ENIC

[Bedfordspurs]

We defo could, but when have we ever? That isn't us, that's clubs that actually want to win.

You see Chelsea pumping in a billion dollars while finding every trick possible to make a mockery of FFP - this is because they actually want to win.

We won't ever use up our FFP cap because winning isn't our priority.

Where does this extra money come from for us to spend ?
Can you give a logical view on that?

Chelsea for example are borrowing it
They are also trying to sell a stake in the holding entity but struggling so far
The last numbers I was told last week was they value the holding entity at £4B and want to sell 10% for £400m
The only people interested as some investment funds and they have been offered further loans as an alternative. That came from a guy connected with a Strasbourg who they own

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Have FSG cheated at Liverpool then?

Not at all
They are selling off their shares though for new investment as they can’t keep up or don’t what too (I don’t know the answer as to their motivations)

 

[DeanoAustin]

I'm not sure what the argument is here

- Have some owners "always" tried to buy success, yes.
- Was it at the level it is now, no (and arguing that is disingenuous)

What makes the current model different?

- Not just the scale, but the consistency, Chelsea & City have now been spending like that for a decade+
- It's a fudging country investing (City & Saudi Sportswashing Machine), are we really comparing Blackburn's ownership to Saudi Arabi?
- The results, the sharing of trophies has dried up, if someone wants to go do statistical analysis, go do this, take a look at variety/spread of wins of the 3 domestic trophies in past 20 years vs. any other period of time, hint, it isn't good and gets worse, quick point City has pretty much owned the PL & League Cup for last 7 years

And yes

- It isn't going to change
- And if your personal ambition is to see Spurs dominate, we need "cheaters" as owners as well (and when I say cheaters, it isn't just the investment, it's the bogus accounting, shady brick)

I actually did this recently hoping to prove that very point from the 20 years since Abramovich came in versus the 20 years prior.

The results were pretty much identical for the league and FA Cup. It’s only in the League Cup there has been any concentration of wins.

 

[DubaiSpur]

The irony being they won fudge all from that investment

Err...what? Eric Sawyer invested all that cash into them because their manager convinced him to. That manager being a certain Bill Shankly.

That investment immediately got them out of Division 2 as champions in the first year, and then made them champions of the top flight one year after promotion, followed by winning the FA Cup the year after that.

 

[DubaiSpur]

You think the chants are going to reach the Bahamas?

You'd be surprised what the media exposure widespread fan anger brings can do for publicity-shy criminals.

 

[SpurMeUp]

If Liverpool’s income was £120k a year and they’d spent £230k on transfer fees over 4 years, that is the equivalent of them spending about £1.2b on transfer fees over 4 years now.

That is an odd way to calculate inflation. Football wasn't the massive business it is today, so I don't think that is a fair way to represent things. You're using growth in the sector to manipulate the representation.

Quite simply, £230,000 in 1960 would be worth £4,367,502 today according to the Bank of England https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator That is £4m not £1.2b! To take £230,000 and say it is really worth £1.2b now is a massive stretch.

 

[DubaiSpur]

You posted:

The spending did not stop there — in the next four seasons they totted up £230,000 in purchases for players like Willie Stevenson, Peter Thompson, Phil Chisnall and Geoff Strong. Again, translated to modern-day fees, that is around £230million just to get out of the second division and become competitive in the first division.

And that is over 4 seasons? Are you quoted things that are inaccurate, or are you inaccurate!? It doesn't say anything in the puff piece article you took this from that they spent the equivilant of 365m in a season. It says: Translated into modern terms, it was like the current Huddersfield Town spending £75million on a striker and £60million on a centre back.

This is the most extreme example of pre-oil baron spending you could find to back up your point!? It is nowhere near Abramovich or Mansour, a puddle in comparison to an ocean. Most of a football clubs spend is on wages anyway, transfer fees are less important (why chelsea spending 900m on transfers isn't as shocking as it initially seems as they are actually cutting their wage budget). Harlands transfer to City was just 50m, but the contract is probably one of the most expensive in British football history alltold. Factor in £30m odd a year wages over 5 years, a massive singing on bonus, huge agents fees, and it is almost certainly the most expensive player signing made in the UK to date (hidden behind a relatively low transfer fee). Long and short of it is, even the most extreme example you could find in history of spening by a club is nowhere close to what the PL has expereinced with oil-subsidised clubs.

