Are things much worse inside the Club than we think?

[CanadaSaint]

After that abject disaster I'm trying to focus on the bigger picture, and there are some even more troubling signs:

Why would we weaken an already very shallow squad, further ravaged by injuries, by sending players out on loan at the deadline? Are we THAT desperate to get wages off the books?

Is Danny Ings effectively already gone because we're desperate for the money, and we're just trying to negotiate the break fee as high as we can get it?

I'm normally an optimist, but I have a horrible feeling that things are falling apart financially inside the Club. I can't think of any credible alternative answers to those questions.

There's another question I'm grappllng with personally. Why do I keep watching a sport I've loved since I was a kid, when it's now run, officiated and largely played by arrogant, self-centered, greedy bastards.

[Viking Saint]

Gao is killing us. You can't run a successful Premiership club on a self-sustaining basis. Investment is essential or you can't improve on what you've got.

[S-Clarke]

We've got a few issues at play and it's turned into a bit of a perfect shit storm.

1) We spent stupid money on the likes of Elynonoussi, Hoedt, Lemina, Carillo, Boufal to name just a few. That has hamstrung us hugely in terms of the wage bill and also available transfer funds over previous seasons, as we probably have to take into account on-going payments every year for some of those players. We're not going to be able to use that excuse for ever though.

2) COVID - no fans, no money through merch or stadium events. Every club is going to be feeling the pinch and it just highlights our issues even more.

3) A disconnected owner. We don't know anything about him, he's owned us for 3 years and he's never said a thing. We never knew his intentions from the word go, we don't know what his plan is. The whole takeover has stunk from the moment it happened. We were told by KL that it was to aid us moving forward and provide us with additional investment. All it seems to have done is hamstrung us even more than we were already.

The reality is that we need investment like plenty of clubs do. It's clear that our owner has no interest in us so we can discount him allowing us any scope to grow. So we just have to hope we keep our head above water, we have a manager who keeps performing miracles, and our scouting is top notch for when we have to replace the investible starters to raise funds. In our current guise, relegation isn't ever too far away.

We've had a fun year in football terms, weirdly, but it all feels like it's all on a bit of a knife edge and always has.

[Morse]

We've recently borrowed £78.8m from a bank at 9.14%. And we have an owner who has not and will not put his hand in his pocket. I think we are in big difficulties. 

[Master Bates]

ITKrs will tell us soon

[wild-saint]

15 minutes ago, Morse said:

We've recently borrowed £78.8m from a bank at 9.14%. And we have an owner who has not and will not put his hand in his pocket. I think we are in big difficulties. 

This 78millio n worries me too. To suggest it’s needed because use of Covid can’t be right surely. Just looking at the loss of match day revenue can only be around £30million. Where the rest going?

[Saint Fan CaM]

I think the term perfect storm sums it up nicely. Following the terrible purchases and Ralph coming in, the club knew it had to transform the playing staff - Ralph said so himself...he knew the size of the project and has been instrumental trying to put together a team that can play his system, while cutting away the players that were not suited. Sometimes you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelette and I think that’s where we are now. There’s still work to be done, but COVID and significant injuries have really hurt the project...set it back significantly. Maybe there was a deliberate decision to take a hit now (e.g. losing Long etc.) as in terms of risk, we’re in a safe-ish place in the league with time to bounce back when players come back from injury. Who knows?

I don’t think this has much to do with Goa...the Board are autonomous and have taken a gamble but it’s gone a bit Pete Tong. I think Ralph will have helped shape the decisions, so involved but not wholly culpable.

We March on...

[Turkish]

30 minutes ago, Morse said:

We've recently borrowed £78.8m from a bank at 9.14%. And we have an owner who has not and will not put his hand in his pocket. I think we are in big difficulties. 

People keep point to the better interest rates other clubs have for, but the reality it other clubs don’t have a history of administration in their recent history, a couple of very near relegation misses and a much higher risk of relegation before the loans repaid than the likes of spurs, who got a good rate. Lending us that much money is a risk. Like It or not. 

[Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd]

Yes. The club is fucked. We are simply delaying the inevitable.

The owner wants to sell the club so won't invest any more money.

Who would buy a football club in the current climate?

We borrowed £80m at a rate of about 10%. The interest on the loan is about £7m a year. That's a player! Arsenal & Spurs borrowed nearly twice that amount at a rate of 0.5%. The banks clearly see us as a massive risk. One report suggested that were expected the relegated in the next two years. 

Ralph has done his best under very difficult circumstances. He must know he's fighting a lost cause and that his best players will have to be sold in the summer. Let's be honest. There will be plenty of other clubs where he could walk into a job and not have to suffer all the behind the scenes shit that comes with Saints.

Being brutally honest, we're simply delaying the inevitable. Relegation. We simply don't have the investment or the backing of someone who loves football - If such a thing exists anymore? Even if we hadn't had this bad run of Injuries and results and we were sitting in the top 6, we'd still be in a position where our manager will attract attention and move on, likewise with our best players. 

There won't be a Markus to save us this time. He must be turning in his grave at the way things have turned out. 

[Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd]

2 hours ago, CanadaSaint said:

After that abject disaster I'm trying to focus on the bigger picture, and there are some even more troubling signs:

Why would we weaken an already very shallow squad, further ravaged by injuries, by sending players out on loan at the deadline? Are we THAT desperate to get wages off the books?

Is Danny Ings effectively already gone because we're desperate for the money, and we're just trying to negotiate the break fee as high as we can get it?

I'm normally an optimist, but I have a horrible feeling that things are falling apart financially inside the Club. I can't think of any credible alternative answers to those questions.

There's another question I'm grappllng with personally. Why do I keep watching a sport I've loved since I was a kid, when it's now run, officiated and largely played by arrogant, self-centered, greedy bastards.

Exactly. The game has been ruined by money and VAR. I wish I could just forget about it and this bloody club that keeps me awake at night. It's just not that simple. 

[Hodgey]

We’re in a very tricky place - next 5 years are crucial. 
squad size is right - make up isn’t - having 3 first team gks and 2 full backs is madness - that is a recruitment error. Scouting has also let us down - £55m wasted on Hoet /Gunn/Lemina/Elynoussi, if we had a competent cb/cm/am then we could be more tactical in bringing kids on / covering positions.

this has been done - but the Burnley bloke had a point about our youth, the quality and aptitude of players we are producing isn’t good enough - especially if the aim is to have half the team from the youth set up. This for me is the biggest worry

And then there is finance - Covid hasn’t helped, neither has awarding Forster and Long big new contracts. That loan means we need to make £10-15m a year from transfers - for that you need some quality youngsters or great scouts.

Finally we have literally put all our eggs in the Ralph basket - if he goes we have to start again, giving him that much power has worked so far as he is such a talent, but I can’t see a succession plan if he leaves.

The hope is that we finally clear the deadwood, use some of those wages on patching up the squad, and that the new youth set up starts producing results meaning we can stabilise as a mid table team who make a small transfer profit each year to eat into our debt. If we can do that for a few years I’d think we’d get investor interest and we can move on from there

if we go down, we probably drop again and end up bankrupt and start again - at least it’ll be a bargain price then for someone !

[tajjuk]

10 hours ago, wild-saint said:

This 78millio n worries me too. To suggest it’s needed because use of Covid can’t be right surely. Just looking at the loss of match day revenue can only be around £30million. Where the rest going?

It's been explained that is to cover basically everything, there was worries about having to repay TV monies etc.

I am not sure the loan is particularly much to worry about.

I am not sure there is particularly anything rotten at the club, we lost a game badly because we had a lot of injuries, went down to 10 men, were facing a very good team (who have like 6 times the budget of us btw) and a terrible ref piled on the misery. 

Last night was IMO just pure bad luck, a freak result where everything that could go wrong for us pretty much did, when were already up against it with the injuries. 

