stevegrant

Tough

Update: Matt Young has signed for Sheffield Wednesday.

Another thing, this guy claims to be from Rhyl, which is about as far away from Cardiff as is possible within Wales. Locking this now, clearly garbage.

Yeah, potentially, but I don't see how that sort of situation causes a "bust-up", or more specifically something physical, which is what the term implies. Sure, they'll disagree if they're having a meeting, but I don't see Schneiderlin as the "standing up, flipping a table and steaming in" type Also worth noting that, despite that tweet having been public for the best part of 45 minutes and re-tweeted by plenty of people, there are STILL no Saints-focused journalists saying anything about it.

Two things here: Firstly, the source. This guy is the ONLY journalist to report it, and he is someone nobody's ever heard of and reports on sports in SOUTH WALES. How would someone like him get a scoop on something going on at Saints when there are so many national and local journalists who are close to things at the club? Secondly, the time: It was reported before 10am this morning, which means the event would have happened even earlier than that. I find it difficult to believe that there would be many (if any) players at the training ground 60-90 minutes before training.

I'd take Holtby, less so Dawson. Slow, error-prone, only gets any sort of reputation because he's "brave" and "puts his body on the line" (usually because he's let his man have three yards of space first).

Apparently any deal for MS and JR is miles from being done, suspect that could take some time.

Oh good

Or perhaps there genuinely is no master plan to sell. Purslow/Krueger could well be "investigating opportunities" using their connections, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's any sort of desperation to cash in at this stage. If she's said "see if anyone would be stupid enough to pay me £300m", then by all means they're looking to find a buyer, but only someone who's prepared to pay massively over the odds, in which case KL gets into "well, I'd be stupid not to sell for that price" territory.

Which is particularly strange because there is still considerable money to be made from playing in it. If you're in the group stage, you've got at least three home games to generate revenue, plus prize money for progression and any points gained.

Foolish of them, really. You'd think they'd want to take the cash of mug punters jumping to conclusions.

Manchester United are a money-making machine and their debt as a result of the Glazer takeover is rapidly being reduced these days. That'll increase speed from next season when the new Adidas kit deal kicks in. £115m a year, just in shirt manufacturer and sponsorship rights, probably more than our entire annual turnover. Even Chelsea seem to be somewhere approaching self-sustainability these days, having been given a free pass with the £1bn Abramovich has poured into the club and no FFP regulations to get in their way over the past decade. Once you get yourself to the top table in a free market, it's much easier to stay there as success breeds more success and the natural by-product of that is greater support. Now, of course, FFP has come along and turned off the tap for any potential challengers, and there's no way through for clubs like us.

The FFP restrictions are heavily tied in with commercial revenue. In a nutshell, while clubs are restricted to a moderate increase in the wage bill based purely on the broadcasting revenue, they are free to use every penny generated from increased commercial deals. That is why Man United have been signing deals left, right and centre to have an official boiled sweet partner in Thailand, etc. They can use all of that to add to their wage bill, whereas they're heavily restricted (around £4m per year increase) if they maintain the same level of commercial revenue. We are in the same boat (once the wage bill is above £52m, the restricted increases apply), but without the commercial pull to do anything about it. The Veho deal will help as it is a significant increase on the aap3 one before it, but that's still only going to pay for one player's £40k a week salary.

The Pompey approach combined unsustainable fixed salaries (many players on £70k+ a week, plus shady image rights deals) with massive performance-related bonuses, on a much smaller broadcasting contract and attendances of 20,000. Our wage bill for last season will have been around the £50-60m mark, and I expect the club's revenue will be around £100m (approx £75m of that from central broadcasting/prize money). A 50-60% wages-to-turnover ratio is not excessive by any stretch of the imagination - in fact, it's probably among the lowest in the PL. I can certainly accept that there is some adjustment to be done to ensure the Staplewood redevelopment and past transfer expenditure is fully covered, but I'm not sold on the idea that SEVEN first-teamers had to be sold to facilitate it. The wages, from my point of view, are not a problem. I'd also ask what the problem is with performance-related bonuses - surely that's the ideal situation, you pay players a basic wage, and they get more if their performances, and those of their team-mates, merit it. I'd much rather that than paying someone £60k a week who then feels he doesn't need to work hard for the club to earn big money.

IMO we have made a genuine upgrade with our manager and it's entirely possible that both Pelle and Tadic will have better seasons than Lambert and Lallana. If Koeman gets all (or most) of his targets, I'd expect us to be very competitive again, but we're not going to be able to judge that until the end of the transfer window. Clearly nobody's going to be happy with so many departures, but the cricketing saying of "you can't judge a pitch until both sides have batted" rings true for me, whether we've got a good deal will depend on who replaces those who leave. From what I've seen so far, albeit against limited opposition, Tadic and Pelle look promising.

Potentially (must confess I haven't read all of that translated article as the first few sentences made my eyes bleed), but if I remember rightly, he brought Hicks and Gillett to Liverpool. I'll pass on that one, thanks!

