I wonder if anyone, except the nineties directors who floated then sold their shares for massive profits (Doug, Martin Edwards, that horrible bunch of chancers at Sheffield Wednesday) ever have or will make money from owning a football club.
Quick thoughts:1. Previous mistakes well understood and still punishing us. Given retrenchment and ditching of high paid players, it could have been a lot worse than it has been. We could easily have gone down2. Surely TV revenue this season will make a big impact on profitability3. Concerned about how gabby and Delph will be treated when high cost contracts expire4. Lots of lambert signings now worth more than we paid: Guzan 0, benteke 8, Lowton 1, Westwood 1.5, vlaar 3.5, bacuna 2. I expect the same to apply to Okore at 3.5
I personally think the walk out of O'Neill came down to a discussion between O'Neill and Faulkner, the latter having to answer to Randy asking where his money had been spent. Faulkner telling O'Neill players needed to be sold before any more were purchased, nobody would want them because of the contracts they were on, which Faulkner agreed in the first place, and O'Neill felt his position was untenable. He couldn't improve the squad, until some dead weight was lifted from the wage bill, which has been awfully hard and long drawn out to achieve.
Quote from: glasses on March 06, 2014, 01:08:48 PMI personally think the walk out of O'Neill came down to a discussion between O'Neill and Faulkner, the latter having to answer to Randy asking where his money had been spent. Faulkner telling O'Neill players needed to be sold before any more were purchased, nobody would want them because of the contracts they were on, which Faulkner agreed in the first place, and O'Neill felt his position was untenable. He couldn't improve the squad, until some dead weight was lifted from the wage bill, which has been awfully hard and long drawn out to achieve. How many of the Harewood/Sidwell/Davies/Cuellar/Shorey/Young/Dunne/Beye etc. deals did Faulkner negotiate though? I thought he only became CEO relatively soon before O'Neill flounced out.
86% wages to turnover is not good at all given we've been costcuting for close to 4 years now. I accept these are from a year ago and we've moved on a few since but we'll still do well to get it below 80%. My personal target would be to get it below 70% but we'll probably get there around 2050 when we're in league one.I think we can expect more cautious spending this summer, just hopes Lambert goes for say 3 players in the 6m range who don't drain us in wages rather than the usual 7-8 on a fiver a week.
Quote from: SoccerHQ on March 06, 2014, 08:47:25 PM86% wages to turnover is not good at all given we've been costcuting for close to 4 years now. I accept these are from a year ago and we've moved on a few since but we'll still do well to get it below 80%. My personal target would be to get it below 70% but we'll probably get there around 2050 when we're in league one.I think we can expect more cautious spending this summer, just hopes Lambert goes for say 3 players in the 6m range who don't drain us in wages rather than the usual 7-8 on a fiver a week.Yeah that is a worry. Saying that, I guess Dunne, Ireland, Bent, Hutton, Given, N'Zogbia and Makoun were all still on the wage bill during that season and offering very little. Just a quick question - does that figure include off the field staff as well?
Quote from: eamonn on March 08, 2014, 04:25:07 PMQuote from: glasses on March 06, 2014, 01:08:48 PMI personally think the walk out of O'Neill came down to a discussion between O'Neill and Faulkner, the latter having to answer to Randy asking where his money had been spent. Faulkner telling O'Neill players needed to be sold before any more were purchased, nobody would want them because of the contracts they were on, which Faulkner agreed in the first place, and O'Neill felt his position was untenable. He couldn't improve the squad, until some dead weight was lifted from the wage bill, which has been awfully hard and long drawn out to achieve. How many of the Harewood/Sidwell/Davies/Cuellar/Shorey/Young/Dunne/Beye etc. deals did Faulkner negotiate though? I thought he only became CEO relatively soon before O'Neill flounced out.I am no fan of Faulkner but don't think he was involved in any of those you quoted.He was CEO when we signed Ireland on £60k+ per week, CNZ on £60k, Shay Given on similar amount, Makoun on c40k, Hutton £40k and Jenas for £2m for 1 year which turned out, to no-one's surprise, to be a lot less. Clearly he hadn't learned very much from O'Neill's mistakes.Oh and post O'Neill he was involved in having to recruit no fewer than 3 permanent managers + staff in 21months which cost around about £125k per week during that period (some of which would have been ammortised).Not very clever at all.
