ENIC

[DubaiSpur]

I edited my post, looks like you missed it

Think I covered it, though. Again, we are in an identity crisis at the moment, whichever way you cut it: our owners put almost nothing into the club (Relative to the fans), but still harp on about ambitions, never actually taking the risk when those ambitions come close to realization. The time is rapidly approaching to either put their money where their mouth is, or lower the prices and become a community-focused club. Nothing wrong with that, but stop lying about ambition when your ambitions are built entirely on charging the fans outrageous amounts and putting in very little yourself.

The beauty of a 'sugar daddy' (a la Mansour) is that it allows a club to do both: be a friendly, community focused club with low ticket prices and a lot of fan service, but also possess a world class team and ambitions of preeminence in the football world. We are instead caught in the nether world of the worst of both worlds: a club where the fans are increasingly treated like 'customers', the principal revenue yellow-bellied sapsuckers for the club's 'ambition', but also one where those same ambitions can never be fulfilled because the fans simply cannot put more money into the club than what they're putting in now, and the owners steadfastly refuse to make up the shortfall.

And that is not a fun place to be. Decide, ENIC. Or move over, and take your massive profits with you. No two ways about it. And as for the silver bullet stadium solution...I just hope it goes up, so I won't say too much about it, but given the speed with which the other clubs around us are augmenting revenue andean ****-of-the-rocks (plus the unlikelihood of filling a 60,000 seater bowl given the prices we're charging), I don't think it'll be as revolutionary as a lot of people are hoping it will be.

Edit: Seriously? Goddamn it, I specifically type 'yellow-bellied s.a.p.s.u.c.k.e.r.s', and it automatically becomes....andean ****-of-the-r.o.c.k.s. This autofilter is actively f*cking malevolent, I tell you.

 

[milo]

How many games do you think Cahill would have started for us in the second half of that season, Dubai? Where do you see him fitting into the pecking order at that time?

 

[Jurgen the German]

How many games do you think Cahill would have started for us in the second half of that season, Dubai? Where do you see him fitting into the pecking order at that time?

Most of the league games, if not all of them. I don't think we would have been in the market for one if Redknapp didn't want to start him. King started to deteriorate rapidly during the second half of that season as witnessed at Emirates Marketing Project, scum and at home to Norwich most painfully when he got torn apart by Grant Holt. Would have been a combination of Cahill, Kaboul or King.

 

[milo]

Most of the league games, if not all of them. I don't think we would have been in the market for one if Redknapp didn't want to start him. King started to deteriorate rapidly during the second half of that season as witnessed at Emirates Marketing Project, scum and at home to Norwich most painfully when he got torn apart by Grant Holt. Would have been a combination of Cahill, Kaboul or King.

We still had Gallas and Dawson too

 

[DubaiSpur]

How many games do you think Cahill would have started for us in the second half of that season, Dubai? Where do you see him fitting into the pecking order at that time?

We played King eleven times after the February window closed that year. We played Kaboul fifteen times after that window closed. We played Nelsen eight times in total. It's not hard to see Cahill being used to give King a break, and being used with greater frequency than Nelsen was given the likelihood that Harry would have trusted Cahill far more than Nelsen when it came to needing a reliable player to basically cruise through games on autopilot while Harry fought his court case/dreamed of England.

Ghosts of the past, though. Ghosts of the past.

 

[Jurgen the German]

We still had Gallas and Dawson too

But Cahill was a better defender than both of them at the time. Gallas was used sparingly at CB from what I recall that season.

 

[Raziel]

Dubai, we aren't in Jan 2012 though .. I agree that was a missed opportunity, but would be speculation there as to if that was an investment issue, or lack of faith/belief in Redknapp. You also make assumptions that we would have gotten Tevez (who if he was really willing to sign for us, we should have absolutely done it).

It is a very different equation now, wrong players, likely wrong manager and a far way away

 

[milo]

We played King eleven times after the February window closed that year. We played Kaboul fifteen times after that window closed. We played Nelsen eight times in total. It's not hard to see Cahill being used to give King a break, and being used with greater frequency than Nelsen was given the likelihood that Harry would have trusted Cahill far more than Nelsen when it came to needing a reliable player to basically cruise through games on autopilot while Harry fought his court case/dreamed of England.

Ghosts of the past, though. Ghosts of the past.

