Chris Mepham

adam0102 said:
I hesitate to step in to this little spat, but I understand where SDD is coming from. I’d really be interested to know exactly what point you’re making. Genuine question as I really don’t know. Are you implying we’re bankrupt or spending beyond our means? Or that someone is doing something underhand? Please just be clear and specific about what you think is actually wrong
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We are overspending. For sure.

Another thing that I notice is we are paying around £80K a week to let players play for other clubs.
 
AlGard said:
We are overspending. For sure.

Another thing that I notice is we are paying around £80K a week to let players play for other clubs.
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Thanks, but what is the level of the overspend? Is it more than we make from the TV deal and player sales? Is it - and the "friendly debt" - not covered by the increasing value of some of the squad?

Also, your second point could be turned round to say that we are saving on our wage bill by letting other clubs pick up some of the wages of guys who would generally only sit on the bench for us, surely?
 
...FFP rules have surely been made a bit out of date with the huge income from the likes of Sky and BT?
 
The owners are owed a lot of money actually. It isn’t just Max. They do not charge interest on it (unlike Mitchell did here or the Dildo Brothers do at West Ham). There is no repayment date set. By any standards that is a good deal for the club.

Is it a good deal for the owners? Well, while we stay in the PL they can expect to turn an operating profit each year. There may also be an expectation of a big ticket sale every year or two, creating an ongoing transfer fee surplus.

Should we be relegated our policy of recruiting young home grown talent should mean it would be relatively easy to move players on to get the wage bill down to parachute payments level and bring in enough transfer income to pay down their debt. (Tot up the value of Wilson, Fraser, Ake, Brooks, L Cook, King, Lerma and Solanke even at fire sale prices and expect that as phased income over four years).

And in the meantime the owners’ exit strategy may be to establish ourselves in the PL sufficiently to attract serious money from a sovereign wealth fund or a US billionaire.

We have committed to spend a lot of money this window. Who knows if we have overspent. That depends on what happens to prices in the summer. Am I concerned about our transfer spending? Not at all.
 
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adam0102 said:
Also, your second point could be turned round to say that we are saving on our wage bill by letting other clubs pick up some of the wages of guys who would generally only sit on the bench for us, surely?
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I think you will find that 7 sit on the bench every week, Whilst another 7 are not selected at all.
That's what a squad is all about.

As I posted earlier, it's about time we sold players rather than posting them out on loan.

Who was the last player we got a "market" fee for?

Try not to answer with another question, I have a busy day.
 
AlGard said:
Try not to answer with another question, I have a busy day.
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Typical

I try and be constructive and positive in getting to the heart of your concerns, as I and others were unclear from your previous answers, and you finish up with a snarky twunt comment like that.

Nothing ever changes with you, does it. You just can't help yourself.


And in terms of selling players rather than loaning them out, I would have thought that anyone would realise that, for this to happen, you have to have three parties all in agreement. If you can't do that, or if you want the player to develop elsewhere, then you take the next best option and loan them out.
 
AlGard said:
I think you will find that 7 sit on the bench every week, Whilst another 7 are not selected at all.
That's what a squad is all about.

As I posted earlier, it's about time we sold players rather than posting them out on loan.

Who was the last player we got a "market" fee for?

Try not to answer with another question, I have a busy day.
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Afobe in the summer? The last transfer window.
 
AlGard said:
I think you will find that 7 sit on the bench every week, Whilst another 7 are not selected at all.
That's what a squad is all about.

As I posted earlier, it's about time we sold players rather than posting them out on loan.

Who was the last player we got a "market" fee for?

Try not to answer with another question, I have a busy day.
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You're normally smarter than this Al.

Let's take Grabban as an example. After two successful Championship loan spells where he re-proved himself at that level by scoring a few goals, we managed to sell him for £6m. £6m!! Now I'm sure we could have sold him sooner, directly from our reserves as a flop. What would we have got for him? Not even half that would be my bet. Another example: we basically conned Bristol City into giving us our money back on Tomlin using the same tactic.

For a hypothetical, let's take Mings. What would we get for him now? One of the slightly wealthier Champ clubs might punt us 1-2m for him. That would be generous given his injuries and lack of game time lately. So instead let's loan him out. Best case scenario, he's brilliant and becomes a viable option for our first team. Next scenario, he does a solid job and we put the word out that we'll consider selling. This encourages multiple Championship clubs to look at a permanent bid in the summer. Then we probably get double what we might get now. Worst case scenario he gets injured or struggles, well then we're no worse off than we are right now.

Putting aside the human aspect, successful loans raise a player's stock and increase their market value as an asset to us. Just cutting and running gets us the very bottom end of their potential market value. We aren't getting relegated this season, so we are under no pressure at all to fire-sell. So why not be patient and see if we can increase the market value of one or two of our fringe players.
 
I would just like to point out that it is INCORRECT to say we OWE Max a large amount of money. He has chosen to INVEST this sum in his football club. He has exchanged liquidity ( cash ) for assets. If we are saying we owe Max money, that's the same as saying the bank owes me money when I have a savings account there. As far as I know, nobody uses this terminology in that instance.

