Morning all....lets begin

I'm going to throw in something else and see if @south york bantams wishes to comment on it.

Previously, the owners referred to a £700k deficit, and this has been banded around by various people since.

My take on the £700k deficit reference, is that this is was the position that the Club was in, when it was taken over by Stefan and Edin, i.e. if the new owners had made no changes, we would be looking at an annual loss in that region.

Julian and Mark dealt with this, by looking for cup runs, sales clauses from young players that had previously moved on or, failing anything else, by selling a player.

Stefan and Edin seem to have been working on this differently, by improving income (commercial, sponsorship etc.) and reducing wages, to bridge the gap; all this whilst increasing expenditure on the development squad as well.

If what they said last night is correct, then they have more or less bridged that gap and, presumably, are looking to increase income (commercial, sponsorship, developing youngsters for resale etc.) further, in order to further increase the first team playing budget.

That seems to be the strategy, as I see it. Start the season with a break even plan, but try to improve that budget year on year, as other parts of the business contribute more.

Whether or not it works, well only time will tell.

 

It's somewhat premature to say that things are getting better.

At the moment, we have an acceptance that mistakes have been made but without the owners explaining or describing what those mistakes were. Maybe R&R sees those mistakes in the same way as many fans do or maybe they don't. At this stage we simply don't know.

Without ignoring what has been said, they are at this stage merely fine words and some of them are a continuation of what's been done to date. For example, I don't see any recognition that additional resources might be required to make the jump from Div 1 to the Championship. Personally, I'll feel better about the situation when their fine words are translated into action. I'll start with the appointment of a manager who has experience of success at this level and is backed by the owners to bring similar success at our club. Doing that will be a strong signal that things are changing for the better. Not doing that will be equally a strong signal that nothing has really changed.

I'll be keeping an open mind on this since I don't believe they are fools who want to destroy their own investment in our club. But, and it's a big BUT, they need to recognise that the financial backing of the manager will be key togetting promotion in the near future. The majority of owners (more than three-quarters!) in Div 1 support their club from their own pockets and for some that's eye-wateringly expensive. Those who cannot or choose not to do that in the short term are at a huge disadvantage compared to those who do. I hope the owners understand that and get somebody at the club to check out the accounts of the rest of the Div 2 clubs to understand this better. If they don't do this, they won't have a proper understanding of what we're up against.

 

Please don't put words into my mouth.

There is nothing wrong in any business taking on debt which they can afford to pat back over time from increased earnings. That's how most businesses operate in the commercial world. Having debt does not necessarily mean that the club will sink as you put it. In the real world, one doesn't follow the other. But if the owners don't want to run a company which has unsustainable levels of debt then there is an answer to that ... put more equity into the club. But whether it's debt or equity, three-quarters of owners of clubs in Div 1 already do this and that's what we are up against if we are looking for promotion in the near future. How do you believe we will compete with the Scunnys and and Rotherhams
and Portsmouths whose owners already do this? And that's without mentioning those clubs who may be coming down from the Championship this season who already have Championship quality players in their squad. As you said, there are many clubs this year whose playing budgets were higher than ours. And we couldn't just compete with that. And it will be no different next season without an injection of funds into the club. Are you any more confident of our results and final position next season than you are of this one?

And on a related matter, every club would love to have a conveyor belt of new talent coming through their ranks to either establish a first team place or be sold off at a profit. And many clubs have already tried this approach and very few have made a success of it. I wonder why more haven't been successful at it and what makes us so sure that we can do it where many others have failed? It remains a risky and costly strategy and for one, I wouldn't be relying on that approach for our future footballing success.