um pahars

Having been in the same position, I would echo Hacienda's view, in that as tough as it may seem, try and view it as an opportunity to do something. Sometimes we need a kick up the ar5e to go and do something different. Concentrate on getting qualified (maybe you could negotiate that your company pays for a part time course or something for you to continue your studies).

Keep hearing all these snippets, but nothing ever gets confirmed. If he has put money into the Club, then I presume it will appear in the Annual Report (due out soon).

In all fairness to JP, if Rudi really is playing the c nut, then I doubt if any manager could get the best out of him. I have no idea if Rudi is playing games or not, but I think we should hold back from slating JP on this one until we get a clearer picture of who the real villain is.

The increase in players wages (to a level commensurate with what it was under Lowe in the first season down) occurred when Hone & his cohorts had effective control of the day to day running of the Club. Crouch had had no real power from the day Wilde stepped down, when power was effectively handed to the Executives, led by Hone. They were the ones who were in control and decided to let the wage bill increase during that period. The position of the Executives was enforced in the summer with Crouch being removed from the Football Club Board, Hunt stepping down from the PLC board and Oldknow being appointed to it. All this effectively gave Hone a free run of the place. He and his inner circle were taking the decisions that led to the increase in players wages. Someone with a good source has already pointed out that Crouch was against giving Euell such a handsome contract, but Hone pushed it through. In fact, in the early days, when the board was more evenly balanced and Crouch played a role along with Wilde and others, wages actually fell by £3million from when Lowe left office. When Crouch resumed any real control he was limited by what he could do, given it was halfway through a season. Contracts normally run out in the summer (i.e. Claus and others) and the main dealing period is the summer close season. Nonetheless he oversaw the loans of our two highest earners in Skacel & Rasiak, whilst keeping the bank on side. This probably allowed for some flexibility when we hit the rocks on the pitch and allowed us to bring in some very important loans (even if they did cost some money) under Pearson. But the cost of these loans to the Club is small time in comparison to the cost of relegation and the disaster that would have surely followed. Crouch made mistakes, I'm sure even he would admit to that, but blaming him for some poor financial decisions when others had their hand on the tiller is somewhat misguided, a common theme that comes across in many of your posts.

I agree, and would also add that only one home league win in five hasn't really encouraged walk ups. Playing the youngsters might be inspiring to some (including those who appreciate some spirit and some sort of affinity to the Club), but it has also failed to inspire others who don't appear to be impressed by the performances or the results to date. Disloyal, fairweather, scum (not my words), call the the stayaways whatever you like, but the hard nosed fact is that unless we start turning in decent performances and getting results, then we are unlikely to win back a large chunk of our latent support. That's just life and we have to deal with it.

I heard the Derby away performance was on a par with Norwich which gave me hope. One of the Brum games was in the Leaue Cup (which quite frankly is about as important as a friendly!!!). As for the other Brum game I'll take your word on it (although we did lose at home and friends said we looked pretty but not deserving of a win), so we have a decent game rate of 3/10, up 10% on my earlier assessment.

Well, of course you're entitled to your own view, but we have only managed one win out of five at home, and I have managed to see us thumped twice away from home. Whilst some of the football is pretty and quite technical at times, the overall position is that we sit fifth bottom, just above the relegation zone. That's how football is generally judged. You can like the football all you like, I would rather like to have more points on the board (unless the authorities starting awarding bonus points for "sexy football"). But you've missed the point again. This was not a debate about the ten managers in ten seasons and the reasons behind this (been done to death over the years). It was about the lack of tolerance of the fans and how they call for the managers head, whilst also berating the Chairman for going through so many managers. I merely pointed out that sometimes sacking someone is actually the correct decision and that you shouldn't shy away from doing so just because there has been a large number of managers in previous years (although at the same time as sacking that person, you should also review your selection and appointment process for employing such an incompetent person). Espousing a need for stability in the long term, whilst also calling for an out of his depth manager to be dumped are not mutually exclusive, and I see no reason why you have tried to claim they are in this instance.

