Here Are The Accounts.

[PurpleCanary 5,585]

20 minutes ago, hogesar said:

No one said it was the fans fault from what I can see, least of all me.

It might be worth actually reading what is written.

Yes, for season after season you could hardly move on this message-board for calls for "a calculated risk/gamble". Which meant spending money we didn't have. Eventually the board - quite independently - went and did that, and now you can't move for posts (probably in some cases from the same people) bemoaning our resultant financial troubles...😍

[Sufyellow 223]

1 hour ago, Petriix said:

I seriously hope you're wrong: they are the only quality we have. If we're building for the future then they need to be at the heart of it. But we basically need to start again. On the current trajectory it might well be from League One. 

Unfortunately with the debt we now have,  and worse still the interest we paid last season,  I can't see how we keep them. I was saying it with big Andy , we are now having to sell players with potential before we can even build anything. Unfortunately we need the takeover to happen now , just for new leadership.  The Webbers have got us into a huge mess with the blessing of Delia and Michael. 

[shefcanary 2,466]

1 hour ago, essex canary said:

The five year figures attached providing a little clarity on where we lost £66.6 million.

Thanks, this is useful as it clarifies that player trading cost a relatively small £10m over the 5 year period, the real source of the cash outflow is thus the salary bill. And the majority of that was on that last EPL season. Payment by results, hey? 😉

At least the latest accounts show the salary budget is back under control. 😀

[Petriix 2,853]

2 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

probably in some cases from the same people

I see this argument a lot, but I think it's nonsense. Just because *some* people were saying it and now *some* people are saying that opposite, doesn't mean it's the same people.

For the record I always advocated keeping wages low, signing and developing 'rough diamonds' and only 'investing' in a few key areas (CDM anyone?) on promotion. I never wanted Farke to be sacked. 

[Monty13 2,252]

10 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Yes, for season after season you could hardly move on this message-board for calls for "a calculated risk/gamble". Which meant spending money we didn't have. Eventually the board - quite independently - went and did that, and now you can't move for posts (probably in some cases from the same people) bemoaning our resultant financial troubles...😍

They are still responsible for the results.

As far as I’m aware no supporter asking for us to spend more money had any say on how we did.

Of course you can bemoan the resulting financial troubles when the money was spent so poorly.

We abandoned all the careful work and just splurged on crap players, multiple managers and changes of philosophy, expensive loans and expensive old players.

The club is entirely responsible and key people accountable for the performance in enacting those calls. Unless you are arguing everything was done well and it’s simply the case we did that’s the issue?

Edited November 4, 2023 by Monty13

[By Hook or Ian crook 917]

11 hours ago, Soldier on said:

We would be able to sell Sargent for decent money as well

Possibly but think of it this way. We paid £8 mill up front, he’s in his third season here we can assume his average salary over that time would be about 40k a week so we’ve paid 6 million in wages. So total outlay of roughly 14 mill. Yes that’s spread over 3 years but it’s still an outlay we have to plan for and offset. 
 

if we sell him for 12 looks great we’ve got 4 mill profit against fee paid. Net spend though we are still down 2 mill after his wages for 3 season are taken into account. Now if you take into account there is no youth team player in that position coming up to take his place, so now we have to buy a new striker. Ideally the replacement you sign should be able to fill the gap of say 15 goals a season at championship level.  That means we are going to need to fork out another 5-8 million depending on who you go for but look at fees the likes of Piroe or Akpom went for this summer. Plus their wages over a 4 year period all of a sudden you’re down a financial rabbit hole and you’re reliant entirely on the new striker appreciating in value through performance or promotion to offset the additional cost you’ve incurred. 
 

I would not grumble at all if we went down the Athletic Bilbao cantera philosophy. If you’ve not heard of it you should look it up. It’s astonishing given they are the 4th most successful la liga team in history. 

[Indy 3,322]

5 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Yes, for season after season you could hardly move on this message-board for calls for "a calculated risk/gamble". Which meant spending money we didn't have. Eventually the board - quite independently - went and did that, and now you can't move for posts (probably in some cases from the same people) bemoaning our resultant financial troubles...😍

That’s really not true though is it? That Sumer wasn’t a calculated gamble at all we bought three wide played in Sargent, Raschica & Tzolis for a combined 30 million bought in Lees Melou as that central midfielder. We didn’t wingers we needed a solid core, lot of people commented back then! Add to that we had to buy Gibson & Giannoulis for the combined 12 million and the net spend after the offset sales wasn’t that big!

