The euphoria is understandable and welcomed. I just get this itchy feeling in my Charlton supporting bones that the Belgian oxygen thief will leave us wanting resources next year and we will suffer as a consequence... what a bloody waste!
Have have a horrible feeling GM is back in Oz. Either that or he’s up in the middle of the night texting :-(
He could have gone home to pack up his stuff and move to the Uk? #ClutchingAtStraws
His family weren't keen before though were they
They were, but when ‘it didn’t happen’ they had to start a new school year in Oz. Couldn’t start a new school year here on the offchance. The Aussies could still buy the club without GM staying on as CEO of course.
I think I remember you posting a few weeks back that you thought a sale any time soon was no better than 50/50 which to me is actually encouraging. How do you read the situation at this point.
I think I remember you posting a few weeks back that you thought a sale any time soon was no better than 50/50 which to me is actually encouraging. How do you read the situation at this point.
As per above now is the time from both the buyer and seller’s perspective, but this is RD we are dealing with so common sense doesn’t come into it.
I think some people need to read this a realise that it's not only RDs ownership that is currently preventing us being a "championship club with premiership asperations". The club can't afford to pay the wages required to compete, over any length of time, at the top of the championship. We may get lucky one season, but it's unlikely.
Unless we get an owner willing to put in say £30 million a season it's not economically viable. People talk about an "owner with the ambition to back the manager" what they mean is an owner willing to spunk their own money up the wall.
We are long passed "local boy made good" ownership model. My fear now is that noone who can afford to buy and run us, in a way most people want, would be stupid enough to do it. If Roland decides he isn't getting his money back and sells the club on the cheap you open up the market to the likes of Ken Anderson and the chancers at Sunderland (that take over could go very ugly, very soon). Be careful what you wish for.
I think some people need to read this a realise that it's not only RDs ownership that is currently preventing us being a "championship club with premiership asperations". The club can't afford to pay the wages required to compete, over any length of time, at the top of the championship. We may get lucky one season, but it's unlikely.
Unless we get an owner willing to put in say £30 million a season it's not economically viable. People talk about an "owner with the ambition to back the manager" what they mean is an owner willing to spunk their own money up the wall.
We are long passed "local boy made good" ownership model. My fear now is that noone who can afford to buy and run us, in a way most people want, would be stupid enough to do it. If Roland decides he isn't getting his money back and sells the club on the cheap you open up the market to the likes of Ken Anderson and the chancers at Sunderland (that take over could go very ugly, very soon). Be careful what you wish for.
I think that's generally true, but there is a big opportunity for someone with the resources if they can get the club into the PL in two or three years. Lee Bowyer might be a manager who can do that, which is another reason the takeover needs to happen now. Promotion to the PL could stabilise the whole thing, even if we were relegated again. Such people are out there, but they aren't going to pay RD over the odds when they know no one else is either.
this harks back to the argument whether with enlightened ownership, bigger crowds, etc could we be competitive in the Championship.
It should also be noted that very few clubs in the Championship can 'afford' it and most are financed by owner 'debt'/equity, in other words it is down to who owns the club and their willingness to put money in due to the environment we live in largely because player salaries are so inflated and the differential between Premier and Championship revenues is so vast.
If you think about it, without a wage cap or some better restrictions, this will always be the case as someone will want to win more than the other and put more money in.
So can we 'blame' Duchatelet? In my view yes, no-one forced him to buy the club, and it appears that he didn't do his homework. He's also wasted a LOT of money with poor hiring, and a flawed strategy in a number of ways, all of which has been rehearsed many times on this site.
I think some people need to read this a realise that it's not only RDs ownership that is currently preventing us being a "championship club with premiership asperations". The club can't afford to pay the wages required to compete, over any length of time, at the top of the championship. We may get lucky one season, but it's unlikely.
Unless we get an owner willing to put in say £30 million a season it's not economically viable. People talk about an "owner with the ambition to back the manager" what they mean is an owner willing to spunk their own money up the wall.