The games that we lost after Christmas that year were:

Emirates Marketing Project away
Arsenal away
Manchester United home
Everton away
Norwich City home
Chelsea - FA Cup SF Wembley
QPR away

and Nelsen started none of these games. We drew eight games in all competitions during the same period and the only game that Nelson started was the FA Cup game with Bolton.

 

[DubaiSpur]

The games that we lost after Christmas that year were:

Emirates Marketing Project away
Arsenal away
Manchester United home
Everton away
Norwich City home
Chelsea - FA Cup SF Wembley
QPR away

and Nelsen started none of these games. We drew eight games in all competitions during the same period and the only game that Nelson started was the FA Cup game with Bolton.

I invite you to read my post again. Cahill would likely have been used with greater frequency than Nelsen was, mainly to cover for King and prevent the burnout he experienced towards the end of that season, and also (as Jurgen the German pointed out) would likely have been picked ahead of Daws and Gallas given his superiority over both of them. Now we're just being excessively analytical of alternate realities, though.

Dubai, we aren't in Jan 2012 though .. I agree that was a missed opportunity, but would be speculation there as to if that was an investment issue, or lack of faith/belief in Redknapp. You also make assumptions that we would have gotten Tevez (who if he was really willing to sign for us, we should have absolutely done it).

It is a very different equation now, wrong players, likely wrong manager and a far way away

See, a lot of us (me included) initially believed that the issue in January 2012 was indeed just a lack of faith in Redknapp: that the manager that came after him would be backed to a greater degree than Redknapp was. Hell, it was one of the reasons I so vehemently wanted Redknapp out in the first place: the sincere belief that Levy would back the next man because he trusted him.

We were wrong. I was wrong.

You're right, we aren't in Jan 2012, and it is a different equation now. But if we ever get back to that position.....we will miss the opportunity again. That much is certain. And that's what all this discussion is for: just to prepare people, so that when that happens, no one is surprised and heartbroken like I was over the actions of our glorious owners.

 

[braineclipse]

And then never backs those people, while charging the second-highest ticket prices in the league just to keep the club hovering around fifth or sixth place. Stunningly self-contradictory.

Look, basic point is this: you charge 1,800-1,900 pounds for season tickets, overcharge fans ('customers') for club tat, and milk every pound out of commercial sponsors who look at the sheepish fans shuffling into the stadium and go 'jackpot'.....then you too can fairly easily achieve 5th to 6th place in the league on average with the 5th - 6th highest revenues, while winning one solitary League Cup in fourteen years and blowing your once-in-a-decade chance to go above and beyond that level, all without spending more than the minimum amount of your own money required to look credible in the eyes of the fans.

Will ENIC keep us around 5th-6th place? Likely, they will given that the revenues support that position and they are barely competent when it comes to decision making. Will we get another shot at the big time? Likely, we will given that football is cyclical and the next opportunity will come at some point over this coming decade. Will we utterly, horrifically squander that shot like we did in 2011/2012? Almost certainly, we will, because ENIC were tight-fisted and risk-averse then, and they haven't learned a thing since.

I would much rather find someone who is willing to spend to push us above that glass ceiling that we are now doomed to bump against, because over the past few seasons I have seen absolutely nothing from ENIC that reassures me that they are willing to take any risks or (lord forbid) spend any of their own money to push us over the line when we are in with a shot. They are likely competent enough to spend the club's own money to keep us where we should be, revenue-wise. They have brought us up to this revenue level, complete with horrendous ticket prices to watch the products of their bad decisions stumbling around the pitch while the manager looks on in despair. They have improved us from the days of Sugar.

They cannot improve us anymore, because their tight-fistedness and extreme risk aversion will destroy us when we get the chance to make a jump for the spotlight again, just as it did in 2011/2012: their actions over the past few years cannot countenance a different conclusion. So, given that ENIC has shown zero desire to change, I'd rather they just finish the stadium project (which the club will of course mostly pay for by itself), take their enormous profit and leave, hopefully selling up to an owner who lowers the prices in recognition of where we are as a club while being a little less averse when it comes to showing the managers the 'ambition' that they believed they were signing up to when they fell for ENIC's honeyed words and signed on the dotted line. In other words, showing the same commitment to the club that the fans show every year.

We have high ticket prices because we have a relatively small stadium and we're in London. Supply and demand. Or are you saying that other chairmen are not like Levy and are leaving cash on the table by keeping ticket prices low?

We're outperforming where we "should be" based on the graph above with those high ticket prices.

