Surely the owner is the main problem?

[Roger]

I agree there’s loads of other problems but, aren’t they the consequences of having an owner who won’t put any money in or hasn’t got any and who isn’t really interested. How many games does he go to? Wolves and villa and Leicester have owners who are much more interested and have invested lots of money. I think kat has a lot to answer for as there is no way the takeover has benefitted club. Surely we need someone to take over club who has ambition.

[DuncanRG]

These things trickle down in all sorts of ways that we can't see. The slide coincides with the ownership change but I don't think the player spending is, in itself, the issue. We've spent quite a bit of money but mostly spent it badly. That's meant spending less in the last couple of windows, which is fair enough in my book. There must be other problems but we don't really know what they are.

[Roger]

These things trickle down in all sorts of ways that we can't see. The slide coincides with the ownership change but I don't think the player spending is, in itself, the issue. We've spent quite a bit of money but mostly spent it badly. That's meant spending less in the last couple of windows, which is fair enough in my book. There must be other problems but we don't really know what they are.

 

Sounds like kat maybe suing gao for not keeping his promises on investment.

[DuncanRG]

That's a rumour. Who knows?

[shurlock]

Roger loves a good rumour.

[Saints foreva]

https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/2017-08-14/katharina-liebherr-letter-to-southampton-football-club-fans

 

Just fed total BS from Kat here.

[doddisalegend]

I don't think it's a great secret plenty of us said the take over stank before it was even completed.

 

 

 

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

[SaintsLoyal]

Players that were needed after others sold are now out on loan because theyre not good enough ! Total disaster

 

A striker, two midfielders and a central defender that alone adds up to around £60 million and then on top of that i bet we're still paying 50% of their wages whilst on loan.

 

So were now still playing the same failed players that are not good enough as reecent seasons have shown.

[jamesfp1]

The players are the problem. Neither the owner, or manager are telling them "we must pass the ball to our opponents", "do not attempt to stop them from scoring".

[Heisenberg]

Money has been spent. It's where and how that's been the problems

 

Why would any owner trust the club with more?

 

We've wasted millions on poor signings

[shurlock]

Goa has basically followed the same strategy as Kat (we’re also no longer net spend champions which was a cert under Kat). The difference is that Kat lucked out -first in having a bumper crop of academy players to sell and second in enjoying a brief spell of fantastic recruitment that many foolishly felt could be repeated ad infinitum.

 

These were always shaky foundations on which to sustain long-term growth, leaving very little margin for error. Some regression to the mean was inevitable. A few transfer duds (that at best couldn’t be recycled for a profit and at worst became a drag on the wage bill) and there would be pressure on the owner to dip into their pocket to ensure sufficient quality on the pitch.

 

Kat knew it and that’s why she got out, preferring to let someone else take on the risk in the name of taking us to the next level. The idea that she somehow stipulated that Goa spend x amount on the playing squad, on the other hand, is for the birds.

Edited 7 October, 2019 by shurlock

[Window Cleaner]

These things trickle down in all sorts of ways that we can't see. The slide coincides with the ownership change but I don't think the player spending is, in itself, the issue. We've spent quite a bit of money but mostly spent it badly. That's meant spending less in the last couple of windows, which is fair enough in my book. There must be other problems but we don't really know what they are.

 

You don't get top class players for the amounts we're spending, thus what we buy isn't good enough. Simple economics really.

[Saint Keith]

its never going to be a great recipe when the owner wants to run it like an investment bank

[OttawaSaint]

We got way too cocky with all the "we breed success" and the black box and spent really poorly. They say a great team starts with a great spine and we don't have that. Indeed, we have players that were supposed to be that spine out on loan and millions wasted. New owner doesn't have a pot to **** in so we can't really spend properly until the mistakes are off the books. What a mess.

