EdgarAllanPoe

The problem here is this; if there is no buyer and an administrator is appointed his first job will be to provide the best terms for the creditors. The football club doesn't own the stadium. With the holding company in administration and the creditors up in arms, the administrator owns the stadium. How likely is the administrator to allow the football club free use of the stadium? Where would the football club get the money to pay the players? Who owns the players registrations? If it is the football club, the parent compay has no obligation to pay them. If it doesn't, then all registrations revert to the league. If there is no new owner on the horizon the administrator would be duty bound to seize all gate receipts for each game for the creditors leaving nothing to pay the players.

The opening goal and sending off lost the game. However good the football is for the rest of the game it is already lost at that point. It's all powder-puff. Playing pretty football in front of teams without a cutting edge, and then trying to defend with kids out of position. Without outside investment this season ends only one way.

No, I based it on the figure given in the trading statement which said a pre tax loss of £5m despite taking into account £12m profit on player trading. As for your view of gate receipts, I said that gates were very likely to diminish going forward. I appreciate these are hard things to accept for some people but denial is not a great strategy. Try this; Fact: Gates are going down from what they were two years ago and likely to go down still further. Fact: income from player sales is radically down Fact: parachute payments are gone Fact: several players are still on the clubs payroll that the club is desperate to see the back of. Opinion: the team have probably played as well as they are going to play this season already and it is all downhill from here If you draw a graph with all that data on where does it go?

the last set of results showed a multi million pound pre tax loss even after making £12m profit on player sales during the period. The corners are close, that has saved £250k, so bound to be alright now then:( The club avoided administration last season by getting in those payments early. The point I was trying to make was that you can't do that again, and the business plan would certainly have included sales of higher earners and their replacement by young players with a potential resale value. Even clinging on to mid-table would probably see those young players become valuable assets. However, sales haven't been what was expected, gates are probably not going to be what was expected and mid-table looks a long way off post-Blackpool.

:weedman: Last season the club gave Spurs and Arsenal big discounts on future payments for Bale and Walcott. So you think they took a bath on millions of revenue in order to get cash in the door immediately, but this was not to stave off the threat of administration? For what other reason could it possibly have been? BTW, if you read the rest of the thread you will see the answer to the Schneiderlin point. Firstly the team has to try and stay up, this is all part of keeping the business going. Secondly, the company only survived last season by the aforementioned payments AND because it made £12m profit on transfer dealings. Schneiderlin was bought with a view to a quick couple of million profit in the January window. If you want facts, read the accounts. Honestly I struggle with people like you. You really think that without the extra few million last season the club would have survived administration? When one of the BOARD was saying that the losses were £1m a month?

I didn't say it was a bad idea. I said it was robbing Peter to pay Paul, which is a desperation measure, but one that they felt they had to take to avoid administration. But in whose interest was it? Ours? The shareholders? The board? If a club goes into administration it is provided with protection from it's creditors. The last board were not interested in taking the necessary measures now being taken, they were interested in protecting the many highly paid jobs of board members. Their strategy was to keep the balls in the air long enough to attract investment and hope to cling on or get severance packages from the new board. So they negotiated away future revenue in order to sustain the company short term without taking the necessary cost-cutting measures now being taken. Net result, that money has been ****ed away on nothing. Now we have a board who are governing the company exactly as it should be governed according to PLC rules, in the interests of the shareholders. If the company goes into administration the shareholders lose everything. So they are trying to keep the balls in the air long enough to attract investment. If they don't attract investment, and every sign says they are failing to do so despite the sales pitch, the point I am making is that administration becomes more inevitable with every sub-break even date and every week the business plan is not fulfilled. As for the posts about 'what was the business plan' obviously no-one knows this, but whatever the plan was it included assumptions and projections. It absolutely did not say 'the bank will continue to support the club when gates drop to 13,000, the team is bottom of the league and the high earners cannot be shifted. It was a reasonable assumption that certain players could be moved on back when the business plan was agreed with the bank in the summer. But that has not happened. Which is why the title of this thread is deeply apposite. Gates may well not be what was assumed and players have not been sold that all parties might reasonably have expected to have moved on. Banks have to work with assumptions like everyone else, and have to balance the need to get the team doing something to keep the punters coming in, (Schneiderlin, Holmes and the new direction), and the need to show a projected return to profitability. Banks agree plans with business all the time and many of them enter administration within weeks or months. Remember that banks also have a duty of care to their customers must show they have acted reasonably when calling in administrators. They have been forced to pay compensation to people for acting unreasonably in this way before, and with something as public as a football club they will do a lot to avoid it. Only when it has become obvious to everyone will they take the step. I would project that as being some time in October or November.

