Chinese Takeover

If you're a fan of the club and have it and the town's best interests at heart I would welcome it....sadly, few takeovers satisfy that criteria.

 

First job, get Mr Conor Hourihane back where he belongs

 

We should aspire to evolve to the German model of ownership...the 50 + 1 rule....that would be a change few fans would have difficulty in accepting.

 

You have to move with the times mate. We must be one of only a small few in the top two divisions that haven't been bought.

If it makes us more competitive by way of giving us parity, helps us keep our best players and grabs the attention of the fans, then so be it.

 

Agree we have to move forward, the club is treading water which will result in a return to the lower leagues. We have to think bigger.

 

I'm concerned for West Stand Bogs, perhaps time to get them listed?

 

It's no guarantee of anything though...look at the Bolton's Blackburn's Portsmouth's Wigan's etc.
Per head of population I would imagine we must be in the top few most successful clubs.

 

Thinking bigger is easy to say, delivering it successfully over a long period is another matter.

 

There aren't any guarantees either way.

I'm open minded.

 

Think timing is everything when it comes to gaining investment and speculating. Swansea had a brilliant model and Bournemouth got cash and used it wisely whilst adding to an already workman like squad. Remember alot of Bournemouths players came through the divisions. Having a sound approach to how you want to play is another. Swansea and Bournemouth have had managers who play in the clubs image. The timing of their rise was massive, Premier League money increasing at such a rate if they failed on getting promoted it didn't matter. Bolton and Blackburn were rudderless so any investment was a waste.

 

Relevant

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/18/china-english-football-southampton-gao-jisheng

 

I really enjoy supporting Barnsley, feel like I've dropped on a proper club who play the right way, even when we lose more than we win it's not often you can say we've played badly, but I must admit I wouldn't be as interested if League One was our limit so I'm all for this.

 

Treading water? Really? Please explain.

 

All would have wanted new, Longer term contracts to stay. One of the golden rules when trying to sell businesses of this kind is to keep long term liabilities to a minimum...

 

I agree there aren't any guarantees, and the situation of PC's health unfortunately forces the issue, but for people to imagine that foreign ownership is a great panacea is a mistake...this league is jam packed with teams who've gone down that route and sit there saddled with millions...in some cases hundreds of millions of debt with little more and in some cases less playing success than we have, Bolton, Portsmouth Coventry and Blackburn are probably the best examples of that.

 

That's very true, but in football you have to keep the spine of a team, the Brian Clough approach if you like. If we had the money I'm sure we'd have kept Roberts and Hourihane and to a lesser extent Winnall. If you can't replace players without spending more to replace that's when business sense goes out of the window. That's our main issue we have to wait for players to develop in key areas of the pitch.

 

And what about the successful ones? You're quick to point out the few that have failed.

 

Unfortunately Darwin knew f**k all about football, preferring to spend his Saturdays cruising round the Indian Ocean.

 

Completely agree personally. If it was ME buying the club, I'd have demanded the clubs best assets were tied down. But I suppose that's the difference between a local lad who wants the best for his home town club buying it, and a foreign guy/consortium who will Proberbly want to bring their own players in....

 

The successful ones are few, on a like for like basis I think we can only look at Burnley who have delivered real success on a budget, and even then the debts were quite high, I think they lost about £11m in their last championship season .