United thread 2013/14

[Prestwich_Blue]

Wonder how RVP's "thigh injury" is considering he was skiing yesterday.

Hmmmmm.

I'd be very surprised if he was skiing as no footballer is allowed to do that.

 

[Chipmeister]

PB you are the man to clear up a thought I brought up earlier.

As the rags struggle and their value tumbles on paper, does this bring the prospect of the Glazers looking to sell more imminent or will they be in the position of being unable to get the price they require and therefore be better for them to continue as they are.

 

[mcfc1632]

Lol at all the chosen ones in that photo, hahahah!

As long as he is there they will probably not take it down - and as long as it is there the cameras will keep plastering it all over the screens - humiliating for the bastards- fucking great - all their own arrogant fault!!

 

[CAPTAINKIPPAX]

United's problem is cronic underinvestment in the squad, over the last 5 or 6 seasons. This was masked to a great degree by ferguson's ability to get more than you'd think humanly possible out of his players, but now he's gone it's there for all to see. Moyes is under performing, lets be clear on that one, he should be able to get more from this United squad than he is doing, but this squad is not a title winning one. There's an argument to be made that they aren't a top 4 squad, but they're very close to it. What they shouldn't be doing is languishing 5 points off 4th place, and struggling to qualify for Europe at all let alone the Champion's League. The Glazers clearly are in this for the money. They don't care about football, and they certainly don't care about Manchester United. They care about making money. If you offered them the title, but they'd need to spend £100m and only make a £10m profit, or they could have 3rd or 4th spot by spending just £20m and make a £75m profit then they'd snap your hand off for the extra profit and be delighted. Winning trophies isn't something they care about, they'd happily sacrifice it if it meant making bigger profits. There's a balancing act though, they need to retain their top 4 spot, finishing 5th or 6th is no good as the financial drop-off between the Champion's League, and the Europa League, is monumental. I suspect United will spend some money this summer, not anything like the figures being mentioned in the media, but they spend some, especially if Moyes can't deliver Champion's League football this season. The Glazer's will be looking for that middle ground, they will want to spend as little as possible, but enough to maintain a top 4 squad. That is all they are interested in.

I totally agree Matty the Glazers have no concept of a football clubs achievements when measured in silverware terms a successful club is a money making club to them nothing more nothing less the only things which will ring their alarm bells is when revenue falls - falling merchandise sales,no CL revenue.As for ploughing 100 M in to challenge for the Premier DREAM ON ! .I also think that there are squad issues here too to explain their poor performance this season there are some ageing legs in that back 4 Rio and Vidic are beginning to be asked questions they're struggling to answer against quick flexible younger attacking opposition,Rooney has history with Moyes and i'm not convinced his hearts really in it working for him despite statements to the contrary.Their reliance on RVP has been cruelly exposed since his injury layoff and they've been guilty of some pretty ordinary aquisitions to the squad.........................FORTUNATELY THERE IS NO QUICK FIX !

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Lol at all the chosen ones in that photo, hahahah!

As long as he is there they will probably not take it down - and as long as it is there the cameras will keep plastering it all over the screens - humiliating for the bastards- fucking great - all their own arrogant fault!!

They really have painted themselves into a corner of their own arrogant making with that banner. Not for the first time, it has to be said.

 

[Sigh]

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

PB you are the man to clear up a thought I brought up earlier.

As the rags struggle and their value tumbles on paper, does this bring the prospect of the Glazers looking to sell more imminent or will they be in the position of being unable to get the price they require and therefore be better for them to continue as they are.

I think they'd cut their losses and run 2bh.

The best scenario for City is United doing an Arsenal esque sneak into the CL year on year and doing very little else. Them capitulating I reckon would prompt the Glazers to get out and take as much as they can and avoid a Hicks & Gillett and thus it would allow someone with genuine cash and/or who wants to run a successful club to come in and completely reinvigorate them, you can see the transition to some extent in Liverpool even with just mediocre owners, United are a much bigger and much more dangerous force in the right hands still imo.

 

[TFC]

Because when the rags fail and continue to decline, it further enhances his legacy and standing at the club, its that simple and would not put it past the bacon faced one to be smiling contentedly to himself right now!

While I have the suspicion he his smiling smugly at home right now, I'm not sure it will enhance his legacy if they collapse, which is entirely possible.

GDM the reason I ask is two fold, had he and the Glazers had a major fallout ? In which case was it pure spite, or is it just his warped ego, that he wants his legacy as their biggest ever manager there to last for ever, and by effectively sabotaging them he thought he was ensuring it ?

