Taylor Swift

I don't think any of the players we have at the club will be fondly remembered after their departures, even the ones who have done relatively well like Bassong and Enrique. The only chance they have of redeeming themselves is by getting us promoted so why not, in the meantime, shut your mouth because you said all the right things throughout last season and look where we ended up. Why not spend your time training harder so you're not as shit as you all were last season.

The players have probably the same amount of contempt for the club and supporters. We wouldn't have been relegated if this wasn't the case. He's good at PR and so are some other players, but obviously others like Enrique aren't. Still, I'd rather have someone like Enrique who seems to take pride in his own performances rather than gutless wankers like Smith and Shola who'll say all the right things to the press. I think that, after all this time, we know what they say has absolutely no correlation with their performances on the pitch so I couldn't give a fuck how much he loves the supporters and all this 'we deserve better' shit. If that was really the case, then take a paycut and ask your colleagues to do the same. He's like every other footballer: he looks after himself first. I'm not blaming him for that because it seems like it's a footballing culture which few can escape, but I'd also rather that he stopped with all this talk because we know it's bs. The fact that he's asked for a new contract shows that it's bs.

Why does he want a new contract? I'm going to presume that he's looking for the same wages and at least a 2-year extension. If that's the case then he's a greedy fuck and should fuck off. He played well in his first season here then started the second poorly then got injured for half the season while we were relegated. How the hell does that entail a new contract? He's 31 (and will be 32 in the first two months of the season), looks to need ever more time to settle into his rhythm upon returning to the team so I don't see him capable of consistently performing at the level he did in his first season here anymore. If he's willing to take a paycut, then maybe offer him a one-year extension but otherwise he needs to shut his trap and honour the contract he happily signed two years ago.

ESPN.com had the US victory over Spain as the main news headline with three reporters 'analysing' it. Sometimes you really have to love the Americans.

We need to do a mass email prank.

The problem is that neither of them are actually paying the debt off. The principal for Man Utd's debt is due in a few years and they don't have the money to pay for it. Liverpool need to refinance their debt right away and they're struggling to do it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/manutd/5130064/Manchester-United-debt-soars-to-700m-despite-record-season.html Man Utd are lucky that Aon have agreed to pay them £20m/season.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=652679&sec=england&cc=5739

If I had to say something to Michael Owen, it'd be: http://redsoxchick.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/beckett.gif

I know Platini doesn't get much love on these shores but I like some of his ideas.

What's so strange about it? Paper makes up shit, player denies it.

He's looked a danger but England as a whole are rather gash they don't play like a team Scotland are a better team with poorer individuals. Punctuation, ffs. Text speak, for f***s sake. You want to be a journalist, right?

He's looked a danger but England as a whole are rather gash they don't play like a team Scotland are a better team with poorer individuals. Punctuation, ffs.

The last three aren't true. He'll be paid in the region of what someone like Martin O'Neill is being made. You actually say he's worth twice that, which is pretty close what Ancelotti is being paid now. That's insane. Give him a bump if he gets us promoted but we shouldn't give him £2.5m now when we're still in the CC and have no idea whether he's actually a good manager or not.

Erm, no. Just because someone else is earning ridiculous wages doesn't mean he should as well. This is how we got to this situation in the first place. He's got zero experience, we're a Championship club and he asks for £2.5m? Get fucked. But I am aware that this figure comes from newspapers and could easily not be true i.e. club have leaked this figure to give a reason for not agreeing to Shearer's demands. But if the figure is true, it's ridiculous.

But there is no reason to beleive we can service it- we are in a regime which favours football creditors over all others (although the legality of this is questionable and is what has led so many clubs to the wall), where huge sums can be invested with often zero return. You could spend £50m and go riding back to the PL as champions, but it's not assured. For an investor that's fine as long as you appreciate the risk when you get involved. For a bank that's unacceptable. Taking into account just how close to the wind we've been sailing for some time now, lending a significant amount on a long-term basis would be crazy. A lender needs to know where a business is going to be in 5 years if it's going to make a 5 year loan. We don't know where we are from one day to the next. That's not to say we couldn't raise money, but it would be at such a cost that you might as well use investors cash or take a shareholders loan- at lease the shareholders should have more faith in the business than an outsider and so the rate would reflect this lower risk. I'm sure if we had a settled business, operating in the PL then we could probably optimise the business by taking on some debt but right now is the worst possible time. We don't have any shareholders. Man Utd have total debt of £700m, £500m from banks at 8% and £200m from hedge funds at 14%. We're obviously not looking to raise those sums but it's possible, and probably needed. I don't see a knight-in-shining-armour, swooping in and helping us spend our way out of the CC. It's gotta be done with good management and right now it's sensible, hell, it's vital management, to get a loan.

