FSG are not shit

[Pureblood]

By ambition, I assumed he meant owners that would spend a lot of their own money. There is no business person in the world who is at the level of being the owner of a top football club who wants to do that. Those people don't exist. Unless they are born into money, heads of state or have more money than they know what to do with, like I said. 

 

I don't think anyone wants us to do a Ridsdale.  Somewhere there will be a happy middle ground, we're not in that place. 

[3 Stacks]

I don't think anyone wants us to do a Ridsdale.  Somewhere there will be a happy middle ground, we're not in that place. 

 

Really? Because I don't. 

 

There are two types of owners. Filthy rich cunts who spend what they want and business people who spend only the amount which isn't financially stupid and makes business sense. We have the latter. 

[INTORRESTING]

There are businessmen who want to win though. The mistake was selling to Americans as winning is a bonus to them. They only care about money and media and merchandise. If we never won anything again they wouldnt give a fuck.

 

We are relying on klopp's genius, what sort of strategy is that?

 

Moores and Dubai was the biggest turning point in our history and the chance of sustained success died then imo. Who knows maybe it will be third time lucky.

[TheHowieLama]

The mistake was selling to Americans as winning is a bonus to them. 

 

Yeah it is - Glazers have won more in the last decade than we have in the last 30 years. Gosh darn Americans.

 

Are there British owners who care about winning? Actually forget about caring - just win anything?

 

Maybe Desmond - is he British?

[BeefStroganoff]

Imagine the fume in 1987 when the Club, having prepared for the sale of Rushie went out and bust the bank for Barnes, Beardsley, Aldridge and Houghton.

 

The LFC holier than thou purists today would be up in arms about that kind of unnecessary spend!

[BeefStroganoff]

ambition=stupidity

 

The reduction of expectations job this lot have done on some of our fans, quite remarkable. 

Yup.

[Tony Moanero]

Random neg time, folks.

 

Happy new year.

[General Dryness]

Random neg time, folks.

 

Happy new year.

That's ambitious talk, Tony.

 

We don't take kindly to that kind of thing around these here parts.

[Guest]

Random neg time, folks.

 

Happy new year.

Go go gadget neg rebounder!

[stringvest]

The thread that keeps on giving.  

[Aventus]

 

 

Really? Because I don't.

 

There are two types of owners. Filthy rich cunts who spend what they want and business people who spend only the amount which isn't financially stupid and makes business sense. We have the latter.

I think there's a third kind, the types that are extremely frugal and spend the bare minimum to keep the club treading water and staying in the same position.

 

I think that's the type we have.

 

Whether we finish 1st, or finish 6th the club is still profitable for the owners, the difference is if we expect to consistently finish nearer to first then it needs that little bit of extra investment to make that push, after which the profit margin goes down.

 

The happy medium people want is for the owners to chip in just a little bit every now and then so that push for first place isn't so unreasonable, as it stands our transfers are almost exclusively funded by sales, there was a boost in income from the TV deals, most of the prem has benefited and increased spending accordingly yet we haven't.

[BeefStroganoff]

This is shit whichever way you look at it. From a discussion with Ian Doyle at the Echo on Twitter:

 

"The following are facts, not opinion. Using http://lfchistory.net  prices, FSG have, including Keita, a net spend of £155m since taking over. Their spend has been 129% of their sales (£696m in/£541m out). Hicks and Gillett, the net spend was 113% of their sales (£174m/£153m)."

[TheHowieLama]

Sounds like more than before and I thought you were taking the next few years off.

[BeefStroganoff]

Sounds like more than before and I thought you were taking the next few years off.

 

What apart from the guys we are comparing to were skint? so thats what, 20m net a season?And maybe i'll stick around.

[The Woolster]

This is shit whichever way you look at it. From a discussion with Ian Doyle at the Echo on Twitter:

 

"The following are facts, not opinion. Using http://lfchistory.net  prices, FSG have, including Keita, a net spend of £155m since taking over. Their spend has been 129% of their sales (£696m in/£541m out). Hicks and Gillett, the net spend was 113% of their sales (£174m/£153m)."

 

The figures on LFC History are not facts though are they, they a best guesses based on reports in the press

[TheHowieLama]

What apart from the guys we are comparing to were skint? so thats what, 20m net a season?And maybe i'll stick around.

Fuck off Code

[Ranxerox]

The thread that keeps on giving.

 

Speaking of which is there any record of an actual fist fight breaking out anywhere over differing views of FSG? My guess is no despite the vitriol sometimes dished out here on the interwebs.

[Anubis]

I see from Flashneg that you have negged me, Tony. I have this to say to you.

 

.

 

 

That's you told.

