Kitman

I think it's too late now for this season. It would only make sense to make a long term appointment now. They seem to want to stick with Kinnear sadly.

No need to panic, eh? http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/images/dads_army_body.jpg

Kinnear has never done anything of any note in his career. He has no standing in the game and will not attract players to the club. In my opinion not one player will stay because of him either. He's 62 years old and is battling a serious heart complaint. In what way can he possibly be the man to lead the club into a long term period of stability and success? To me it beggars belief that he's been offered a new contract. In fact I despair he's been offered a new contract. It's utterly clueless and it could cost us dear. I agree with the writer that it's their biggest mistake.

We certainly know how toulouse. I'd be lyon if I said otherwise.

And you, to be fair.

I would think he'll be advised to avoid stress so that would have to put a massive question mark on his career but the operation doesn't have to prevent him from managing again. I would think that his future career as far as his health goes depends on what happened on the day he went into hospital. If he's had another heart attack then he should be finished. If it was simply chest pains brought on by Angina then he'll be better in two months time than he was two months ago as he should no longer suffer from Angina as the blockages have been removed. This operation seemed to take 10 to 15 years off my dads age as he couldnt climb a set of stairs. After the operation he could walk for hours and still does at least 10 years later. Kinnear will probably go home this weekend and that will be a tough time for him as he'll be away from the comfort of the medical staff on hand and the reassurance that they will bring, simply by being close at hand. Every pain in his chest will have him thinking he's in trouble and he will have pain as he carries on healing. He could take the decision himself next week when he gets home and has time to talk to his family, I'd rather it was down to him and I hope he throws the towel in. Thanks, that's really interesting. I hope it sorts out his heart problems for good and I agree re the towel throwing in too.

If they are decent human beings then they'll wait for Kinnear, if they are any good in business then they'll ditch him. I know what you mean Mick but the position's changed - assuming that when they made the contract offer they weren't expecting him to have a triple bypass operation. Joe was originally brought in as a stopgap, and thanks to him for that, but he's now had major open heart surgery and he's 62 years old. Managing a premiership team must be one of the more stressful jobs going, especially on matchday with 50,000 fans at your back. Of course I know nothing about heart conditions but this seems to be a really serious warning shot. He should be looking after his health and we shouldn't allow him the risk of damaging it further. To me it's not just good business, it's about looking after your employees and it should be taken out of Joe's hands imo. Added to which I think he should be replaced in the summer anyway.

I agree with most of Indi's long post. Most people would I suspect settle for stability and steady improvement......the problem is we've had neither and have largely looked like relegation fodder since Keegan left. I'm very disappointed with the transfer window (in terms of quantity of signings and the way we went about it) and I'm not surprised a lot of people don't trust them to fix things in the summer as a result. The next manager appointment will be the most important since Sir Bobby's imo. I'm still incredulous that they offered Kinnear another two years. The manager situation is for me their biggest failing. Fix that and we take a massive step forward; bungle it and we're shafted, as there's no room for error anymore. I really hope they're looking hard, and not waiting to see if Joe's coming back. The cynic in me says the latter's most likely.

So add a minimum of £50m on top of the 'crippling financial problems' (their words), is that what you're really saying you want him to do? I wanted him to invest the 50m into making sure the ream was not involved in a relegation battle - Oh, wait - that would have meant allowing the manager to manage.... If you'd had said that he could (and should) have freed up an extra 5-10 mil during the Jan window to get those one or two player that we will need if we get anymore injuries then i'd have agreed with you as that should be manageable in a debt sense and not a mad gamble. Throwing a minimum or 50m here and now is just crazy talk. Normally I would agree - but do you think it was wisely spent on gambling on the shares of a company that went down ? He lost THE LOT(100m), so 50 spent on players would have been a far better investment(in fact, 50m spent on booze would have been a better investment..!!). What a skewed way of looking at things, £50m would of been better wasted on the club....only it wouldnt of been wasted - or would it?? Incidentally the gamble took place before Ashley was badly affected by the recession...the other thing is that people are still failing to realise that spending big money would of added the clubs financial woes in terms of wages, supposing we add to the wage bill and fork out £50m in transfer fees, then what happens the next season - would the fans accept a curtial of spending? How do we look to invest next year? Do we sell those on inflated wages? Where is the next lot of money coming from? Howto we get to the next level without relying on Ashleys millions? The only way to do this is ensure that the players we do get represent absolute value for money whilst not spending on large wages. I don't subscribe to the spend 50m line. I do think however buying a couple more players - not galacticos mind - was not only called for but essential. To me it made more sense to bring forward summer spending and wear the additional cost than increase the risk of being relegated through persevering with an understrength squad which is injury prone (maybe because players play through injuries or return from injury too soon). That to me seemed like a better idea than duffing through and hoping for the best. That really is a gamble with our squad and staff. I appreciate that the wage bill is crippling but the additional wages for 6 months would be the only real downside given that according to Llambias we're planning to spend this money in the summer anyway. Compared to the money lost if we get relegated, and what that will mean in terms of the finances, I think this is common sense. The last minute transfer dealings, and Llambias' own statements, suggest to me that we only really planned to sign Lovenkrands and R Taylor. 2 out (Geremi, Given), 2 in. I appreciate that the January window is by far the worst time to find players but with advance planning other clubs seem to have managed it. Especially given that we're not recruiting at the top end of the market anymore. Regarding getting players who are 'absolute value for money whilst not spending on large wages' - I think you're bang on but this is very difficult to do. Everybody is looking for players like this and we have to compete with other teams in terms of finding the players and in terms of wages. It's a real problem since we are a struggling team, we are not in Europe, and we're not in London where a lot of overseas players want to be. Everton have shown it's tough to attract players whilst operating a wage cap and they're a million miles better team than us at the moment. In addition the club is in disarray and we've had Joe Kinnear as manager, who most modern players won't have heard of, and top players leaving or looking to leave. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's bloody difficult. We got round the problem in the past by offering "rolls royce"wages, plainly that's not sustainable long term without real success. I don't disagree with the idea of building from the bottom up - hallelujah it's about time - but I can't get past the conclusion that some kind of interim spending was really necessary just to guarantee our survival. I think we've neglected the first team tbh and put ourselves at massive risk. If the cupboard was really bare, I suppose we have to live with that, but I think a modest amount of extra money (ie 10 -15m) could have been found. I just hope we don't come to regret it.

