Got to be honest, that press conference has made me more positive for the future then i already was, especially if Chrissy has a new contract by Saturday.
I want this club to be a success for the long term and in the right way, not to be another club risking it all by chucking money down the drain for that elusive premier league pay day.
Pleased to hear you say this, GGA .
This is why I was eager to share the mood/positivity I gained from the recent FF meeting I attended.
And of course, a new contract & hence faith in SCP to carry us forward would be the icing on the cake.
I get the feeling that our fate will be dictated by how well the FFP rules are actually enforced.
The bottom line is that if we are playing within the rules and doing the right thing but the likes of Leicester and Cardiff (when they come down) are taking the piss on wages then we are probably fools to ourselves.
I mean, who is actually going to enforce FFP? Can it even be enforced?
Over here in Oz the NRL and AFL have similar schemes in place in the form of salary caps - and they enforce them the best they can but the clubs are always trying to find ways around the rules.
One club, Melbourne Storm, quite literally had two sets of books - one was the 'public' books which they showed to the NRL to demonstrate they were under the A$3.5 million per season salary cap and the other "private" books which showed what the players were ACTUALLY BEING PAID which was about DOUBLE the cap.
The NRL had a Salary Cap Auditor in place who would visit clubs and check their books but its very hard to trace some of the 3rd party payments where an associate company of the owner pays the team's best player $500,000 PA for promotional activities which are meaningless and are just a front to top up his wage.
Enforcement of FFP commences in just 10 months and we will see what happens. And perhaps we will hear stories about player wages coming down as early as this summer as clubs prepare for a reduction in loss limits. Liege fans have come on here and one has written an article for the Trust. This is good enough for me to give RD the benefit of the doubt...looking forward to Saturday and some signings.
Guess I'm in the minority in actually feeling positive about what was said. The long qoite about foundations, ffp and breakeven are actually things I also very much agree with and I'm glad RD has come out and said that.
It means we have a future. He has said he rates Powell and the job he's done with no funds and stated he wants to sort out a ccontract for future years. FFP is a reality and I'm glad we won't be burying our heads in the sand and gambling the future of our club on spending big. Guaranteed most champ clubs not recieving parachute will start crumbling unless they take the same route or get lucky every few years with another new mug owner willing to roll the dice.
Seems most people are wishing he'd rode in on a camel and started throwing his money about with no guarantee of success and with the possibility that we'd be screwed in a couple of years if we didn't go up.
Anyway my take home is that finally we are going to have long term stability and a backer that has said he will invest if need be but isn't going to just chuck money away. Maybe I'm mad but I call that sensible.
(Of course if he sacks Powell and screws him over on the contract then I take it all back. Until then willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as he could quite have easily not said anything like our last glorious leaders)
A certain other forum seems adamant that Powell is out of a job by summer and there will be a very sizeable cash injection of Turkish investment
Time will tell I guess
He was out of work this week two days ago according to the same forum.
Some of the stuff on there is quite incredulous, poisonous place. Pretty sure Reams makes it up as he goes along, how anyone who's so wrong so often maintains such a gang of blind disciples I'll never know.
And he's still having a go at Rothko for something that didn't actually happen.
Long term stability: good Short term: bad My scared side is on the pitch stuff, we will never ever have a settled XI, one player performs for a season and off he goes to X club, we get in another young one and it goes again, get a good academy player get a season or two from him in the main team and off he goes. How many teams can do this and stay stable at a high level in England doing this? Not many, you need a core and not sure we'll have that, except from loans etc who are inexperienced at the level.
Happy with the Academy stuff and pitch being sorted, and understand what RD's doing here, but not sure it's going to be a fun ride for the majority.
Firstly don't let a press conference do the talking and influence your thinking at this point. Its all about the football. Judge us by our biggest game of the season so far which is QPR at home this Saturday afternoon, and every recurring week until we are either confirmed safe or relegated. If we lose miserably against QPR all the talking about such and such is totally irrelevant. Start of the season would be different but there is no room for excuses now.
