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Jim Smith

I notice Emi cites Villa’s ambition as a key factor

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2 minutes ago, Commonsense said:

If you’re envious of Middlesbrough because of one League Cup win nearly 20 years ago, you really need to talk a long hard look at yourself. If you would seriously swap what we’ve done in recent years for what they have , then I suggest you are crazy.

You seem to have ignored the 'and time in Europe' part of the sentence. To jog your memory they got to the last 16 one year and then the final the year after.

Is it really that crazy to think I'd trade in winning the second tier for getting to watch my team play all over Europe, beating some major teams along the way? Not for me. 

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11 minutes ago, Wardogz said:

The risk isn't just limited to League One, it could be financial ruin and no club. 

It could be but that is hugely unlikely- it is exceptionally rare that clubs just go out of business. 

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22 minutes ago, Wardogz said:

The risk isn't just limited to League One, it could be financial ruin and no club. 

We could spend 100 mill next season, quadruple the wage bill, but we'd still be favourites for the bottom 3, only this time, the consequences of relegation could be devastating. 

Nonsense. Firstly nobody is advocating a reckless spend lots of money you haven’t hot approach. There is a middle ground. Secondly clubs of our size and with our level of support just don’t cease to exist. Someone steps in. Worst case scenario is a Bolton or a Pompey and no doubt we will be in the same league as those clubs at some point in the next decade. 

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21 minutes ago, Commonsense said:

If you’re envious of Middlesbrough because of one League Cup win nearly 20 years ago, you really need to talk a long hard look at yourself. If you would seriously swap what we’ve done in recent years for what they have , then I suggest you are crazy.

My point really is that we haven’t “done” that much really apart from a couple of decent top flight seasons under Lambert and Hughton. 
 

Winning promotion from the championship is great, who doesn’t enjoy that. But we’ve been conditioned to regard that as success snd almost the end game whereas the reality is it should be the start of something bigger. 

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Sky money 19/20, parachute payment last season and over £70m in player sales in the last 12 months. Take into account this seasons incoming monies then you would expect a half decent transfer Kitty. 

I forgot the Covid hit so maybe if Max leaves ASAP that might free a few quid to bring a couple of decent players in. 
 

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13 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Nonsense. Firstly nobody is advocating a reckless spend lots of money you haven’t hot approach. There is a middle ground. Secondly clubs of our size and with our level of support just don’t cease to exist. Someone steps in. Worst case scenario is a Bolton or a Pompey and no doubt we will be in the same league as those clubs at some point in the next decade. 

If they both come back to the Championship at least, then sure. Still doesn't alter the fact that top 26 is a floor, not a ceiling. 

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14 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

If they both come back to the Championship at least, then sure. Still doesn't alter the fact that top 26 is a floor, not a ceiling. 

The top 26 thing can be looked at both ways to be fair. n the Championship its an ambitious target, in the Premier League it can be seen as a built in excuse for failure. 

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21 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Nonsense. Firstly nobody is advocating a reckless spend lots of money you haven’t hot approach. There is a middle ground. Secondly clubs of our size and with our level of support just don’t cease to exist. Someone steps in. Worst case scenario is a Bolton or a Pompey and no doubt we will be in the same league as those clubs at some point in the next decade. 

Nothing to worry about then, I'm sure none of you will be whining if we do a Bolton 🙄 

They are advocating reckless spend. The middle ground some people want is still out of our reach. We can't even afford to re-sign many our own players, or Bournemouth's stars, that's the reality. 

 

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8 minutes ago, Wardogz said:

Nothing to worry about then, I'm sure none of you will be whining if we do a Bolton 🙄 

They are advocating reckless spend. The middle ground some people want is still out of our reach. We can't even afford to re-sign many our own players, or Bournemouth's stars, that's the reality. 

 

To be clear, I’m not advocating us spending silly money under our current ownership (although I do think we could take on “some” borrowing and take a bit of a calculated risk.

My point has always been we should be seeking further investment/looking at alternative ownership options in order to enable us to be more competitive financially. 

 

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54 minutes ago, king canary said:

It could be but that is hugely unlikely- it is exceptionally rare that clubs just go out of business. 

