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ricky2tricky4city said:
The obvious one being Man U and the class of 92
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It’s a fair point but they were complimented by some top players. The first league they won, they had five 1-0 wins where Cantona got the only goal and in some of those you had Schmeichel being a human wall (most notably at Saudi Sportswashing Machine). Throw in Irwin, Bruce, Pallister, Cole and Keane and they came into a side that had 6 or 7 experienced lads, two of whom broke the transfer record in England when they were purchased. Will we compliment our young players with similar established talent?
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
We've definitely had higher than usual transfer liabilities in the last couple of years accounts... probably because of the spend on duds (hence having to go back into the market to buy more players) and the combination of tinkle poor resale value and lack of buyers to bring any cash to balance things out a bit with sales.

Nothing too restrictive but something we had to keep an eye on. Plus it'll probably ease as our purchases have been better and we sold Kane for a good chunk.
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Yeah it does seem a little bit high for this year compared to last but, like you say, nothing too restrictive in terms of ability to raise wages if we wanted to but Levy runs a very tight ship.

Took a look at Liverpool and United for comparison. Think Liverpool had around a 100m or just under liability for the upcoming year. Man U had 200m. Now there’s a club that’s badly run.
 
DeanoAustin said:
It’s a fair point but they were complimented by some top players. The first league they won, they had five 1-0 wins where Cantona got the only goal and in some of those you had Schmeichel being a human wall (most notably at Saudi Sportswashing Machine). Throw in Irwin, Bruce, Pallister, Cole and Keane and they came into a side that had 6 or 7 experienced lads, two of whom broke the transfer record in England when they were purchased. Will we compliment our young players with similar established talent?
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This and it was also over 30 years ago!
 
DeanoAustin said:
It’s a fair point but they were complimented by some top players. The first league they won, they had five 1-0 wins where Cantona got the only goal and in some of those you had Schmeichel being a human wall (most notably at Saudi Sportswashing Machine). Throw in Irwin, Bruce, Pallister, Cole and Keane and they came into a side that had 6 or 7 experienced lads, two of whom broke the transfer record in England when they were purchased. Will we compliment our young players with similar established talent?
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It won't be just 11 kids though. The players we have now will be three years older. So the likes of Kulu, VdV, Sarr, and Udogie will be all 25+ and established players with lots of experience. If Romero and Solanke are still here they will be heading towards 30. Even Gray, Bergvall, and Moore will most likely have 100+ games under the belts. I'm sure one or two more established players will come in too, it won't be 100% young players, just the majority.
Put it another way, what other realistic path do you see for us to develop a squad capable of challenging for the league?
 
DeanoAustin said:
That number, or close to it, is there every year. But it largely gets offset against revenue rather than our cash reserves. I'd venture a guess most clubs of our size have similar liabilities in their accounts because it's mostly player trading.



Do we know that to be true and, if so, how much do we need to hold?

Does anyone believe that Levy is paying as much as we can on player wages without seriously risking the future of the club?
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I hope we aren't because that wouldn't give us any room to improve in the upcoming windows
 
DubSpur said:
It won't be just 11 kids though. The players we have now will be three years older. So the likes of Kulu, VdV, Sarr, and Udogie will be all 25+ and established players with lots of experience. If Romero and Solanke are still here they will be heading towards 30. Even Gray, Bergvall, and Moore will most likely have 100+ games under the belts. I'm sure one or two more established players will come in too, it won't be 100% young players, just the majority.
Put it another way, what other realistic path do you see for us to develop a squad capable of challenging for the league?
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That’s a good post with some fair arguments.

To answer your question, I don’t see us having a path to challenging for the league under this ownership unless they luck out like they did in 2015-2017 with right manager, right players at the right time when other clubs were in transition.

For us, it feels a bit like Mourinho once said, we always seem to have a duvet that isn’t quite big enough to cover our body and our feet. So you pull it up to keep warm and your feet get exposed. You then cover your feet and your body gets exposed.

For so long it was, “we’re nearly there with Kane and Son. We just need a little bit more and we’ll win” and then suddenly Kane is at Munich and Son’s powers are diminishing.