As for the wages well that’s down to Webber to ensure control and obviously it wasn’t controlled.

I’m all for giving it a go, but let’s be honest Tzolis, Sargent & Rashica we’re all bought with an eye for big returns, well that ended well for two out of three! Yes player purchases are always a gamble but the past three summers have been utterly abysmal.

[PurpleCanary 5,585]

3 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

They are still responsible for the results.

As far as I’m aware no supporter asking for us to spend more money had any say on how we did.

Of course you can bemoan the resulting financial troubles when the money was spent so poorly.

We abandoned all the careful work and just splurged on crap players, multiple managers and changes of philosophy, expensive loans and expensive old players.

The club is entirely responsible and key people accountable for the performance in enacting those calls. Unless you are arguing everything was done well and it’s simply the case we did that’s the issue?

No. I am not arguing that at all. Just pointing out an irony. The club was indeed entirely responsible for its decisions.

[hogesar 9,760]

15 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Yes, for season after season you could hardly move on this message-board for calls for "a calculated risk/gamble". Which meant spending money we didn't have. Eventually the board - quite independently - went and did that, and now you can't move for posts (probably in some cases from the same people) bemoaning our resultant financial troubles...😍

 

7 minutes ago, Petriix said:

I see this argument a lot, but I think it's nonsense. Just because *some* people were saying it and now *some* people are saying that opposite, doesn't mean it's the same people.

For the record I always advocated keeping wages low, signing and developing 'rough diamonds' and only 'investing' in a few key areas (CDM anyone?) on promotion. I never wanted Farke to be sacked. 

Petrixx, even on this thread there are already about 8 posters who most certainly have been involved for the past 10 years on here wishing we would take 'a calculated gamble' or 'pay the going rate' in wages.

It quite clearly doesn't refer to you.

And I must stress because I've had about 5 responses from posters who can't read. That doesn't make it the fans fault whatsoever. The boards job isn't to pander to fans desires who ultimately don't have the club inside knowledge to get the decision right anyway.

The point is, for those same fans to then criticise the result of that spending in a financial context stinks of hypocrisy.

The players we signed didn't work out but that is always a risk regardless who our manager, sd or owners are.

Fulham, Bournemouth, Watford, Sheffield United and Leeds have all recently been relegated having spent even more than we did, our level of finance is no guarantee of success (far from it) but we still went with an overly ambitious attempt and are paying the price for that now.

[PurpleCanary 5,585]

4 minutes ago, Indy said:

That’s really not true though is it? That Sumer wasn’t a calculated gamble at all we bought three wide played in Sargent, Raschica & Tzolis for a combined 30 million bought in Lees Melou as that central midfielder. We didn’t wingers we needed a solid core, lot of people commented back then! Add to that we had to buy Gibson & Giannoulis for the combined 12 million and the net spend after the offset sales wasn’t that big!

As for the wages well that’s down to Webber to ensure control and obviously it wasn’t controlled.

I’m all for giving it a go, but let’s be honest Tzolis, Sargent & Rashica we’re all bought with an eye for big returns, well that ended well for two out of three! Yes player purchases are always a gamble but the past three summers have been utterly abysmal.

I seem to be being serially misunderstood in what was a tongue in cheek weekend post! My point all along, when these calls were made by posters, and they were frequent, was that "a calculated gamble/risk" was a total contradiction in terms.

[Indy 3,322]

The trouble now is to sack Wagner would cost too much, we’re in free fall in form, with no chance of promotion, have eleven 30+ journeymen with little or no value on high wages for the championship (Gibson, Hanley, McLean, Duffy, Batth & Barnes), no doubt any good offers on Rowe, Sargent or Sara in January will no doubt be accepted to shore up the financial shortfall coming for next season!

[BigFish 1,988]

1 minute ago, PurpleCanary said:

Yes, for season after season you could hardly move on this message-board for calls for "a calculated risk/gamble". Which meant spending money we didn't have. Eventually the board - quite independently - went and did that, and now you can't move for posts (probably in some cases from the same people) bemoaning our resultant financial troubles...😍

Well said, Purps.