We are long passed "local boy made good" ownership model. My fear now is that noone who can afford to buy and run us, in a way most people want, would be stupid enough to do it. If Roland decides he isn't getting his money back and sells the club on the cheap you open up the market to the likes of Ken Anderson and the chancers at Sunderland (that take over could go very ugly, very soon). Be careful what you wish for.
Agreed, some of those wages numbers are ridiculous. To me there needs to be greater coordination between the leagues so that you don't have teams running up terrible losses, but "getting away with it" by getting promotion, when Birmingham got hit by a points deduction
I think some people need to read this a realise that it's not only RDs ownership that is currently preventing us being a "championship club with premiership asperations". The club can't afford to pay the wages required to compete, over any length of time, at the top of the championship. We may get lucky one season, but it's unlikely.
Unless we get an owner willing to put in say £30 million a season it's not economically viable. People talk about an "owner with the ambition to back the manager" what they mean is an owner willing to spunk their own money up the wall.
We are long passed "local boy made good" ownership model. My fear now is that noone who can afford to buy and run us, in a way most people want, would be stupid enough to do it. If Roland decides he isn't getting his money back and sells the club on the cheap you open up the market to the likes of Ken Anderson and the chancers at Sunderland (that take over could go very ugly, very soon). Be careful what you wish for.
Agreed, some of those wages numbers are ridiculous. To me there needs to be greater coordination between the leagues so that you don't have teams running up terrible losses, but "getting away with it" by getting promotion, when Birmingham got hit by a points deduction
You wont get that while the FAPL exists as a separate entity, controlled by the owners of the 20 clubs. It needs to be abolished, the FA needs to be in charge of TV money distribution and a regulator with teeth needs to keep the whole motley crew in order. Of course that is easy enough to write, but there is no other route to sorting this shit out. Follow the money. As always....
One thing that may help is that we had a number of players, some of whom have left, who were on Championship wages, but I do take the point on the increases in wage bills (a knock on from the Premier League I expect) although some of that will be a distortion from clubs who have been relegated retaining players on premier league wages.
The strategy relies too much on Bowyer's ability to get players in at value, get the most out of them, run a small squad and then of course there is the over reliance on loans - as mentioned. One could argue a number of the squads are bloated and too reliant on overpaid underperformers, but the over reliance on Bowyer's abilities is less likely to succeed the higher up you go and after all we did have a high budget for League 1 albeit with some on Championship wages, some of whom didn't perform.
One of the failures of Duchatelet's strategy historically has been his devaluing of the role of manager to a head coach role and also very dispensable with experience not valued highly, and not providing enough expertise to back that up via a Director of football for example. I can understand the wish to get great value but this was undermined then by some bizarre contracts and purchases some we assume were speculative to sell on, but then they didn't seem very good at selling on either - not in every case at least.
Anyway he has accidentally got one part right in the retention of Lee Bowyer, but of course has one foot out of the door, and wants we assume to do as little as possible to maintain Championship status.
The travesty is of course, as mentioned above, that Bow is clearly a real talent and could go a long way with some investment if spent wisely. I would go as far as to say he is on course to be one of our best managers in terms of talent - what a shame if that is wasted.
So can we 'blame' Duchatelet? In my view yes, no-one forced him to buy the club, and it appears that he didn't do his homework. He's also wasted a LOT of money with poor hiring, and a flawed strategy in a number of ways, all of which has been rehearsed many times on this site.
Sorry I didn't mean its not Roland's fault he has wasted so much money and didn't have a credible plan. I ment that if he went tomorrow unless the new owner was prepared to put in a crazy amount of money we wouldn't be much better off.
Anyone that is prepared to spunk so much money, on a club they have no emotional link with, is probably not fit and proper in the 1st place. This is a problem the EFL now have, do you let an owner you know to be a risk take over a club or do you let it go into liquidation? I belive that was a choice they had to make with Sunderland in the summer.
So can we 'blame' Duchatelet? In my view yes, no-one forced him to buy the club, and it appears that he didn't do his homework. He's also wasted a LOT of money with poor hiring, and a flawed strategy in a number of ways, all of which has been rehearsed many times on this site.
