No smoke without fire: Lerner will sell, if the right offer is made

[LeeB]

Risso, would you be happy to see us keep hold of our so called 'best' players even though they obviously didn't want to play for us? Could you trust those players to give 100% to the club?
As far as I'm concerned our 'best' players are those that want to play for AVFC come what may.
As for massive debt. Our debts are minuscule compared to a lot of PL clubs.... especially compared to those clubs that some on here want us to emulate. Despite all the assurances from the PL and elsewhere, I believe that there are one or two Leeds Uniteds lurking in the background.
As for Alex McLeish, like I said in my post (and in other threads) Mr. Saunders was given time, and I believe that if AM is given the same sort of latitude he will come up with the goods.

Our debt is huge compared to our turnover.  Who is it that you think is going to do a Leeds?

Rangers if their court case goes against them.

The rags, fingers crossed.

[Risso]

I don't think that the Scottish Premier league is what he meant.

[pauliewalnuts]

Is it even possible to build something from the ground up without also investing huge amounts of money?

You end up with decent players like Milner, Downing, Young, and they fuck off to CL clubs because you haven't done it all in the space of a couple of years.

Greed and money renders it impossible, unfortunately.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

If making huge losses, selling our best players and appointing the likes of Houllier and McLeish is "building" something then I don't want to see the finished product.

Just out of interest, Risso, as a financial wizard, what would you have done differently?

[Risso]

If making huge losses, selling our best players and appointing the likes of Houllier and McLeish is "building" something then I don't want to see the finished product.

Just out of interest, Risso, as a financial wizard, what would you have done differently?

I think the biggest mistake Lerner has madewas just letting O'Neill spend whatever he liked.  It appears now that their working relationship such as it was consisted of O'Neill being given free rein, then with Lerner belatedly realising how utterly fucking stupid some of the decisions being made were, an attempt at bringing things back into line was met with a flounce and a resignation.  Lerner must have known roughly how much he had earmarked to spend on transfers on wages, so while I wouldn't expect him to have in depth knowledge of the transfer market, surely even he should have carefully considered the wisdom of paying a 31 year old non-scoring centre forward £65k a week on a three year contract.  Say Lerner has spent £130m on wages and transfers since joining, Emile Heskey will have accounted for 10% of that.  Absolute insanity.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

If making huge losses, selling our best players and appointing the likes of Houllier and McLeish is "building" something then I don't want to see the finished product.

Just out of interest, Risso, as a financial wizard, what would you have done differently?

I think the biggest mistake Lerner has madewas just letting O'Neill spend whatever he liked.  It appears now that their working relationship such as it was consisted of O'Neill being given free rein, then with Lerner belatedly realising how utterly fucking stupid some of the decisions being made were, an attempt at bringing things back into line was met with a flounce and a resignation.  Lerner must have known roughly how much he had earmarked to spend on transfers on wages, so while I wouldn't expect him to have in depth knowledge of the transfer market, surely even he should have carefully considered the wisdom of paying a 31 year old non-scoring centre forward £65k a week on a three year contract.  Say Lerner has spent £130m on wages and transfers since joining, Emile Heskey will have accounted for 10% of that.  Absolute insanity.

You can't blame Lerner for not supporting his manager. How many managers would buy players and refuse to play them? Once he realised so many players were on huge salaries, long contracts and doing next to nothing, he obviously stepped in. How many managers think they are accountable to nobody? I'm sure Randy was hearing great things about our youth players but we may as well of not bothered with an Academy if the players are not to be used. Imagine how he feels about Cahill being linked all summer with Arsenal, now Barca and watching him play for England. Add to that the poor return on investment, players either leaving for a fraction of what we paid for them or seating out their contracts and leaving for nothing. I'm not even going to mention the dull football served up from the 1970's.

So as a finance chap, what would you do? Keep pumping money (debt) into the club? Could he try and increase revenue, if so how?

[Risso]

There just doesn't seem to have been any sort of budgeting or control of cash going out.  To make £40m losses two years running is just extraordinary.  Surely the alarm bells should have started ringing when having spent a fortune on the likes of Davies and Cuellar, Randy was then asked to stump up for an entirely new defence 12 months later.

[dave.woodhall]

And when the brakes were finally put on, the manager walked. 

[Risso]

And when the brakes were finally put on, the manager walked. 

That's what I said above.  As I say, the alarm bells should have been ringing long before we got to that stage.  The £10m wasted on Harewood would have had me keeping an extremely close eye on O'Neill from that point on.  The trouble probably stems from the fact that O'Neill was appointed in a hurry with a level of input from Lerner that's open to debate, before he knew anything at all about English football.