The idea of just spending money to then make it back with CL participation doesn't resonate with me. I don't think it's the way it works. If it really was that easy, why won't more clubs do it? And if we spend X million looking to do it, why can't the clubs around us do just the same? Fact is that with our budget we would drop out of the top 4 sooner or later even if the owners were putting in £30-40m more. Because compared to our competition that's just not enough.

If what you want is a sugar daddy, fair enough. But don't extrapolate from that to the current owners being {insert most recent insult here}.

'Destroying' our chances of making the leap from being perennial also-rans to title-challengers and top four regulars. I maintain that 'destroying' is an accurate description of what they did in January 2012, and in the summer of 2013: worse, what they did this year probably destroyed Poch's chances of even making a decent start, which was the last straw as far as I was concerned.

As for being fifth - sixth forever, no f*cking thanks. I don't want to see our London rivals win CLs, FA Cups and league titles, driving us into the dirt of obscurity next to the likes of West Ham and Palace: that 'first in London' CL win Chelsea pulled off scarred me more than you can imagine. I want to be up there competing with them, winning those trophies, beating them to the punch, reclaiming our spot as one of London's top dogs. And I want to see risks taken to achieve that dream. If we fail and fall, at least we'll have tried, as opposed to serenly drifting up to sixth and then bumping that glass ceiling forevermore while slowly being forgotten in the wider football world, our achievements eroded by time and by neglect.

We have had twenty years of stagnation while our rivals have zoomed far, far out ahead of us in the grand scale of things. Whatever you spin ENIC's tenure as (slow recovery, possibly), it is still stagnation when compared to our glory period, or even the 80's. At some stage we need to do one of two things: either push forward in our ambitions to the be the best in London again....or lower prices to a level suitable to where we are as a club, let the youngsters and the deprived fans back into the game, and focus on being a community club as opposed to one with ambition.

I have no doubts it scarred you. I wish your immune system would hurry the **** up and heal your scar. Or that someone would give you a hug or a blowjob whilst wearing a Ginola kit or something to make you feel better. Cause billy is right, the hyperbole is beneath you.

And yes, I will now get off my high and mighty preaching horse.

 

[DubaiSpur]

We have high ticket prices because we have a relatively small stadium and we're in London. Supply and demand. Or are you saying that other chairmen are not like Levy and are leaving cash on the table by keeping ticket prices low?

We're outperforming where we "should be" based on the graph above with those high ticket prices.

The idea of just spending money to then make it back with CL participation doesn't resonate with me. I don't think it's the way it works. If it really was that easy, why won't more clubs do it? And if we spend X million looking to do it, why can't the clubs around us do just the same? Fact is that with our budget we would drop out of the top 4 sooner or later even if the owners were putting in £30-40m more. Because compared to our competition that's just not enough.

If what you want is a sugar daddy, fair enough. But don't extrapolate from that to the current owners being {insert most recent insult here}.

Other chairmen actively subsidise tickets for their fans: they'd be called sugar daddies, though. What most chairmen have the decency to avoid is charging prices wayyyy out of keeping with the status of the clubs they run, just relying on the abuse of the fans' loyalty to keep revenue coming in whatever the prices end up being.

I want an owner willing to invest in the team and the club. Our current owners are barely competent decision-makers who have contributed relatively little to the club compared to what the fans have put in over the same period, relying on their 'decision-making' input to placate fans who ask what exactly they're there for. If that is excessively insulting, great: maybe someone will say it to their face at a game and perhaps, perhaps make them rethink the way they run this club.

I have no doubts it scarred you. I wish your immune system would hurry the **** up and heal your scar. Or that someone would give you a hug or a blowjob whilst wearing a Ginola kit or something to make you feel better. Cause billy is right, the hyperbole is beneath you.

Hey, don't pretend like that isn't a secret fetish half our fanbase has at one point or another.

And yes, I will now get off my high and mighty preaching horse.

You don't have to, really. And I struggle to see what I can do to phrase that post you took exception to differently. ENIC contributed to the ruination our chances of a) achieving anything post February 2012, b) doing anything substantial with the Bale money, c) giving Poch a decent chance for a good start.

How do you propose I phrase that, or our decline relative to Arsenal and Chelsea? 'Destroyed' and 'sinking into obscurity' are too forceful, fine: what would you phrase it as?

 

[braineclipse]

Other chairmen actively subsidise tickets for their fans: they'd be called sugar daddies, though. What most chairmen have the decency to avoid is charging prices wayyyy out of keeping with the status of the clubs they run, just relying on the abuse of the fans' loyalty to keep revenue coming in whatever the prices end up being.