---

Then in your Spurs utopia, what you are wishing is we get an owner like Abramovich or Mansour! While everyone else remains self-sustaining. Forgive me for giggling at this naivety.

• Mansour and Saudi at Saudi Sportswashing Machine are already gaming the setup. Even if an oil barron snaps us up,we won't have a free run. Abramovich beat you to it by a couple of decades and ruined all the oil barron fun.
  
• Why does an oil-rich owner wishing to play a computer game with a real football club, choose us over the hundreds of others?
• Why would you want to perpetuate the problem? Your frustrations relate to almost all trophies going to financially doped clubs. But now you want the cool aid dogy injections too?
• Is fair competition a thing of the past? All about who has the most cash. Unchecked it would kill any sport. Checked, who is well-positioned in the PL to win using sustainable revenue?

For all the guff about how football has always been like this, trophies and success were far far more open prior, with a range of winning teams coming from nowhere. That never happens now. And wierdly this setup is what you seem to back. While crying that we don't have an oil-laiden barron backing us.

----

The tired, attempted dig at the end of your post, trying to make out those who understand the reality would somehow be upset if Enic moved on, is also basless. Understanding reality is not tanamount to irrational backing of enic/irrational hating on enic. That is your bag, don't try to bring others into your space.

On Liverpool's spending - you're the one crowing about all of it being spent in one season mate. Go back and find where I said that - precisely that. I'll wait.
While you're looking, I can make it easier for you - the amount spent in 1960 was more than 50% of their entire revenue on 2 players, which no Champo club today comes close to matching. After 1961, the subsequent £230,000 is again obscene spending for a newly promoted club. These are facts.

As for most extreme, not at all. But it is an illuminating example, because it directly led to Liverpool becoming a modern giant. Just like City and Chelsea today.

Your comparison to scale of spending completely misses the point. This spending was obscene in comparison to the times - it was every bit as massive as the spending of today. Just because the amounts were smaller in absolute terms doesn't mean jack - football earned less back then too.

As for the whining about 'what owner would choose poor old us!?!?', even with everything Levy has done, we are still an attractive purchase, mate. Todd Boehly tried to buy us before he went to Chelsea - the very billions you are now bemoaning could have been ours. And every time we are mentioned as being up for sale, a cast of billionaires emerge with much deeper pockets than Lewis and, potentially, much more ambition - from Jim Ratcliffe to that Najafi bloke from the US. There are wealthy buyers out there, don't you worry.

And like I keep saying, it does not take all that much to compete. Kroenke is doing it with 500m of his own money. FSG did it too.

As for football bring far more open than it is now, that's the funny thing - someone else (@Raziel , I think) pointed out the concentration of trophies in the last 20 years. But then, if you go back another 20 years, from 1983 to 2003...the exact same concentration exists.

Football in the past wasn't the idealistic free for all people imagine. Maybe in the 1960s and 70s that might have been true, but it hasn't been for far longer than the Abramovich and Mansour eras. That 'fair competition' of yours is a pipe dream - if that is want you want, this sport is not for you. The Americans do a far better job with their sports - baseball, hockey, basketball. Suggest taking those up instead.

As for the last bit, your trying to portray pages and pages of relentlessly, maniacally defending our deadweight owners as merely 'understanding reality' is amusing. You're in this as deep as me, just on the opposing side.

 

[DubaiSpur]

That is an odd way to calculate inflation. Football wasn't the massive business it is today, so I don't think that is a fair way to represent things. You're using growth in the sector to manipulate the representation.

Quite simply, £230,000 in 1960 would be worth £4,367,502 today according to the Bank of England https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator That is £4m not £1.2b! To take £230,000 and say it is really worth £1.2b now is a massive stretch.

You really aren't getting the point, or deliberately missing it. If you go by that calculator, Liverpool's yearly revenue in 1960 was less than half the amount they spent on transfers over that greater period.

