hellothere said:
We got rid of alot of "dead wood" at the start of the season, for instance Jovanovic who was apprently on around 90k a week which is a fucking joke, Poulsen who i imagine was on around 40-50k and others like konchesky, ngog, insua and we have also sent joe cole out on loan who was on around 100k a week.
At the end of last season when we sold torres and bought in andy carroll we still made a small profit after all the in's and outs, thats not to say that i dont think we over spent on carroll, of course we did and no liverpool fan denys that and it was pretty much a panic buy.
At the start of this season we had a net spend of around 36mil which really is not over the top, i dont understand why people think we would be in some kind of debt and struggling with funds.
Hi mate. Good to have you on. Always enjoy debating with proper Liverpool fans.
You certainly did clear out a lot of dead-wood in the summer and the general consensus seems to be that the incoming players were self-financing because of that and that you might have even eased some pressure on the wage bill as well.
I've not studied your last accounts in detail but the problem I see is that you showed a loss of £20m on turnover of £184m and that included a profit on player trading. Plus those accounts were the last ones to include CL income which was probably in the region of £40-45m. The increased shirt naming and kit deals will absorb some of that but nowhere near all of it. We won't know for another 6 months until the next sert accounts are published but my very strong suspicion is that the loss of CL income will just about be balanced out by the increase in commercial income and the saving on servicing the acquisition debt incurred by H&G.
Also, no one really knows how NESV financed the LFC purchase (they admit their previous investments were financed by a mixture of personal capital and debt) and what sort of return they are looking for. so it's possible that the debt servicing paid out of LFC under H&G might simply be replaced by some sort of dividend or other withdrawal under NESV, in the same way the Glazers have sneaked a fair bit out of United in various ways.
The key question, as I see it, is what will NESV's reaction be if top four isn't achieved this summer and what decisions will they take? Do they understand enough about the way football works to make the right decisions or will they just decide to cut costs and run a tighter ship, much in the same way that Lerner has done at Villa? Do they take the plunge and seek the finance for a new stadium when that will divert funds away from the team? There are some very difficult decisions to be taken and there's no doubt that these decisions are very dependent on being able to count on a steady flow of CL-enhanced revenue.
-- Tue Nov 15, 2011 3:32 pm --
LFC_2005 said:
Are you lot obsessed with us? I mean seriously a Liverpool thread...
Anyway, i don't see your problem with us... most of us haven't got a problem with you lot and actually want City to do well so United suffer, we both hate United so why do you hate us?
That's a bit rich when, as has already been pointed out, there is a substantial thread about us on RAWK.
Personally I've never had a problem with Liverpool or their fans in any way, having admired the great teams of the 70's and 80's (even when they were sticking four and five past us at Maine Road). In fact, Liverpool fans I've met stand out as they tend to be the most knowledgeable about football in general. I think most on here would have agreed with that up to relatively recently.
There's no doubt that some fans of the other "big" clubs have had their noses put out of joint by our (in their eyes) undeserved good fortune and there's a significant faction on RAWK in that camp, which has upset people on here. Even I've begun to think that a period in the wilderness would be good to teach them some humility. There's also a fair number who talk sensibly about us, it has to be said, as I'd expect from Liverpool fans. They seem to "get" Balotelli far more than any other set of fans from what I've seen, probably becasue they appreciate a bit of a character more than most.
But I think that the thinking of many LFC fans has been clouded by a long run of success and they don't really see the problems and challenges you've got as objectively as some outsiders. I have to say that the mood has become much more realistic on RAWK in recent weeks as they've begun to realise it will be a long, hard road back. The way the landscape looks just at the moment, there are three teams who could genuinely grab fourth spot and you aren't leading that particular pack.