Okay, decades in the wilderness will be more than palatable. 

So many of you are ungrateful, don't know how lucky we are. 

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If the papers today are to be believed and Chelsea, Manchester City and United are all in the race for Grealish, if Villa finish up selling, I wonder if Emi and their fans will be happy.

Who knows if Emi saw the plan as having Grealish in the same team, or he was to become the new Grealish. If the latter Villa fans are not very forgiving and normally give you about 2 games before the booing and insults begin.

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20 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

To be clear, I’m not advocating us spending silly money under our current ownership (although I do think we could take on “some” borrowing and take a bit of a calculated risk.

My point has always been we should be seeking further investment/looking at alternative ownership options in order to enable us to be more competitive financially. 

 

On this forum Jim, its our current owners or bust... and have you not heard that we are the only premiership team in history not to be attractive to investment.. stop being daft!

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13 minutes ago, Kenny Foggo said:

On this forum Jim, its our current owners or bust... and have you not heard that we are the only premiership team in history not to be attractive to investment.. stop being daft!

Yes that is made very clear. We are also the only team who have to factor in wages and fees and must therefore expect a reduced figure to be spent…

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Emi didn't even make the 23 squad against Chile yesterday! 

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1 hour ago, king canary said:

You seem to have ignored the 'and time in Europe' part of the sentence. To jog your memory they got to the last 16 one year and then the final the year after.

Is it really that crazy to think I'd trade in winning the second tier for getting to watch my team play all over Europe, beating some major teams along the way? Not for me. 

the acceptance of never doing that again by most is quite sad to me, being old enough to see us play in Europe the last time round. 

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10 minutes ago, Haus said:

the acceptance of never doing that again by most is quite sad to me, being old enough to see us play in Europe the last time round. 

Qualified for Europe 3 times, 3rd in the premiership... those are proper targets. It has been done, it can be done again..  

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2 hours ago, king canary said:

Pompey are always a really interesting one when people discuss ambition.

On one hand they've spent the last decade in the bottom two leagues and have experienced huge financial difficulties.

However, since the turn of the millennium, they've had the same amount of Premier League seasons as us (7 vs 7), have a higher finishing position than we've managed (8th vs 11th), two FA Cup finals, one FA Cup win and have played in Europe.

I'm not saying the earlier 10 years makes the later 10 years worth it but there is certainly a part of me that would take watching my team lift the FA Cup in exchange for the risk of a few years in League One. 

 

The problem is this thread is basically criticising the club for having a lack of ambition.

Well if we go and win an FA Cup but then spend 6 years in League One not long afterwards, our lack of ambition in terms of signings will be massively different to what it is now.

It's funny because there's probably a good 10-15 clubs who think "We just want one season getting to the Premier League, having a good promotion season in the Championship" and have wanted it for the past 8 or 9 years.

It seems from this thread we have fans who think the only real sign of ambition is if Norwich suddenly target Champions League football (see post above from Kenny) or fans who think they'd rather win a League Cup and rot in the third tier for 10 years.

Personally, out of the two, I prefer the ambition of our club as it is (not least because it's fairly realistic but with scope to grow (people still failing to realise top 26 includes all 20 places in the Premier League, including finishing 1st) but without looking stupid "We want Champions League Football" or risking the future of the club in general).

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45 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

My point has always been we should be seeking further investment/looking at alternative ownership options in order to enable us to be more competitive financially. 

All of that has been done for years and there has been no interest from anyone who has demonstrated a willingness to invest in the club free from the risk of exploitation of its saleable assets. Unless you have actual evidence that Delia and Michael have consistently lied about their willingness to sell to a beneficent investor, then your words above are both empty and meaningless. The development of our self-funding model was driven by necessity, and there are plenty of commentators around who think it represents a paradigm for clubs who lack a beneficent billionaire to pump in multi-millions no strings attached. 

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There is a huge difference being open to selling your house if an offer is made that appeals to you, whilst wanting to keep living in it, to putting it on the market for sale. 

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24 minutes ago, Kenny Foggo said:

On this forum Jim, its our current owners or bust... and have you not heard that we are the only premiership team in history not to be attractive to investment.. stop being daft!