I agree with a lot of what johnnypd says. I don't think the comparisons with Leeds hold water; Leeds is an extreme example of a club going on tilt. It's obvious we needed some sort of restructuring to rebalance our books though, having failed to get back into the big time for years. But some judicious spending on the first team was hugely called for in January, this seems obvious to me, but the impression we have is that they did too little too late. For such avid planners, some of the reported dealings were farcical, for instance the Richardson offer - was that really serious? imo he's gambling we can get through to the summer without getting relegated, he's gambling that people will keep buying season tickets, he's gambling that the best players won't leave, he's gambling against injuries and suspensions. That's without talking about the managerial situation. Personally I think a better gamble would have been to bring forward some of the summer transfer spending on the first team which will be undertaken (according to Llambias). If they'd been organised and determined, I'd hope we could have got 2 more players in, and I'm talking about limited investment here not galactico signings. As it is we're just hoping for the best. I love the emphasis on youth policy, long overdue, but it's no substitute for an adequate first team squad.

Nice post. The biggest issue is Kinnear imo. I'm praying he's replaced at the end of the season, hopefully once we've survived. What Llambias brings to the club is beyond me, he has no background in football by all accounts yet he's running the whole damn party (allegedly). Perhaps there's a giant casino going up and noones noticed. Maybe the whole club's run like roulette? Black - we go for Hitzfeld Red - we go for Rijkard No colour - let's make this interesting and go for Kinnear ha ha ha ha * Spinny spinny spinny * * Kerplunk * f*** me, what were the odds of that happening, Dennis? Old washed up Joe it is, then! Now on to transfers..... ....the craps table?

Nice post. The biggest issue is Kinnear imo. I'm praying he's replaced at the end of the season, hopefully once we've survived. What Llambias brings to the club is beyond me, he has no background in football by all accounts yet he's running the whole damn party (allegedly). Perhaps there's a giant casino going up and noones noticed. Maybe the whole club's run like roulette? Black - we go for Hitzfeld Red - we go for Rijkard No colour - let's make this interesting and go for Kinnear ha ha ha ha * Spinny spinny spinny * * Kerplunk * Fuck me, what were the odds of that happening, Dennis? Old washed up Joe it is, then! Now on to transfers.....

Nice post. The biggest issue is Kinnear imo. I'm praying he's replaced at the end of the season, hopefully once we've survived. What Llambias brings to the club is beyond me, he has no background in football by all accounts yet he's running the whole damn party (allegedly).

Fuck me this is fascinating. I don't think SSF1M is talking about putting extra cash in. I think he's merely saying that if the club wanted to have a solvent balance sheet, you capitalise the loan so the company's equity goes up by 100m and the company's liabilities go down by 100m, thereby presumably making it more solvent as share capital will exceed accumulated losses. But then I'm not an accountant so there you go. It would also mean that Ashley could only recoup his cash by selling the shares rather than just calling in the loan, unless he then wanted to reduce the share capital which from memory isn't easy (unless the shares issued are redeemable preference shares). I haven't read the rest of this thread but there's laways this blurring between what the owner has 'invested' and what he has 'put in'. From Ashley's point of view he has put in a quarter of a billion but from our point of view he has put in 100m i.e. this is the extra cash that has gone into the club. The other 150m is what it cost Ashley to buy the shares. I don't care about that - if he couldn't afford it, he shouldn't have bought it. It's like buying a house in need of repair and letting it fall down because the purchase price was too expensive. According to Shepherd he didn't look at the books properly. Of course if you believe the club was going bust we should probably be thankful. The question is whether Ashley shouldered aside another buyer who would have been willing to buy us. Both of these points are just speculation and not worth losing sleep over, we're stuck with Ashley now and have to make the best of it. FWIW I'm hoping we'll be on an upward curve if we can just survive this season. Our wage bill will start to reduce when Owen and Viduka leave in the summer for starters.