Quote from: rob_bridge on March 08, 2014, 05:02:22 PMQuote from: eamonn on March 08, 2014, 04:25:07 PMQuote from: glasses on March 06, 2014, 01:08:48 PMI personally think the walk out of O'Neill came down to a discussion between O'Neill and Faulkner, the latter having to answer to Randy asking where his money had been spent. Faulkner telling O'Neill players needed to be sold before any more were purchased, nobody would want them because of the contracts they were on, which Faulkner agreed in the first place, and O'Neill felt his position was untenable. He couldn't improve the squad, until some dead weight was lifted from the wage bill, which has been awfully hard and long drawn out to achieve. How many of the Harewood/Sidwell/Davies/Cuellar/Shorey/Young/Dunne/Beye etc. deals did Faulkner negotiate though? I thought he only became CEO relatively soon before O'Neill flounced out.I am no fan of Faulkner but don't think he was involved in any of those you quoted.He was CEO when we signed Ireland on £60k+ per week, CNZ on £60k, Shay Given on similar amount, Makoun on c40k, Hutton £40k and Jenas for £2m for 1 year which turned out, to no-one's surprise, to be a lot less. Clearly he hadn't learned very much from O'Neill's mistakes.Oh and post O'Neill he was involved in having to recruit no fewer than 3 permanent managers + staff in 21months which cost around about £125k per week during that period (some of which would have been ammortised).Not very clever at all.That was when he became CEO, however he was operating in a role at the club for a long time prior to that. He spoke openly with someone I know about what his dutes at the club where when they met him during the pre season 08/09. He said he dealt with sorting out transfers, speaking with agents and the like.I can't say categorically that Faulkner was agreeing the contracts (The bit in bold above should probably read ''O'Neill felt Faulkner had agreed in the first place'') this is just my take on what I have been told, and also, as has been pointed out in the second part. It's all very well saying O'Neill wasted vast sums of money on average ageing players on long contracts, but it still went on long after he'd gone. You'd have to say that something that wasn't right in the first place had remained in the years prior to Lambert taking over.
Quote from: glasses on March 10, 2014, 01:55:14 PMQuote from: rob_bridge on March 08, 2014, 05:02:22 PMQuote from: eamonn on March 08, 2014, 04:25:07 PMQuote from: glasses on March 06, 2014, 01:08:48 PMI personally think the walk out of O'Neill came down to a discussion between O'Neill and Faulkner, the latter having to answer to Randy asking where his money had been spent. Faulkner telling O'Neill players needed to be sold before any more were purchased, nobody would want them because of the contracts they were on, which Faulkner agreed in the first place, and O'Neill felt his position was untenable. He couldn't improve the squad, until some dead weight was lifted from the wage bill, which has been awfully hard and long drawn out to achieve. How many of the Harewood/Sidwell/Davies/Cuellar/Shorey/Young/Dunne/Beye etc. deals did Faulkner negotiate though? I thought he only became CEO relatively soon before O'Neill flounced out.I am no fan of Faulkner but don't think he was involved in any of those you quoted.He was CEO when we signed Ireland on £60k+ per week, CNZ on £60k, Shay Given on similar amount, Makoun on c40k, Hutton £40k and Jenas for £2m for 1 year which turned out, to no-one's surprise, to be a lot less. Clearly he hadn't learned very much from O'Neill's mistakes.Oh and post O'Neill he was involved in having to recruit no fewer than 3 permanent managers + staff in 21months which cost around about £125k per week during that period (some of which would have been ammortised).Not very clever at all.That was when he became CEO, however he was operating in a role at the club for a long time prior to that. He spoke openly with someone I know about what his dutes at the club where when they met him during the pre season 08/09. He said he dealt with sorting out transfers, speaking with agents and the like.I can't say categorically that Faulkner was agreeing the contracts (The bit in bold above should probably read ''O'Neill felt Faulkner had agreed in the first place'') this is just my take on what I have been told, and also, as has been pointed out in the second part. It's all very well saying O'Neill wasted vast sums of money on average ageing players on long contracts, but it still went on long after he'd gone. You'd have to say that something that wasn't right in the first place had remained in the years prior to Lambert taking over.There can be little doubt that a tribunal would not have paid O'Neill for walking out due to constructive dismissal. Sooner or later, the facts will be revealed.