I want an owner willing to invest in the team and the club. Our current owners are barely competent decision-makers who have contributed relatively little to the club compared to what the fans have put in over the same period, relying on their 'decision-making' input to placate fans who ask what exactly they're there for. If that is excessively insulting, great: maybe someone will say it to their face at a game and perhaps, perhaps make them rethink the way they run this club.

The owners have contributed relatively little apart of course from carrying the risk of their investment. Because of how well run the club has been in that period that might seem like nothing. It now seems like the easiest investment ever and that they're just printing money with no risk at the expense of us as fans. I really don't think that's true for football club owners in general though, and there's a reason why it's true in our case.

Hey, don't pretend like that isn't a secret fetish half our fanbase has at one point or another.

You don't have to, really. And I struggle to see what I can do to phrase that post you took exception to differently. ENIC contributed to the ruination our chances of a) achieving anything post February 2012, b) doing anything substantial with the Bale money, c) giving Poch a decent chance for a good start.

How do you propose I phrase that, or our decline relative to Arsenal and Chelsea? 'Destroyed' and 'sinking into obscurity' are too forceful, fine: what would you phrase it as?

So in your "a)" example they didn't spend money. When money was available to spend and they let the footballing men at our club spend it you get your "b)" example.

The events of years past has been repeatedly discussed and I honestly don't feel like another go on that merry-go-round right now. As I've been saying, regression to the mean is a cold hearted bitch. Obviously there have been mistakes, but which club has been without mistakes in this kind of time frame? You mention the cyclical nature of the game, seemingly saying that this is why we'll get another shot sooner or later despite Levy/the owners. But the cyclical nature for our club has been cycling above expectation on average and for the negative parts of those cycles you're seemingly blaming the owners much more intensely than you're willing to credit them for the upswings.

We've declined relative to Arsenal and Chelsea, but if you're presenting that without the context of Abramovich for Chelsea and the impact of regular CL football at Arsenal pre-Levy I go back to the hyperbole accusation and add complete irrationality to it. Craigslist, MSF, must be willing to wear football kit in bed. Get that fetish fulfilled.

 

[DubaiSpur]

The owners have contributed relatively little apart of course from carrying the risk of their investment. Because of how well run the club has been in that period that might seem like nothing. It now seems like the easiest investment ever and that they're just printing money with no risk at the expense of us as fans. I really don't think that's true for football club owners in general though, and there's a reason why it's true in our case.

It isn't because we've been run well that the owners' investments into the club carry little risk for them, or that their lack of investment relative to that of the fans isn't called out more. It's because in the time they've been here, the PL as a whole has become so full of cash that the team likely to finish 20th this season will still have a turnover of almost as much as ENIC have put into the club as a whole, from loans to the purchase price itself. This rising tide has lifted all boats, us included, and this combined with our extortionate prices far out of proportion to our league status has contributed to our rise to sixth place, revenue-wise, and has guaranteed ENIC a hefty profit on their investment regardless of how well or badly they run the club.

So in your "a)" example they didn't spend money. When money was available to spend and they let the footballing men at our club spend it you get your "b)" example.

The events of years past has been repeatedly discussed and I honestly don't feel like another go on that merry-go-round right now. As I've been saying, regression to the mean is a cold hearted bitch. Obviously there have been mistakes, but which club has been without mistakes in this kind of time frame? You mention the cyclical nature of the game, seemingly saying that this is why we'll get another shot sooner or later despite Levy/the owners. But the cyclical nature for our club has been cycling above expectation on average and for the negative parts of those cycles you're seemingly blaming the owners much more intensely than you're willing to credit them for the upswings.

We've declined relative to Arsenal and Chelsea, but if you're presenting that without the context of Abramovich for Chelsea and the impact of regular CL football at Arsenal pre-Levy I go back to the hyperbole accusation and add complete irrationality to it.

In a), we didn't spend money, agreed. In b), you misunderstand me: I have repeatedly emphasized across this forum that we didn't spend the money in a way that would maximise the chances for AVB to succeed. AVB only wanted three of the seven players he ended up getting, and the other players he seemed keen on (Hulk, Moutinho and Willian) were deemed too expensive for us to pursue to the finish, with cheaper alternatives being bought instead. Had we bought the players he wanted alone, there is no doubt that our spending would have overshot even the money we made that summer when wages were also taken into account: however, we would have given him the best possible chance to succeed, with the players he wanted. That 80 million gave us a great base to build on, but it did not excuse the necessity of spending over and above that amount if necessary to compensate our manager for the loss of a player he built his team around. We didn't: we played it safe, and lost the opportunity to turn that 80 million into something much more valuable: a happy manager, with a side he wanted, performing up to the level that he promised it would if all his pieces were delivered. I'm not sure I've put this across accurately enough, but I hope you understand me.