[Window Cleaner]

its never going to be a great recipe when the owner wants to run it like an investment bank

 

Well, then he needs to get someone in to make some better investments doesn't he. I mean Elynoussi and Armstrong and all that, it's like calling a tenner on a 200/1 shot in the Derby an investment.

[sadoldgit]

Manchester United, Tottenham and Everton all spend more on players than we do and all 3 clubs have had poor starts. Liverpool bought Lovren from us for a lot of money to improve their defence and look how that worked out. If the formula was simple every club would end up with the same amount of points. We just don’t have the right mix at the moment. We did for four successive years but still there was whinging. It just shows how well we did then and just how difficult it is for a club our size to either step up or maintain our position. There are clubs flying high at the moment that will be fighting relegation in 2 or 3 seasons time. It’s the way things go if you don’t have a bottomless pot of cash to spend.

[Winchester Red]

Manchester United, Tottenham and Everton all spend more on players than we do and all 3 clubs have had poor starts. Liverpool bought Lovren from us for a lot of money to improve their defence and look how that worked out. If the formula was simple every club would end up with the same amount of points. We just don’t have the right mix at the moment. We did for four successive years but still there was whinging. It just shows how well we did then and just how difficult it is for a club our size to either step up or maintain our position. There are clubs flying high at the moment that will be fighting relegation in 2 or 3 seasons time. It’s the way things go if you don’t have a bottomless pot of cash to spend.

 

Man U are sh1t at the moment. Even a bottomless pit doesn’t guarantee anything

 

We’ll have periods of over achieving and periods of under. Just like every other team of our level

 

If there is a obvious problem to me it’s over expectations regardless of how we’re doing

[the saint in winchester]

Sounds like kat maybe suing gao for not keeping his promises on investment.

 

She can't sue him for broken promises unless it's a term in the contract. Maybe worded as "remaining 20% payable on (date)" and he hasn't met the payment date.

She probably told him we were potentially a top 6 club. And we aren't, but he can't sue her unless there's a definite term broken.

[Hodgey]

He’s not the best owner, but not sure we can be overly critical. He’s made available cash we generate and tried to overhaul a failing management team. If you want to be critical then he has made someone endemic in transfer and contract failures the only person left who knows anything about football - with the rest of the new board marketers. That and as far as I can see Ralf has far too much on his plate with no quality advisors and he is losing the plot as a result.

[jam]

She can't sue him for broken promises unless it's a term in the contract. Maybe worded as "remaining 20% payable on (date)" and he hasn't met the payment date.

She probably told him we were potentially a top 6 club. And we aren't, but he can't sue her unless there's a definite term broken.

 

Not that I particularly believe this lawsuit rumour, but I'd assume that there's potential in the contract that 80% was sold with the agreement of certain investment, possibly in lieu of money to KL, in order to safeguard the value of her investment, i.e. the 20% that she's kept hold of.

 

In theory it's the responsibility of the people who run the business to do the right thing by the investors.

[verlaine1979]

Being self-sustaining might win you plaudits for economic discipline, but it's a big impediment if other teams have owners who can chip in when required (don't bring up FFP - it doesn't stop owners making modest annual contributions).

[ecuk268]

Being self-sustaining might win you plaudits for economic discipline, but it's a big impediment if other teams have owners who can chip in when required (don't bring up FFP - it doesn't stop owners making modest annual contributions).

 

Markus intended the club to be self-financing so Gao is not any different.

[davefoggy]

Remember the heady days of the black box? I blame us for falling for all the hype. Getting ahead of ourselves we were

[shurlock]

Remember the heady days of the black box? I blame us for falling for all the hype. Getting ahead of ourselves we were

 

It was absolutely embarrassing. Les Reed grinning away as if he had defied business gravity, that we could consistently beat market and find diamonds in the rough that nobody else was smart enough to find and then sell them at eye-watering prices. It’s the type of bollôcks you hear from snake oil salesmen and fans of Ponzi schemes.