The response to the accounts has been pretty predictable, even though the accounts are actually pretty unsurprising. The desire to have a stick to beat the club is palpable to the point where misinterpreting, misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting the figures is fair game for some. Conflating sporting success/failure with the management of the club as a business is the cherry on the top.

The club tried prudence with ambition and then tried going for it. But the club is what it is, a mid-tier club that could get to the EPL, was only one window from failure and didn't have the cash to spend more. (Thank heavens, the net spend could easily have been a £100m more with the same result. Imagine how bad these number would look then). Simply put, we never had the cash to ensure survival. Only what we untimately spent. Turns out it was a bad window and we ended up back where we started. More likely statistically probable than clear bad management.

Two things stand out here, the paper loss was largely driven by amortisation and covered by post accounts player sales and we had/have a cash flow problem largely mitigated by MA's dollars for now and further reductions on the wage bill.

 

 

[hogesar 9,760]

Just now, Indy said:

The trouble now is to sack Wagner would cost too much, we’re in free fall in form, with no chance of promotion, have eleven 30+ journeymen with little or no value on high wages for the championship (Gibson, Hanley, McLean, Duffy, Batth & Barnes), no doubt any good offers on Rowe, Sargent or Sara in January will no doubt be accepted to shore up the financial shortfall coming for next season!

Sacking Wagner wouldn't cost "too much" and I have no idea where people get that idea from.

[Monty13 2,252]

5 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

No. I am not arguing that at all. Just pointing out an irony. The club was indeed entirely responsible for its decisions.

I don’t think that’s ironic then personally, but fair enough. 

[Sufyellow 223]

35 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Again I would politely request that you actually read what is written because I've not blamed the fans once.

There will come a time soon that you will have to say Webber got it totally wrong and unfortunately now Mrs Webber let it happen. Shall we have a guess that 10 million of that debt went on replacing Farke,  to get too Wagner? You keep saying we had a go in the prem,  yet we didn't buy one quality prem player , but looks like we paid them the wages. It all comes down to Webber. 

[BigFish 1,988]

15 minutes ago, Petriix said:

I see this argument a lot, but I think it's nonsense. Just because *some* people were saying it and now *some* people are saying that opposite, doesn't mean it's the same people.

For the record I always advocated keeping wages low, signing and developing 'rough diamonds' and only 'investing' in a few key areas (CDM anyone?) on promotion. I never wanted Farke to be sacked. 

Pretty much this, @Petriix, although I think we are a minority. There is constant screaming for "ambition", spending money we don't have and sacking all and sundry if it doesn't work.

[Indy 3,322]

5 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Sacking Wagner wouldn't cost "too much" and I have no idea where people get that idea from.

He’s on a one year rolling contract and I hope we don’t go for another negative appointment, we need a positive coach in a job and doing well for the next appointment in my opinion, that might cost more than we want to pay looking at the finances, just my observation.

Going back to fans complaining about the financial hit, we’re not, I’m certainly not, but like in my senior role accountability’s have to be placed and reviewed to why we have dug ourselves into this position! Like I said Webber and his recruitment team have made major blunders, yet rather than make changes a year ago with Smith Webber would have gone had it been any other club, but because of the owner’s relationship and family connections he’s still around! 
Yes we paid over the odds for us in wages but the return on the outlay is poor and as such Webber should have gone a long time ago!

[Midlands Yellow 4,083]

34 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Yes, for season after season you could hardly move on this message-board for calls for "a calculated risk/gamble". Which meant spending money we didn't have. Eventually the board - quite independently - went and did that, and now you can't move for posts (probably in some cases from the same people) bemoaning our resultant financial troubles...😍

Not really that was it. Some were asking for new ownership many, many years ago. We were they’d be no interest by the ‘experts’ on here. Another assumption proved wrong perhaps? 

[Sufyellow 223]

23 minutes ago, hogesar said:

 

Petrixx, even on this thread there are already about 8 posters who most certainly have been involved for the past 10 years on here wishing we would take 'a calculated gamble' or 'pay the going rate' in wages.

It quite clearly doesn't refer to you.

And I must stress because I've had about 5 responses from posters who can't read. That doesn't make it the fans fault whatsoever. The boards job isn't to pander to fans desires who ultimately don't have the club inside knowledge to get the decision right anyway.

The point is, for those same fans to then criticise the result of that spending in a financial context stinks of hypocrisy.

The players we signed didn't work out but that is always a risk regardless who our manager, sd or owners are.

Fulham, Bournemouth, Watford, Sheffield United and Leeds have all recently been relegated having spent even more than we did, our level of finance is no guarantee of success (far from it) but we still went with an overly ambitious attempt and are paying the price for that now.

The boards job was to get value for money,  they totally failed. 

[Indy 3,322]

Let’s take this back to the core issue here, there’s absolutely no need to point fingers at anyone who wanted more outlay in a premier season, it’s agreed that is a given across the fans! So I don’t see the need to keep turning on our own fans in these threads! 
 

Reality is do we really think the past three seasons have been anything other than a mitigated disaster and whose fault is it? For me I said in May Webber should have gone, the takeover should have been forced through, (seeing the accounts I can see why MA & his team are waiting to take over on the cheap). But we are in dire need of a reset and this process of a hand over just gives the chance of failure being handed over too! We don’t need more Webber ideology we need a fresh start and that’s at the top too! We need a dedicated leader to push forwards from top to bottom.

The one massive positive for me is that hopefully this next summer we will clear out that old guard and need to promote more from our own youth system, something which all fans love to see and something we’ve been very good at, so I have confidence in Knapper as he’s from the youth set up at Arsenal and I hope he can bring people with him from Arsenal who can help develop us! I’m happy to stay in the championship and build but not on journeymen it doesn’t work!

[shefcanary 2,466]

I haven't finished my review of these accounts, I will re-read the directors and strategic report as i think these tell us nothing of any consequence of future direction of the club (they read as holding statements, hardly updated from last year apart from EDI and community statements) and do my deep dive on the short term loans to try and clarify who the club actually owed money to at 30 June when I have more time in the week.

However first impressions of the results for the year are actually relatively positive. The operating result is close to break-even, yes a small loss which I suspect is due to a slight under-performance in commercial activity. The comments from Sam Hall are a little less positive than elsewhere, I would expect they were planning for more in terms of match day activity.

The salary budget is back under control which is a god send. With the departure of Pukki and other highly paid players, plus the renegotiation of some contracts (the infamous McLean extension) annual costs seem set to continue to reduce. Is this Attanasio's influence, or would it have happened anyway?

The continued large losses from player trading are in line with my expectations, leading to the large loss before tax (see my exchange with Essex on another thread where I stated my expectation of a £25m loss).  Only the total interest charge disappoints. I'd hoped Attanasio would have waived his element, but he is a businessman, but there is a smack of Glazer-ism here. Also the average rate at first sight seems higher than the 5.6% previously quoted on the short term loans in the previous accounts, so the reason given as to why we've turned to Attanasio to reduce finance costs is being stretched.

The overall net liability position would certainly jave challenged the auditors but somehow they have given the accounts a clean bill of health. In part this would have been due to the sales of players in the summer window and the relatively low outlay on replacements (the post balance sheet events). Much of this income will be treated as a profit in next year's accounts as the players sold were mainly academy product. There is also the final parachute payments to come of c. £30m, which with a much more controlled salary bill I expect without a major panic in the January transfer window will see a substantial profit in the current year. No guarantee of promotion however, let's hope it is not relegation.

What is clear however is that a core element of the short term loans are anything but that! However the notes to the accounts do not allow a reader to determine exactly how much we are on the hook to lenders, for how long and at what cost. The lack of appropriate disclosure is extremely disappointing. My only conclusion is that the forecasts produced by the club to the auditor show that long term these loans are ultimately "in house"; that is in a couple of years they are owed to Attanasio & fellow shareholders, and thus as the audit report is to the members of the club, effectively would merely tell Attanasio what he already knows. Ethics can excite himself over the poor treatment of minority shareholders.

So, in conclusion my initial view is the numbers are where I expected, but still totally unclear what happens next, there being no real forward statements in the narrative reports but a lot of deck clearing awaiting the new ownership taking control. 

Edited November 4, 2023 by shefcanary

[king canary 7,679]

46 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Yes, for season after season you could hardly move on this message-board for calls for "a calculated risk/gamble". Which meant spending money we didn't have. Eventually the board - quite independently - went and did that, and ndow you can't move for posts (probably in some cases from the same people) bemoaning our resultant financial troubles...😍

I'm not bemoaning it personally. I'm glad they did it because I think it's expedited the change in ownership we need. I think before that summer the club seemed to think they could be smarter than everyone else and continue being the one hold out from modern football. 