However, what I will say is that at least the club has a clear strategy now and it is attempting to differentiate us from other clubs and they have made some potentially great signings. However, it’s the fact we’re having to take an alternative, largely unproven route to success rather than taking a few more risks that has me skeptical that we can ever become what we want to be.
 
DeanoAustin said:
Yeah it does seem a little bit high for this year compared to last but, like you say, nothing too restrictive in terms of ability to raise wages if we wanted to but Levy runs a very tight ship.

Took a look at Liverpool and United for comparison. Think Liverpool had around a 100m or just under liability for the upcoming year. Man U had 200m. Now there’s a club that’s badly run.
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United owed over £300m IIRC
Chelsea and Arsenal were next
Then us
I’ll see if I can find the details that Kieron Maguire shared on it (may be Swiss Ramble)
No club can buy well if they don’t sell well
Us and United have lead the league for failing on that, closely followed by Arsenal
Us and renewal have done much better the last few years which makes a dent. United though…. Nope, still a mess
 
Bedfordspurs said:
United owed over £300m IIRC
Chelsea and Arsenal were next
Then us
I’ll see if I can find the details that Kieron Maguire shared on it (may be Swiss Ramble)
No club can buy well if they don’t sell well
Us and United have lead the league for failing on that, closely followed by Arsenal
Us and renewal have done much better the last few years which makes a dent. United though…. Nope, still a mess
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They have 550m of borrowings on their balance sheet. Not sure what the interest rate looks like. We have 850m. Difference is, we have a magnificent stadium to show for it. What do they have? And their ground is falling apart.

What a brickshow.
 
DeanoAustin said:
That’s a good post with some fair arguments.

To answer your question, I don’t see us having a path to challenging for the league under this ownership unless they luck out like they did in 2015-2017 with right manager, right players at the right time when other clubs were in transition.

For us, it feels a bit like Mourinho once said, we always seem to have a duvet that isn’t quite big enough to cover our body and our feet. So you pull it up to keep warm and your feet get exposed. You then cover your feet and your body gets exposed.

For so long it was, “we’re nearly there with Kane and Son. We just need a little bit more and we’ll win” and then suddenly Kane is at Munich and Son’s powers are diminishing.

However, what I will say is that at least the club has a clear strategy now and it is attempting to differentiate us from other clubs and they have made some potentially great signings. However, it’s the fact we’re having to take an alternative, largely unproven route to success rather than taking a few more risks that has me skeptical that we can ever become what we want to be.
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I disagree that we don't have a path. The model that Levy has us working on is more or less being forced on others. Utd have to cut expenses with Ratcliffe taking a sword to them and cutting back on loads of stuff, supposed to be even getting rid of Utd legends for hospitality. Previously they would've just tried to spend their way out of trouble, they can't any more.

City will hopefully be relegated, Liverpools key players are aging out, Utd are a basket case, there is no sure thing at the moment. If we get it right over the next 2-3 years then we can be back up there competing (not saying necessarily winning the league). The main thing is Levy holding his nerve when we hit bumps. For example everyone is crying out for signings this month. I hope we don't panic and buy players for the short term. If we need short term then loans only. Once we stick to the current strategy I think we will be fine.
 
DeanoAustin said:
They have 550m of borrowings on their balance sheet. Not sure what the interest rate looks like. We have 850m. Difference is, we have a magnificent stadium to show for it. What do they have? And their ground is falling apart.

What a brickshow.
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Their borrowings are for buying the club don’t forget so financially …. It’s a good thing because the club value has gone up
They owe in fees … £319m from what I can see. That’s not borrowing don’t forget, that’s debt
Arsenal £272m but old data
We have gone from £307m to £252m to whatever we owe now …. Id guess the balance of ours is much better because the sales we have made since the £252m figure (Kane, winks, royal, Skipp, lo celso - and Hojberg this summer to come so far)
Chelsea was £500m but seems they may have fudged it again to get it down because it’s greater than their income. At least they have spent the £850m they committed to spend on capital projects well….
 
DeanoAustin said:
That’s a good post with some fair arguments.

To answer your question, I don’t see us having a path to challenging for the league under this ownership unless they luck out like they did in 2015-2017 with right manager, right players at the right time when other clubs were in transition.