We cant accept going down again as it would be a total disaster as every effort we put in to win league 1 in such great style will eventually mean nothing.
Funny thing to say I guess as football is not all that important, but life is just too short to start yoyo-ing about.
A still picture of what looks (to me at least) like Chris powell in deep thought and some saying he's not happy. We're not exactly sitting pretty at the top of the table, so should he be sitting there grinning like a cheshire cat????
Guess I'm in the minority in actually feeling positive about what was said. The long qoite about foundations, ffp and breakeven are actually things I also very much agree with and I'm glad RD has come out and said that.
It means we have a future. He has said he rates Powell and the job he's done with no funds and stated he wants to sort out a ccontract for future years. FFP is a reality and I'm glad we won't be burying our heads in the sand and gambling the future of our club on spending big. Guaranteed most champ clubs not recieving parachute will start crumbling unless they take the same route or get lucky every few years with another new mug owner willing to roll the dice.
Seems most people are wishing he'd rode in on a camel and started throwing his money about with no guarantee of success and with the possibility that we'd be screwed in a couple of years if we didn't go up.
Anyway my take home is that finally we are going to have long term stability and a backer that has said he will invest if need be but isn't going to just chuck money away. Maybe I'm mad but I call that sensible.
(Of course if he sacks Powell and screws him over on the contract then I take it all back. Until then willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as he could quite have easily not said anything like our last glorious leaders)
Agree with and share this sentiment. For the last several months, I've feared for the immediate future of the club, concluding that the past owners posed an existential threat to CAFC. That fear is subsiding.
A still picture of what looks (to me at least) like Chris powell in deep thought and some saying he's not happy. We're not exactly sitting pretty at the top of the table, so should he be sitting there grinning like a cheshire cat????
Isn't he just listening? Blimey, if you looked at still photos of Mrs cafcfan you'd assume that she walked around with her eyes closed all the time!
We like to speculate on what RD's insistence on living within our financial means and preparing/embracing FFP may actually mean, but look at what Slater's mob ended up doing to the club not long ago. No financial planning, no budgeting, just trying to talk more money out of the real investors. As soon as they fell out, the club was deep in the sticky brown stuff, if not for the sale we would be far, FAR worse off right now.
I don't pretend to know whether RD's plans will work, but I am confident that if he was not the man in charge right now, it would not be simply relegation we'd be facing - it would be administration. And despite the exceptions, that is NOT a concept to embrace, ever.
It looks like Roland is banking on the FFP rules to help him drive down the cost of player wages. But I think he is barking up the wrong tree, the first club to suffer penalties for breaching FFP will challange it in the european court, and we will see the rules over turned. It will be another Bosman type ruling.
My take on this is quite clear. Roland is an excellent business man, and as such he wants to run profitable businesses. He also has a sizeable interest in football. To build a profitable business you must first put down solid foundations. For us that will mean a Stadium and facilities that meet the needs, with Training facilities to accomodate the biggest part of the foundations, our Academy. Very important in the mix will be people. Money will be invested in bringing in to the Academy the very best talent that we can find, to be groomed by top class coaches and advisers. This will gradually produce a stream of young players moving towards and into the senior squad. Along the way players will be sold to produce profit, whilst all the time new lads will be waiting to take their place. The secret is to set that principle and process in stone, with management who control and teach those coming behind them. If we are successful in achieving our aims, we should have a stability that gives us consisent good performance throughout the Club. Forget Saturday, forget next season, to become what Roland with his excellent vision can see we must be patient. As somebody once famously said, I have a dream, lets move towards it together.
I get the vision, Granpa - just concerned that attracting and keeping good young players for the academy is a lot harder in League One. We will also lose more of the fanbase, and if new families move to the area, why on earth would they choose Charlton and not West Ham or even Palace? Relegation has so many wider implications than "saving" RD £4M.