I'm sure the die hards will wake up to it soon enough, at which point his tenure may be viewed very differently by many.

I think the former of two explanations is the most likely. One thing that has marked him more than any other over the years are his personal feuds and how he always has to come out on top. It's a compulsion over which he as little or no control imo.

Ironically enough it was one of those feuds (although one he could never win) that delivered the prize of united to the Glazers - a dispute over some horse spunk and the "99 questions" that flowed from that.

His truce with the Glazers always had an unreal air about it and it's difficult to escape from the notion that the Coolmore boys didn't deliver some sort of intelligence type gift to Uncle Malc when the shares went over to Florida in order to help him keep Taggart on a leash . If that's true (and it is merely speculation) then Ferguson will have been operating under some form of duress for the last decade or so. That, allied to chronic underfunding in the squad, while Taggart had to toe the party line may have conspired to make Ferguson's resentment an overwhelming one. Faced with the well documented, systemic problems in the squad and being told that he had next to fuck-all to spend last summer, he decided to 'do one' while the going was good.

However, rather than leave quietly by the back door he decided to nail his colours to a particular mast in a very public fashion knowing that the Glazers would have little choice but to back his 'judgement'. One cannot help but wonder whether he knew or suspected that Moyes wasn't up to the job: the performance of his Everton teams against most of the top sides was (and is) appalling. Maybe, frustrated by years of kow-towing to distant owners to who he had delivered so many rices, he decided to depart with the mother of all hospital passes.

Not to secure his own legacy, so much as to win another personal battle because that is how he is hard-wired and he cannot help but act upon it, whatever the consequences are for him or anything else in his way.

Just want to say I love this thread. Also, thought this from GDM was a very interesting take on the whole situation that looks like it got lost in the shuffle, worth a read :)

 

[CAPTAINKIPPAX]

DON'T AGREE WITH THE AMUSING BIT CONSIDERING HE'S MAKING EVERYBODY PISS THEMSELVES I THINK HE'S FUCKING HILARIOUS HAHAHAHA LOL !!!!!!

GREAT CAPTION THO.<br /><br />-- Tue Jan 07, 2014 2:04 pm --<br /><br />

DON'T AGREE WITH THE AMUSING BIT CONSIDERING HE'S MAKING EVERYBODY PISS THEMSELVES I THINK HE'S FUCKING HILARIOUS HAHAHAHA LOL !!!!!!

GREAT CAPTION THO.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

PB you are the man to clear up a thought I brought up earlier.

As the rags struggle and their value tumbles on paper, does this bring the prospect of the Glazers looking to sell more imminent or will they be in the position of being unable to get the price they require and therefore be better for them to continue as they are.

That's a difficult one to answer. My opinion has always been that they'll wait until they redeem the bonds (which they have up to mid-2017 to do), making them debt free, then make a call. It will be easier to sell debt free but then they could get their hands on plenty of cash. No one really knows how their personal finances look, which could have a big bearing.

But that was based on them floating around the top 3 or 4 without spending that much. If they don't it could all fall apart quite quickly. This could mean them cutting their losses.

But let's look at it another way. If you were thinking of buying them, would you pay top dollar now or wait a year or two to see how things pan out? If they don't finish in the CL places, their revenue drops by around 25%, key players leave and they can't attract adequate replacements then their share price plummets.

There's also another problem. In the bond prospectus there's a clause hidden in the small print that could have a major financial impact on them. As part of the issue, they also arranged a revolving credit facility. This is a sort of overdraft or a bit like a credit card, where you borrow money over the short term then pay it back but don't need to go through the hassle of arranging a loan every time. As part of that, they committed to a level of profit (EBITDA) of at least £65m a year. In the last full accounts they reported EBITDA of £108.6m. Which is very impressive until you realise that this included a (one-off) tax credit of £155m. So without that, they would have made a loss of over £45m. The previous year it was £91.6m profit, aided by a tax credit of £28m. So they would only have made a profit of £63.6m without that tax credit.

So what happens if they don't make £65m or more in a full year? In theory, they would have to repay any borrowings under the revolving credit facility and not be able to use it any more. But there's an exemption from that, which they can use only if they don't qualify for the CL in two, non-consecutive seasons. So if they don't qualify this season, 2014/15 will almost certainly see them miss the £65m figure (by a long way). But that would be OK as they have the exemption they could use. However, if they miss it for a second consecutive season, they can't do that so potentially one of their key sources of operating cashflow would be closed off to them. Then it could be panic time for Uncle Malc and the boys.