Yes, football is cyclical, and we will get another shot at the big-time. When we get there, we'll blow it. This has been my stance all along. When we fall below our station, we'll rise up again due to the bare competence of our owners in getting us to where our revenue says we should be. When we rise up again as per the cyclical nature of football, we will blow our opportunity because of our owners' extreme reluctance to pursue that opportunity as hard as it can be pursued.

I have credited our owners for being barely competent, and getting us to where we are now (albeit off the backs of the fans, but we've gone over that). They cannot get us any further, and are now turning into parodies of themselves, and I stand by that.
No more, no less.

We have declined relative to Arsenal and Chelsea, who have won more trophies than we have in this time period and have been more successful over this time period. Caveats like 'they spent more' die off very quickly in the annals of football history: for example, who remembers or cares that we outspent almost everyone in England to build our double-winning side? Ultimately, I ignore these caveats because they're only ever interesting to obsessives like you and me: the vast majority of football fans will only remember 'Arsenal, Chelsea = won a lot, Spurs, West Ham, Palace = also rans, Spurs used to be good a long, long, long time ago) a decade or two from now. Irrationality doesn't come into it: history discarding caveats does. Who remembers that the Soviets were the first to orbit the moon? No one. The Americans got there, with manned spacecraft, and declared that they'd 'won' the space race, never mind that most of the space firsts were actually achieved by the Soviets. That is how history works.

Craigslist, MSF, must be willing to wear football kit in bed. Get that fetish fulfilled.

Let's just say that my dear SO is a somewhat long-suffering lady, and leave it at that.

 

[braineclipse]

It isn't because we've been run well that the owners' investments into the club carry little risk for them, or that their lack of investment relative to that of the fans isn't called out more. It's because in the time they've been here, the PL as a whole has become so full of cash that the team likely to finish 20th this season will still have a turnover of almost as much as ENIC have put into the club as a whole, from loans to the purchase price itself. This rising tide has lifted all boats, us included, and this combined with our extortionate prices far out of proportion to our league status has contributed to our rise to sixth place, revenue-wise, and has guaranteed ENIC a hefty profit on their investment regardless of how well or badly they run the club.

That is part of it, but far from all. I won't go all Leeds on you, but if you look at where we were when they took over and where we are now there's a massive difference. Some of that is us fulfilling our financial potential (to a point). But that's not all. We flirted seriously with relegation when Klinsman saved us. We could easily have ended up debt significantly over our yearly turnover like some clubs. Had our results continued like they did in the '90s the club would be worth a lot less than it is now. We finished 7th once, that was our best league position in that decade. Now finishing 7th would put us in crisis mode.

Had the results on the pitch continued like that the investment would have made a much smaller profit.

In a), we didn't spend money, agreed. In b), you misunderstand me: I have repeatedly emphasized across this forum that we didn't spend the money in a way that would maximise the chances for AVB to succeed. AVB only wanted three of the seven players he ended up getting, and the other players he seemed keen on (Hulk, Moutinho and Willian) were deemed too expensive for us to pursue to the finish, with cheaper alternatives being bought instead. Had we bought the players he wanted alone, there is no doubt that our spending would have overshot even the money we made that summer when wages were also taken into account: however, we would have given him the best possible chance to succeed, with the players he wanted. That 80 million gave us a great base to build on, but it did not excuse the necessity of spending over and above that amount if necessary to compensate our manager for the loss of a player he built his team around. We didn't: we played it safe, and lost the opportunity to turn that 80 million into something much more valuable: a happy manager, with a side he wanted, performing up to the level that he promised it would if all his pieces were delivered. I'm not sure I've put this across accurately enough, but I hope you understand me.

Yes, football is cyclical, and we will get another shot at the big-time. When we get there, we'll blow it. This has been my stance all along. When we fall below our station, we'll rise up again due to the bare competence of our owners in getting us to where our revenue says we should be. When we rise up again as per the cyclical nature of football, we will blow our opportunity because of our owners' extreme reluctance to pursue that opportunity as hard as it can be pursued.