You cannot calculate monetary value well over time. That's why I , @Finney Is Back and everyone else uses spending as a percentage of revenue, which is a constant that always exists and is a good shorthand for the magnitude of transfer spending.

 

[parklane1]

You think the chants are going to reach the Bahamas?

If you are that tinkled off stop going. Stop giving them your money. And let the rest of us enjoy going to games.

He is on a mission ( a long one) i actually like him but he really has a agenda.

 

[Aldo]

We defo could, but when have we ever? That isn't us, that's clubs that actually want to win.

You see Chelsea pumping in a billion dollars while finding every trick possible to make a mockery of FFP - this is because they actually want to win.

We won't ever use up our FFP cap because winning isn't our priority.

But ploughing money in isn't the answer you're looking for, as using the little chart you posted yesterday, Chelsea's fan satisfaction is worse than ours...

 

[SpurMeUp]

On Liverpool's spending - you're the one crowing about all of it being spent in one season mate. Go back and find where I said that - precisely that. I'll wait.
While you're looking, I can make it easier for you - the amount spent in 1960 was more than 50% of their entire revenue on 2 players, which no Champo club today comes close to matching. After 1961, the subsequent £230,000 is again obscene spending for a newly promoted club. These are facts.

Haha. Non-sense. Go and put the figures into the Bank of Englands inflation calculator https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

The transfer figures are nothing like you would have us believe! It is total nonsense. Trying to represent inflation by looksing at turnover is just bolocks mate. Come on. Got to hold your hands up here, no one but no one uses the turnover of a company to measure inflation. £10 in 1960 was worth about £190 today. 230k circa £4m, not £1b+ That is what the Bank of England tell us, and this is the closest to "facts" as you'll get. Sorry. I know you've hung your hat on this. But it is nonsense. Football clubs are totally different businesses now with all sorts of different costs and incomes, you can't extrapolate their turnover to generate any meaningful measure of transfer price inflation.

As for most extreme, not at all. But it is an illuminating example, because it directly led to Liverpool becoming a modern giant. Just like City and Chelsea today.

Your comparison to scale of spending completely misses the point. This spending was obscene in comparison to the times - it was every bit as massive as the spending of today. Just because the amounts were smaller in absolute terms doesn't mean jack - football earned less back then too.

As for the whining about 'what owner would choose poor old us!?!?', even with everything Levy has done, we are still an attractive purchase, mate. Todd Boehly tried to buy us before he went to Chelsea - the very billions you are now bemoaning could have been ours. And every time we are mentioned as being up for sale, a cast of billionaires emerge with much deeper pockets than Lewis and, potentially, much more ambition - from Jim Ratcliffe to that Najafi bloke from the US. There are wealthy buyers out there, don't you worry.

And like I keep saying, it does not take all that much to compete. Kroenke is doing it with 500m of his own money. FSG did it too.

As for football bring far more open than it is now, that's the funny thing - someone else (@Raziel , I think) pointed out the concentration of trophies in the last 20 years. But then, if you go back another 20 years, from 1983 to 2003...the exact same concentration exists.

Football in the past wasn't the idealistic free for all people imagine. Maybe in the 1960s and 70s that might have been true, but it hasn't been for far longer than the Abramovich and Mansour eras. That 'fair competition' of yours is a pipe dream - if that is want you want, this sport is not for you. The Americans do a far better job with their sports - baseball, hockey, basketball. Suggest taking those up instead.

As for the last bit, your trying to portray pages and pages of relentlessly, maniacally defending our deadweight owners as merely 'understanding reality' is amusing. You're in this as deep as me, just on the opposing side.

You're so far down your rabit hole, that you can't admit we are a more attractive club due to Enic. If we are honest about it, we do have a platform now (stadium, training complex, plenty of headroom in our wages to turnover). I know you find it very difficult to be ballanced on these things. Give it go. It might help

You are a smart chap, yet on this subject you have an inability to see the wood for the trees. Even trying to make out the concentration of trophies amongst the oil-subsidised clubs isn't a thing. It makes no sense mate. Haters gotta hate is the old saying, and fair enough if that floats your boat, it makes for a stiumulating debate. But trying to present everything in this obsessive light, to spread negativity, is fruitless and churlish.