[dave.woodhall]

Much as I loathe him, I would hardly say appointing O'Neill was a mistake.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

There just doesn't seem to have been any sort of budgeting or control of cash going out.  To make £40m losses two years running is just extraordinary.  Surely the alarm bells should have started ringing when having spent a fortune on the likes of Davies and Cuellar, Randy was then asked to stump up for an entirely new defence 12 months later.

So true but I get the impression the alarm bells were sounding after we bought the new defence, just look at the January window for evidence. It could be argued that Carlos was shipped out to right back to justify the investment, obviously nobody could count on the injuries to Fred and Laursen, so they had to be replaced but for me, it's the lack of an experienced footballing man on the board that concerns me more about Randy's management.

I think his hands are tied regarding increasing the revenue. Ticket prices can't go up without an uproar and despite improving our commercial revenue, it's limited due to the demographics of our fan base, at least whilst we're let's say, erm, not very exciting to watch. There is no easy solution and I'd imagine you would be one of the first in line to shout out he needs to reduce our debt.

Unless of course you have a cunning plan?

[Chris Smith]

There just doesn't seem to have been any sort of budgeting or control of cash going out.  To make £40m losses two years running is just extraordinary.  Surely the alarm bells should have started ringing when having spent a fortune on the likes of Davies and Cuellar, Randy was then asked to stump up for an entirely new defence 12 months later.

It was obviously a calculated gamble on us making the CL and the increased revenue that would bring. The problem was a combination of Man City inflating the market and the recession changed the landscape. It's easy to say with hindsight that it was wrong but I don't remember too many people demanding he spend less.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

And when the brakes were finally put on, the manager walked. 

That's what I said above.  As I say, the alarm bells should have been ringing long before we got to that stage.  The £10m wasted on Harewood would have had me keeping an extremely close eye on O'Neill from that point on. 

If you can name me one manager that has never bought a dud, I'll agree with you on that one. Unless you're Chelsea or Man City, every club has to play the law of averages regarding transfers.

[The Laughing Policeman]

Risso, would you be happy to see us keep hold of our so called 'best' players even though they obviously didn't want to play for us? Could you trust those players to give 100% to the club?
As far as I'm concerned our 'best' players are those that want to play for AVFC come what may.
As for massive debt. Our debts are minuscule compared to a lot of PL clubs.... especially compared to those clubs that some on here want us to emulate. Despite all the assurances from the PL and elsewhere, I believe that there are one or two Leeds Uniteds lurking in the background.
As for Alex McLeish, like I said in my post (and in other threads) Mr. Saunders was given time, and I believe that if AM is given the same sort of latitude he will come up with the goods.

Our debt is huge compared to our turnover.  Who is it that you think is going to do a Leeds?
I can't give you any of the so called top four,five or six. But the likes of QPR who seem to be spending a lot of money on fairly average players in their scramble for a premier league place seems to me to be misguided. And once Daniel Levy realises that in spite of his admirable stance on keeping his best players  despite the silly money offered was a waste of time, I can see Spurs sinking like a stone.
But there again like everyone else on here I'm a football fan.....and what do we know? 

[KevinGage]

And when the brakes were finally put on, the manager walked. 

That's what I said above.  As I say, the alarm bells should have been ringing long before we got to that stage.  The £10m wasted on Harewood would have had me keeping an extremely close eye on O'Neill from that point on.  The trouble probably stems from the fact that O'Neill was appointed in a hurry with a level of input from Lerner that's open to debate, before he knew anything at all about English football.

Trouble is, we don't know what type of conversations occurred before the purchases of Warnock, Dunne and Collins -whether this was agreed to on the understanding that we'd gone over budget and that players would have to be moved on.

I'd still like to think RL knew he was taking a calculated gamble at this point, that going over budget and backing a highly rated manager (at that time) was better than putting his nose out of joint and effectively having to start the project again from scratch. Lets not forget MON's stock was still very high that stage.  We'd spent the bulk of the previous season in the top 4. And the latter option would still involve spending money anyway- so better, they might have reasoned to let MON finish the job he started.

As for the deals that didn't work out, we all know the worst ones.  Harewood, Heskey and Beye will still be figures of fun in 10 years I'd wager.

But on balance I would say MON's transfer dealings were more hit than miss- perhaps not strictly on a numbers basis, but on the contribution his best deals made for the money spent.  It would also disappoint me if the board were to use the convenient excuse of a number of failed transfers in the past as reason enough to pull the drawbridge up and stop competing for the foreseeable.

Liverpool had the likes of Jovanovic, Kochensky and Poulson on big wages for very little return.  They didn't use being stung on those deals as a reason not to compete anymore.