his chance to sell in April 2023 - now he’ll be luck to get an offer at £50 million - let alone the £170 million talked about back then.
Please can someone tell me what his Legacy is going to be after 3 out of the last 5 seasons in the Premier League ? Certainly no Cat 1 academy or new training ground. We will have literally hardly anything to show, but will be exiting with outstanding debts!
Penny dropping?
I don't think the Prince has ever attempted to claim that he's got money to burn and right from the off in League one when he came in, there was no grand plans, it was all about progression. Sure there were updated plans along with McCabe to develop the South Stand and also the Kop, but there was never a commitment.
We've gone up through the leagues to the Premier League, twice under the Prince and whilst we tried to spend considerably more than we have done previously last time around, it very nearly became a millstone. If we'd not gone up, then we'd probably be in Admin now.
We perhaps made a calculated gamble in January to keep Ndiaye and Berge when we had offers to sell at least one of them, but we needed them to get out of the division. Selling them in the summer has been criticised by many fans and pundits, but it was probably the sensible option.
Whilst spending big money may have worked, the squad we have is limited in depth and quality would take a big overhaul to take us from a PL bottom 3 to a mid table maybe. It's a lot to risk.
The money we get from the Premier League for this season, along with Parachute payments (worst case) is big, but in relative terms when you have wages increasing it doesn't go a long way. Once the Parachute payments dry up, the drop in income is huge. We sat in the Championship last time with Berge, McBurnie, O'Connell, Brewster all on big wages but all injured for long spells. These players still get paid and that eats away. Thats reality.
Regarding his chance to sell in April, it was to a potential investor that couldn't pass a fit and proper persons test, neither could the previous. As a result he didn't sell, because as many forget, he's got to also manage and balance risks as well.
I agree that the legacy is something which is perhaps on hold. He's far from the perfect owner, but on the same token, he's far from the worst. He attempted, perhaps to push us on a little too quickly with spending in that second season in the PL last time and the horrendous season meant that we had to tighten our belt over the next few seasons. The Prince isn't flush with money, makes some poor decisions, but realises the importance of cash flow even if this is at the expense of high interest rates.
The major assets such as the ground, the training ground etc are all back under one company as i understand it and that can be considered a positive. Our playing squad needs to evolve better, we need more depth and we need to tie players down to longer contracts without killing ourselves. It's a fine line.
The Prince talked previously of buying young talent, developing them and then selling for more than we paid. Ndiaye can be considered a success in this respect, even if he went for less than his value. Berge was a failure in this respect, but we developed him into a better player, we just had to sell for what we could get or lose for nothing. Perhaps a reminder that we're not working with machines.
Debt in business is something which needs to be managed. The Prince may well sell some or all of the club during the lifetime of the loans, but the new owner or investor will also take on that debt. The Prince is using future guaranteed revenues to generate further cashflow for the business. Its not the best way to generate income, but it's a way which is used by many businesses in football and is certainly not reckless, even if financially it's not the best deal.
The key now, as per another thread recently is for stability and profitability, this is how we need to behave. This may become frustrating to many fans, but we don't have barrels of money so whilst those in S6 will mock, they should be more concerned about their own plight rather than ours
opinions are like arseholes ( not a dig btw ) we’ve all got em
