To What End?

[Ad@m]

Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?

Exactly. 5 years ago. Things change quickly in football and we could just as easily be back in that position in 5 years time.

Only if we spend a lot of money, unfortunately. Certainly more than our spending levels of late, anyway.

Not necessarily. Spurs didn't spend a lot of money on Bale. Everton didn't spend a lot of money on Baines. Newcastle didn't spend a lot of money on Cabaye.

[pauliewalnuts]

Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?

Exactly. 5 years ago. Things change quickly in football and we could just as easily be back in that position in 5 years time.

Only if we spend a lot of money, unfortunately. Certainly more than our spending levels of late, anyway.

Not necessarily. Spurs didn't spend a lot of money on Bale. Everton didn't spend a lot of money on Baines. Newcastle didn't spend a lot of money on Cabaye.

Spurs spent £7m on Bale 7 years ago, a sum which we'd consider at the upper level of our spending now. 

I also said several players other teams would covet, as an indicator of squad strength, rather than just one player. It's about squad strength, and at the moment, ours is very poor. Buying pricey players is no guarantee of success, because it's about more than just acquiring players, but not buying good players pretty much guarantees you won't have success.

Everton aren't doing well because they've got Baines. They're doing well because they've got a strong squad. Ditto Spurs. We've got a poor squad, and are doing pretty mediocrely.

[pauliewalnuts]

On, and a good manager, obviously.

[Ad@m]

But those teams don't have particularly high net spends, are doing better than us, and have players the rich boys covet.

I'm just saying that a lot can happen in 5 years and not only if we spend a fortune.

[pauliewalnuts]

I didn't say we needed to spend a fortune, but we do need to spend more than we do now, and we need to start shopping for players from a level above what we already have. That's what we should have done last summer, but didn't

Unless we're going to be amazing spotters of talent, that route is never going to pay off sufficiently.  Why, if that's the way we are going, should we expect to do any better than the likes of, say, West Ham, Fulham, Stoke? What makes us any different?

We don't just have to match Spurs or Everton, we have to out perform them, as we're relatively established as a lower end of table side at the moment. They're miles away from us. We need to catch them up. There's no way of doing that without spending a decent amount of money.

[Mortimer4England]

People are hard on Lerner in my opinion and where is the multi billionaire owner going to magically appear from.

Go to matches, cheer on the team

[Dave Clark Five]

But those teams don't have particularly high net spends, are doing better than us, and have players the rich boys covet.

I'm just saying that a lot can happen in 5 years and not only if we spend a fortune.

Where is year zero in this 5 year period?

[Chris Smith]

Everton aren't doing well because they've got Baines. They're doing well because they've got a strong squad. Ditto Spurs. We've got a poor squad, and are doing pretty mediocrely.

A poor squad that, the table tells us, only 9 clubs have outperformed over the course of this season. Either you're wrong or you are going to run out of words to describe all of those below us.

On a more serious note I think the truth is that we've done ok, we are far more resilient than last season for example, but need to add a little more flair going forward to progress further. There is the basis of a good squad and this summer is going to be the acid test for the ambition of the club.

[Dave Clark Five]

People are hard on Lerner in my opinion and where is the multi billionaire owner going to magically appear from.

Go to matches, cheer on the team

We do as you instruct with regard to supporting the tram. Now, assuming there is no rich man coming in for us, why do you say that people are hard on Lerner? Can we not expect the owner of our club to show his face occasionally and demonstrate some leadership when time are hard, as the have been this season?

[Jimbo]

People are hard on Lerner in my opinion and where is the multi billionaire owner going to magically appear from.

Go to matches, cheer on the team

Because no multi-billionaire has ever bought a Premier League football club before.

[brian green]

Our position in the table gives a totally false sense of security.  Due to the executive policy of recouping wasted money we are at this moment, I repeat that, at this moment an under capitalized business.

I accept fully that the buying of players in the January window is an expensive and risky business.   However, such has become the gulf between the Championship and the Premiership and so financially destructive has relegation become, every club which wishes to retain its premiership status must have in place a fully funded contingency plan to strengthen in January if relegation becomes a possibility.   It is a no brainer.

Lifeboats on an ocean liner cost money and take up expensive space the ship owner could put to more profitable use until the icebergs appear on the horizon.

For reasons I cannot understand our owner, board and manager like to work without a safety net.   That is why I started this thread.

[Jimbo]

It's almost as if the board think, oh well, if we go down, we go down, c'est la vie. We can get the rest of our high earners off the wage bill and come back up in a blaze of glory, just like in Children Of The Revolution, and then win the European Cup. 

[fredm]

Perhaps they are just more risk averse than the majority of posters on here.

[Chris Smith]

Although relegation is a possibility, the contrivance of circumstances to bring it about seem pretty far fetched to me. It would require 8 sides all to consistently out perform us between now and the end of the season, which when you consider how many of those games are going to be against each other or against the teams at the top it is possible but not probable. Therefore, in my view, waiting to get the right players rather than making do for the sake of numbers is not a huge risk.

[Dr Butler]

all this talk about Lerner not coming to games seems a bit strange to me, when only the other day the Liverpool owner saw his first game for ages and I bet the lot that own Man Ci££y don't go every week either and Abramovich just looks fucking bored shitless at Chelsea games.

I am hoping for a good investment in 3/4 quality players this summer

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