I have credited our owners for being barely competent, and getting us to where we are now (albeit off the backs of the fans, but we've gone over that). They cannot get us any further, and are now turning into parodies of themselves, and I stand by that.
No more, no less.

We have declined relative to Arsenal and Chelsea, who have won more trophies than we have in this time period and have been more successful over this time period. Caveats like 'they spent more' die off very quickly in the annals of football history: for example, who remembers or cares that we outspent almost everyone in England to build our double-winning side? Ultimately, I ignore these caveats because they're only ever interesting to obsessives like you and me: the vast majority of football fans will only remember 'Arsenal, Chelsea = won a lot, Spurs, West Ham, Palace = also rans, Spurs used to be good a long, long, long time ago) a decade or two from now. Irrationality doesn't come into it: history discarding caveats does. Who remembers that the Soviets were the first to orbit the moon? No one. The Americans got there, with manned spacecraft, and declared that they'd 'won' the space race, never mind that most of the space firsts were actually achieved by the Soviets. That is how history works.



Let's just say that my dear SO is a somewhat long-suffering lady, and leave it at that.

To me you're essentially saying "on this I'm going to be irrational" and someone once said that "you can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into" so I'll just leave it at this.

 

[Crab.C.Nesbitt]

What the absolute F??????

Seems like some of our players are blaming our poor start on Daniel Levy....according to the Telegraph so perhaps no need to worry. If true they can took right off...yeah Levy is not infallible and perhaps we do need a change, but for any of our bag'O ****e players to be making these comments is unbelievable. I would back Levy 1 million percent over anyone on our playing staff in terms of what he has done for the club!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...plans-to-meet-squad-to-discuss-poor-form.html

 

[Mumorn]

Re: What the absolute F??????

id blame levy for not backing Poch in the summer. we should have had Schneiderlin at least

 

[Crab.C.Nesbitt]

Re: What the absolute F??????

But does the lack of schneiderlin excuse how sh1t the majority of our players have been this season?

 

[Modric THFC]

Re: What the absolute F??????

Levy has done more for the club than any players in our current squad bar maybe Lennon.

 

[Mumorn]

Re: What the absolute F??????

But does the lack of schneiderlin excuse how sh1t the majority of our players have been this season?

the majority of our players were signed becasue Levy didnt back managers first choices.

 

[DubaiSpur]

That is part of it, but far from all. I won't go all Leeds on you, but if you look at where we were when they took over and where we are now there's a massive difference. Some of that is us fulfilling our financial potential (to a point). But that's not all. We flirted seriously with relegation when Klinsman saved us. We could easily have ended up debt significantly over our yearly turnover like some clubs. Had our results continued like they did in the '90s the club would be worth a lot less than it is now. We finished 7th once, that was our best league position in that decade. Now finishing 7th would put us in crisis mode.

Had the results on the pitch continued like that the investment would have made a much smaller profit.

It depends. The 90's were a succession of bad decisions from the boardroom, one after the other. The 2000's were a series of competent decisions from the boardroom, not great, not outstanding, not magnificent, but just quietly competent: nevertheless, this was a relief from the mismanagement of the Sugar days, and here I have already given ENIC some modicum of credit.

the 2010's so far have been a series of bad decisions again as ENIC have hit the logical heights of where they can take us with this current ownership model, and there is no need to feel outwardly deferential to ENIC for being simply competent in the 2000's when they are starting to look distinctly less so in the 2010s. Their refusal to invest when the team has badly needed said investment led to us blowing the opportunity that took so long to fashion, their continuing refusal to learn from that grievous error has led to first AVB going and now Poch struggling, their ownership model is grating with the fans who are paying their sky high prices with difficulty, only to see no similar investment from them during these times when regression to the mean seems to be the norm, and they steadfastly refuse to change said model or consider dropping their pretense of 'ambition' fuelled entirely by the fans' own money: all told, there is little reason to feel deferential or grade them as anything other than competent and lucky to ride the wave when the PL was flying high, and now much less competent when their own decisions have created our current decline.

To me you're essentially saying "on this I'm going to be irrational" and someone once said that "you can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into" so I'll just leave it at this.

Like I said, history doesn't do caveats, and we won't be remembered as having done things 'the right way' (Pfhah!) two to three decades down the line. If that seems irrational to you (and again, I urge you to consider whether anyone prefaces our double-winnng side with the words 'well, we outspent everyone else, so take that into consideration before celebrating them), then there is little more to be said on the matter.