 

[Lilbaz]

Liverpool were financially doped. As were Saudi Sportswashing Machine, as were blackburn. Doesn't make it right. It inflates fees and wages and puts all clubs in a financially precarious position. It damages football.

That said we have spent money recently. A lot of it. Just not very well. We'll see with this current influx how they do.

 

[DubaiSpur]

[

Haha. Non-sense. Go and put the figures into the Bank of Englands inflation calculator https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

The transfer figures are nothing like you would have us believe! It is total nonsense. Trying to represent inflation by looksing at turnover is just bolocks mate. Come on. Got to hold your hands up here, no one but no one uses the turnover of a company to measure inflation. £10 in 1960 was worth about £190 today. 230k circa £4m, not £1b+ That is what the Bank of England tell us, and this is the closest to "facts" as you'll get. Sorry. I know you've hung your hat on this. But it is nonsense. Football clubs are totally different businesses now with all sorts of different costs and incomes, you can't extrapolate their turnover to generate any meaningful measure of transfer price inflation.




You're so far down your rabit hole, that you can't admit we are a more attractive club due to Enic. If we are honest about it, we do have a platform now. I know you find it very difficult to be ballanced on these things. Give it go. It might help

You are a smart chap, yet on this subject you have an inability to see the wood for the trees. Even trying to make out the concentration of trophies amongst the oil-subsidised clubs isn't a thing. It makes no sense mate. Haters gotta hate is the old saying, and fair enough if that floats your boat, it makes for a stiumulating debate. But trying to present everything in this obsessive light, to spread negativity, is fruitless and churlish.

So, wait a minute - your response is basically plugging your ears and going 'nuh-uh'?

I keep telling you, the absolute value of spending does not matter. You seem fixated on 'billions versus millions', when that is not how it works, and not how it ever worked. People spend billions now because football is worth billions now and there are more billionaires now. People spent hundreds of thousands back then because that was what football was worth. And spending more than 50% of your revenue in a single season on two players is massive spending by any definition, and always has been. It was even recognized as such back then. It is the same when people compare affordability in the past versus today - they use percentage of income, not absolute value.

*That* is why you use percentages of turnover, not absolute amounts. If you're arguing that the scale of spending was out of the ordinary for the time, that is how you do it.

As for the second bit, funny - we were at the peak of our value as a club in 2019, with the stadium open and the CL final in our future.

Ever since then, we have fallen in value, not risen. As I said before, the very few decisions ENIC got right, I give them limited credit for. But there have been almost none since that time, and it is hard to argue we are more attractive now than we were then.

Despite that, people like Boehly wanted to buy us. So there are willing buyers out there mate - that was my broader point.

As for concentration of trophies, again, a case of you saying 'nuh-uh' and refusing to consider what I just told you. The concentration existed *before* oil clubs - the 20 years before Abramovich were as concentrated as the 20 after his takeover. Only the names changed - instead of City and Chelsea winning everything, Arsenal, Liverpool and United did. The proportions of trophies won are almost unchanged. Look it up yourself if you like.

And thank you for the compliment mate, but I'm honestly no smarter than you or anyone else here.

 

[Lilbaz]

[


So, wait a minute - your response is basically plugging your ears and going 'nuh-uh'?

I keep telling you, the absolute value of spending does not matter. You seem fixated on 'billions versus millions', when that is not how it works, and not how it ever worked. People spend billions now because football is worth billions now and there are more billionaires now. People spent hundreds of thousands back then because that was what football was worth. And spending more than 50% of your revenue in a single season on two players is massive spending by any definition, and always has been. It was even recognized as such back then. It is the same when people compare affordability in the past versus today - they use percentage of income, not absolute value.

*That* is why you use percentages of turnover, not absolute amounts. If you're arguing that the scale of spending was out of the ordinary for the time, that is how you do it.

As for the second bit, funny - we were at the peak of our value as a club in 2019, with the stadium open and the CL final in our future.

Ever since then, we have fallen in value, not risen. As I said before, the very few decisions ENIC got right, I give them limited credit for. But there have been almost none since that time, and it is hard to argue we are more attractive now than we were then.