For us, it feels a bit like Mourinho once said, we always seem to have a duvet that isn’t quite big enough to cover our body and our feet. So you pull it up to keep warm and your feet get exposed. You then cover your feet and your body gets exposed.

For so long it was, “we’re nearly there with Kane and Son. We just need a little bit more and we’ll win” and then suddenly Kane is at Munich and Son’s powers are diminishing.

However, what I will say is that at least the club has a clear strategy now and it is attempting to differentiate us from other clubs and they have made some potentially great signings. However, it’s the fact we’re having to take an alternative, largely unproven route to success rather than taking a few more risks that has me skeptical that we can ever become what we want to be.
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The 'lucking out' with a manager applies to most clubs. Indeed, certain things do have to be aligned to make anything work (or have the best possible chance to) BUT the manager is always the biggest ingredient.

Liverpool FFS thought Brendon or Roy Hodgson might be the answer. Klopp looked an obvious fit coming from another big hearted culture club like Dortmund.

Arsenal and Man U have struggled like hell to move on from their generational 'lucked out' managers. The latter spending way beyond anything any team can dream of spending (bar city and Chelsea) to try and get it right, and ploughing thru managers.

Just as Nuno is doing well this year, is it Forest doing something different or is it Nuno getting them punching above their weight? Why couldn't Cooper?
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Their borrowings are for buying the club don’t forget so financially …. It’s a good thing because the club value has gone up
They owe in fees … £319m from what I can see. That’s not borrowing don’t forget, that’s debt
Arsenal £272m but old data
We have gone from £307m to £252m to whatever we owe now …. Id guess the balance of ours is much better because the sales we have made since the £252m figure (Kane, winks, royal, Skipp, lo celso - and Hojberg this summer to come so far)
Chelsea was £500m but seems they may have fudged it again to get it down because it’s greater than their income. At least they have spent the £850m they committed to spend on capital projects well….
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Chelsea done an underhand move with selling their hotel to another one of the companies their owners have in order to get the debt down and meet P&S rules.
 
DubSpur said:
Chelsea done an underhand move with selling their hotel to another one of the companies their owners have in order to get the debt down and meet P&S rules.
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it’s a different debt as this as this is the longer term one
They issued a new lump of shares for the transfer debt
 
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billyiddo said:
I hope we aren't because that wouldn't give us any room to improve in the upcoming windows
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Guessing here, but I think that's pretty much Levy's cut off point.

He knows things can go from rosy to sour fairly quickly, sure has happened before. He knows that a manager or DoF claiming that this signing or that signing will make the difference and with that we'll get X result and Y income is speculative (if anyone of them would even claim that).

Levy won't put us in a position where if the next season/period goes poorly we can't spend next time around. He won't put us in a position where we have to get Europe/CL to be able to spend next time.
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
The 'lucking out' with a manager applies to most clubs. Indeed, certain things do have to be aligned to make anything work (or have the best possible chance to) BUT the manager is always the biggest ingredient.

Liverpool FFS thought Brendon or Roy Hodgson might be the answer. Klopp looked an obvious fit coming from another big hearted culture club like Dortmund.

Arsenal and Man U have struggled like hell to move on from their generational 'lucked out' managers. The latter spending way beyond anything any team can dream of spending (bar city and Chelsea) to try and get it right, and ploughing thru managers.

Just as Nuno is doing well this year, is it Forest doing something different or is it Nuno getting them punching above their weight? Why couldn't Cooper?
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With Forest, I expect them to tail off and would still be surprised to see them top 4.

However Nuno deserves great credit for what he’s done there. In my view, he plays differently to most other teams. I see so many teams, at all levels including the Premier League, trying to play out and be expansive even if they don’t have the players.

Nuno isn’t doing that. They are solid and they’ve had the least possession of any team in the league I heard last week. So he’s differentiated them by being solid and relying on hitting people on the break. It’s similar in some ways to what Jack Charlton did with Ireland. He said he came back from Mexico 1986 and saw every team was trying to play through the midfield and he decided to bypass midfield, turn defences and keep them turned. And it worked for a good 8 or 9 years.

Football tactics and systems are only game changers until everyone starts doing the same thing. Then it’s a battle of who has the best players or someone decides to do something a bit different as Nuno has done and Ranieri did before him.
 
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