My take on this is quite clear. Roland is an excellent business man, and as such he wants to run profitable businesses. He also has a sizeable interest in football. To build a profitable business you must first put down solid foundations. For us that will mean a Stadium and facilities that meet the needs, with Training facilities to accomodate the biggest part of the foundations, our Academy. Very important in the mix will be people. Money will be invested in bringing in to the Academy the very best talent that we can find, to be groomed by top class coaches and advisers. This will gradually produce a stream of young players moving towards and into the senior squad. Along the way players will be sold to produce profit, whilst all the time new lads will be waiting to take their place. The secret is to set that principle and process in stone, with management who control and teach those coming behind them. If we are successful in achieving our aims, we should have a stability that gives us consisent good performance throughout the Club. Forget Saturday, forget next season, to become what Roland with his excellent vision can see we must be patient. As somebody once famously said, I have a dream, lets move towards it together.
What happens if we 'forget Saturday, forget next season' and end up playing in front of 8,000 in Div 2. Would that be an acceptable price to pay for restructuring the club?
I get the vision, Granpa - just concerned that attracting and keeping good young players for the academy is a lot harder in League One. We will also lose more of the fanbase, and if new families move to the area, why on earth would they choose Charlton and not West Ham or even Palace? Relegation has so many wider implications than "saving" RD £4M.
And he'll know it, I am sure. He's repeated a lot his planning being 'long term' so I imagine he has different ideas and plans depending on where we end up by the end of the season. Which is not to say those plans are guaranteed to work, but anyone thinking RD is completely ignorant of the potential ramifications of relegation is doing him a disservice I think. We were struggling when he bought us, the dreaded drop has been a shadow over the whole season - he'll have seen this and accounted for it I am sure.
A certain other forum seems adamant that Powell is out of a job by summer and there will be a very sizeable cash injection of Turkish investment
Time will tell I guess
We've read this sort of thing all before. Seriously rich owners coming in and apparently all takeovers result in the current manager losing his job.
Powell's out of contract in the summer. If RD was certain he wanted his own man Powell would have gone by now. If he wasn't sure he wouldn't be talking about offering him a new contract, he might keep him on until the summer then let him go.
Then there's suggestion RD is being clever by not actually sacking him but offered him a worse deal so that he'll decide leave. Only reason he might do that is because he's worried what the fans might think. But why would he? He's sold Stephens, Yann and Alnwick. The fans will soon change their mind if a new manager gets results, especially if that's achieved by playing exciting football.
I think RD genuinely does rate Powell. I expect he'd have seen all the facts that we don't such as the wage bill was for each season, perhaps in comparison to the rest of the league. It's clear the decline of the pitch and quality of the squad hasn't helped. He's built a team spirit, made good signings and brought through some promising academy players.
It's not certain that Powell will still be here next season but at the moment I think it's looking that way.
My take on this is quite clear. Roland is an excellent business man, and as such he wants to run profitable businesses. He also has a sizeable interest in football. To build a profitable business you must first put down solid foundations. For us that will mean a Stadium and facilities that meet the needs, with Training facilities to accomodate the biggest part of the foundations, our Academy. Very important in the mix will be people. Money will be invested in bringing in to the Academy the very best talent that we can find, to be groomed by top class coaches and advisers. This will gradually produce a stream of young players moving towards and into the senior squad. Along the way players will be sold to produce profit, whilst all the time new lads will be waiting to take their place. The secret is to set that principle and process in stone, with management who control and teach those coming behind them. If we are successful in achieving our aims, we should have a stability that gives us consisent good performance throughout the Club. Forget Saturday, forget next season, to become what Roland with his excellent vision can see we must be patient. As somebody once famously said, I have a dream, lets move towards it together.
That's all well and good and I hope that you're right about RD having a long-term plan.
The only thing is that I am very suspicious of intricate plans for as that great western philosopher Mike Tyson once said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."
Relegation to League One would be one hell of a punch in the face and I am not sure RDs plan would withstand that.