Despite that, people like Boehly wanted to buy us. So there are willing buyers out there mate - that was my broader point.

As for concentration of trophies, again, a case of you saying 'nuh-uh' and refusing to consider what I just told you. The concentration existed *before* oil clubs - the 20 years before Abramovich were as concentrated as the 20 after his takeover. Only the names changed - instead of City and Chelsea winning everything, Arsenal, Liverpool and United did. The proportions of trophies won are almost unchanged. Look it up yourself if you like.

And thank you for the compliment mate, but I'm honestly no smarter than you or anyone else here.

They were in division 2 then correct? So 50% of a championship teams revenue is about £10m today. Average revenue in the championship is £20m.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1022329/premier-league-and-chapmionship-clubs-average-revenues/

 

[SpurMeUp]

[


So, wait a minute - your response is basically plugging your ears and going 'nuh-uh'?

I keep telling you, the absolute value of spending does not matter. You seem fixated on 'billions versus millions', when that is not how it works, and not how it ever worked. People spend billions now because football is worth billions now and there are more billionaires now. People spent hundreds of thousands back then because that was what football was worth. And spending more than 50% of your revenue in a single season on two players is massive spending by any definition, and always has been. It was even recognized as such back then. It is the same when people compare affordability in the past versus today - they use percentage of income, not absolute value.

*That* is why you use percentages of turnover, not absolute amounts. If you're arguing that the scale of spending was out of the ordinary for the time, that is how you do it.

As for the second bit, funny - we were at the peak of our value as a club in 2019, with the stadium open and the CL final in our future.

Ever since then, we have fallen in value, not risen. As I said before, the very few decisions ENIC got right, I give them limited credit for. But there have been almost none since that time, and it is hard to argue we are more attractive now than we were then.

Despite that, people like Boehly wanted to buy us. So there are willing buyers out there mate - that was my broader point.

As for concentration of trophies, again, a case of you saying 'nuh-uh' and refusing to consider what I just told you. The concentration existed *before* oil clubs - the 20 years before Abramovich were as concentrated as the 20 after his takeover. Only the names changed - instead of City and Chelsea winning everything, Arsenal, Liverpool and United did. The proportions of trophies won are almost unchanged. Look it up yourself if you like.

And thank you for the compliment mate, but I'm honestly no smarter than you or anyone else here.

You measure inflation however you wish to. While the rest of the world does it another way. It is a snapshot of how you try to take anything and twist it into an anti-Levy narrative. He has made lots of mistakes. But according to you, he's hapless, deserves no credit, and listening to you I can not work out why we weren't relegated long ago. How did such a useless CEO get it so right?

Trying to claim that £230,000 in 1960 is really worth £1.4b now is just another expression of your anti-enic OCD. That is like saying £1 in 1960 is worth £6087 now! Which is obviously nonsense. You seriously claim that £1 in 1960 should be worth £6k now? When the Bank of England says £1 in 1960 is equivalent to £19 now. All rational thinking has left you on this subject. Levy lives in your head rent free.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Where does this extra money come from for us to spend ?
Can you give a logical view on that?

Chelsea for example are borrowing it
They are also trying to sell a stake in the holding entity but struggling so far
The last numbers I was told last week was they value the holding entity at £4B and want to sell 10% for £400m
The only people interested as some investment funds and they have been offered further loans as an alternative. That came from a guy connected with a Strasbourg who they own

Same as Chelsea mate. Owner financing, or our owners selling a chunk of the club and investing the proceeds into the team.

You measure inflation however you wish to. While the rest of the world does it another way. It is a snapshot of how you try to take anything and twist it into an anti-Levy narrative. He has made lots of mistakes. But according to you, he's hapless, deserves no credit, and listening to you I can not work out why we weren't relegated long ago. How did such a useless CEO get it so right?

Trying to claim that £230,000 in 1960 is really worth £1.4b now is just another expression of your anti-enic OCD. That is like saying £1 in 1960 is worth £6087 now! Which is obviously nonsense. You seriously claim that £1 in 1960 should be worth £6k now? When the Bank of England says £1 in 1960 is equivalent to £19 now. All rational thinking has left you on this subject. Levy lives in your head rent free.

