It's that time of year again!

[Risso]

Randy put another £10m in during 2011/12 so he's now put £133m in as equity and £107m as loans which aren't repayable until at least the end of 2021.

On top of that, there's £30m owed to the parent undertaking that isn't in the form of loan notes.  I assume this is just cash paid over to keep things going in the short run.  It's in the creditors due in less than one year total.  All of the loan notes are due in more than one year.

[Ad@m]

Randy put another £10m in during 2011/12 so he's now put £133m in as equity and £107m as loans which aren't repayable until at least the end of 2021.

On top of that, there's £30m owed to the parent undertaking that isn't in the form of loan notes.  I assume this is just cash paid over to keep things going in the short run.  It's in the creditors due in less than one year total.  All of the loan notes are due in more than one year.

Fair enough - I was rushing my review over lunchtime!!

[Ad@m]

Deary me, Villadroid - you don't half write some shite!

But surely if we are going to assess the financial performance of the club we can't consider our personal estimation of the owner's future behaviour as due diligence?

It's not really a personal estimation.  He sent a statement to all season ticket holders either the start of this season or last where he said he had ambitions for the club to be successful on the pitch whilst being self-financing off it.

The fact that the debt appears in the accounts and that the owner decided to waive his interest payments does not mean that that debt is not a threat to the business's future, especially if its income falls and the interest swallows up an ever-increasing proportion of the club's income.

No-one said it was but you said Randy could 'continue to take millions a year out of the club in interest'.  How can he 'continue' to do this when he hasn't taken a single penny out of the club in interest since he arrived?

I don't think Lerner's motives are clear at all.

He has put the club's status and future prospects in peril by pushing through his cuts over an unrealistic timetable.

He has stuck to that plan through endless failure and gives the impression that his priorities are overwhelmingly financial.

Any other interpretation is just denial and wishful-thinking.

Cuts over an unrealistic timetable?  There's no fire sale going on here.  When silly offers come in for players we're selling them and when contracts run out on others we're letting them lapse.  That's a pretty sensible way to deal with the annual deficit isn't it?

Stuck to his plan through 'endless failure'?!  What's this endless failure?  Not winning a trophy?  I don't quite class that as 'endless failure' or 95% of clubs have endured 'endless failure' for most of their histories.

We do not know what he thinks because he has never taken the trouble to actually tell us.

The only thing we know is that he radically changed his mind and there is nothing to say he won't do the same in the future.

We do know what he thinks - he told us before.

And yes, he has radically changed his mind - in a perfectly rational way.  The MON approach wasn't working.  That's why we didn't finish any higher than 6th.  What was meant to happen in that situation?  Carry on throwing ever larger cheques at it until he was bankrupt as well as the club?  We're going about it a different way now but unfortunately there's a lot of repair work that's needed before we can start to grow again.

[Risso]

Randy put another £10m in during 2011/12 so he's now put £133m in as equity and £107m as loans which aren't repayable until at least the end of 2021.

On top of that, there's £30m owed to the parent undertaking that isn't in the form of loan notes.  I assume this is just cash paid over to keep things going in the short run.  It's in the creditors due in less than one year total.  All of the loan notes are due in more than one year.

Fair enough - I was rushing my review over lunchtime!!

I wasn't saying you were wrong, as you weren't, and it's easy to miss as they're not really highlighted like the loan notes.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

I don't know about you lot, but all this accounting talk has given me a right chubby on.

[eamonn]

I don't know about you lot, but all this accounting talk has given me a right chubby on.

Haha...I was just about to say. Seeing Adam being so masterful with Villadroid...fucking alluring.

[Greg N'Ash]

So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.

*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*

[itbrvilla]

So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.

*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*

at least we have our new pub...........

[Risso]

So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.

*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*

at least we have our new pub...........

And we're carbon neutral.  They didn't even mention that in the accounts.

[Walmley_Villa]

So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.

*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*

at least we have our new pub...........

And we're carbon neutral.  They didn't even mention that in the accounts.

Not at the end of the last financial year Risso...

[peter w]

So, to put a finer point on it, we've become stung by modern football and can't keep up.

[Villadroid]

Deary me, Villadroid - you don't half write some shite!

But surely if we are going to assess the financial performance of the club we can't consider our personal estimation of the owner's future behaviour as due diligence?

It's not really a personal estimation.  He sent a statement to all season ticket holders either the start of this season or last where he said he had ambitions for the club to be successful on the pitch whilst being self-financing off it.

Exactly so, but just read that carefully; what does he actually say?

It is just typical business vague-speak until you know what he means by "successful".

Success is a relative term and can mean anything you like.

Success this season would be surviving relegation.

Success next season could mean looking likely to qualify for the play-offs.

We don't even know what being self-financing means precisely.

Does it mean making a profit?

Does it mean financing the debts he has burdened the business with?

All we know is that one of his minions probably wrote that paragraph and put his name to it.

These customer-relations messages mean nothing, especially when a company's actions do not match their words.

So, I say that the accounts are interesting in terms of assessing the performance of the management but you'll get no better picture of the club's vision except their intent to offer their customers a lower grade of football product.

The only thing we can tell is that the club is losing income, running at a loss and the customers are not happy.

All signs of poor management and a failing business.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.

*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*

at least we have our new pub...........

There's no sadder site than driving past that and knowing it's only being used to sell club tat.

[Risso]

So, I say that the accounts are interesting in terms of assessing the performance of the management but you'll get no better picture of the club's vision except their intent to offer their customers a lower grade of football product.

The only thing we can tell is that the club is losing income, running at a loss and the customers are not happy.

All signs of poor management and a failing business.

Exactly right on all three points.  Their first strategy in the "five year plan" was to achieve Champions League football, but they went about it entirely in the wrong way, giving virtyually all of the power at the club to one man.

It's telling that as the losses started to rack up, that Krulak was on here and other places saying that the sending and losses were all expected and planned for.

When it became clear that this was in fact not the case, they then went into panic mode, sold all of the saleable assets and basically stopped pretending that we could compete on an even keel with even mid-ranking clubs in the Premier League.

[Villadroid]

So, I say that the accounts are interesting in terms of assessing the performance of the management but you'll get no better picture of the club's vision except their intent to offer their customers a lower grade of football product.

The only thing we can tell is that the club is losing income, running at a loss and the customers are not happy.

All signs of poor management and a failing business.

Exactly right on all three points.  Their first strategy in the "five year plan" was to achieve Champions League football, but they went about it entirely in the wrong way, giving virtyually all of the power at the club to one man.

It's telling that as the losses started to rack up, that Krulak was on here and other places saying that the sending and losses were all expected and planned for.

When it became clear that this was in fact not the case, they then went into panic mode, sold all of the saleable assets and basically stopped pretending that we could compete on an even keel with even mid-ranking clubs in the Premier League.

I can remember reading several quotes from Krulak which stated that the losses were expected and accepted and I regretted I never took a copy, when the fans started to claim that bullyboy O'Neill had stolen Lerner's lunch money.