Hi Ormiston, loved the Tyson quote. Yes of course we all see relegation as a terrible move for us, and Roland is too clever not to agree. I also accept that we are in danger of losing supporters, but you know if we do get it right and create a siuation whereby we are building a team of mainly home grown players who play attractive football, we will fill the Ground quite quickly. Look around at the Leeds and the Portsmouths, and I think we will soon grow to appreciate Roland's attitude, and what he can do with our Club.
My take on this is quite clear. Roland is an excellent business man, and as such he wants to run profitable businesses. He also has a sizeable interest in football. To build a profitable business you must first put down solid foundations. For us that will mean a Stadium and facilities that meet the needs, with Training facilities to accomodate the biggest part of the foundations, our Academy. Very important in the mix will be people. Money will be invested in bringing in to the Academy the very best talent that we can find, to be groomed by top class coaches and advisers. This will gradually produce a stream of young players moving towards and into the senior squad. Along the way players will be sold to produce profit, whilst all the time new lads will be waiting to take their place. The secret is to set that principle and process in stone, with management who control and teach those coming behind them. If we are successful in achieving our aims, we should have a stability that gives us consisent good performance throughout the Club. Forget Saturday, forget next season, to become what Roland with his excellent vision can see we must be patient. As somebody once famously said, I have a dream, lets move towards it together.
That's all well and good and I hope that you're right about RD having a long-term plan.
The only thing is that I am very suspicious of intricate plans for as that great western philosopher Mike Tyson once said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."
Relegation to League One would be one hell of a punch in the face and I am not sure RDs plan would withstand that.
I cannot possibly imagine that it wouldn't - or at least that he wouldn't have a Plan B. The (hypothetical?) 4million clause proves he was aware of the possibility of relegation at the point of purchase, nothing has happened since to suggest a miracle recovery. It is almost certainly not his INTENTION to have a club that is relegated, but I don't think as savvy an operator as he is reputed to be will just ignore such a potentially game changing possibility.
Just watched the press conference and i like what RD is saying. I think he doesnt want to do a cardiff and spend loads of money to get to the prem, stay there for a season or 2 and then maybe be relegated. I think he would rather have 5 seasons out of it and build foundations for us so that if we do get to the prem we dont have to panic and buy a whole new squad because we havent got good enough players. I think if we do get to the prem we will be there for a while under RD
Sounds to me that a club that is breaking even, and providing fun at match days without necessarily winning, but still producing young players for sale for the Belgian's pocket or for sub standard liege is the aim, which could be the club playing any where from Division 1 to Championship. Premiership would just be the icing. I don't trust Murray's judgement given his history since he got rid of Curbs so no comfort from him still being around.
We like to speculate on what RD's insistence on living within our financial means and preparing/embracing FFP may actually mean, but look at what Slater's mob ended up doing to the club not long ago. No financial planning, no budgeting, just trying to talk more money out of the real investors. As soon as they fell out, the club was deep in the sticky brown stuff, if not for the sale we would be far, FAR worse off right now.
I don't pretend to know whether RD's plans will work, but I am confident that if he was not the man in charge right now, it would not be simply relegation we'd be facing - it would be administration. And despite the exceptions, that is NOT a concept to embrace, ever.
Just a few observations on the Press Conference for what they are worth;
1. Don't read anything whatsoever into Chris Powell's apparent expression in the picture posted earlier in this thread. He seemed relaxed and was confident when answering questions.
2. I interpreted Duchatelet as saying that each Club in the network is independent and will need to stand on its own two feet. That's the responsibility of their Management. This is a portfolio of businesses not a single business.
3. He then said that each Club had the benefit of being able to share knowledge and expertise with others in the network, though he did not use that term. He made the obvious point about loan moves between Clubs. Only time will tell, but my read is that he envisages a "voluntary collaboration" rather than a "centrally directed integration".
4. He spent some time talking about the opportunity for young players to develop, as players and as people, by spending time at another Club in a different country and culture. Don't want to be cynical, but whilst that might make sense for young Executives in an Electronics business I'm not convinced its going to be value added for 17/18 year old footballers. We'll see I guess.