I honestly don't think that most of these takeover rumours stirred up any real interest outside of this board. Even the Paul Allen [sic] one didn't get people out in the real world talking for long. Yes, it got a mention in The Echo, but it had no legs and was quickly forgotten. Luckily, normal people were spared the Tommacs, LongLife, Barry the Briefcase and their ilk!!!!!!!!!!!!

Charlton also appointed Seymour Pierce a while back, but not sure whether they brokered the current deal or not. However, if you talking about LongLife, Barry the Briefcase and the other comedians, then you definitely have a point.!!!!!!

I've only seen 5 games and that's included two 4-1 defeats, a drab 0-0 affair against one of the relegation candidates, a poor game against Ipswich and finally an outstanding performance against Norwich. A 20% return for me hasn't got me salivating!!!!! Methinks you've somewhat missed the point here. Sometimes the error is in the appointment and the sacking is a sympton of that first glaring error. A case in point would be Wigley (or Gray). Not many people had a problem with Wigley being sacked, the problem they had was with him being appointed and his subsequent performance. I'm not overly sure there is a movement calling for Jan's head, he certainly isn't yet in the world of Wigley, and the next set of games will give a better indication as we progress towards the halfway mark.

Probably for the same reasons why many (including Weston Saint for instance) won't reveal their sources on here. If people don't post their sources up here (and they are well within their rights not to), then your only option is to judge them on how you perceive them in this anonymous, geeky internet world. I wouldn't get too worked up about it.

He'd be better off putting it in the fire beneath the boiler and allowing the undersoil heating to be turned on for the month of January.

He does seem to be indeed (just trying to be somewhat light hearted). I have alot of time for Leon, but being honest, sticking their names up there to replace the equally awful (if not worse) Ex-Directory sign is a tad juvenile. He'd be better off chinning Lowe & Wilde in the Corporate Toilets.

I can't believe there isn't a way to get it to work. For instance we could have come to an agreement with Rudi to pay up half of his remaining two years and then get him to sign a deal with Ipswich for two years on half the money we were paying him, and he'd be none the worse off. Of course, as you say he has to agree to the move, but I understand he just wants away (after being told he could go), but he's not prepared to lose money as a result of walking. Maybe someone can broker a compromise deal at some point (or else he just becomes our own Winston Bogarde!!!).

Didn't we miss a trick on Rudi when Ipswich came knocking????? He must be costing us something like £600,000 for doing nothing. Surely it would have been better to have subbed half of his wages and had him only costing us £300k????? The only downside being one of our rivals gain a decent player (with a poor attitude mind) for an average salary.

Just behind and to the left of them in that ghastly Leon & Lawrie executive box!!!!!!

It wasn't just what he said to dumb old me of course, as he publicly said the following at that Central Hall meeting that you melted from;) "I have worked at clubs where the academy and first-team are separate entities and not integrated at all and those clubs are the poorer for it." "If you put the right effort into recruiting and developing the right players then it can save the club a lot of money on transfer fees." I wouldn't really call that resisting, I would actually call that embracing. If only that business meeting hadn't come up at the last minute. You sure did miss your opportunity to grill Crouch and Pearson hat night:p

I'm afraid he's close to being spot on with his analysis!!!!! Our operating Loss wil be circa £13m on income of £14m (therefore costs were about £27m, of which wages were about £12m). You could argue it will be a loss of £15m by the time you factor in interest costs. The ony reason we have funded this mismatch is by selling players and/or increasing overdrafts (or sorting out other short/medium term financing arrangements). The cashflow will give you a good idea of what really happened behind the scenes and I await with some trepidation what our net debt position will be. But it has been the same from the minute we fell out of the top flight. In our first season down we had a cash deficit on normal trading of £9m!!!!! This would effectively have been circa £16m!!!!! without the parachute payment. IMHO, we're still running at a loss, as I can't see where we have lost £13m-£15m in costs since Lowe & Wilde have come back in. So once again that void will be filled by player sales (and/or other financing e.g. overdrafts, loans renegotiating interest & "mortgage" payments).