[Badger 2,412]

53 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

You have to spend money on the pitch to progress. Better players cost more money.

IMO the problem isn’t that we risked the finances, let’s face it while it makes uncomfortable reading it’s been managed even if you argue only by the intervention of our new board member.

The issue is we have spent our money so, so poorly since the sale of Buendia. Expensive players with no return on and off the pitch in some cases. While there’s never sure things in football we spread the cash too thinly gambling on a lot of players that didn’t pay off. 

Monty, if I (and all the others who have posted pointing out the folly of overspending) believed that we'd definitely get the right players, we'd stay up and all would be rosy I'd have supported spending bucketloads. It is precisely because "transfers in" are such I risky business that I doubt overspending as an reliable method of staying up.

You can only buy the players that more established teams don't want! It is a simple fact that established premier league quality players will normally only come to a promoted club if they have no better alternative. That is why clubs end up gambling on players hoping that they will "come good." More often than not it is a gamble that fails, which is why it is a strategy that most rational people will avoid. The problem is of course is that supporting a football club is emotional rather than rational.

[Badger 2,412]

1 hour ago, Indy said:

I’m all for giving it a go but that last summer prior to the premier season was utterly disappointing and many said so at the time, then to see Farke sacked for Smith that was another massive cost and huge mistake again only people to blame for keeping faith with the worst manager we’ve ever had after relegation was Webber and finally when we got shot of the utterly useless Smith we replaced him with Wagner who was always a gamble, sadly the finances have driven this summers utter crap signings and we now know why we had to settle on selling 30 million pounds worth of best young players and replacing them with the home guard on a free!

 

The "cr*p signings" this year, were driven by the financial necessity of over-spending in previous years. Debt (or investment as some posters call it) has consequences at some stage, if it does not strengthen the financial basis of the club.

[Indy 3,322]

10 minutes ago, Badger said:

The "cr*p signings" this year, were driven by the financial necessity of over-spending in previous years. Debt (or investment as some posters call it) has consequences at some stage, if it does not strengthen the financial basis of the club.

Indeed and whose fault is that? As I said any other club would have got shot of mr 80% when we sacked Smith!

[Monty13 2,252]

11 minutes ago, Badger said:

Monty, if I (and all the others who have posted pointing out the folly of overspending) believed that we'd definitely get the right players, we'd stay up and all would be rosy I'd have supported spending bucketloads. It is precisely because "transfers in" are such I risky business that I doubt overspending as an reliable method of staying up.

You can only buy the players that more established teams don't want! It is a simple fact that established premier league quality players will normally only come to a promoted club if they have no better alternative. That is why clubs end up gambling on players hoping that they will "come good." More often than not it is a gamble that fails, which is why it is a strategy that most rational people will avoid. The problem is of course is that supporting a football club is emotional rather than rational.

It isn’t that we didn’t get the right players, that’s an oversimplification.

We are a self funding club, by that nature every penny we spend had to be spent in the belief it is being spent wisely and IMO as part of a coherent strategy of maximising value on the pitch.

I simply believe the overwhelming evidence is we didn’t do that.

We changed playing philosophy without the players to play it (three times now by my count), and that’s resulted in 3 managers failing and a mix of playing personnel who seem incapable of doing what the latest manager wants and don’t seem set up to play any philosophy. 

We refused to pay going rate but then by all accounts ended up paying close to it anyway in certain circumstances.

We spread our limited resources thinly on big gambles that did nothing to improve us and have mainly been footballing and financial failures.

The last few years can continue to be dissected in terms of further issues but it’s those three pillars that stand out personally. While I’m happy to admit you can only work with what’s available, we did that very poorly IMO.

[essex canary 506]

19 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

I haven't finished my review of these accounts, I will re-read the directors and strategic report as i think these tell us nothing of any consequence of future direction of the club (they read as holding statements, hardly updated from last year apart from EDI and community statements) and do my deep dive on the short term loans to try and clarify who the club actually owed money to at 30 June when I have more time in the week.

However first impressions of the results for the year are actually relatively positive. The operating result is close to break-even, yes a small loss which I suspect is due to a slight under-performance in commercial activity. The comments from Sam Hall are a little less positive than elsewhere, I would expect they were planning for more in terms of match day activity.