One short sentence, so much wrong. Firstly, there has never been a credible alternative ownership model presented. Cullum did at least come up with a formulation where he got the club for free, wiping out the incumbent owners holdings in return for an "ambitious" transfer budget. Since then nothing. Of course there is the argument that this is because S&J are unwilling to sell, but that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Any "investor" with the wherewithal to provide the "ambition" that some posters on here daydream about would have the nous to engineer a takeover.

Secondly the clubs assets are largely dominated by the EPL windfall. Let's face it Carrow Road is a bit crap, the city is a bit out of the way and the name recognition/history is limited. In economic terms the club doesn't generate enough cash to be attractive. In addition, the club is well run meaning no distress sale on the cheap and no opportunity for whole sale asset stripping. And before you answer this with a bunch of hypertheticals if this isn't true go out and find your investor.

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14 minutes ago, Kenny Foggo said:

Qualified for Europe 3 times, 3rd in the premiership... those are proper targets. It has been done, it can be done again..  

Possibly @Kenny Foggo, but unlikely.

Those events occured in one six year blip in the clubs 119 history, before professional football changed irrevocably.

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17 minutes ago, hogesar said:

The problem is this thread is basically criticising the club for having a lack of ambition.

Well if we go and win an FA Cup but then spend 6 years in League One not long afterwards, our lack of ambition in terms of signings will be massively different to what it is now.

It's funny because there's probably a good 10-15 clubs who think "We just want one season getting to the Premier League, having a good promotion season in the Championship" and have wanted it for the past 8 or 9 years.

It seems from this thread we have fans who think the only real sign of ambition is if Norwich suddenly target Champions League football (see post above from Kenny) or fans who think they'd rather win a League Cup and rot in the third tier for 10 years.

Personally, out of the two, I prefer the ambition of our club as it is (not least because it's fairly realistic but with scope to grow (people still failing to realise top 26 includes all 20 places in the Premier League, including finishing 1st) but without looking stupid "We want Champions League Football" or risking the future of the club in general).

Course they want that but their aspiration is not just "getting" to the premier league. Once they get there they will see that as the first step in making their clubs competitive again and maybe achieving something at the top level. And they have not had the number of opportunities that we have had to do that. In fact nobody has except maybe WBA.

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19 minutes ago, horsefly said:

All of that has been done for years and there has been no interest from anyone who has demonstrated a willingness to invest in the club free from the risk of exploitation of its saleable assets. Unless you have actual evidence that Delia and Michael have consistently lied about their willingness to sell to a beneficent investor, then your words above are both empty and meaningless. The development of our self-funding model was driven by necessity, and there are plenty of commentators around who think it represents a paradigm for clubs who lack a beneficent billionaire to pump in multi-millions no strings attached. 

You can believe that as is your right. I will believe the opposite. As Kenny Foggo has pointed out, the notion that we are basically the ONLY club in the top 2 or 3 divisions in this Country who have not had any interest at all from prospective new owners or investors just does not stack up as far as I am concerned. The unguarded revelation that "we don't even listen to offers" appeared to me to be more likely to reflect the reality regardless of any carefully worded backtracking there may have been since. 

I do accept that currently, under our model/ownership, we are achieving highly and probably doing just about as well as we can save that i think we could be a bit less risk adverse when we get to the top level as decent players retain their value on relegation and borrowing can be managed if done sensibly. 

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23 minutes ago, hogesar said:

The problem is this thread is basically criticising the club for having a lack of ambition.

Well if we go and win an FA Cup but then spend 6 years in League One not long afterwards, our lack of ambition in terms of signings will be massively different to what it is now.

It's funny because there's probably a good 10-15 clubs who think "We just want one season getting to the Premier League, having a good promotion season in the Championship" and have wanted it for the past 8 or 9 years.

It seems from this thread we have fans who think the only real sign of ambition is if Norwich suddenly target Champions League football (see post above from Kenny) or fans who think they'd rather win a League Cup and rot in the third tier for 10 years.