At this point you're just screeching and ranting at a scarecrow, so I'll excuse myself.

I'm not measuring inflation, nor claiming what a pound in 1960 is worth today. You're doing that - going off on some weird tangent on the Bank of England instead of recognizing the argument being made on percentage of income being spent on transfers, which is the only way to measure and compare that sort of thing across time.

But, do as you wish mate.

 

[SpurMeUp]

Same as Chelsea mate. Owner financing, or our owners selling a chunk of the club and investing the proceeds into the team.


At this point you're just screeching and ranting at a scarecrow, so I'll excuse myself.

I'm not measuring inflation, nor claiming what a pound in 1960 is worth today. You're doing that - going off on some weird tangent on the Bank of England instead of recognizing the argument being made on percentage of income being spent on transfers, which is the only way to measure and compare that sort of thing across time.

But, do as you wish mate.

How do you infer screeching on a written forum?

Lets recap: you said excessive owner spending has always been a part of English football. I replied saying that may be but the levels we have seen since Ambromovich and oil-subsidised clubs are next level. You said no, and quoted a radom article to show that Liverpool in 1960 spent a similar amount to what is spent today. But if you deconstruct it, it would mean £1 in 1960 would be worth £6k now. So clearly nonsense. You stuck to your guns however, and claimed this shows that everything is as it always was.

----

At the beginning of our mini debate, I noted the online hateing phenomenon where people go down a rabbit hole. And you've just exemplified it beautifully. Find some random source to justify your (irrational) point. "You see: here it is published" Never mind that it takes a massive leap of faith to claim that £1 in 1960 is worth £6k now. Forget that. Follow your bias, follow your echo chamber, and whatever you do, don't think for yourself. Follow Levy-out at all costs! Rent free...in your head.

 

[DubaiSpur]

How do you infer screeching on a written forum?

Lets recap: you said excessive owner spending has always been a part of English football. I replied saying that may be but the levels we have seen since Ambromovich and oil-subsidised clubs are another level to what has gone before. You said no, and quoted a radom article to show that Liverpool in 1960 spent a similar amount to what is spent today. But if you deconstruct it, it would mean £1 in 1960 would be worth £6k now. So clearly nonsense. You stuck to your guns however, and claimed this shows that everything is as it always was.

----

At the begining our mini debate, I noted the online hating phenomenon where people go down a rabit hole. And you've just exemplified this beautifully. Find some random source to justify your (irrational) point. "You see: here it is published" Never mind that it takes a massive leap of faith to claim that £1 in 1960 is worth £6k now. Forget that. Follow your bias, follow your echo chamber, and whatever you do, don't think for yourself. Follow Levy-out at all costs! Rent free...in your head.

Sigh. Like talking to a not particularly recalcitrant wall.

https://tomkinstimes.com/2014/01/transfer-records-and-why-they-mata/

Look, just..take a look at this and reflect on it. Okay?

"The best way to get a sense of the ‘fairness’ of what a player cost in current money is to think of how much his fee was then, in relation to what else was going on at that time. For instance, in 2003/04, the average price of a Premier League transfer was just £1.97m. This was the final year of a TV, and most clubs weren’t awash with money … bar, of course, Chelsea. So if a club spent £24m on a player around this time, it would be a lot of money. Come forward just three or four years, and £24m suddenly wasn’t such a big deal; by 2008 the average price had more than doubled, to £5m.

Remember, £24m in 2003/04 was fairly close to the British transfer record. In 2013, it’s less than half of the British transfer record. Therefore, £24m from 2004 (just like £1m from 1979) doesn’t give you the correct sense of magnitude. After all, the younger generation won’t get a sense of how much £1m felt back at the time I was a young lad watching The Six Million Dollar Man. (Remember: $6m equates to c.£3m to rebuild an entire man with bionic powers. Now that amount wouldn’t even get you Djimi Traore.)

Converting it to 2013 money does just that; Didier Drogba, signed in the summer of 2004, works out at £47m in 2013 money. That sounds about right, doesn’t it? – a little bit below the transfer record, so what you’d classify as a big buy.

This is from a man who literally wrote a book on the correlation between spending and success. His argument is why football inflation and real world inflation are not linked to each other.