Madonna or Kylie? Dogs or cats? Mayo or salad cream? Gay or straight?

Why write him off before he kicks a ball? I couldn't give a toss how he's played at Bolton where he's been unhappy for a long time and had the fans (those that bother to turn up) on his back. He improves the quality of the midfield simply by not being Nicky Butt, is a good pro and he's been a decent prem footballer. Better this than an overseas player who will take ages to settle in - we'd be better off signing them in the summer when hopefully we're out of trouble. Realistically a player like Nolan is the best we can get in this transfer window, personally I'm happy we've brought in a midfielder who knows his way round a relegation scrap. If he does turn out to be shit, at least they tried to do something positive. I doubt Kaka is demanding to move to us.

He's what we need right now. A good & positive move, let's hope there's more to come before the window shuts.

It's not funny tbh. It hasn't been for quite a long time. True. But it's his very pig-headedness that provides the comedy. The whole I'm-ignoring-the-information-about-the-club's-finances-because-the-people-discussing-it-will-be-insulting-Shepherd routine is particularly funny. http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:zPH5JU0o01eqqM:http://625.uk.com/pifs/learn2swim.jpg learn to quote young man....learn to quote Young man? Fuck me, it's me Dad! I edited that within a couple of minutes, you were quick off the mark!

True. But it's his very pig-headedness that provides the comedy. The whole I'm-ignoring-the-information-about-the-club's-finances-because-the-people-discussing-it-will-be-insulting-Shepherd routine is particularly funny. It's not funny tbh. It hasn't been for quite a long time.

I wish Shepherd would keep his trap shut. His time is over, I doubt Ashley is going to listen to his advice, and he won't sway his critics. We'd all be better off if he kept a dignified silence tbh rather than putting ammo in Fleet Street's shit cannon to fire at us.

I totally agree, and it's staggering we seem to have neglected it so badly in the past. It would be fantastic to supplement our first team with our home grown players and it makes good business sense. Then if we need to invest in players, it isn't a wholesale process but to improve a specific position. But obviously it's a long term game, and we can't ignore our immediate needs with survival a minimum now and next season.

hopefully in richard money and his team we have the right coaches and hopefully we are also picking up a better quality of young player We have no idea whether the coaching team is good enough to develop these players. We have no idea whether these players will turn out to be any good. We've not been very good at it up to now. But that's besides the point. If ever there was a time to invest in the squad it's now imo. We are in a perilous state, as recent results show and our league position proves. The squad is riven with injuries and suspension and we have no depth at all. Morale amongst the players is low by all accounts, backed up by senior players trying to leave, and the team is not improving. If ever there was a time to invest it's now imo. Relegation would cost us far more in the long run and set the club back far more than some extra short term debt. I don't give a toss about competing with the successful clubs, I'm happy to leave that to our youth development policy if that's the plan, but the paucity of numbers and talent in the first team should be addressed now, as I can honestly see us getting relegated this season with some bad luck along the way if we don't get in some better players in key positions. Lovenkrands isn't nearly enough imo, we need at least a decent central midfielder and a couple of fullbacks. I'm not bothered tbh about Ashley's financial position, or how much he's spent - that's up to him and his accountants, and its his choice -and our 2008 balance sheet doesn't give me a hard on. I have an open mind as to whether our invetment in youth will transform the club - I hope so. However I just want to see some investment in the first team resources we need right now to secure our status. No doubt we'll see the back of several high earners in the summer - Owen, Viduka at least - so the wage bill should ease considerably as our name players leave. But we've got to survive in the prem now. Even Kinnear can see we're in the shit without getting some fresh talent in, and has said so on several occasions. Hopefully Ashley, Wise & co will deliver. We've still a few days left after all.

I don't agree. There's plenty of clubs who've gone down and haven't bounced back 'soon enough'. And some of these clubs struggle to stay in the prem having managed to get back up. To even stand a chance of bouncing back, we'd need to replace Kinnear imo. Personally, given the current disarray among the playing staff and the management team, and the apparent parlous state of our finances, I think relegation would knock the club back for several years at least.

Good post. Be interesting to see whether clubs like West Ham spend this transfer window too.

How does anyone know how much Ashley can and can't afford to spend on the club? There seem to be a lot of his personal bankers on this thread. It seems to me a lot of people defend Ashley because he's not the Shepherd/Halls evil axis. Which will be a comfort if we find ourselves in the Championship this season, or the season after.