Personally, out of the two, I prefer the ambition of our club as it is (not least because it's fairly realistic but with scope to grow (people still failing to realise top 26 includes all 20 places in the Premier League, including finishing 1st) but without looking stupid "We want Champions League Football" or risking the future of the club in general).

Personally I think the ambition for a club like ours should be to remain in the premier league for several seasons, growing year on year, targetting a top half finish and then winning a cup competition or qualifying for Europe within 5 years. Appreciate that is ambitious but I don;t see why you can't aim for the stars as it were. 

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Thankyou Hogesar....

"Top 26" keeps being misinterpreted as "...18th to 26th" -yes, it includes those positions, but it also includes 10th, 9th, 8th etc etc.

Stating the ****ing obvious I know but it does imply there is some sort of ambition, however 'out there' for there to be an objective to finish in the top 9 as well as the bottom 9.

Survive next season and, with more judicious additions next summer, a 22/23 finishing place of 10th-14th wouldn't be impossible.

Little steps.

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2 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

You can believe that as is your right. I will believe the opposite. As Kenny Foggo has pointed out, the notion that we are basically the ONLY club in the top 2 or 3 divisions in this Country who have not had any interest at all from prospective new owners or investors just does not stack up as far as I am concerned.

Who on earth has actually claimed there has been no interest in the club? You seem to have ignored the all important qualifiers that I and others have cited on here that we have not had offers from a genuinely "beneficent" investor. I have little doubt that there has been plenty of interest from fly-by-night shysters desperate to get their hands on our real estate. Fortunately Delia has refused to sell to such people.

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7 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Personally I think the ambition for a club like ours should be to remain in the premier league for several seasons, growing year on year, targetting a top half finish and then winning a cup competition or qualifying for Europe within 5 years. Appreciate that is ambitious but I don;t see why you can't aim for the stars as it were. 

So you don't think the current board would broadly agree with you about this then?

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6 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

You can believe that as is your right. I will believe the opposite. As Kenny Foggo has pointed out, the notion that we are basically the ONLY club in the top 2 or 3 divisions in this Country who have not had any interest at all from prospective new owners or investors just does not stack up as far as I am concerned. The unguarded revelation that "we don't even listen to offers" appeared to me to be more likely to reflect the reality regardless of any carefully worded backtracking there may have been since. 

I do accept that currently, under our model/ownership, we are achieving highly and probably doing just about as well as we can save that i think we could be a bit less risk adverse when we get to the top level as decent players retain their value on relegation and borrowing can be managed if done sensibly. 

Jim, would you agree that, if someone wanted to buy into the club to the extent that they had the controlling interest, then they'd make their intent, one way or the other, fairly clear and get it out in the open-get fans onside, fellow potential investors etc?

Cullum did. I'm sure others would, it wouldn't all be done on the quiet. Think of the social media and media in general coverage if 'x' from 'abc' made his or her intent to offer DS and MWJ £80 million with the promise of further investment to come.

They'd have all the momentum of an incoming tide and know a genuine offer that ended up being rebuffed would only work in their favour in the long term.

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11 minutes ago, Old Shuck said:

Jim, would you agree that, if someone wanted to buy into the club to the extent that they had the controlling interest, then they'd make their intent, one way or the other, fairly clear and get it out in the open-get fans onside, fellow potential investors etc?

Cullum did. I'm sure others would, it wouldn't all be done on the quiet. Think of the social media and media in general coverage if 'x' from 'abc' made his or her intent to offer DS and MWJ £80 million with the promise of further investment to come.

They'd have all the momentum of an incoming tide and know a genuine offer that ended up being rebuffed would only work in their favour in the long term.

Bang on the money @Old Shuck. First step would be to build a sizeable shareholding from the near 50% that S&J don't hold.

Pretty similar to the strategy Daniel Ek is using in his hostile takeover of Arsenal.

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37 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Personally I think the ambition for a club like ours should be to remain in the premier league for several seasons, growing year on year, targetting a top half finish and then winning a cup competition or qualifying for Europe within 5 years. Appreciate that is ambitious but I don;t see why you can't aim for the stars as it 

Absolutely Jim, nothing ventured nothing gained.

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