The summer's sales bought the club breathing space, both in terms of fees in and also wages off the book. We said as much at the time and it's still holds true. Al may not like people relying on that for comfort, and we can't forever, because you can't sell the same player twice. But fact is a sell-off was always going to be part of the club's ability to recover cash in the event of relegation.
The more troubling bit for me is - I imagine the working assumption from Max was that any failure to get promoted this year, could be followed by a similar round of sales to get another round of fees in and wages down, to further recover the situation.
Then you think about the assets (as Max will see them) we have to facilitate that, and suddenly it's not as obvious that we'll manage it.
Lewis Cook - perhaps our most saleable player on good form - injured long term.
David Brooks - had a shocking season
Jeff Lerma - hit and miss
Lloyd Kelly - hit and miss
Diego Rico - more miss than hit
Danjuma is probably the most likely.
Covid will obviously hit the fees we can command from buying clubs also.
Potential failure to get promoted followed by a failure to secure the kind of fees we'd have hoped from a second round of sales, would compound the situation and mean that debt isn't coming down any. Then chunks of money Max thought were tied up in the club via saleable assets then evaporate before his eyes.
What is his view/attitude to that issue? Will be the question.
Max (Blake/Hughes) is playing with his own money, and for as long as 100% or near enough of all debt is owing to Max, then whatever that amount is, at least we know where we stand. I said it the other day - whether that amount is £16m or £160m, it near as makes no difference to AFCB's ability to pay it back organically. It all comes back to Max's attitude towards the club.
That's my 2 pennies worth. Long story short none of us really know