NSWE Investment

[kippaxvilla2]

Was that when he said there was more than one measurement of success and cited shirt sales being up despite is being marooned at the bottom of the table?

[Damo70]

I'm not asking much, but I'd like Messi, please. Even if only for a couple of seasons.

I'm not sure we could accomodate him with SJM, Jack, Trez, El Ghazi, Sansom, Traore and Barkley in the side 

[Simon Page]

Tom Fox = Peter Principle.

[eamonn]

Tom Fox invented fake news while at Villa. That has more cultural currency than moving on Ashley Westwood, Helenius and Tonev for better players.

[LeeB]

Lerner's biggest failing wasn't to do with not putting enough money in, certainly not in the early days. It was that, having put said money in, he utterly failed at any point to build up a decent management team to get the most out of his investment.

Even the Man City owners, who are way, way richer, made a point of doing that.

Lerner by comparison put in General Krulak, who had no experience in the game, and then Faulkner, who was someone who ran credit card call centres for him. Even when he finally did appoint someone with a football background, it was Tom Fox, who combined said background with being a fucking idiot.

When you run a company like that, it's going to drift big-time. Relegation was pretty much inevitable on the basis of the previous 5 seasons. I was surprised it took so long, if anything.

Yes, crazy way to go about things. He started off with the right ideas I think, when he brought blokes like that Kain in, but then very quickly decided life would be easier with his mates around him so just relied on Krulak and Faulkner instead. They were undoubtedly well-intentioned, just completely unqualified for the job at hand.

Tom Fox though, I don't even know where to start with him. He was the boardroom equivalent of Ross McCormack. You look at his record and think he should do a decent job, but he was an utter, utter disaster at every single facet of the job. I can't think of a single thing he got right, and in fact just about everything the bloke said or did was an absolute shitshow.

That is such a false narrative.

lol.

[BC Villain]

Lerner's biggest failing wasn't to do with not putting enough money in, certainly not in the early days. It was that, having put said money in, he utterly failed at any point to build up a decent management team to get the most out of his investment.

Even the Man City owners, who are way, way richer, made a point of doing that.

Lerner by comparison put in General Krulak, who had no experience in the game, and then Faulkner, who was someone who ran credit card call centres for him. Even when he finally did appoint someone with a football background, it was Tom Fox, who combined said background with being a fucking idiot.

When you run a company like that, it's going to drift big-time. Relegation was pretty much inevitable on the basis of the previous 5 seasons. I was surprised it took so long, if anything.

Lerner had everyone telling him that he had the greatest manager to walk the face of the earth, so just kept handing the cash out.  He was then exposed when said manager had a tantrum and took his ball home with him.

[Dante Lavelli]

Lerner's biggest failing wasn't to do with not putting enough money in, certainly not in the early days. It was that, having put said money in, he utterly failed at any point to build up a decent management team to get the most out of his investment.

Even the Man City owners, who are way, way richer, made a point of doing that.

Lerner by comparison put in General Krulak, who had no experience in the game, and then Faulkner, who was someone who ran credit card call centres for him. Even when he finally did appoint someone with a football background, it was Tom Fox, who combined said background with being a fucking idiot.

When you run a company like that, it's going to drift big-time. Relegation was pretty much inevitable on the basis of the previous 5 seasons. I was surprised it took so long, if anything.

Lerner had everyone telling him that he had the greatest manager to walk the face of the earth, so just kept handing the cash out.  He was then exposed when said manager had a tantrum and took his ball home with him.

Did anyone watch that Sunderland documentary?  I imagine that the Randy years were similar to the Short years, no meaningful targets set for each department and all problems were (initially) solved by signing a cheque to the point where there was no accountability.  It is not surprising that this culture produced Gabby. 

[The Edge]

Lerner's biggest failing wasn't to do with not putting enough money in, certainly not in the early days. It was that, having put said money in, he utterly failed at any point to build up a decent management team to get the most out of his investment.

Even the Man City owners, who are way, way richer, made a point of doing that.

Lerner by comparison put in General Krulak, who had no experience in the game, and then Faulkner, who was someone who ran credit card call centres for him. Even when he finally did appoint someone with a football background, it was Tom Fox, who combined said background with being a fucking idiot.

When you run a company like that, it's going to drift big-time. Relegation was pretty much inevitable on the basis of the previous 5 seasons. I was surprised it took so long, if anything.

Lerner had everyone telling him that he had the greatest manager to walk the face of the earth, so just kept handing the cash out.  He was then exposed when said manager had a tantrum and took his ball home with him.

Did anyone watch that Sunderland documentary?  I imagine that the Randy years were similar to the Short years, no meaningful targets set for each department and all problems were (initially) solved by signing a cheque to the point where there was no accountability.  It’d no wonder this culture manifested Gabby.

I watched it. It's amazing how far they have slipped. They are a really big club and it should serve as a lesson to many similar clubs. We had our sliding doors moment under the shambolic stewardship of TonyX and it could so easily have been us in Sunderlands situation. We absolutely dodged a proverbial bullet when we lost to Fulham

[Ad@m]

Only six teams in world football have spent more than us in the past five years! We've spent more than Milan, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich!

https://www.footballtransfers.com/2021/02/man-utd-and-man-city-combine-for-a-net-transfer-spend-of-e1-2bn-since-2016

Our owners really are taking this seriously!

[cdbearsfan]

Figures for past two seasons sorted by negative balance...

[Mellin]

Look a brave little shoestring Sheffield in 8th above Barca, Bayern and Madrid. Fucked it.

[SheffieldVillain]

Figures for past two seasons sorted by negative balance...

Most of this of course is ace having rich owners.

However, the 41 players out for a grand total of £5m income is absolutely shocking and says everything about the absolute mess of a squad the previous regime left us with.

[cdbearsfan]

I'd imagine quite a lot of them are kids or the old guard, who played their part in getting us promoted but it was best for both parties that they left.

And I'd rather that than we had shitloads in income because we had sold Grealish and our other stars.

[paul_e]

That's why I'm so critical of Bruce, the only significant asset he left us with (of his signings) is McGinn. Smith has done things so much better because we're probably looking at a squad value of about half a billion now considering Watkins, Jack, Luiz and Konsa would get us about halfway there right now and most of other starters are in the £20-40m bracket.

Being top of that chart is probably something our owners hate but it was always going to be something that happened for a few years before the academy started paying off and we started selling off players that are in demand. I suspect the long term plan is to have a net loss on transfers of no more than about £20m a season they've spoke about the club being sustainable a lot and if you look on that list clubs like Dortmund are probably the closest to how I think they want to go.

[SheffieldVillain]

Undoubtedly best that most of the 41 left, and of course I wouldn't have wanted to have income from selling our top stars.

That was rather my point - that we were left with a horrible squad - of kids who weren't going to make it so needed to go or the old guard for whom it was best that they left. The money wasted on a number of that 41 is just incredible.

Only Taylor, McGinn, Grealish, AEH and Davis left now (plus Steer who was out on loan) from Bruce's squad? Next season more than likely just Jack and McGinn. What an incredible turnaround.

To be fair, £230m on basically an entire squad, of the quality they've managed, is really good going.