5. At this point Richard Murray stepped in and argued that access to a European wide scouting network is a big positive. He explained that in the Premier League there is a majority of foreign players because they represent better value for money, but that in the Championship, League One and League Two the reverse is true because Clubs don't have the scouting network. This may well be a valid point. However, I'm afraid that I have to say that Murray undermined his credibility by trying to imply that the Club "had choices when selling, but chose Roland because he was an attractive buyer". I guess he probably thinks that the Media don't know there was no choice, that Murray wasn't involved anyway and that those that made the "sell" decision wouldn't give two hoots who the buyer was provided they were "good for the money". Murray is so obviously a decent man with the Club's interests close to his heart. It's such a shame he can't seem to resist obvious "spin".
6. Roland made it clear that whilst money is no problem, he's not going to spend it!! He talked about balancing success on the field of play with achieving financial equilibrium. Whilst the Premier League may be the ultimate ambition for Duchatelet, he's in no hurry to get there and nor is he going to speculate to accumulate. He complimented Chris Powell on keeping the side competitive whilst playing against Clubs with much bigger budgets. However, he then strongly implied that this will continue!! He did not talk about the Academy, at least not directly, but it's very clear that if we are to return to the Premier League it will be based on a low budget squad, based on products of the Academy, supplemented by "value" acquisitions from elsewhere. I love the Mike Tyson story above, but fear that at some stage Duchatelet will get punched in the face.
7. Duchatelet gave an interesting explanation of what happened in the early days of his ownership. He said that "we" had analysed the squad and knew it needed strengthening. He implied that this was urgent and that there wasn't enough time to fully involve Chris Powell, suggesting that this wasn't necessarily the norm. That's how I read it anyway. He made it clear that it was up to Powell who played.
8. Chris Powell was asked how the players had settled. He appeared to answer honesty, but positively. As noted, he seemed relaxed. In saying that he had the advantage of knowing one player, i.e. Ajdarevic, he did seem to confirm that the others were simply "delivered" to him. I'm speculating obviously.
9. When asked about his ambitions for the Club Duchatelet gave an intriguing, lengthy and somewhat rambling answer, stressing the importance of the Club as a community, a gathering place, in the way the Church used to be. In some ways this is positive because it suggests that he'll take a long-term, holistic view of the Club and seek to build sustainable foundations. On the other hand, it suggests that the lens through which he sees his ownership is somewhat unorthodox, making his actions unpredictable.
10. It's going to be interesting. Duchatelet has deep pockets and will take a long term view. His focus on the Academy is also a big positive. However, on the other hand, he is not going to splash the cash and on the field progress is going to have to be very hard fought. Moreover, he's a bit wacky, perhaps even a little naive, and there is a risk than when he meets Mike Tyson he'll get a nasty wake up call. What happens then is anybody's guess.
PS For those that missed the Tyson comment, here it is;
My take on this is quite clear. Roland is an excellent business man, and as such he wants to run profitable businesses. He also has a sizeable interest in football. To build a profitable business you must first put down solid foundations. For us that will mean a Stadium and facilities that meet the needs, with Training facilities to accomodate the biggest part of the foundations, our Academy. Very important in the mix will be people. Money will be invested in bringing in to the Academy the very best talent that we can find, to be groomed by top class coaches and advisers. This will gradually produce a stream of young players moving towards and into the senior squad. Along the way players will be sold to produce profit, whilst all the time new lads will be waiting to take their place. The secret is to set that principle and process in stone, with management who control and teach those coming behind them. If we are successful in achieving our aims, we should have a stability that gives us consisent good performance throughout the Club. Forget Saturday, forget next season, to become what Roland with his excellent vision can see we must be patient. As somebody once famously said, I have a dream, lets move towards it together.
..... as that great western philosopher Mike Tyson once said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."
Comments
This is why I was eager to share the mood/positivity I gained from the recent FF meeting I attended.
And of course, a new contract & hence faith in SCP to carry us forward would be the icing on the cake.