Sorry I didn't mean its not Roland's fault he has wasted so much money and didn't have a credible plan. I ment that if he went tomorrow unless the new owner was prepared to put in a crazy amount of money we wouldn't be much better off.
Anyone that is prepared to spunk so much money, on a club they have no emotional link with, is probably not fit and proper in the 1st place. This is a problem the EFL now have, do you let an owner you know to be a risk take over a club or do you let it go into liquidation? I belive that was a choice they had to make with Sunderland in the summer.
Not sure I agree, surely the prestige and money from owning a Premier League club is a factor?
So can we 'blame' Duchatelet? In my view yes, no-one forced him to buy the club, and it appears that he didn't do his homework. He's also wasted a LOT of money with poor hiring, and a flawed strategy in a number of ways, all of which has been rehearsed many times on this site.
Sorry I didn't mean its not Roland's fault he has wasted so much money and didn't have a credible plan. I ment that if he went tomorrow unless the new owner was prepared to put in a crazy amount of money we wouldn't be much better off.
Anyone that is prepared to spunk so much money, on a club they have no emotional link with, is probably not fit and proper in the 1st place. This is a problem the EFL now have, do you let an owner you know to be a risk take over a club or do you let it go into liquidation? I belive that was a choice they had to make with Sunderland in the summer.
Not sure I agree, surely the prestige and money from owning a Premier League club is a factor?
Absolutely this. Abramovich was not a Chelsea supporter when he bought them.
The EFL needs to tell the Premiership that under the current top-heavy arrangements the clubs are not going to have promotion and relegation into the FAPL. Of course the top three will make their own arrangements but the teams coming down will have to start in the Conference or lower. Initial pain until salaries align with reduced income and the EFL TV rights would have to go elsewhere (possibly a plus). That is the only way I can see this crazy merry-go-round stabilising.
The whole experience of this season including Bowyers achievement has made me a little more glass half full than I used to be. It’s been a pretty miserable experience over the last few years supporting the club.
I also wonder if our support has galvanised albeit not materially during the normal season, due to the Duchatelet era unifying and even growing our support, and now crowned with a fantastic Wembley experience, an echo of the back to the Valley struggle. This might explain the sellout and noise from the 24k in the semi and even Wembley somewhat.
It would be interesting to see what the upturn in season ticket sales is, hard to compare with other times tho of course due to the toxicity now -compared with Powell’s era for example.
So can we 'blame' Duchatelet? In my view yes, no-one forced him to buy the club, and it appears that he didn't do his homework. He's also wasted a LOT of money with poor hiring, and a flawed strategy in a number of ways, all of which has been rehearsed many times on this site.
Sorry I didn't mean its not Roland's fault he has wasted so much money and didn't have a credible plan. I ment that if he went tomorrow unless the new owner was prepared to put in a crazy amount of money we wouldn't be much better off.
Anyone that is prepared to spunk so much money, on a club they have no emotional link with, is probably not fit and proper in the 1st place. This is a problem the EFL now have, do you let an owner you know to be a risk take over a club or do you let it go into liquidation? I belive that was a choice they had to make with Sunderland in the summer.
Not sure I agree, surely the prestige and money from owning a Premier League club is a factor?
Absolutely this. Abramovich was not a Chelsea supporter when he bought them.
Abramovich bought Chelsea when they had qualified for the champions league. The money he threw at Chelsea, that was seen as obscene at the time, is chicken feed compared to what has happened at City.
If your prepared to risk, say for sake of argument 150-200 million, on a club like us, with out any guarantee of even getting to the premier league you need your head testing. Or you have serious cash, if your in the later camp you might as well buy Arsenal.
Wasn't the Network's major strategy that between them the six clubs would be largely self-sufficient in players, who would be transferred around the group rosters soaking up spares and filling in gaps?
A bold concept made much less likely to succeed when the senior people involved had no knowledge of, interest in or feeling for football at this relatively high level.
Comments
Jesus!! Does this thread go back that far??
If the club isn’t sold a lot may depend on whether Bowyer gets to spend the extra central revenue or Duchatelet tries to break even.
