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ENIC

DaveT316 said:
Is it too simple to state the drop off in league position has cost us here and the difference between being in the red and the black? It's a, what, £20-25m swing from 5th to 17th?

The big spike in profitability in Poch years driven by regular champions league football?

Maybe I'm over-simplifying and need to properly read the article, but is there anything really to see here?
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Clicky headline. Roll eyes.

The impressive rise in profits upto the completion of the stadium were a tactical move as we went into the final reconciliation of refinancing the stadium debt. It paid off in the low long term rates we secured.

COVID then took it's toll (as it did on everything and everyone) on income and profits.

As noted above the circa £70m depreciation charge on the stadium makes it appear we are trading at a bad loss. Remove that, we are not.

Two things to worry about in the accounts.
Player trading and transfer fees owed. (Hence our shift back to young recruits)
Increased operational costs. (Yep inflation is a killer)

Our debt is not a worry (remember that £250m of our long term debt isn't the stadium but the refinanced COVID loan that bridged that particular event)...to service this debt pile isn't an issue as a yearly cost (as long as the current mob don't carry on as they started with Macquarie loan nonsense)

If we go down....we are certainly going to have to trim any fat and hope we bounce straight back......you could say what we need is an astute safe pair of hands. The irony.
 
DaveT316 said:
Is it too simple to state the drop off in league position has cost us here and the difference between being in the red and the black? It's a, what, £20-25m swing from 5th to 17th?

The big spike in profitability in Poch years driven by regular champions league football?

Maybe I'm over-simplifying and need to properly read the article, but is there anything really to see here?
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It’s around 3.6 mil per league position, or closer to 43 mil.
 
DaveT316 said:
Yeah he sounded only one layer deep on the VFTL pod - I’d hardly call him a football finance expert and I came away feeling I could have offered the same level of insight into our finances.
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He’s a former jr level accountant but does not have the ability to interpret the financial data he is reporting on.
 
Thought it was a decent piece to be honest and the guy made some great points on the podcast. Despite people rushing to proclaim what will happen if we are relegated, no one knows. There is no precedent for it, we don’t know what’s in the players’ contracts and who will stay/go and we’ve no idea what the £200m operating costs consist of. There are too many variables to know how badly we’ll be impacted.

What’s apparent to me is that Chelsea and City have changed the football landscape where it becomes very, very expensive and risky to try and compete. We’ve made a particularly calamitous job of it with our player trading over the last few seasons. We’ve spent big money on fees but on risky punts who haven’t worked out and we lost our ability to squeeze other clubs for fees for the lads we were selling. All that has contributed to a 300m (I think) transfer fee burden we still have to settle.

We are a case study for the ages, more so if we go down. I’d find it infinitely more fascinating if it was any other club. Right now, I’m just closing my eyes, covering my ears and hoping RDZ can keep us up.
 
DeanoAustin said:
Thought it was a decent piece to be honest and the guy made some great points on the podcast. Despite people rushing to proclaim what will happen if we are relegated, no one knows. There is no precedent for it, we don’t know what’s in the players’ contracts and who will stay/go and we’ve no idea what the £200m operating costs consist of. There are too many variables to know how badly we’ll be impacted.

What’s apparent to me is that Chelsea and City have changed the football landscape where it becomes very, very expensive and risky to try and compete. We’ve made a particularly calamitous job of it with our player trading over the last few seasons. We’ve spent big money on fees but on risky punts who haven’t worked out and we lost our ability to squeeze other clubs for fees for the lads we were selling. All that has contributed to a 300m (I think) transfer fee burden we still have to settle.

We are a case study for the ages, more so if we go down. I’d find it infinitely more fascinating if it was any other club. Right now, I’m just closing my eyes, covering my ears and hoping RDZ can keep us up.
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I think the original sin here is the poor player sales. I am dying to know what the logic was of letting these players run down contracts rather than selling them, either at peak value, or if they were surplus to requirements, getting them out while we could still get something for them. I remember it right back to Gomes just rotting here for no reason.

Was it Levy thinking that if he showed a harder edge in negotiations for surplus players that we could squeeze an extra few mil for the Bale and Kane sales? Hardly seems worth it. It is completely baffling to me.

Then, under Poch, when Poch wanted to sell players, not purely out of a financial value calculation but because he understand the culture he had built, the system that he uses and he knew he needed fresh players in the squad. Again, we refused. Here it seemed like someone - Levy. ENIC? - had decided that actually, it wasn’t Poch’s coaching and culture and system that made all of these players look incredible exactly at the same time, it was that in the wisdom of their scouting and signings they had furnished him with a world class squad that would do better once he was gone. So again, we don’t sell when we need to, and inevitably the whole thing slides.