[Heisenberg]

Remember the heady days of the black box? I blame us for falling for all the hype. Getting ahead of ourselves we were

 

It was absolutely embarrassing. Les Reed grinning away as if he had defied business gravity, that we could consistently beat market and find diamonds in the rough that nobody else was smart enough to find and then sell eye-wateringly high. It’s the type of bollôcks you hear from snake oil salesmen and fans of Ponzi schemes.

 

 

Bridge of the Starship Enterprise

[verlaine1979]

Markus intended the club to be self-financing so Gao is not any different.

 

Since it now seems certain that Markus wasn't anywhere close to being a billionaire, he probably couldn't have afforded for the club to be anything other than self-financing once it reached Premier League level. Either way, it's irrelevant - if the club had been treading water like this for the past three years with Markus at the helm, do you think we wouldn't be having these same conversations about investment?

[Dalek2003]

Goa has basically followed the same strategy as Kat (we’re also no longer net spend champions which was a cert under Kat). The difference is that Kat lucked out -first in having a bumper crop of academy players to sell and second in enjoying a brief spell of fantastic recruitment that many foolishly felt could be repeated ad infinitum.

 

These were always shaky foundations on which to sustain long-term growth, leaving very little margin for error. Some regression to the mean was inevitable. A few transfer duds (that at best couldn’t be recycled for a profit and at worst became a drag on the wage bill) and there would be pressure on the owner to dip into their pocket to ensure sufficient quality on the pitch.

 

Kat knew it and that’s why she got out, preferring to let someone else take on the risk in the name of taking us to the next level. The idea that she somehow stipulated that Goa spend x amount on the playing squad, on the other hand, is for the birds.

 

You are correct, but then it is easy to say with hindsight. You weren't saying it 4 or 5 years ago and were only to pleased to condemn me when I predicted exactly our present predicament for the reasons above.

[aintforever]

The owner is part of the problem, we certainly were fed a load of bullish!t from Kat. The other part is the fact that Les Reed made such a mess of player recruitment. Being stuck with overpaid rubbish players is a killer for clubs our size unless you’ve got an owner willing to finance a large turnaround of players. Looks like they just want to do the minimum to survive while the sh!te see out their contracts.

[Convict Colony]

Owner has no money to invest in the squad.

 

Ralph shopping in the "potential" bucket around the leagues of europe.

 

Transfer team have gone to the Del Boy school of selling players when we have needed a wolf of wall street to move our junk.

[StrangelyBrown]

The owner is part of the problem, we certainly were fed a load of bullish!t from Kat. The other part is the fact that Les Reed made such a mess of player recruitment. Being stuck with overpaid rubbish players is a killer for clubs our size unless you’ve got an owner willing to finance a large turnaround of players. Looks like they just want to do the minimum to survive while the sh!te see out their contracts.

 

Completely agree with you for me it's the arrogant approach to recruitment that is at the heart of everything. I don't see why we should expect the owner to spunk his money, he's reinvested what money is there, but we've squandered it on a load of ****e believing our own black box hype and also that our academy is the best in the land.

 

Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk

[Gordon Mockles]

I agree there’s loads of other problems but, aren’t they the consequences of having an owner who won’t put any money in or hasn’t got any and who isn’t really interested. How many games does he go to? Wolves and villa and Leicester have owners who are much more interested and have invested lots of money. I think kat has a lot to answer for as there is no way the takeover has benefitted club. Surely we need someone to take over club who has ambition.

 

Absolutely. Kat has ruined so much good work. Gao is a charlatan and the worst type of owner. Stereotypically, the Chinese like to make money & not spend it which is not a good recipe in an industry which is a billionaire’s playground and you do need to speculate to accumulate despite people often citing sustainability. It’s very difficult to make a sustainable and competitive club in this league, especially with the smaller grounds outside the top 6.