Now is a good time for us to take on debt because we have none! I'm talking about really short-term debt here just to get us started. We can't even get through a fuckin season without getting into cash-flow problems. I'm talking £50m, 10 year loan, no principal paid for first two years. Some shit like that. Because we have no debt, this can be guaranteed against season ticket sales. Estimate them conservatively and I think the club can still get a good deal. Then, when we're back in the Premiership (£50m will get us there, no doubt), refinance the loan immediately and save some money/invest in other stuff to reduce the risk. It'll take a couple of seasons to sort out the shit that's stuck on our books (Duff, Smith etc.) but this will can be done at a more affordable cost if we're in the Premiership i.e. we're not as desperate to get these fuckers off our books.

Look, man, I'm gonna sound like NE5 here, but having debt isn't necessarily a bad thing. Debt itself does not mean the club is in trouble. Debt just means that it's easier to run the club without having the owners put money in and out, in and out. Growth only comes from investment. So if you don't have enough money to invest, you obviously need to find it from somewhere. Reasonable borrowing can and is done by every company in the world, football clubs included. It's just the way it is. How do you think big companies invest in new factories etc.? Shareholders aren't asked to put in money. The company must get a loan and banks will give them that loan if there's good reason to believe that they can service it. Do you think Arsenal had £350m in the bank when they decided to build the Emirates? No. They probably had something like £50m, generated £25m profits/year and said to a bank 'ok, we'll put £50m down, you help us with the rest and we'll give you £10m of our profits every year for the next x years' (I'm obviously leaving out the details of Highbury, real estate etc.). That's investing in the future and it's a way to achieve growth. If we can finance a loan against future season tickets, say for £50m, and invest in the team to get us promoted. That investment would pay off in pretty much a year or two. Then if the people who run the club are smart, they'll save a bit in case shit happens, but they'll invest a bit more so we can become comfortably mid-table. Then get some more debt and invest. And so and so on. When shit happens, use your backup plan and scale down your operations (sell players, reduce wages etc. but doesn't need to be drastic if it's well-thought out). The reason Freddy fucked us up was there was no real backup plan. His backup plan was to invest even more - using the bank's money, of course - and hope for the best. That's why we were in a lot of shit when he was bought out.

Nah. English football is about as local as McDonalds or Visa, and it is never coming back, unfortunately. How many industries can you see extremely rich people investing massive chunks of money only to find that someone else considerably richer than them has washed up, prepared to invest even more than you can, and thereby blow a massive chunk in your plans. The whole thing now is about as much a sporting event as Britain's Got Talent, and concepts like a Barca style membership scheme, though incredibly noble, just will not work. That's assuming we've reached an equilibrium of the footballing world. I don't see foreign owners pouring their money into English clubs forever. There will be a way, even if it's difficult, for fans to get things done. Maybe disillusionment will lead a formation of new clubs with clear and written principles (I'm thinking FC United and AFC Wimbledon - who are actually only one promotion away from the football league!), or these rich owners will leave. I think this is just a phase - maybe it'll last for ten or twenty years, but it'll change. I do think, in the end, the best way for a club to be run is by its fans using Barca's model (although Barca's a special circumstance because of its political significance). Anyone investing in football looking for financial returns will always be disappointed. Man Utd's holding company continues to lose money year-in year-out even when they're winning Premiership titles, competing for the CL and raising ticket prices. Their debt's continually rising and will affect their spending in a few seasons' time. I see a lot of clubs ending in the fan model, eventually.

The man's a legend. Is he still a legend if he asks for £2.5m/year to manage a Championship team?

Not smart enough for that.

The risk of rebuilding us is pretty large though, especially for the next few years in which any owner will have to accept that they're going to lose money. A sensible thing would be to get a new loan on the stadium, done at a reasonable rate (shame the economy's shit and the banks are being tight) and use that money to get us up into the Premiership. But any new owner will have to prepared for the worst i.e. staying in the CC for a couple of years and losing a lot of money.

We're desperate for it, which is why anyone who buys us must be thinking long-term success and return on investment and willing to lose quite a bit of money in the next year or two.

Isn't the problem that people want an owner that will be able to put money into the club (i.e not Ashley or Freddy), wouldn't a fans' consortium do just the opposite? We wouldn't be able to plug the club with money if needed, which it probably would. I don't see the parachute payment and the money from player sales being enough to stablise us. Yeah, I know and I agree. The hypothetical Real/Barca scenario would be more beneficial in the long-run. Even if we are condemned to the Championship for a couple of years, if we can become financially stable and viable, then promotion into the Premiership will mean that we can actually spend money too because of our fanbase. We're not like other teams who need someone to shoulder their spending sprees. The infrastructure at the club is still very strong. We've got a short-run financial problem. If this can be solved, then a Real/Barca style ownership is possible.