BigFish

Much to agree with here, perhaps I misunderstood your point which I thought was the idea of some kind of supporters trust. It would be neater if S&J took the equity gain, and then decided what to do with it. This would of course trigger a formal takeover at that price per share giving the minority shareholders an exit route. I am sure that even @Essex Canary would welcome that. Or perhaps not. As for MA investing to improve his 60% e.g. for every £ he invests he gets 60 pence of benefit that is nonsense. He could of course keep lending at userous rates but the doesn't really help the club.

That is a question for him @Essex Canary, unless of course he is sinking cash into City for some kind of altruistic goodwill. Personally I think that the only way to make a small fortune out of owning a football club is to start with a big one with the singular exception of the Glaziers.

For a start if he only owns 60% of the company, the Trust is effectively freeloading off any funding he puts into the club. Any gain from £ he puts into the club, is reduced by 40%. In fact it is worse than that, he is actually giving away 40%. What would you do in that situation, what do you think he would do? Simply put we would be back to S&J, zero investment, and a self-funding club. There is a reason why fan ownership doesn't work in Elite football. It is because eventually the fans have to put their hands in their pocket for amounts of money they don't have. The choice is stark. Either we continue as a self-funding club or a wealthy individual or group takes complete control. There is no other option, that is magical thinking. The same with the equity gain, there is a choice of who takes it not whether it is taken.

This is a total non-starter. For MA to make the equity gain possible he needs total control, and he needs to take the club private. The choice is the club remains self-funding or it takes the sugar daddy support. There is no middle ground.

Thanks @shefcanary, wasn't being message board belligerent, just didn't know if I had missed something. Agree with this entirely.

Not really the case @Essex Canary

Is this even possible, or practical these days? Looks very much like a poison pill that would prevent what this thread is about and end the club's chance of being in, let alone competing in, top level football. Is there an example of this working, long term - there seems to be more of it not working.

This is the key. Elite football has changed significantly since she first stepped in. Small incremental changes have left the game, and the club, in a position that few would have chosen. Add to that a certain unpleasant entitlement amongst some of the fan base and she is really left between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Good point, I was thinking the former but it applies to both.

True, the same could be said of Sara and Rowe

If you look at outcomes we are on a par with the champ clubs. The point was the impossible expectations of being on par with EPL clubs.

Agree entirely, the fundamentals of the club remain unchanged and it seems that the authorities are at last taking FFP seriously. Difficult to see how MA could move the dial.

This forum actually gave me more than enough NCFC "news" and surprisingly good commentary (on occasions 🙂 ). There is generally too much space and too little content to run this place as a 24x7 news operation. And frankly, Connor excepted, the journos arn't very good.

I would expect he is very unlikely to be playing

First time since last week anyway

Superb analysis from Jim

@By Hook or Ian crook has this one. Barnes gives us something more further up than pitch than Nacho does, as does McLean at the pivot. Gino is a better player than Big Sam. Although I will give you that the fact this is our best 11 does ask questions around our business in the Summer window. Also @GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary challenge around playing 3 in midfield may well prove prescient..

That didn't take long 🙂

You would still get some posters saying we need a fifth CB, a third LB and a fourth Striker

There is a lot going on in this thread, with a lot of threads at cross purposes. So few thoughts, which you may or may not agree to depending on your perspective. 1) Ben's analysis is an excellent academic attempt to be objective about what is happening in games; 2) @hogesar's use of stats is another useful data point 3) Some posters don't like either, preferring a highly subjective opinion based on little evidence at all e.g. what they see. 4) Both pro and anti posters contain a large group of the results are king types. Winning and losing alone makes their point, or so they think. 5) The PinkUn journos are highly subjective, there is little in the way of objective analysis from any of them. Although Connor does occasionally try. 6) The journos have to reflect their market or readers go else where. They are very negative, but that is a reflection of a significant section of the fanbase.

I'll give you they are on a hot streak and my knowledge of them is slim. If they come to CR and win, which they might, your prediction will look prescient. I theink the challenge would be whether this season will require a higher or lower number of points to get 6th. On that I don't think it will be anything unusual, and probably more than we can achieve.

Strange post when even we are only two points outside the Play-offs

All very true @hogesar, whatever you think about the technical abilities of the squad the are certainly putting in a shift with a togetherness that is admirable. They should be supported and who knows that may even be a factor in inproving results. Unfortunately they are too mant alternate agendas and egos in the stands to admit this.

Frankly @Jim Smith, this is naive. I imagine Knapper has in mind the methods he wishes to apply and the style of football he wants the club to adopt. In all probability he needs to understand why we are where we are. Why Wagner sets the team up as he does, why we have the players we do, what the contract situation is, what the budget is for 23/24, what the budget will be in 24/25. He may even think that under his direction Wagner could do a job, at least in the short term. If he has decided on replacement he needs to identify who the candidates would be, whether they are available, interested and indeed whether they would come anyway. All this takes time. He may well have done all this but isn't in a situation to publicise this yet. The club may even be acting on this but have yet to get everything in place. In short none of this is simple. Alternatively, you might be right and he is thick, but I doubt it.