The salary budget is back under control which is a god send. With the departure of Pukki and other highly paid players, plus the renegotiation of some contracts (the infamous McLean extension) annual costs seem set to continue to reduce. Is this Attanasio's influence, or would it have happened anyway?

The continued large losses from player trading are in line with my expectations, leading to the large loss before tax (see my exchange with Essex on another thread where I stated my expectation of a £25m loss).  Only the total interest charge disappoints. I'd hoped Attanasio would have waived his element, but he is a businessman, but there is a smack of Glazer-ism here. Also the average rate at first sight seems higher than the 5.6% previously quoted on the short term loans in the previous accounts, so the reason given as to why we've turned to Attanasio to reduce finance costs is being stretched.

The overall net liability position would certainly jave challenged the auditors but somehow they have given the accounts a clean bill of health. In part this would have been due to the sales of players in the summer window and the relatively low outlay on replacements (the post balance sheet events). Much of this income will be treated as a profit in next year's accounts as the players sold were mainly academy product. There is also the final parachute payments to come of c. £30m, which with a much more controlled salary bill I expect without a major panic in the January transfer window will see a substantial profit in the current year. No guarantee of promotion however, let's hope it is not relegation.

What is clear however is that a core element of the short term loans are anything but that! However the notes to the accounts do not allow a reader to determine exactly how much we are on the hook to lenders, for how long and at what cost. The lack of appropriate disclosure is extremely disappointing. My only conclusion is that the forecasts produced by the club to the auditor show that long term these loans are ultimately "in house"; that is in a couple of years they are owed to Attanasio & fellow shareholders, and thus as the audit report is to the members of the club, effectively would merely tell Attanasio what he already knows. Ethics can excite himself over the poor treatment of minority shareholders.

So, in conclusion my initial view is the numbers are where I expected, but still totally unclear what happens next, there being no real forward statements in the narrative reports but a lot of deck clearing awaiting the new ownership taking control. 

A reasonable assessment overall. No point championing 20% of the Club being owned by minority shareholders if you aren't going to involve them, be transparent with them or update the initiative to include a wider age range.

We should also remember they changed Auditors last year. Why exactly did they do that?

[PurpleCanary 5,585]

24 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

Not really that was it. Some were asking for new ownership many, many years ago. We were they’d be no interest by the ‘experts’ on here. Another assumption proved wrong perhaps? 

I don’t know who you classify as ‘experts’ but I cannot remember any poster here that had any credibility saying there would be no interest, or indeed that there had never been any interest. Bowkett himself said ten years ago that when he’d made a search there had been plenty of interest but none he took seriously.

There was always a significant difference between interest that was correctly dismissed and interest that might have some value. Cullum being an example of the former and Attanasio an example of the latter.

[NewNestCarrow 203]

10 hours ago, Branston Pickle said:

I‘m not at all sure why you mention me?  My comment was merely that someone purporting to be an accountant didn’t appear to know the purpose of accounts.

But if the accounts are deliberately misleading, that’s illegal (fraud) - so presumably those who know better will report the club and auditors rather than just commenting on here.  It’s quite simple.

You are mentioned because you climbed all over someone who suggested that the accounts were not "up to scratch"

 

There is more than one other poster who feels that the accounts are badly presented (possibly even below code)

[essex canary 506]

1 minute ago, Monty13 said:

It isn’t that we didn’t get the right players, that’s an oversimplification.

We are a self funding club, by that nature every penny we spend had to be spent in the belief it is being spent wisely and IMO as part of a coherent strategy of maximising value on the pitch.

I simply believe the overwhelming evidence is we didn’t do that.

We changed playing philosophy without the players to play it (three times now by my count), and that’s resulted in 3 managers failing and a mix of playing personnel who seem incapable of doing what the latest manager wants and don’t seem set up to play any philosophy. 

We refused to pay going rate but then by all accounts ended up paying close to it anyway in certain circumstances.

We spread our limited resources thinly on big gambles that did nothing to improve us and have mainly been footballing and financial failures.

The last few years can continue to be dissected in terms of further issues but it’s those three pillars that stand out personally. While I’m happy to admit you can only work with what’s available, we did that very poorly IMO.

That too.

Like ITV Digital before it, Covid was an external shock. The difference being that this time round we had the comfort blanket of being in the Premier League. Why was that surrendered in favour of Stu"s career gambles?