If we take our net spend this season of ( allegedly ) 80m pounds, first of all we have to consider that maybe only as much as half of that will have been paid immediately. So we lose 40m liquidity and have a liability of another 40m. In return for that we have ( according to current market values ) accrued assets worth 80m. So effectively ( all things being equal ) no money has been "spent".

The money Max puts into the club will be viewed in the same way. He is exchanging liquidity for assets of similar value, which are going into the football club he owns. He can reasonably expect to get it all back by selling the club if needs be, since the club is at the very least worth the value of it's assets.

So no, it's not worth worrying about. If Max isn't worried, neither should we be. And if he were worried, he wouldn't have let Eddie "spend" 80m on players so far this season. Just relax !
 
cherrybright said:
However, you must take into account that most player interviews on signing for a new club are well rehearsed and probably pre-prepared.

They are hardly likely to come on and say - I really don't want to be here and I only signed for a giggle.
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Well obviously they're not going to just let a 21 year old loose to the media without a bit of preparation.

However, what you actually should take into account is the confirmed reports that Villa offered him more money, and he chose to come here instead, citing a desire to work under Howe.

So...he would rather work under the best English manager in the Premier League, with a smaller, tight-knit, family-oriented club/squad, than go to Villa for more money.

I'd argue that Mepham was already displaying the traits of being Intelligent, Ambitious and Humble before this interview. Seems built into his character, and like I said, I find that very impressive in a relatively young player.
 
thegazzyb said:
I would just like to point out that it is INCORRECT to say we OWE Max a large amount of money. He has chosen to INVEST this sum in his football club. He has exchanged liquidity ( cash ) for assets. If we are saying we owe Max money, that's the same as saying the bank owes me money when I have a savings account there. As far as I know, nobody uses this terminology in that instance.

If we take our net spend this season of ( allegedly ) 80m pounds, first of all we have to consider that maybe only as much as half of that will have been paid immediately. So we lose 40m liquidity and have a liability of another 40m. In return for that we have ( according to current market values ) accrued assets worth 80m. So effectively ( all things being equal ) no money has been "spent".

The money Max puts into the club will be viewed in the same way. He is exchanging liquidity for assets of similar value, which are going into the football club he owns. He can reasonably expect to get it all back by selling the club if needs be, since the club is at the very least worth the value of it's assets.

So no, it's not worth worrying about. If Max isn't worried, neither should we be. And if he were worried, he wouldn't have let Eddie "spend" 80m on players so far this season. Just relax !
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As much as I'm arguing against Al's point and I agree it's not worth worrying about I think you're stretching logic here.

"Exchanging liquidity for assets" is normally called "spending money". If he does it and the books say the club is in debt to him "we" owe him money. Yes the club has assets but that's what fans see as "ours".
 
SlowDownDerek said:
Until he wants his money back.
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Unfortunately none of us know the terms of these "friendly loans" but I think it is unlikely that he can just ask for his money back ( pretty pointless thing to do, because that would probably bankrupt us and make his 75% share in the club absolutely worthless ). More likely the loan only becomes payable when he sells his share of the football club, in which case the purchaser would be aware that they have to settle his loans when they take over and would factor that in to the purchase price agreed.

We're not privy to the details, so it's all speculation.

The main point here is that Max is prepared to invest what he's investing so he must be happy that he is getting value for his money. By investing in the squad he is increasing the value of his 75% share and increasing the likelihood that the club will be more successful and profitable in the future. If you want profits you have to invest. As a businessman he will have weighed up the costs and benefits and evidently he still sees a potential return on further investment in us.
 
thegazzyb said:
Unfortunately none of us know the terms of these "friendly loans" but I think it is unlikely that he can just ask for his money back ( pretty pointless thing to do, because that would probably bankrupt us and make his 75% share in the club absolutely worthless ). More likely the loan only becomes payable when he sells his share of the football club, in which case the purchaser would be aware that they have to settle his loans when they take over and would factor that in to the purchase price agreed.

We're not privy to the details, so it's all speculation.

The main point here is that Max is prepared to invest what he's investing so he must be happy that he is getting value for his money. By investing in the squad he is increasing the value of his 75% share and increasing the likelihood that the club will be more successful and profitable in the future. If you want profits you have to invest. As a businessman he will have weighed up the costs and benefits and evidently he still sees a potential return on further investment in us.
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I'm sure we all appreciate that but the point is that it is not within the fans' control and that it is reliant on the benevolence of the owner and also his personal circumstances to ensure he doesn't suddenly decided he wants it back.

The reason people worry is because there is a list as long as your arm of occasions where owners have suddenly wanted or needed to get their cash back and have therefore "liquidised the club's assets" often leading to relegation. It could happen to us, it could happen to Brighton, nobody knows.

The reason I agree that it's not worth worrying about is because Demin took the club on after a prolonged period of financial woes - he's invested massive amounts and taken us to levels beyond what we could ever have imagined - if he takes it all back and leaves us back where we were then unlike Al I'm not going to be ruing the day he got involved. Sometimes the glass is half full.
 
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