They were, but when ‘it didn’t happen’ they had to start a new school year in Oz. Couldn’t start a new school year here on the offchance.
The Aussies could still buy the club without GM staying on as CEO of course.
I think I remember you posting a few weeks back that you thought a sale any time soon was no better than 50/50 which to me is actually encouraging. How do you read the situation at this point.
I think some people need to read this a realise that it's not only RDs ownership that is currently preventing us being a "championship club with premiership asperations". The club can't afford to pay the wages required to compete, over any length of time, at the top of the championship. We may get lucky one season, but it's unlikely.
Unless we get an owner willing to put in say £30 million a season it's not economically viable. People talk about an "owner with the ambition to back the manager" what they mean is an owner willing to spunk their own money up the wall.
We are long passed "local boy made good" ownership model. My fear now is that noone who can afford to buy and run us, in a way most people want, would be stupid enough to do it. If Roland decides he isn't getting his money back and sells the club on the cheap you open up the market to the likes of Ken Anderson and the chancers at Sunderland (that take over could go very ugly, very soon). Be careful what you wish for.
It should also be noted that very few clubs in the Championship can 'afford' it and most are financed by owner 'debt'/equity, in other words it is down to who owns the club and their willingness to put money in due to the environment we live in largely because player salaries are so inflated and the differential between Premier and Championship revenues is so vast.
If you think about it, without a wage cap or some better restrictions, this will always be the case as someone will want to win more than the other and put more money in.
So can we 'blame' Duchatelet? In my view yes, no-one forced him to buy the club, and it appears that he didn't do his homework. He's also wasted a LOT of money with poor hiring, and a flawed strategy in a number of ways, all of which has been rehearsed many times on this site.
The strategy relies too much on Bowyer's ability to get players in at value, get the most out of them, run a small squad and then of course there is the over reliance on loans - as mentioned. One could argue a number of the squads are bloated and too reliant on overpaid underperformers, but the over reliance on Bowyer's abilities is less likely to succeed the higher up you go and after all we did have a high budget for League 1 albeit with some on Championship wages, some of whom didn't perform.
One of the failures of Duchatelet's strategy historically has been his devaluing of the role of manager to a head coach role and also very dispensable with experience not valued highly, and not providing enough expertise to back that up via a Director of football for example. I can understand the wish to get great value but this was undermined then by some bizarre contracts and purchases some we assume were speculative to sell on, but then they didn't seem very good at selling on either - not in every case at least.
Anyway he has accidentally got one part right in the retention of Lee Bowyer, but of course has one foot out of the door, and wants we assume to do as little as possible to maintain Championship status.
The travesty is of course, as mentioned above, that Bow is clearly a real talent and could go a long way with some investment if spent wisely. I would go as far as to say he is on course to be one of our best managers in terms of talent - what a shame if that is wasted.
Anyone that is prepared to spunk so much money, on a club they have no emotional link with, is probably not fit and proper in the 1st place. This is a problem the EFL now have, do you let an owner you know to be a risk take over a club or do you let it go into liquidation? I belive that was a choice they had to make with Sunderland in the summer.
Abramovich was not a Chelsea supporter when he bought them.
I also wonder if our support has galvanised albeit not materially during the normal season, due to the Duchatelet era unifying and even growing our support, and now crowned with a fantastic Wembley experience, an echo of the back to the Valley struggle. This might explain the sellout and noise from the 24k in the semi and even Wembley somewhat.
It would be interesting to see what the upturn in season ticket sales is, hard to compare with other times tho of course due to the toxicity now -compared with Powell’s era for example.
If your prepared to risk, say for sake of argument 150-200 million, on a club like us, with out any guarantee of even getting to the premier league you need your head testing. Or you have serious cash, if your in the later camp you might as well buy Arsenal.
Wasn't the Network's major strategy that between them the six clubs would be largely self-sufficient in players, who would be transferred around the group rosters soaking up spares and filling in gaps?
A bold concept made much less likely to succeed when the senior people involved had no knowledge of, interest in or feeling for football at this relatively high level.