Time will tell I guess
The bottom line is that if we are playing within the rules and doing the right thing but the likes of Leicester and Cardiff (when they come down) are taking the piss on wages then we are probably fools to ourselves.
I mean, who is actually going to enforce FFP? Can it even be enforced?
Over here in Oz the NRL and AFL have similar schemes in place in the form of salary caps - and they enforce them the best they can but the clubs are always trying to find ways around the rules.
One club, Melbourne Storm, quite literally had two sets of books - one was the 'public' books which they showed to the NRL to demonstrate they were under the A$3.5 million per season salary cap and the other "private" books which showed what the players were ACTUALLY BEING PAID which was about DOUBLE the cap.
The NRL had a Salary Cap Auditor in place who would visit clubs and check their books but its very hard to trace some of the 3rd party payments where an associate company of the owner pays the team's best player $500,000 PA for promotional activities which are meaningless and are just a front to top up his wage.
Liege fans have come on here and one has written an article for the Trust. This is good enough for me to give RD the benefit of the doubt...looking forward to Saturday and some signings.
It means we have a future. He has said he rates Powell and the job he's done with no funds and stated he wants to sort out a ccontract for future years. FFP is a reality and I'm glad we won't be burying our heads in the sand and gambling the future of our club on spending big. Guaranteed most champ clubs not recieving parachute will start crumbling unless they take the same route or get lucky every few years with another new mug owner willing to roll the dice.
Seems most people are wishing he'd rode in on a camel and started throwing his money about with no guarantee of success and with the possibility that we'd be screwed in a couple of years if we didn't go up.
Anyway my take home is that finally we are going to have long term stability and a backer that has said he will invest if need be but isn't going to just chuck money away. Maybe I'm mad but I call that sensible.
(Of course if he sacks Powell and screws him over on the contract then I take it all back. Until then willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as he could quite have easily not said anything like our last glorious leaders)
And he's still having a go at Rothko for something that didn't actually happen.
Short term: bad
My scared side is on the pitch stuff, we will never ever have a settled XI, one player performs for a season and off he goes to X club, we get in another young one and it goes again, get a good academy player get a season or two from him in the main team and off he goes. How many teams can do this and stay stable at a high level in England doing this? Not many, you need a core and not sure we'll have that, except from loans etc who are inexperienced at the level.
Happy with the Academy stuff and pitch being sorted, and understand what RD's doing here, but not sure it's going to be a fun ride for the majority.
If we lose miserably against QPR all the talking about such and such is totally irrelevant.
Start of the season would be different but there is no room for excuses now.
We cant accept going down again as it would be a total disaster as every effort we put in to win league 1 in such great style will eventually mean nothing.
Funny thing to say I guess as football is not all that important, but life is just too short to start yoyo-ing about.
A still picture of what looks (to me at least) like Chris powell in deep thought and some saying he's not happy. We're not exactly sitting pretty at the top of the table, so should he be sitting there grinning like a cheshire cat????
I don't pretend to know whether RD's plans will work, but I am confident that if he was not the man in charge right now, it would not be simply relegation we'd be facing - it would be administration. And despite the exceptions, that is NOT a concept to embrace, ever.
Powell's out of contract in the summer. If RD was certain he wanted his own man Powell would have gone by now. If he wasn't sure he wouldn't be talking about offering him a new contract, he might keep him on until the summer then let him go.
Then there's suggestion RD is being clever by not actually sacking him but offered him a worse deal so that he'll decide leave. Only reason he might do that is because he's worried what the fans might think. But why would he? He's sold Stephens, Yann and Alnwick. The fans will soon change their mind if a new manager gets results, especially if that's achieved by playing exciting football.
I think RD genuinely does rate Powell. I expect he'd have seen all the facts that we don't such as the wage bill was for each season, perhaps in comparison to the rest of the league. It's clear the decline of the pitch and quality of the squad hasn't helped. He's built a team spirit, made good signings and brought through some promising academy players.
