BigEars

Absolutely no chance they would sack him. He’s brought them to where they are. Despite the £100m they are by far the poorest squad in the prem - I know the shortcomings of transfermarkt but it shows them about EUR100m below the next worst and less than half the value of all but 5 or 6 teams. And there in a nutshell is the problem with the english league system at the moment…..promotion anyone?

I heard a rumour they might lose Phillips on a recall, shame.

Yes, the loan fee should be part of the pbse note but its more difficult to be certain about the following sale. I would expect it to be included if there are no contingencies on the deal. But i suppose it is possible that the sales is dependent on something happening or not happening (a career ending injury?) which might exclude it from the total.

But the question i have been asking is what if they were not willing to back us or more importantly if they had never been involved. Delia could not afford to loan that sort of cash so you would be at the mercy of the banks. Given our financial position, that would be a tough conversation. i have heard a few criticising MA and/or Delia over the summer and just want to correct that a little. MA has invested significantly (actually much more than the £59m I mention) and Delia allowed that money to benefit the club rather than taking it for herself (as she absolutely had the right to do). Now its about making use of it and I think MA will be holding the Knapper and JHT to account for what in reality is a massive investment in a championship club. What we dont know, of course, is his minimum expected achievement for the year but I suspect he might be more ambitious than a mid table year of transition.

Its been a very positive start to the season and at last there seems to be some optimism about the direction we are going. i’ve been trying to think about how much of this change has been down to MA and the shareholding that has been agreed. So I began to think what our position would have been if we had needed to repay the £59m loan that will now be converted. The summer window sales, trying to strip out add ons were: sara - 15, Idah - 8, Kamara - 4.5, Tzolis - 3, Rowe - 14 = total - 44.5. So, we would have needed to sell Sarge for 20 giving us the £59m plus a few million for the agents. The add ons would cover future wage shortfalls and we would have relied on scraps for incomings. With the debt swap for shares we actually brought in: Crnac - 8.5 (still feels way too much), Forson - 4, Cordoba - 4.5, Schwartau - 2, Chrisene - 1, 3 loans - 4 (complete guess) and held onto sarge - 20 = total £44m. My thoughts are (1) the MA money has made a massive difference, (2) there should be some money left, maybe £15m, (3) any championship club with a £59m injection should be expecting a serious challenge for the play offs and, while there is some transition, I think we really should be up there and (4) we need the more expensive players to perform and hopefully grow in value. There is no guarantee that MA will put more in, so this is a chance of a lifetime - we just need to believe that.

Very strange, but i cant think he would be deliberately winding fans up. It is more likely he has heard a rumour, im afraid.

Aw, give him a break, Martin Baturina and Oscar Schwartau sound quite similar, dont they?

Everything Ive seen says there is a loan fee but i agree its pretty academic given that hes gone for good whatever, except it is the money we already have in the bank. Not sure what difference it would have made if it had been a straight sale with long deferred payment like Sara

I am not itk, but i would guess that the loan fee might be about £2m a d the price £12m, on the basis that if a 4 year contract is worth 12 then 1 year must be worth about 2.

I agree with your comments, Andy, about the Webber model versus the Knapper model. The Webber model is frankly more risky - when it works it works well because the prem money solves everything. But the last couple of seasons have shown how fast it crumbles when it diesnt work - we have been completely reliant on MA to bail us out and without his cash injection we would have sold sara, rowe, idah and sarge this summer just to pay off the debts. I doubt we could have spent any money at all - you could say webber cost Delia the club. The knapper model is safer but its what every champ club is trying to do. We have an advantage right now because of the cash injection but we need to make good choices on recruitment if we are to keep any advantage over the other non-parachute clubs. I doubt our advantage will materialise this season with too many young oversea players to learn the league, but if our choices are good we will have some sales money to go again.

You touch on my biggest fear right now. Sheff U and Coventry are tough games, particularly with so much flux in our squad, style etc. two defeats and I doubt the crowd will be at all accepting let alone ecstatic. If we go in to the break with 1 point from 4 games, it could hit the confidence of these younger players. And we could look a bit of a mess given the Rowe and Kamara issues.. Ok, its too early to say tomorrow is must win, but i do think a good performance is a must.

I think there are positives and negatives. The debt swap for equity puts us in a much better position financially and while i guess we are overspending by about £10m per year, we have more money to spend from the transfers than we could have done, despite the delayed receipts. I’m not so sure the Rowe deal was as good as pumped up to be, probably £12m price next year plus add ons, and the money we have bet on Crnac looks very high. I am content to back Knapper for now. We have spent big on young players in the hope they develop. If they do, the model will work. If not we will be struggling. That comes down to Knappers judgement and the training. All champs clubs are in the same boat and picking winners isnt easy. But we have better resources now, although we will still need to lose Gunn, Hanley, Duffy, Stacey, Sarge and Barnes before we can balance the income, probably next year for most. In the meantime we need to win some games, buying from overseas when young and cheap inevitably means there will be some knock back as the season progresses.

Well, he looks better in the clips than he does in the images above but i still think this feels like an agent dreaming up a few potential Champs buyers to build a bit of interest.

I hear they will be without Szmodic which will help. 2-2

I really hope not….american sport is fine, in America! I dont really need the national anthem, flag waving, cheerleaders and upbeat music when we score. Im also against ground expansion unless there are not enough seats, looking at the next two home games that isn't where we are and once it becomes clear to everyone that you can get to any game you choose as a general buyer, the number of season tickets is bound to drop. Would be a big mistake.