I don't think there's anything in Krueger's resume that would really make him the go-to guy to find a buyer for a £100-200m football club. I appreciate that it doesn't suggest he's a football club chairman either, but he's got a non-executive role, which makes it rather different to the traditional chairman role who carries out the negotiations and signs the cheques. If KL was looking to sell, she'd employ the services of someone with experience of corporate takeovers, and it would be as an outside consultancy rather than somebody already at the club. Edit: to clarify, I think Krueger's role at the World Economic Forum is from a motivational and management side of things rather than any in-depth corporate takeover experience.

Every football club is for sale for the right price, we're no different.

There are bits in all of it, really. Section by section: Cortese's departure - multiple reasons (some of which can't be specified as I'd get in all sorts of ****), although it's fairly well known that he put up resistance to ANY control of spending from KL. A suicide mission if ever there was one. Finances - correct with the exception of NC not leaking stuff to the press. He was all over both the Mail (Neil Ashton) and BBC (Ben Smith). Possible sale of club - it's feasible, but the method makes no sense. If there are no buyers at whatever asking price has been set, you either drop the asking price or make the product MORE attractive for the price, not less! Selling the top players arguably drops the value of the club by more than the fees received because of the perception that the club has momentum in the wrong direction. Lallana - feasible, but it's almost the complete opposite of what I'd heard, with the exception of the Man United stuff. He'd wanted out for months, Clattenburg was essentially right - having been away on international duty in November, he believed he'd "made it" and deserved to be at a club that elevated him to the same status as the England regulars. He wasn't entirely thrilled with being subbed off relatively early every game either. Players - NC had lined up a deal with West Ham to sell Rickie Lambert for £7m in January. That deal was hastily pulled as soon as NC walked. Overall lack of communication - certainly true, but for most players, what "communication" are they expecting from the board? Daily briefings with an update of how many shirts with their name on have been sold? Over the summer, players are rightly left to enjoy their own time and not be pestered by club employees (I'd be pretty ****ed off if my boss was phoning me with updates while I was on holiday - the clue's in the name). The only ones who should have expected to have heard something are those who would expect new contract offers in the pipeline - Fonte and Cork being the two prime examples - but I don't see what the fuss was about over Fonte supposedly having received his in writing. I'd want any contract offer I was going to sign in writing before committing to anything. The noise from Alan Cork on Twitter suggests Cork hasn't received an offer at all, let alone an offer that was then withdrawn. I can't say I was ever particularly surprised by that towards the end of last season, it always appeared to me as though Pochettino was never quite convinced with JC, and as he had long since decided he was leaving, why would he care about putting it to the board himself? Pochettino - he'd decided he was off around Christmas. As mental as it sounds, NC was going to sack him in December around the time we had that bad run of injuries and results which tempered our great start to the season. He was talked out of it by a number of senior players, but MP felt he didn't have the trust of NC any longer, so decided he was off, and as the rest of the season wore on, made it very clear what his plan was to many of the players, despite NC's departure in the meantime. He basically advised them all to move on as they may not get another opportunity, so naturally they all got onto their agents and now we have the carnage we see before us today. MP was offered a new deal, and it had been on the table for 2-3 months before he went to Spurs - coincidentally it was offering exactly the same salary as he is now earning at White Hart Lane. Koeman - from people who know him, he will not tolerate players who don't want to play for him. If anyone doesn't want to play for him, they can do one, and he'll bring in replacements who DO want to do so. Given his track record and status in the game, we shouldn't be short of players come the start of the season. Summary - clearly the business has been done the wrong way around, replacements should have been signed before the others were let go, and that falls on the board to carry the can, and KL will have to accept that we'll be spending more for most of our signings than we anticipated as a result. Some of that may turn out to be inaccurate, but those are the corrections to your War and Peace effort as I see them.

Some of what you post makes sense, other bits I know to be untrue. I suggest your source has his/her "angle" and is embellishing a few details to make the story fit.

It doesn't, but it would certainly make sense for transfer revenue to be included when boosting the wage bill above the threshold.

I did qualify that with "for the most part", tbf

The big clubs do seem reluctant to sign anyone but the absolute top names without some PL experience (Sky have done a terrific job of making it seem as though it's better or harder to play in than any other big league in Europe - the only tough thing is the number of games, not the technical quality), so a couple of years with a club of our size who are more willing to take that sort of "risk" and then a step up to the top wouldn't be entirely unheard of. You could argue that's what Dejan Lovren did. He had Champions League football with Lyon, believed that was his level but none of the top 4 in England were willing to take a chance on him, so came to us, showed what he can do and is now getting that step up.

If they could walk straight into a top club side, why haven't they been signed by such a club already? Sporting Lisbon don't *really* count these days. Big name, but haven't achieved anything of note for decades.

I guess there are a few angles. Firstly, Ronald gets his medals out Secondly, even though we're not a big fish in this league, the league itself is a big draw. The sums of money involved mean that even a club of our size can compete financially with much bigger clubs in Europe. Ultimately, we're going to have to accept (if we haven't done so already) that many players will see us as a stepping stone to bigger clubs, but if players want to make that jump to the top, they're going to have to turn in performances for us first, and they're certainly not going to be struggling to pay the bills in the process. Thirdly, it's a decent part of the world to live in, for the most part. For players with families, that can be a pretty big consideration as well.