It's not certain that Powell will still be here next season but at the moment I think it's looking that way.
The only thing is that I am very suspicious of intricate plans for as that great western philosopher Mike Tyson once said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."
Relegation to League One would be one hell of a punch in the face and I am not sure RDs plan would withstand that.
1. Don't read anything whatsoever into Chris Powell's apparent expression in the picture posted earlier in this thread. He seemed relaxed and was confident when answering questions.
2. I interpreted Duchatelet as saying that each Club in the network is independent and will need to stand on its own two feet. That's the responsibility of their Management. This is a portfolio of businesses not a single business.
3. He then said that each Club had the benefit of being able to share knowledge and expertise with others in the network, though he did not use that term. He made the obvious point about loan moves between Clubs. Only time will tell, but my read is that he envisages a "voluntary collaboration" rather than a "centrally directed integration".
4. He spent some time talking about the opportunity for young players to develop, as players and as people, by spending time at another Club in a different country and culture. Don't want to be cynical, but whilst that might make sense for young Executives in an Electronics business I'm not convinced its going to be value added for 17/18 year old footballers. We'll see I guess.
5. At this point Richard Murray stepped in and argued that access to a European wide scouting network is a big positive. He explained that in the Premier League there is a majority of foreign players because they represent better value for money, but that in the Championship, League One and League Two the reverse is true because Clubs don't have the scouting network. This may well be a valid point. However, I'm afraid that I have to say that Murray undermined his credibility by trying to imply that the Club "had choices when selling, but chose Roland because he was an attractive buyer". I guess he probably thinks that the Media don't know there was no choice, that Murray wasn't involved anyway and that those that made the "sell" decision wouldn't give two hoots who the buyer was provided they were "good for the money". Murray is so obviously a decent man with the Club's interests close to his heart. It's such a shame he can't seem to resist obvious "spin".
6. Roland made it clear that whilst money is no problem, he's not going to spend it!! He talked about balancing success on the field of play with achieving financial equilibrium. Whilst the Premier League may be the ultimate ambition for Duchatelet, he's in no hurry to get there and nor is he going to speculate to accumulate. He complimented Chris Powell on keeping the side competitive whilst playing against Clubs with much bigger budgets. However, he then strongly implied that this will continue!! He did not talk about the Academy, at least not directly, but it's very clear that if we are to return to the Premier League it will be based on a low budget squad, based on products of the Academy, supplemented by "value" acquisitions from elsewhere. I love the Mike Tyson story above, but fear that at some stage Duchatelet will get punched in the face.
7. Duchatelet gave an interesting explanation of what happened in the early days of his ownership. He said that "we" had analysed the squad and knew it needed strengthening. He implied that this was urgent and that there wasn't enough time to fully involve Chris Powell, suggesting that this wasn't necessarily the norm. That's how I read it anyway. He made it clear that it was up to Powell who played.
8. Chris Powell was asked how the players had settled. He appeared to answer honesty, but positively. As noted, he seemed relaxed. In saying that he had the advantage of knowing one player, i.e. Ajdarevic, he did seem to confirm that the others were simply "delivered" to him. I'm speculating obviously.
9. When asked about his ambitions for the Club Duchatelet gave an intriguing, lengthy and somewhat rambling answer, stressing the importance of the Club as a community, a gathering place, in the way the Church used to be. In some ways this is positive because it suggests that he'll take a long-term, holistic view of the Club and seek to build sustainable foundations. On the other hand, it suggests that the lens through which he sees his ownership is somewhat unorthodox, making his actions unpredictable.
10. It's going to be interesting. Duchatelet has deep pockets and will take a long term view. His focus on the Academy is also a big positive. However, on the other hand, he is not going to splash the cash and on the field progress is going to have to be very hard fought. Moreover, he's a bit wacky, perhaps even a little naive, and there is a risk than when he meets Mike Tyson he'll get a nasty wake up call. What happens then is anybody's guess.
PS For those that missed the Tyson comment, here it is;