[Unrighteous]

This is shit whichever way you look at it. From a discussion with Ian Doyle at the Echo on Twitter:

 

"The following are facts, not opinion. Using http://lfchistory.net  prices, FSG have, including Keita, a net spend of £155m since taking over. Their spend has been 129% of their sales (£696m in/£541m out). Hicks and Gillett, the net spend was 113% of their sales (£174m/£153m)."

 

Maybe before the Coutinho sale.  I tallied up the math before VVD in/Coutinho out (and not including Keita), and it was about 40-50m total over their entire ownership. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

So, I crashed really hard at about 7pm. Just slept like a fallen oak in front of the TV for 3 hours, which has essentially fucked me up quite hard for the rest of the night to come. So I grab a drink, stand between my bedroom and my office thinking 'shall I just go straight to bed or should I pop on the computer for a minute'. I think 'ah well, I might as well check if there's any new movies released...'. Nope. I had a quick scan on here, open this thread and read the post by Beefy (I'm calling him Beefy now. It's a thing), with Ian Doyle's tweet and started checking a few things, just out of curiosity. So, to cut a long story short, the last fucking hour I've been going deeper down the fucking rabbit hole of transfers. It's actually really quite interesting to see which clubs (of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd, and Spurs) have spent what, when they've spent it, the total expenditure, and the net spend and then attempting to correlate what happens on the pitch with how much is spent (both in outlay and in terms of net expenditure).

 

It's interesting also to see what players have been sold to raise money and what that means for the team. Really, the whole net spend thing, without the context of players, is daft. For example, if we sell Coutinho for 142m, buy VVD and (for example) Asensio, Lemar, or somebody like that, and they do better for us than just Coutinho then a net spend of zero is brilliant. If we sell him for 10m and buy 100m player to replace him and he's shit, we've spent 90m and regressed. I'd way sooner have a zero net spend and improve than spend 90m and regress. That's obvious, of course. Where I found it became interesting was to see which clubs sold which players and how they improved or regressed from it. It gives a better understanding of what seems to really matter in winning football matches, which is what I care more about.

 

I've got it all down on paper and I might make a post about it if anybody gives a fuck (probably not) but a couple of surprising things to me straight off the bat were 1) how little Chelsea spend. Over the last four seasons, their net spend has been surprisingly low. Around £35m in four seasons (and very well balanced over that time, with net spending no more than 20m in a season) and they won two titles in those four years and two out of the last three. 2) Fucking hell, Manchester United spending is way beyond what I thought. It's unreal. Their net spend since FSG took over is 650m. 3) City. Heh. Fucking hell. Over 200m per season consistently for the last three seasons, then hundreds of millions before that. How the fuck do they stay within FFP? Offset it against other stuff, I guess? 4) Under FSG Liverpool have sold 75 players for a total of 541m. 338m of that was from just five players. There was other stuff, but those things struck me. That's without looking at wages. That'd probably sway things even more.

 

A few basic conclusions that I'm drawing from what I've looked at is total expenditure seems to matter at least as much as net spent, if not more, but if the total expenditure isn't used to improve the player being replaced, it's going to matter very little in terms of end product. Net spend, expenditure, it counts for very little in terms of progress, it's how you spend your money that really counts. It's all very obvious and seems to confirm some of my opinions about what factors are most important in football, but the level some teams are operating at opens my eyes to how much spending is going on by Manchester Clubs. City get a return on their obscene spending, but United haven't. Chelsea have spent less than us recently but have pushed ahead in terms of league titles. We are pulling back, due to us making the most of the money recently, thanks to Klopp mainly, where as the part of the 700m Liverpool spent under FSG before him was way, way less value. So buy good players. The rest is wank.

[s(k)aturation]

So buy good players.

 

 

Good post, in full.

[Numero Veinticinco]

Buy Coutinho for 8m. Don’t buy Benteke for 32m. It’s a plan. Let’s run with it.

[VladimirIlyich]

I remember when we punched above our weight - which I think is good.

Like now?

[INTORRESTING]

We are short of first team players and we need to spend to catch up. If we ever spend and do catch up and then break even or make a profit after that, thats fine.

 

However, if you are behind , you can't get ahead without spending. If you are behind and sell your best player you probably arent going to ovrertake others.

 

There is a huge effort to justify us not doing what is required to win.

[Unrighteous]

The interest they are getting on their loan is 1.24%. The interest we are paying to the banks is 2.24%.

 

The bank loan is a revolving facility that can be used as and when, so it will increase and decrease as cash is needed to pay for things, and then comes in from revenue streams (think Prem and Uefa pay quarterly, lump sum from season ticket sales etc).

 

We also do keep some cash on the balance sheet in our own accounts.

 

It would make sense to pay the bank loan off first to save on that extra 1% of interest, and then if that gets paid of and we have excess cash, if we don't have another need/use for it, to pay off the shareholder loan at a faster rate than the ~£23m that is scheduled.

 

Isn't FSG getting 6m a year in interest payments, though? That rate is completely wrong if so...