You're quite right there Phil and to his credit, Lowe did a good job when we fell out of the Premiership. That summer he played hardball with Liverpool over Crouch and insisted we had no need to sell (along with others during that season). Although this wasn't the truth and some renewing season ticket holders were up in arms, I have to say those little white lies were in the best interests of the Club.

I wouldn't worry too much about this fella. All I needed to know about him was clearly demonstrated when Crouch (and others) laid on that open meeting. As a vociferous and prominent (if not unbalanced and inconsistent) campaigner against all things Crouch, you would have thought this would have been an ideal opportunity to press home his questions, particularly after claiming he wold be more than happy to put them direct to those in charge. But sadly, depsite telling everyone he was going and he would indeed continue with his crusade, he couldn't make it at the last minute as he had been called to a business meeting up north and so would be in Manchester (or somewhere else I can't remember) at that point. You have to qeustion the calibre of someone who is so vociferous in their opposition, but when push comes to shove they can't folow through with their promises. So Mr Sundance, there was no chance of rescheduling such an important business meeting was there?

Your point is spot on, particularly when you look back at what Pearson said not long after he turned up: "I have worked at clubs where the academy and first-team are separate entities and not integrated at all and those clubs are the poorer for it." "If you put the right effort into recruiting and developing the right players then it can save the club a lot of money on transfer fees." Doesn't sound like someone who is against the policy of developing the youth in tandem with the first team, nor someone who was averse to using youth as opposed to buying players.

Happy to put some meat on the bones on this one. I managed to grab a few minutes (a couple of othes were involved as well) with Pearson at that Central Hall meeting towardas the end of the season (you know, the one that Sundance couldn't make as he suddenly had an important business meeting up north!!!!). He was fairly open with the fact that he was aware that next season would see a serious cutbacks on the playing staff and that the youngsters would play a much greater part in the first team.

And what exactly is the financial mess we are now in all about then???? Quite simply (and I'll have to keep it simple for you) it's all down to only having income of £13m-£14m and costs being higher than this. We're still running at an operational loss (even under Lowe) and player sales will have to fill the void. Just as they did in the first season down when we were £9m down on operational cash (£16m before the one off parachute payments). And so they did again the second season down (the third season down under Hone was awful, but that's a seperate story). And if you claimed all those player sales were ****ed up against the wall during the period under Wilde and Hone, then you must also be consistent and call the next batch of player sales as also being ****ed up the wall again (this time by Lowe & Wilde). Additionally, you should also have called all those player sales in the first season down under Lowe as being ****ed up against the wall. So is it only ****ed up against the wall when Wilde or Crouch did it, but when Hone or Lowe did exacly the same thing it's called something entirely different:rolleyes::rolleyes: But consistency of argument is not one of your strengths is it;).

Wilde also said: " "They're also prepared to come on favourable terms financially" and the OS also said: " The move is also in line with the club's limited financial situation. The combined salary of the pair is still less than that of Pearson" " Current manager Nigel Pearson will not have his contract renewed when it expires next month with PLC chairman Rupert Lowe admitting that finances played a part in the decision." Additionally all the stories in The Echo (who now have a smoochy, smoochy tie up with the Club) were running the Golden Duo [sic] were cheaper than Pearson. And although many can see through the bullshiyyt and spin, sadly there are many on here who bought it, as you only have to look at the number of posters who still believe all this and genuinely believe we couldn't afford Pearson (with regards his own salary). PS As mentioned by Arizona, why was it an impossibility that Pearson couldn't have operated in the same financial straightjacket as the Golden Duo [sic]??? Why couldn't he have introduced more of the youngsters???

You've just made a huge leap there to assume that because I'm not overly flattered by being out of the relegation battle to Div 3, that I also think we have a divine right to be in the top flight. Great logic fella:rolleyes::rolleyes: