Does anyone believe Randy is going to try and upgrade certain elements of VP to increase revenue?
The andersred blog, although compiled by a Man U fan is sound, and completes an authoratative comparison of us,Liverpool, Spurs, Manu/City, Arsenal Spurs.It also shows why we have some cost cutting to do:http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/04/financial-fair-play-crunching-numbers.html
Quote from: garyfouroaks on June 20, 2011, 11:43:09 PMThe andersred blog, although compiled by a Man U fan is sound, and completes an authoratative comparison of us,Liverpool, Spurs, Manu/City, Arsenal Spurs.It also shows why we have some cost cutting to do:http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/04/financial-fair-play-crunching-numbers.htmlInteresting that. Basically the income from Commercial activities is whats stopping us competing with Citeh/Spurs, and the fact our expenses have got out of kilter with our income. As was suspected under Doug and not improved much under Lerner we are light years behind the others in the commercial income area and are struggling to catch up. This is where Faulkner really needs to pull his finger out IMO over the next 2 seasons.
It's an area I thought we would do much better at when Randy took over.
As far as I'm concerned, the new rules are just the same as it ever was. The clubs who are already in the CL will have larger revenue streams and therefore greater possibility of buying the players to maintain their position. The clubs outside the CL will not have such revenue and so will not be able to break into the exclusive Gentleman's club. It is for this reason that we always hit a glass ceiling everytime we get close. There's only two ways to break this. 1. Go all Man City on it and spend fractions of a billion on buying superstars and prima donnas to smash through OR 2. Build your club up by consistently unearthing many future superstars, selling them to the mega rich clubs and reinvesting the proceeds. If you can do this consistently then you can develop the critical mass of players needed to break through. We know option 1 is beyond us (and will probably be beyond everyone when the new rules come in), so we have to go for option 2. To achieve this we need a manger who is well connected and has a top level scouting network, which for me makes it all the more odd that the club went for McLeish. He has no real history of taking this approach and this is what worries me about him. In my opinion the primary focus of the manager of Aston Villa should be on player development and scouting. Of course we need to keep an eye on results and football quality, but I do not think the objectives are mutually exclusive. Maybe we need to go the Spurs route and at least have a temporary DOF to find the talent, with a coach looking after the first team. Again I know this model is not favoured in the UK, but had we appointed McLeish supported by a DOF I would feel a lot better about the appointment. I just don't see what it achieves bar ensuring PL survival, and he doesn't even have the greatest of records with that!