 

Gao has brought nothing to the club other than a media blackout and not even had a mission statement, such is the contempt he seems to hold for the fans. All I see is him using our club for his own benefit, to our detriment, to promote football back home with little interest in our actual city or club. As you say, he’s rarely at matches and never engages with the fan base and hasn’t invested at all. Move on if you can’t help us Gao. We need a conscientious owner, not a parasite, making us weaker at each transfer window.

[John D]

We've only had 2 owners in our history that I know of that invested their own money (other than to buy shares). Crouch and Liebherr. The first was not 10s of millions but was fantastic and saved us. The second was an investment where a clear return was available.

 

So to blame it all on Gao when he is no different to most owners is unreasonable unless he starts taking money out to service his debt or line his pockets.

 

That said I do think he is dodgy as it comes and would love to be shot of him. Sponsorship deal stinks to high heaven and he needs to high a good PR agency to please those fans who need constant soundbites.

[Whitey Grandad]

Does the owner pick the team or coach the players and does he decide which players to buy?

[Maggie May]

Sounds like kat maybe suing gao for not keeping his promises on investment.

 

Highly doubt it.

[Heisenberg]

The only chance big Kat is now getting involved is if SHE is not getting paid.

 

Perhaps he's missed an installment on the £200m he owes her!?

 

I don't think she gives a **** about SFC. After inheriting the club she swiftly cut out Cotese, and then sat back while Les Reed meddled and ultimately ****ed us.

[Gordon Mockles]

Since it now seems certain that Markus wasn't anywhere close to being a billionaire, he probably couldn't have afforded for the club to be anything other than self-financing once it reached Premier League level. Either way, it's irrelevant - if the club had been treading water like this for the past three years with Markus at the helm, do you think we wouldn't be having these same conversations about investment?

 

No. We wouldn’t. His actions more than prove this.

 

On the contrary, I quote San Wallace from the Telegraph : “The owner Gao leaves the club’s executive to run relatively independently with only occasional input on his part. His plan has always been that Saints are self-sustaining and no funds have been invested by the ownership in the operations of the club since they bought their shareholding from Liebherr in August 2017”

 

Almost every report from the club since Gao took over has contradicted itself. Almost every forecast. The club completely and consistently contradicts everything it says. Even this week with the January window back peddle from Ralph said this BUT OF COURSE, they were Ralph’s own words & NOT the club or a script handed to Ralph by the club PR machine. Good god, the Echo articles are tedious. It wasn’t Ralph going against the wishes of the owners who have always been keen to spend *cough*

 

Laughable how they insult our intelligence.

 

For those blaming everything on Kat, I honestly think she thought they had good intentions and they could’ve put the best pledge imaginable. They have clearly proven to be totally full of sh*t but you can’t overly criticise her if she meant well. She couldn’t take us any further. She even had second thoughts and I’ll quote back to 2017:

 

"It is not clear at the moment. The seller is having second thoughts about selling the club," Gao reportedly told Reuters on the sidelines of an event in Beijing. He declined to comment further on the deal.

 

Liebherr remains committed to leading the club forward, but has indicated she is prepared to sell at least a significant stake of her ownership if the price is right, and the investors are able to take Saints forward in a way that she cannot.

 

In a rare statement to fans, issued in January as the Lander talk intensified, she said: "Please understand that I can only make limited comments regarding this process but I can assure you that any steps we do take will be in the best interests of the club. A potential partnership would need to clear multiple approvals and fulfil strict criteria before being confirmed”.

 

It appears Gao and Lander fooled us all. That includes us, Kat Liebherr and the PL approval board.

 

Those deceitful, self-serving ****s!! It offers little consolation but at least the Gao’s investment will be worth much less next year. Words that sting and those I remember most and, understandably, p*ss me off most about Gao are the comments about being the person to take us forward and he would have known his intentions at the time of these interactions. I do not for one minute accept he blindly walked in, not knowing what was being said when you consider the array of misinformation and carrot dangling and intensive social media monitoring which is now evidently in place. Just look at our sponsor and the tech savvy nature of the Chinese. What a waste of 3 years. Longer really. Poor old Markus & Ted.

