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I don’t think you realise how rich they are - their businesses could be putting a few million a year into us, well after we’re all in the ground and it wouldn’t touch the sides. I don’t disagree with you regarding the competitive cost element, we’d be in serious trouble with our revenues against our costs / facilities if we went into the third tier again without that backup. The problem is though, I don’t want this cycle to continue. I’d rather be a mid table championship club that has a budget decided by revenue, not investment. There are other reasons, for example (we’ve had this discussion before) the potential future sale of the club being easier with less debt / constant losses.

Pretty sure the source of a lot of our transfer leaks has now left the club (the one who's so glad to 'get out') discussed on this thread, hence our recent signings have been kept under wraps a lot more.....

But if the club wipes its own face then we get the worst of both worlds IMO. We have a miniscule budget, which is uncompetitive in the modern day Championship, and highly likely to result in relegation at some stage or another from which we will never come back if sustainability is the aim And at the same time of this little to no pressure on the bastards in India to take steps to offload the club. No financial pressure just means they can leave us to rot for longer with zero pressure on them. At least if the club continues to drain them of millions of pounds a year, money they HAVE to find from either sales or their own pockets, this maintains a degree of pressure on them. If they reach a stage where the cupboard of players to sell is bare and they haven't got the ability at the Indian end to shovel the cash in then a default beckons which brings the whole thing crashing down. I see it a bit like when Hitler talked about the Soviet Union - need only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down. The trouble is kicking in the door - the best and probably only way of doing that with this lot is financially - a pressure on them to transfer cash - we have seen first hand that in the last 4 years they have been actively cutting this in any way they can. They are under pressure, clearly, the more this can be maintained the nearer breaking point is.

Said in a very quiet voice that the judge can't hear. The courtroom equivalent of clicking on 'Save' instead of 'Submit'

You're condoning the running of a dysfunctional Club there Parson- at any normal Club it's the manager's job to demand every last penny he can get his hands on for the betterment of the team. It's the Board's job to decide if they can afford it and if necessary knock it back. Instead here, it seems we very briefly had the owners getting excited and the manager dissuading them from investing. Absolutely bonkers! Only the history books will subsequently record whether that brief window of opportunity was with hindsight the last realistic chance we had of ever getting back to the Premier League. If it was, Mowbray must shoulder his share of the responsibility.

Honestly, I just don’t understand why anyone wants the owners to put more money in? How can anyone want to end this terrible tenure and expect them to be ambitious at the same time? Complete contradictions. Getting money for players back into the total budget for running the club, saves the need to go cap in hand to the cunts. I want us to wipe our own face, to cut our own cloth accordingly, even if it impacts any sort of ambition we may for promotion.

Hahahaha 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

Come on get a move on please - we need to spend £15m on a striker before 7p.m. Monday!

Thanks.

You make some very good points. Of course there is a slight possibility that this lady and other long standing employees at the Club were "career lifers" and had been on easy street for far too long but it's the general turn over of non playing staff in general that makes me tend to think something is amiss. I particularly agree with the bit above. One thing I'll say about VI (and Im prepared to put it down as a positive rather than a negative for the time being) is that if he decides a player isn't for him then that's it, not only are you slightly out of favour but you seem to become completely persona non gratis - you're frozen out (Leonard ) have stuff fairly said about you in the Press which will alienate you with the fan base (Brittain) or quite possibly unfairly (Travis) which will have the same effect but no matter as it assists in easing said player out of the door. Coincidentally there's some talk about Mowbray on the other thread and this approach couldn't be further from his, one of his major failings was he would never trade or wheel and deal to try and improve the squad and hung onto people for far too long once they were past their best or had outlived their usefulness. Whether this current ruthlessness pays dividends in the long run or eventually turns the players against VI remains to be seen. I'm a bit nervous about him getting rid of players like Travis when he's never previously lasted more than about 50 games himself anywhere.

We have a problem on a specific page which @StubbsUK is trying to resolve 👍

It will be interesting to see what Ismael says tomorrow. His consistent comments for 2 or 3 weeks were 1 more (a winger) and then replacements for outgoings. Since then, Baradji has come in (injured) and Travis has gone. Obviously that winger turned out to be Morishita, and Buckley has also gone although he wasnt in the first team picture anyway. A midfielder based on that logic would potentially fit into what Ismael was saying, although Buckley they might argue was not in the picture and doesnt need replacing, although Travis' replacement is injured. So who knows. Unless something has changed. We wanted a striker at the start of the summer, so the only explanation would be that the fees for Travis and Buckley have opened something up. I am not convinced that is certain that we will do more business.

Yes indeed. You never felt like it would really happen. What is interesting to me is that the new narrative is that some of those players were responsible, tired old faces who never quite got it done. There may be truth there but I find it harsh. Those same players (and respective managers) just needed some more backing. It will run and run. But the new orthodoxy in town has for now taken hold. Only a run of bad results will shift it and even then there will be plenty of voices around to step in and provide excuses. 🙂

He isn’t going to be taking that much of a pay cut

This is great stuff

Can we delete this before it becomes an internet meme?

Of course you're right. That being said, even when it was working or we appeared close, it always felt like it was miles away. The one constant in all of that is of course our Pune overlords, but some of our players also bear a lot of war wounds amongst all the near misses and 'what ifs'. A good point. I sometimes forget that we finished 7th last year; it feels a lifetime ago now. Even by Championship standards our overhaul has been considerable. It felt inevitable there would be some turnover, especially when the first domino (Dolan) fell. I cannot blame you and fully expect me to disavow the majority of my post within the next 6 months or so....

Would anyone take Oxlade-Chamberlain? 32 and now a free agent... I feel as though we lack serious experience.

Not married then? 🙂

Sheffield United have been throwing money around this week. Good page to keep track of it all: Transfermarkt

Nothing strong as of this moment. However, if you look at the way 99% of our business happens, it seems to start with UK (Nicko etc) speculating on a couple of targets (Afaloyan and Soumano) which I reckon are used as misdirection for the actual target. The ones you know are happening generally break from reputable sources in the target location / country and are basically already agreed. I wouldn’t be surprised to see several names mentioned between now and the weekend and then Sunday night, Radoslav in the Czech Replublic starts bleating on about a completely new name who is about to sign! Lets see!

I find it more awkward -it used to be in blue I think. Now hard to tell if up to date on a thread or not.

Don't want to risk another eruption in Iceland again 🤣

Personally I would have quite liked to have built upon the squad that finished 7th last year, rather than dismantling it and starting again. Granted, that takes money which the owners refuse to provide.

Has it been postponed again...till 2030?