Read it, and then keep ranting about the Bank of England if you wish. And remember, he is extrapolating transfer spending on modern terms (as of 2014) on transfers from just the Premier League era, and they already double in terms of their actual value versus their book value.

Now take that back to 1960. If you ran this calculation on Liverpool spending 67% of the British transfer record fee not once, but *twice*, in the same window, while in the British second division...what would that get you?

Be honest. Not for your hero chairman, or the hero tax exile criminal who apparently does us a favour by owning us. For yourself.

Also, on that bit about Levy - because our natural equilibrium position is about mid-table, which is where we are now. We made the 8th or 9th most income in the league in 2000 when they took over, and were finishing at or slightly below that position as a result.

Now we make the 6th most income in the league, and finish 6th or thereabouts. The occasional overperforming manager lifts us to 4th, occasional disastrous one drops us to 8th as we are now.

Again - money = success. And a richer, better, more ambitious owner would lift us up that calculation, to where our median position would be higher, but the occasional overperformance might actually win us things.

 

[SpurMeUp]

Sigh. Like talking to a not particularly recalcitrant wall.

https://tomkinstimes.com/2014/01/transfer-records-and-why-they-mata/

Look, just..take a look at this and reflect on it. Okay?

"The best way to get a sense of the ‘fairness’ of what a player cost in current money is to think of how much his fee was then, in relation to what else was going on at that time. For instance, in 2003/04, the average price of a Premier League transfer was just £1.97m. This was the final year of a TV, and most clubs weren’t awash with money … bar, of course, Chelsea. So if a club spent £24m on a player around this time, it would be a lot of money. Come forward just three or four years, and £24m suddenly wasn’t such a big deal; by 2008 the average price had more than doubled, to £5m.

Remember, £24m in 2003/04 was fairly close to the British transfer record. In 2013, it’s less than half of the British transfer record. Therefore, £24m from 2004 (just like £1m from 1979) doesn’t give you the correct sense of magnitude. After all, the younger generation won’t get a sense of how much £1m felt back at the time I was a young lad watching The Six Million Dollar Man. (Remember: $6m equates to c.£3m to rebuild an entire man with bionic powers. Now that amount wouldn’t even get you Djimi Traore.)

Converting it to 2013 money does just that; Didier Drogba, signed in the summer of 2004, works out at £47m in 2013 money. That sounds about right, doesn’t it? – a little bit below the transfer record, so what you’d classify as a big buy.

This is from a man who literally wrote a book on the correlation between spending and success. His argument is why football inflation and real world inflation are not linked to each other.

Read it, and then keep ranting about the Bank of England if you wish. And remember, he is extrapolating transfer spending on modern terms (as of 2014) on transfers from just the Premier League era, and they already double in terms of their actual value versus their book value.

Now take that back to 1960. If you ran this calculation on Liverpool spending 67% of the British transfer record fee not once, but *twice*, in the same window, while in the British second division...what would that get you?

Be honest. Not for your hero chairman, or the hero tax exile criminal who apparently does us a favour by owning us. For yourself.

Also, on that bit about Levy - because our natural equilibrium position is about mid-table, which is where we are now. We made the 8th or 9th most income in the league in 2000 when they took over, and were finishing at or slightly below that position as a result.

Now we make the 6th most income in the league, and finish 6th or thereabouts. The occasional overperforming manager lifts us to 4th, occasional disastrous one drops us to 8th as we are now.

Again - money = success. And a richer, better, more ambitious owner would lift us up that calculation, to where our median position would be higher, but the occasional overperformance might actually win us things.

Aren't you just making the point that most were - that oil subsidised clubs mop up. What you seem to miss is that us joining their ranks won't deliver us success so seamlessly, unless we can outgun the Arabs. The difference is: I see the dopped clubs as the problem whereas you see them as our solution.

I don't wish to pizz on your strawberries anymore. Keep doing what you're doing. Fight the good fight. I look forward to seeing the results and us conquering all.

 

[Lemonade Money]

Guys, can you ignore the idiots, you're cluttering up the threads with repetitive responses. It's really boring. Put them on ignore and starve them of oxygen.