[SKD]

No. We wouldn’t. His actions more than prove this.

 

On the contrary, I quote San Wallace from the Telegraph : “The owner Gao leaves the club’s executive to run relatively independently with only occasional input on his part. His plan has always been that Saints are self-sustaining and no funds have been invested by the ownership in the operations of the club since they bought their shareholding from Liebherr in August 2017”

 

Almost every report from the club since Gao took over has contradicted itself. Almost every forecast. The club completely and consistently contradicts everything it says. Even this week with the January window back peddle from Ralph said this BUT OF COURSE, they were Ralph’s own words & NOT the club or a script handed to Ralph by the club PR machine. Good god, the Echo articles are tedious. It wasn’t Ralph going against the wishes of the owners who have always been keen to spend *cough*

 

Laughable how they insult our intelligence.

 

For those blaming everything on Kat, I honestly think she thought they had good intentions and they could’ve put the best pledge imaginable. They have clearly proven to be totally full of sh*t but you can’t overly criticise her if she meant well. She couldn’t take us any further. She even had second thoughts and I’ll quote back to 2017:

 

"It is not clear at the moment. The seller is having second thoughts about selling the club," Gao reportedly told Reuters on the sidelines of an event in Beijing. He declined to comment further on the deal.

 

Liebherr remains committed to leading the club forward, but has indicated she is prepared to sell at least a significant stake of her ownership if the price is right, and the investors are able to take Saints forward in a way that she cannot.

 

In a rare statement to fans, issued in January as the Lander talk intensified, she said: "Please understand that I can only make limited comments regarding this process but I can assure you that any steps we do take will be in the best interests of the club. A potential partnership would need to clear multiple approvals and fulfil strict criteria before being confirmed”.

 

It appears Gao and Lander fooled us all. That includes us, Kat Liebherr and the PL approval board.

 

Those deceitful, self-serving ****s!! It offers little consolation but at least the Gao’s investment will be worth much less next year. Words that sting and those I remember most and, understandably, p*ss me off most about Gao are the comments about being the person to take us forward and he would have known his intentions at the time of these interactions. I do not for one minute accept he blindly walked in, not knowing what was being said when you consider the array of misinformation and carrot dangling and intensive social media monitoring which is now evidently in place. Just look at our sponsor and the tech savvy nature of the Chinese. What a waste of 3 years. Longer really. Poor old Markus & Ted.

 

Kat gets an easy ride because of her dad. She doesn’t give two ****s about the club, it was clear from the get go that Gao wouldn’t invest anything in the club... this ‘I’m selling to move the club forward’ is nonsense. Gao was never going to achieve that, it was obvious.

 

The only reason she is getting twitchy is because her shares are rapidly decreasing in value.

 

Her father is a legend, but I wouldn’t **** on her if she was on fire.

[Saint Billy]

Self sustainability is all well and good if you have a squad good enough to achieve that, we don't!. Unless Gao is happy with relegation and seeing his investment lose value he will have to put his hands in his pockets.

 

My take is that he thought he was buying into a club that had a history of nurturing young talent and making shed loads of money, unfortunately he overlooked the word ''had''. Now he owns a club overrun with mediocre players, no young prospects and discontent staff. I think the term he used '' The pig will not be fattened'' translated means. " I do not have a pot to p*ss in". With that being the case he needs to get out and sell the club to someone who does as investment is the only way of halting the downward spiral.

[ALWAYS_SFC]

All this spiteful sh yte about KL is born out of nothing more than "got to lash out at someone" and the language used is often disgusting...

[ALWAYS_SFC]

Self sustainability is all well and good if you have a squad good enough to achieve that, we don't!. Unless Gao is happy with relegation and seeing his investment lose value he will have to put his hands in his pockets.

 

My take is that he thought he was buying into a club that had a history of nurturing young talent and making shed loads of money, unfortunately he overlooked the word ''had''. Now he owns a club overrun with mediocre players, no young prospects and discontent staff. I think the term he used '' The pig will not be fattened'' translated means. " I do not have a pot to p*ss in". With that being the case he needs to get out and sell the club to someone who does as investment is the only way of halting the downward spiral.

 

This however is correct IMO

[sadoldgit]

Kat gets an easy ride because of her dad. She doesn’t give two ****s about the club, it was clear from the get go that Gao wouldn’t invest anything in the club... this ‘I’m selling to move the club forward’ is nonsense. Gao was never going to achieve that, it was obvious.

 

The only reason she is getting twitchy is because her shares are rapidly decreasing in value.

 

Her father is a legend, but I wouldn’t **** on her if she was on fire.

 

Yet we had 4 top ten finishes under her ownership and despite being able to bail out at any time she still keeps a shareholding. Given the abuse she gets from some quarters I wonder why she bothers. None of us knows her or her motives so why just always assume the worst?

[Gordon Mockles]

Yet we had 4 top ten finishes under her ownership and despite being able to bail out at any time she still keeps a shareholding. Given the abuse she gets from some quarters I wonder why she bothers. None of us knows her or her motives so why just always assume the worst?

 

Exactly. I got shot down for making assumptions about the owner & lack of quality in the team that were deemed cynical & I was told this team was top 10 material & heard the most tedious bizarre defences for Gao from the club accountant experts but my doubt is proving more accurate than their criticisms of me and now look. The critics have gone deadly silent.

 

Irrespective, it’s the Southampton way. Deluded optimism or spiteful chastisement unjustly aimed at the wrong people.

 

No-one knew Gao was potless so to say such comments in hindsight is utterly ridiculous.

[Gordon Mockles]

Self sustainability is all well and good if you have a squad good enough to achieve that, we don't!. Unless Gao is happy with relegation and seeing his investment lose value he will have to put his hands in his pockets.

 

My take is that he thought he was buying into a club that had a history of nurturing young talent and making shed loads of money, unfortunately he overlooked the word ''had''. Now he owns a club overrun with mediocre players, no young prospects and discontent staff. I think the term he used '' The pig will not be fattened'' translated means. " I do not have a pot to p*ss in". With that being the case he needs to get out and sell the club to someone who does as investment is the only way of halting the downward spiral.

 

Agreed. Starving us of funds is just bringing the quality down and down and down with every staff exit. The squad has been asset stripped to barebones and television money deep in the coffers of the share holders I assume. The club said Gao would not take money out of the club which was perversely put in the media as a terrible idea to appease the fans. Like that’s comforting news. Merely another expectation lowering exercise but seeing as everything the club say has been proven to be pretty much a bare faced lie, I can only assume that the shareholders take some profit. It may not be much but we haven’t seen much reinvested.

 

I’m just flummoxed as to why he actually bought the club. Surely it must be for real estate or getting money out of China or some financial loophole I don’t have knowledge of.

#GaoOut

[pimpin4rizeal]

Yet we had 4 top ten finishes under her ownership and despite being able to bail out at any time she still keeps a shareholding. Given the abuse she gets from some quarters I wonder why she bothers. None of us knows her or her motives so why just always assume the worst?

 

But don’t you think the success and top ten finishes we had under her leadership were more the rock solid foundations and awesome squad with ambition that Cortese put together which got took apart bit by bit since.. Mitchell and the black box is part of those foundations also which continued to bail out kat after cortese had gone.

 

Would have loved to see how this panned out if she didn’t interfere and let him carry on. And to those who think he was spending money he didn’t have, think of how much the club was worth when he persuaded the liebhers to buy it compared to to the worth when it was sold.. no way did NC cost them money