The way forward to the top 10....

[myf]

Does anyone know what our annual wage bill is? Recall it was c.85m a couple of years back.

A top half finish will require 40-50m on players. The squad is very weak. Seems pretty critical we need this level of investment to avoid another relegation fight

[SoccerHQ]

Does anyone know what our annual wage bill is? Recall it was c.85m a couple of years back.

A top half finish will require 40-50m on players. The squad is very weak. Seems pretty critical we need this level of investment to avoid another relegation fight

It wouldn't though. Newcastle didn't spend a penny last summer and have been comfortably top 10 most of this season. Southampton have been 8th for most of this season, they spent about 30m on three good players and have decided to include plenty of their academy in their 18 so that's the right route to go down imo rather than end up with three average LBs in our squad like we do now as an example of where we've gone for quantity over quality.

[pauliewalnuts]

If he gets £20m to spend next season we'll be in the exact same boat as we are now. To challenge I think we need 7 players, and not lower league rubbish on £10k per week either.
Unless Lerner has a complete change of heart (which I don't see happening) I can't see him investing in the squad sufficiently to get us back up the table to where we belong.
He needs to sell up.

Yup.

One thing I will add is that, after Lerner's statement the other day (the weird "Charles, Jores, Libor one"), it is pretty clear that if he remains chairman, Lambert is going nowhere.

To make that statement, to then stay up, but to sack the manager, would be a massive contradiction with what he's just said.

The way I see it:

Lerner stays, investment doesn't improve, Lambert stays = more of this season and last.
Lerner stays, investment doesn't improve, Lambert goes = more of the same, but slightly better - maybe.

Basically, the money situation must improve.

If the board are not scared shitless by what has happened this season and last, then we're going to find ourselves in big trouble sooner or later, as they'll be totally detached from reality.

Now we have a slightly odd situation, where Lerner said a few days ago "I'll talk about the ownership situation at the end of the season". The obvious inference from that is that something is happening, or he wants something to happen - otherwise, he'd just have said "I'm staying". Even he would have worked out that that would be the obvious answer.

I just really, really hope that he doesn't say at the end of the season "I've decided to start to look for a buyer" - that could take ages, and the funding is clearly not going to improve much while he's still looking. I just hope he's found a decent buyer and we can move on.

Otherwise, I fear we're fucked.

[supertom]

Firstly I would still be looking to get rid of Lambert. Tactically he doesn't have what it takes. Secondly, whether it's Randy calling the shots or a new owner, we need to loosen the purse strings.
-Make sure we've got Delph on a longer deal.
-Give Albrighton an extension of 1-2 years. Long term he's probably not good enough, but for the short term, he's one of our better players.
-Finally cull the remainder of the bomb squad.
-Try and ship off 3-4 of the cheap punts who haven't made it. Tonev, Sylla, Bowery etc. Their squad places should be given to our academy. The cheap brigade have 2 games and the pre-season fixtures to prove their worth. JB gave a good account of himself today, but needs to reproduce that.
-Most important part: Sign 4-5 good quality players who are good enough to play regularly at this level and jump straight into our first 18. I would include Bertrand in among these. The midfield is the absolute priority.
-Whoever is in charge needs to play to players strengths. Weimann is a center-forward. Bacuna isn't a defender. If we also want to player better football we need to sign more technically adept footballers (particularly in midfield).

Simples.

 

[clash city rocker]

Unless the headlines.." villa sold" + "lambert sacked"..appear before next August we will be going down.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

If he gets £20m to spend next season we'll be in the exact same boat as we are now. To challenge I think we need 7 players, and not lower league rubbish on £10k per week either.
Unless Lerner has a complete change of heart (which I don't see happening) I can't see him investing in the squad sufficiently to get us back up the table to where we belong.
He needs to sell up.

Do you want a Playstation 4 too? Basically, you want a Sugar Daddy who will spend and spend and spend and spend.

Reality is we have a massive debt, third after Chelsea and The Plastics, a poor turnover (10th - less than West Ham, Everton and the Barcodes) and based on the last season, we're paying almost 86% of our turnover on wages. Add to that we have some of the cheapest tickets in the PL, so at some point, whether it be Lerner or a new owner, something has to give.

We've tried the spend and spend and spend and spend and look where we are today. Knackered.

[pauliewalnuts]

Reality is we have a massive debt, third after Chelsea and The Plastics

We don't have any debt.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Reality is we have a massive debt, third after Chelsea and The Plastics

We don't have any debt.

We have a net debt of 189m.

[pauliewalnuts]

Reality is we have a massive debt, third after Chelsea and The Plastics

We don't have any debt.

We have a net debt of 189m.

No we don't.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Reality is we have a massive debt, third after Chelsea and The Plastics

We don't have any debt.

We have a net debt of 189m.

No we don't.

You should tell Randy, I'm sure he'll be delighted.

[pauliewalnuts]

Reality is we have a massive debt, third after Chelsea and The Plastics

We don't have any debt.

We have a net debt of 189m.

No we don't.

You should tell Randy, I'm sure he'll be delighted.

You shouldn't be reading that Guardian article which refers to season 2012-13, and should pay more attention on what's happened since.

Including the writing off of another 90m of debt in February.

[supertom]

If we can't afford to match financial weight with Southampton we may as well give up now. I would imagine too, if we get taken over, any new owner will invest a significant amount to make us competitive again.

Even if Randy stays, we've almost got our house in order again and we'll probably see the back of the remaining big contract players. Lambert will want more money and may walk if he didn't get it. Any new manager worth his salt will readily identify that we'd need to spend at least 30 million. I don't think there's any two ways about it, Randy will have to dip his hands in his pockets again if he's still here.

We shall see.

[Toronto Villa]

Southampton isn't a financial model that I would be following. By all accounts they are in a world of trouble.

[supertom]

Southampton isn't a financial model that I would be following. By all accounts they are in a world of trouble.

That is true. I was merely referring to spending 30 million on transfers in a window. I don't think that should be beyond us.
As it seems to be, it's probably a bit beyond them, combined with all the money they've forked out on new developments.

[pauliewalnuts]

Fundamentally, we are going to have to realise that you can not just hugely cut the wage bill and not expect to suffer on the pitch.

Last summer, we bought yet more untried, relatively cheap players from lower leagues in this country, or low wage leagues in Europe. What we got was a team which looked like it was made up of extremely mediocre players - which is what it was.

Where Lambert went wrong was that he then managed to make it look even worse than you'd expect it to.

So long as they (the upper beings at the club) were scared shitless by this season, then maybe we have a chance of learning something.