Palace and Southampton

[canary cherub 1]

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.

 

[Green and Yellow 0]

[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. 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

[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]

[DDD In The Fine City 1]

[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

[One Flew Over... 33]

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!

[YellowRoad 0]

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 ....

 

 

[One Flew Over... 33]

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.

[canary cherub 1]

[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?

 

 

[Shaun Lawson 0]

[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]

Mystic,

You''re an intelligent bloke: many of your posts on here are

thought-provoking and well thought out. But Southampton, whose

''ambition'' was lauded to the skies last season by one of the three

lunatics who''ve taken over this asylum, were *this* close to

administration in the summer. Off the field, they are a complete and

utter shambles - and this despite raking in enormous amounts of dosh by

selling Walcott and Bale!

Emulate them? No thankyou. Palace are in a similar position to

ourselves: they basically have to start again now their parachute

payments have run out, and Peter Taylor is likely to get the chop

before long.

Look at the current bottom six of the Championship. Five are former

Premier League clubs; and even the sixth only just missed out, beaten

twice in the play-off final. That is the penalty you get for

being relegated: it''s frighteningly difficult to bounce back. And if

you don''t do it immediately, you''re likely to be in the mire for many

years to come. West Brom and Charlton, and Birmingham last season, have

been in a strong enough position to keep much of their squads together;

Watford have a genius of a manager (albeit they are also spending a

dangerously high proportion of their turnover on wages too). But for

many, many others, relegation is a nightmare: it''s not only us who are

in this position.

In many ways, as much as this point is bound to be ridiculed by the aforementioned lunatics, we are still

trying to recover from a period in which we spent vast amounts of money

we didn''t actually have under Mr Chase: this left us in debt, and given

it is phenomenally difficult to run a profitable Championship club

while still spending enough to challenge, it basically condemned us to

a decade and more with a millstone round our necks. Comically, the

board are chastised on here for being too prudent: actually, they''ve

been way too ambitious. They had to spend more than we had coming in

for 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 just

to ensure we had any chance at all of surviving - and that''s not their

fault. Those are the financial realities of football nowadays.

You try running a football club with no sugar daddy: it''s an almost

impossible task. As a result, the side is basically where it was a

decade ago - but given we got relegated and almost went bust at just

about the worst possible time, that''s really only to be expected. Am I

happy? No. Is it depressing? You bet! But it''s naive in the extreme to

think the board have effectively led us to this: truth is, we''ve been

swimming ever more frantically against the tide since 1995.

[canary cherub 1]

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.

 

 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

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.