The people running the club seem good to me, Seemens seems a good CEO, Ralph is obviously excellent, Crocker is over seeing changes and our recent scouting/transfers have been pretty good, players we are getting in Ings, Vestergaard, Diallo, KWP are generally making good contributions, jury is probably still out on Djenepo and well Salisu is unknown at the moment but the club don't seem that worried. 

But we are still paying the price for Carrillo, Lemina, Boufal, Elynoussi, Forster contract, Hoedt etc. still paying some of their wages likely, still probably paying some of their transfer fees and yet most have barely played for us let alone made a contribution to the team.  

Add Covid on top and the finances are even worse, and we are trying to tie down our better players with new contract, like JWP, Romeu and even Ralph himself, presumable money has been budgeted for Ings' contract even though he hasn't signed it, all constricting the spending even more. 

The owner isn't putting any investment in, aside from that I am not sure what else is actually wrong with him, we could honestly do a lot worse, as the Burnley takeover shows (and the warnings about the De Grossa takeover).

Yes an owner who invests would be nice, and let's hope that happens. But at the moment we are a project in progress still struggling to shake off previous failures and are rebuilding, not sure what one bad loss with a lot of bad luck, in an otherwise decent season suddenly means things are bad in the club.  We've seen nothing to suggest that really. 

[spyinthesky]

The additional worry to me is that the issue with the Uighurs in China added to the potential problems in Hong Kong and Taiwan could lead to political issues affecting Chinese business men.
Mind you similar problems may have affect Russian owners as a consequence of their financial dealings.
It would just be nice to find an owner who can stabilise our financial position and have a bit of capital left owner to move us forward.
A big ask perhaps!!

[Charlie Wayman]

On 03/02/2021 at 00:29, Saint Fan CaM said:

Sometimes you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelette 

 

When did you last make an omelette without breaking eggs then? Crack on!

[Matthew Le God]

On 02/02/2021 at 22:51, CanadaSaint said:

Why would we weaken an already very shallow squad, further ravaged by injuries, by sending players out on loan at the deadline? Are we THAT desperate to get wages off the books?

We signed a player on a bigger wage plus loan fee than those that left in the transfer window.

[Greenridge]

7 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

We signed a player on a bigger wage plus loan fee than those that left in the transfer window.

You think we're paying all his wages? This is not FIFAwhatever. 

[Matthew Le God]

4 minutes ago, Greenridge said:

You think we're paying all his wages? This is not FIFAwhatever. 

According to this we are...

 

 

Edited 5 February, 2021 by Matthew Le God

[CanadaSaint]

3 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

We signed a player on a bigger wage plus loan fee than those that left in the transfer window.

It doesn't really change the point, though, does it?

We surrendered depth in several short-depth positions, in the midst of an injury crisis, to add it in one where we were reasonably okay.

That is a surely a money-driven decision rather than a football-driven one.

[captainchris]

26 minutes ago, CanadaSaint said:

It doesn't really change the point, though, does it?

We surrendered depth in several short-depth positions, in the midst of an injury crisis, to add it in one where we were reasonably okay.

That is a surely a money-driven decision rather than a football-driven one.

We might be better covered in numbers in that position, however, the quality is much of a muchness and this new fella is apparently a step up from what we have and in all honesty we do need that step up in quality. 
There is rationality here. The other issues we have are very deep and will still take quite a while to drain away, whilst on the reserves/youth recruitment side not sure still if we have removed all those scouts and coaches responsible for the mainly ill equipped backup we had/have.... 

 

 

 

Edited 5 February, 2021 by captainchris

[Matthew Le God]

54 minutes ago, CanadaSaint said:

It doesn't really change the point, though, does it?

We surrendered depth in several short-depth positions, in the midst of an injury crisis, to add it in one where we were reasonably okay.

That is a surely a money-driven decision rather than a football-driven one.

It does as if they were shifting players due to money problems as you claimed, they then wouldn't sign a more expensive player on loan.