I didn't say it was a bad idea. I said it was robbing Peter to pay Paul, which is a desperation measure, but one that they felt they had to take to avoid administration. But in whose interest was it? Ours? The shareholders? The board? If a club goes into administration it is provided with protection from it's creditors. The last board were not interested in taking the necessary measures now being taken, they were interested in protecting the many highly paid jobs of board members. Their strategy was to keep the balls in the air long enough to attract investment and hope to cling on or get severance packages from the new board. So they negotiated away future revenue in order to sustain the company short term without taking the necessary cost-cutting measures now being taken. Net result, that money has been ****ed away on nothing. Now we have a board who are governing the company exactly as it should be governed according to PLC rules, in the interests of the shareholders. If the company goes into administration the shareholders lose everything. So they are trying to keep the balls in the air long enough to attract investment. If they don't attract investment, and every sign says they are failing to do so despite the sales pitch, the point I am making is that administration becomes more inevitable with every sub-break even date and every week the business plan is not fulfilled. As for the posts about 'what was the business plan' obviously no-one knows this, but whatever the plan was it included assumptions and projections. It absolutely did not say 'the bank will continue to support the club when gates drop to 13,000, the team is bottom of the league and the high earners cannot be shifted. It was a reasonable assumption that certain players could be moved on back when the business plan was agreed with the bank in the summer. But that has not happened. Which is why the title of this thread is deeply apposite. Gates may well not be what was assumed and players have not been sold that all parties might reasonably have expected to have moved on. Banks have to work with assumptions like everyone else, and have to balance the need to get the team doing something to keep the punters coming in, (Schneiderlin, Holmes and the new direction), and the need to show a projected return to profitability. Banks agree plans with business all the time and many of them enter administration within weeks or months. Remember that banks also have a duty of care to their customers must show they have acted reasonably when calling in administrators. They have been forced to pay compensation to people for acting unreasonably in this way before, and with something as public as a football club they will do a lot to avoid it. Only when it has become obvious to everyone will they take the step. I would project that as being some time in October or November.

If you had managed to struggle down to the next sentence you would have seen it. Administration was staved off by taking much reduced payments on outstanding transfers, a policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is factual, we know it happened because it is in the accounts. Look it up. Are you saying that avoiding administration would have been possible without those millions? I would like some of what you are smoking if so. The company was on a collision course with administration exactly as I said, at a time when people were in absolute denial, a place many people remain.

The club agreed with the bank a plan. That called for expensive players to be sold and cheap ones with a possible resale value to be signed. Basically, allowing the club to operate as a business, remain competitive and therefore be a going concern that could potentially attract investment. The bank eventually wants it's money back and it's two concerns are to stop the club digging the hole they are in any deeper whilst not completely decimating the business. Targets will be set for the business plan. We've heard that the plan calls for £4m in sales, and I believe that story ran in the Echo many times without challenge. We've also heard that the club must break even on operating expenses which calls for 20,000 gates. (This would mean no operating loss, not real profitability or break even, just breaking even before tax and other expenses like outstanding installments on transfer fees). Now the concern has to be that sales were not achieved. The club clearly sidelined a few players to make it absolutely clear they were going to attract interest and deny the players valuable appearance payments, thereby reducing their wages and forcing them to think again about any offers. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Also, the promising performances of a zestful young team to date are petering out into the inevitable conclusion, loss of confidence, loss of form, lack of strength to actually force results. It's easy to play good football on a big pitch against a good team who like to play in August. Its another to beat them. Its still another to beat teams like Blackpool, who had two good goals ruled out whilst dominating the match. There is a looming crisis. It's not said for the joy of it obviously, it needs to be said because its true. We might see a few more promising performances for the team over the next few weeks but this only goes one way eventually, both financially and results wise.

those players will be lucky to be earning £1,000pw. 18 year olds at Strasbourg are on apprentice money. Pulis has been toted round every club by his dad, he has hardly played a game for any of them, and as for first team games....... Same with the spurs kid, he is a first year pro, very lucky to be earning £1,000pw. The club needs to fill a team sheet and these are absolutely the cheapest bodies around to do it. The club needed to raise £4m in player sales by the end of the window and reducce the wage bill substantially. That hasn't happened. The loan window might provide limited relief but then there are the declining attendances. Last season I said the objective was to finish 10 points ahead of relegation as administration was all but inevitable and preperations were being made and got dogs abuse. It turned out that only a policy of total desperation, taking much reduced payments on outstanding transfers staved it off. That trick can no longer be pulled. The heavy losses are still there and now there are apparently not even enough sales left in the locker to meet the requirements of the business plan, which I understood to be £4m in revenue by yesterday, substantial reduction of the wage bill and 20,000 gates. Much more of this and there can only be one outcome. This team is going to tank in the league, even if it holds up in the short term on confidence and adrenaline there is an impossibly long and bitter winter in prospect. If the club finishes the season in this division and solvent it can only be because of substantial outside investment. Lowe and Wilde are just treading water, trying to avoid drowning while they wait for a man with a lifebelt to turn up. The pr offensive and young player thing is a sales pitch, nothing more and nothing less. If that sales pitch fails then nothing can stop the club going into administration. Ironically, that is the point at which investment becomes more likely because the whole club could be picked up for a song without debt.

You are right. No-one played 4-4-2 until at least the 60's. Probably the most common formation until then was the W formation comprising two wingers flanking a centre forward with two deeper-lying inside forwards. Behind them would be two half backs in front of a centre back and two full backs.