Of course the attempt to correct it by selling Brennan with the squad stretched thin as it was, was just insane idiocy. It reeks of there clearly being a new diktat to sell players for value rather than hold on too long, but with terrible judgement applied to the actual situation on the ground. Clueless.

But getting back to it…why on earth did we decide that we didn’t need to sell players? What possible logic was there?
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
I think the original sin here is the poor player sales. I am dying to know what the logic was of letting these players run down contracts rather than selling them, either at peak value, or if they were surplus to requirements, getting them out while we could still get something for them. I remember it right back to Gomes just rotting here for no reason.

Was it Levy thinking that if he showed a harder edge in negotiations for surplus players that we could squeeze an extra few mil for the Bale and Kane sales? Hardly seems worth it. It is completely baffling to me.

Then, under Poch, when Poch wanted to sell players, not purely out of a financial value calculation but because he understand the culture he had built, the system that he uses and he knew he needed fresh players in the squad. Again, we refused. Here it seemed like someone - Levy. ENIC? - had decided that actually, it wasn’t Poch’s coaching and culture and system that made all of these players look incredible exactly at the same time, it was that in the wisdom of their scouting and signings they had furnished him with a world class squad that would do better once he was gone. So again, we don’t sell when we need to, and inevitably the whole thing slides.

Of course the attempt to correct it by selling Brennan with the squad stretched thin as it was, was just insane idiocy. It reeks of there clearly being a new diktat to sell players for value rather than hold on too long, but with terrible judgement applied to the actual situation on the ground. Clueless.

But getting back to it…why on earth did we decide that we didn’t need to sell players? What possible logic was there?
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Was it a case that Levy was influenced by the criticism he got for selling players with years on their contracts? He got hammered for Berbatov, Keane, Carrick etc. He even got some criticism for Bale, Modric and even Kane who only had a year left. In an eagerness to be seen as a club who aren’t a selling club, we instead let lads run down their contracts and value.
 
DeanoAustin said:
Was it a case that Levy was influenced by the criticism he got for selling players with years on their contracts? He got hammered for Berbatov, Keane, Carrick etc. He even got some criticism for Bale, Modric and even Kane who only had a year left. In an eagerness to be seen as a club who aren’t a selling club, we instead let lads run down their contracts and value.
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I think Levy believed he could resign some of those players as well. He thought stadium, training ground, top tier manager they will resign and he was wrong.
 
robp135 said:
Levy would have got slagged off for selling players at peak value though. Walker the example he got slated for. Had we sold any of that Pochettino teams top players like Dier & Alli he would have got ripped apart.
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I can see it, but I also think this is where strong judgement is required. If he was genuinely swayed by negative reactions as opposed to having an actual strategy to see through, I think that’s a real black mark on his time with us. Besides, he’s been willing to take a lot of flack for being seen as the penny pincher, much of it unfair, so why not hold the line after the Walker sale?

I think, if he had done what Poch had asked, and sold certain players at the right time and invested in quality replacements, there may have been flack initially until those players proved themselves, but that’s part of the job of a leader. And if there was a true partnership with Poch like there should have been, Poch would have been out there defending the strategy too.

It’s also about judgement in understanding what made us successful and allowed us to compete at that level. A Berbatov, Modric or Bale becoming otherworldly and a clear standout in the team - that probably suggests they had world class potential and it was the player rather than the coaching and everything around it that made them that way. Where as pretty much an entire squad of players all reaching their potential and hitting peak performance at the same time? That surely had to be down to the coaching, the structure, the culture, the foundations.

But I think the original sin for our decline is thinking that Toby, Dele, Eriksen, whoever else, it was the product of good scouting, deal making and inevitable improvement, rather than giving Poch enough credit for making it work all together. So I can completely see Levy thinking that finally we can now resign these players and fend off the criticism that he had before.

The issue is, it doesn’t matter. It’s about how we compete with the clubs around us, and the moment you decide to bring in a manager who requires top of the table money to reach that level of success, and blow up the culture and foundations, you set us back. Even if you retain those players. Unfortunately I don’t think Levy just ever ‘got it’. All of the judgements make sense in theory, you can understand why certain decisions were made. But the actual judgement was poor. They never had an actual strategy for competing to succeed at the top of the table. They lucked into it with Poch and willingly blew it up, because they didn’t get it.

