canary cherub 1 Posted September 27, 2007 Much is being made of the fact that the two teams we came down with are still in this Division. ("Neil''s Bumper Book of Lame Excuses #568"). They are, but at least they made it look as though they were trying. Both of them made the playoffs. And Palace spent £12m buying the freehold of Selhurst Park. Are they any worse off than we are? I doubt it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Green and Yellow 0 Posted September 27, 2007 [quote user="mystic megson"]Much is being made of the fact that the two teams we came down with are still in this Division. ("Neil''s Bumper Book of Lame Excuses #568"). They are, but at least they made it look as though they were trying. Both of them made the playoffs. And Palace spent £12m buying the freehold of Selhurst Park. Are they any worse off than we are? I doubt it. [/quote] Agree with you 100% there must be some very goods chefs at NCFC who are goods at cooking , what I would not like to comment on though. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mr.Carrow 394 Posted September 28, 2007 [quote user="mystic megson"]Much is being made of the fact that the two teams we came down with are still in this Division. ("Neil''s Bumper Book of Lame Excuses #568"). They are, but at least they made it look as though they were trying. Both of them made the playoffs. And Palace spent £12m buying the freehold of Selhurst Park. Are they any worse off than we are? I doubt it. [/quote]Spin, spin, spin. It`s making me dizzy. [Y] Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DDD In The Fine City 1 Posted September 28, 2007 [quote user="mystic megson"]Much is being made of the fact that the two teams we came down with are still in this Division. ("Neil''s Bumper Book of Lame Excuses #568"). They are, but at least they made it look as though they were trying. Both of them made the playoffs. And Palace spent £12m buying the freehold of Selhurst Park. Are they any worse off than we are? I doubt it. [/quote]southampton are in more financial trouble than us i belive, and have sold more players. crouch, walcott, bale. palace have always had sugar daddy jordan, but not sure they trust burley with any money just like us with grant Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
One Flew Over... 33 Posted September 28, 2007 They made a go of it, but as many on here would gleefully say if it was us - they failed. Have a look on the Saints messageboards - they are calling for Burley''s head.."Not good enough consistently bad decisions whether it''s tactical,transfers or just bloody not addressing the weak aspects CENTRE BACK."Uncanny! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
YellowRoad 0 Posted September 28, 2007 But Southampton is real busy finding new defenders for their squad ... Christian Dailly from West Ham ... and a certain Lucien Mettomo .... and today their third Phil Ifil from Tottenham ... all in one week. Norwich isn''t doing well on the tranfer market the last couple of years which is becoming a big problem. The only thing you hear from Peter Grant and others like Bryan Gunn is that it''s very very difficult ... and that they are waiting for calls ... waiting and waiting .... very very long waiting .... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
One Flew Over... 33 Posted September 28, 2007 Well we did give Mettomo a trial, and he was deemed no better than what we have available. Ifil is 20, and has only played about 5 competitive games - we already have youth with similar experience. We bought Ian Murray as a back up centre back. And we have Dion, Doherty, Shackell. Interesting point about Dailly from Wikipedia - "Unlike most modern footballers he does not have an agent and negotiates deals on his own behalf", don''t know if that made the move to Saints easier. He is only there for a month so it hardly addresses their longer team problems. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
canary cherub 1 Posted September 28, 2007 [quote user="One Flew Over..."]They made a go of it, but as many on here would gleefully say if it was us - they failed.[/quote]It wasn''t us, that''s the whole point. What are you suggesting Neil? Let''s not even try in case we don''t succeed? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Shaun Lawson 0 Posted September 28, 2007 [quote user="mystic megson"]Much is being made of the fact that thetwo teams we came down with are still in this Division. ("Neil''sBumper Book of Lame Excuses #568"). They are, but at least they made it look as though they weretrying. Both of them made the playoffs. And Palacespent £12m buying the freehold of Selhurst Park. Are they anyworse off than we are? I doubt it. [/quote]Mystic,You''re an intelligent bloke: many of your posts on here arethought-provoking and well thought out. But Southampton, whose''ambition'' was lauded to the skies last season by one of the threelunatics who''ve taken over this asylum, were *this* close toadministration in the summer. Off the field, they are a complete andutter shambles - and this despite raking in enormous amounts of dosh byselling Walcott and Bale!Emulate them? No thankyou. Palace are in a similar position toourselves: they basically have to start again now their parachutepayments have run out, and Peter Taylor is likely to get the chopbefore long.Look at the current bottom six of the Championship. Five are formerPremier League clubs; and even the sixth only just missed out, beatentwice in the play-off final. That is the penalty you get forbeing relegated: it''s frighteningly difficult to bounce back. And ifyou don''t do it immediately, you''re likely to be in the mire for manyyears to come. West Brom and Charlton, and Birmingham last season, havebeen in a strong enough position to keep much of their squads together;Watford have a genius of a manager (albeit they are also spending adangerously high proportion of their turnover on wages too). But formany, many others, relegation is a nightmare: it''s not only us who arein this position. In many ways, as much as this point is bound to be ridiculed by the aforementioned lunatics, we are stilltrying to recover from a period in which we spent vast amounts of moneywe didn''t actually have under Mr Chase: this left us in debt, and givenit is phenomenally difficult to run a profitable Championship clubwhile still spending enough to challenge, it basically condemned us toa decade and more with a millstone round our necks. Comically, theboard are chastised on here for being too prudent: actually, they''vebeen way too ambitious. They had to spend more than we had coming infor us to have any chance at all: hence the debt has grown and grown.Likewise, when we went up (which followed a three year period of major,major overstretch), they had to spend virtually all they received justto ensure we had any chance at all of surviving - and that''s not theirfault. Those are the financial realities of football nowadays. You try running a football club with no sugar daddy: it''s an almostimpossible task. As a result, the side is basically where it was adecade ago - but given we got relegated and almost went bust at justabout the worst possible time, that''s really only to be expected. Am Ihappy? No. Is it depressing? You bet! But it''s naive in the extreme tothink the board have effectively led us to this: truth is, we''ve beenswimming ever more frantically against the tide since 1995. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
canary cherub 1 Posted September 28, 2007 Shaun, no disrespect but I simply can''t be bothered to go through all this point by point again. I''ve covered most of it on other threads.In 2003, we had to borrow £8m or so to build the Jarrold Stand because the hoped-for funding from the flats behind the River End had not materialised. I accept that this was necessary. But then they turned the pre-existing £6m short term debt (which you refer to as a "millstone" but was pretty average for a club of our size at the time) into a long-term debt, and then ran up another £6m short-term debt on inessentials like land speculation. That''s not my idea of prudence. (This is not well publicised for obvious reasons, but it''s in the Annual Reports.) It''s the land they bought and now can''t sell that is the real millstone and is costing us more millions in terms of building service roads etc. The economic outlook is not very promising and we could be stuck with it for quite a while.The board ARE responsible. They don''t seem to have learned a thing from the Chase experience, and now here we are once again walking the tightrope between deinvestment in the squad and relegation, in order to pay for their extravagance. 1994/5 all over again. Let''s hope they get it right this time. The rest of the short term debt is due for repayment by December 2008. If we can survive relegation this season and next we might be OK, but it could be touch and go. And I suppose if it happens, all we will get is that "We can''t compete" ballcocks all over again. Believe it if it makes you feel better, but that doesn''t make it true. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mr.Carrow 394 Posted September 28, 2007 Shaun, if you are going to try to patronise someone i would suggest picking someone who doesn`t know what they are talking about. Alot of your post is so disengaged from reality that it does not warrent a sensible reply. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites