Conversely, do we know how Freddie would have reacted to the financial crisis or to the relegation? Ashley was still giving out big money contracts to players when he first started, until we were relegated and a lot of our big earners left, at around the same time the financial crisis was kicking in. I'm not sure his frugality was by design, rather than necessity and we've no idea if Fred would have reigned in the spending in a similar way, with or without some of the more utterly fucking stupid decisions made by Ashley.