Even now, the ENIC kids are making decisions that sound reasonable in theory (sell Brennan at the peak of his value) but it’s just disconnected from the reality on the ground. It might all seem like bad luck, but they just have no idea how to build a successful football team.
 
robp135 said:
Levy would have got slagged off for selling players at peak value though. Walker the example he got slated for. Had we sold any of that Pochettino teams top players like Dier & Alli he would have got ripped apart.
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And that is the issue. He was (IMO) too concerned with that. it's well known that Poch wanted to cash in on Eriksen once he knew Eriksen would not sign a new deal; Levy refused to sell for anything remotely reasonable. It's also known that he wanted to move Toby on, again, Levy wouldn't do it. Those are just two. We did not trust the manager. He made the point that the Liverpool we played in Madrid was pretty different to the Liverpool Klopp first inherited.
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
I can see it, but I also think this is where strong judgement is required. If he was genuinely swayed by negative reactions as opposed to having an actual strategy to see through, I think that’s a real black mark on his time with us. Besides, he’s been willing to take a lot of flack for being seen as the penny pincher, much of it unfair, so why not hold the line after the Walker sale?

I think, if he had done what Poch had asked, and sold certain players at the right time and invested in quality replacements, there may have been flack initially until those players proved themselves, but that’s part of the job of a leader. And if there was a true partnership with Poch like there should have been, Poch would have been out there defending the strategy too.

It’s also about judgement in understanding what made us successful and allowed us to compete at that level. A Berbatov, Modric or Bale becoming otherworldly and a clear standout in the team - that probably suggests they had world class potential and it was the player rather than the coaching and everything around it that made them that way. Where as pretty much an entire squad of players all reaching their potential and hitting peak performance at the same time? That surely had to be down to the coaching, the structure, the culture, the foundations.

But I think the original sin for our decline is thinking that Toby, Dele, Eriksen, whoever else, it was the product of good scouting, deal making and inevitable improvement, rather than giving Poch enough credit for making it work all together. So I can completely see Levy thinking that finally we can now resign these players and fend off the criticism that he had before.

The issue is, it doesn’t matter. It’s about how we compete with the clubs around us, and the moment you decide to bring in a manager who requires top of the table money to reach that level of success, and blow up the culture and foundations, you set us back. Even if you retain those players. Unfortunately I don’t think Levy just ever ‘got it’. All of the judgements make sense in theory, you can understand why certain decisions were made. But the actual judgement was poor. They never had an actual strategy for competing to succeed at the top of the table. They lucked into it with Poch and willingly blew it up, because they didn’t get it.

Even now, the ENIC kids are making decisions that sound reasonable in theory (sell Brennan at the peak of his value) but it’s just disconnected from the reality on the ground. It might all seem like bad luck, but they just have no idea how to build a successful football team.
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You’re right but I imagine the reaction from fans if he’d sold Toby, Dele or Eriksen in 2018/19. I’d have hated it and accused the club of lacking ambition. I think very few fans would have understood the vision at that time unless results were instant.

Hindsight tells us it would have been the right decision though.
 
DeanoAustin said:
You’re right but I imagine the reaction from fans if he’d sold Toby, Dele or Eriksen in 2018/19. I’d have hated it and accused the club of lacking ambition. I think very few fans would have understood the vision at that time unless results were instant.

Hindsight tells us it would have been the right decision though.
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It entirely depends on whether or not we replaced them with some top players that were ready to make an instant impact and take us to the next level. Players probably a couple of years younger than the ones we were selling, willing to fit in, run hard, and still had room to improve.

It requires leaders with strategy and the conviction to see it through. What we seemed to have got was decision making by PR.

I just don’t understand why seemingly no one in the club thought ‘the thing that made the Poch team genuinely great and arguably the best in the country consistently for 2-3 years was that the players all bought in, they ran hard, they fought for each other, the embraced a system with just enough flexibility to stamp their own mark but enough structure for the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts, let’s try and get back to that’.

Instead it was ‘results have started to slide, Poch must have lost it.’ despite the fact that we hadn’t created the conditions for his style of management to pay off. Because we refused to sell players like he wanted. And that goes back to judgement, were all of those players peaking at the same time because the club’s scouting and deal making secured them, or was it this manager who delivered crazy over performance under ridiculous constraints and should have had more than enough credit in the bank to trust more.
 
Said more simply - selling Berbatov and replacing him with Pav and Frazier Campbell. The fans were rightly up in arms. It doesn’t suggest ambition or strategy. It shows being caught on the back foot and needing to react to events.

Selling players at a smart time because you have ideal targets in mind and you want to maintain our strategic differentiator, our system, our cultural foundations, the willingness of more malleable players to listen and buy in - the fans would have quickly understood.
 
DeanoAustin said:
You’re right but I imagine the reaction from fans if he’d sold Toby, Dele or Eriksen in 2018/19. I’d have hated it and accused the club of lacking ambition. I think very few fans would have understood the vision at that time unless results were instant.

Hindsight tells us it would have been the right decision though.
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I was unequivocally 'whatever the manager wants'.
 
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