I'm not saying he took it personally. I'm saying it was there. In his cash flow. He had circa 60-100m a year guaranteed funds in in cash flow and still fucked it up. That means he had more than all of our previous owners combined to play with.
Tell me how much Keane spent in year one. Then year 2 against Premier League revenue.
Yes, indeed, Short was responsible for selling the club to Donald and Co. and, ultimately, that's his legacy to the supporters and on his account.
Keane spent a fortune. £8m on Ferdinand, £6m on McCartney, £5m on Chopra, £6m on Jones, £9m on Gordon etc. Transfer market has it at £55m plus.
In 98 against Charlton they were talking about it as the 60m game as that was the payment for finishing bottom. I would think when Keane was here it would've been a lot more. He spent less than he earned by being in the Premier League is what I mean.
I mean 'came into the club'. If Short chose to spend more than his means then who's fault is that?
Managers will spend as much as they can generally speaking. It's the owners who sanction it.
So say it was £60m then. We spent that on transfers then had a wage bill of £50m plus. Hence the huge losses. Those players that were brought in weren’t good enough, we couldn’t shift them and they cost us year on year while short pumped in £20-£30m extra every year to offset it.
Yep and that was drumaville not short
cowie fucked up with aldridge, murray fucked up in 1990 and 2001 by not investing when we had a great chance, short gave it a go money wise, but just too many mistakes
Ultimately he left us in league one mate. I’ll defend his intentions but ultimately he left us in the lowest position we’d ever been up to that point and then sold us to the actual worst owners in our history. That overrides the good unfortunately
I half agree with you tbh. Did he do his best though? His absolute best? SBC loan. Maggie Byrne. Martin Bain. Literally leaving us to rot in the Championship while we dropped to League One for the want of a goalkeeper with hands. Taking our parachute payments. Leaving us with Donald? I get your point mate but I just find it a hard swallow.
Yeah and that’s why I’m defending him. Writing off that amount of money isn’t to be sniffed at. It’s football so people see £150m and act as if it’s a tenner. It’s not. It’s a massive amount of money and there aren’t many people in the world who would do that. That’s why while I won’t defend his tenure, I will defend him when people call him a coward.
Maybe you would if your entire business/fortune/reputation was based on taking over and rescuing distressed assets. It wouldn't look good for your cv/credibility to bankrupt a perfectly sustainable 140yo business. Maybe.
It’s absolutely hard to swallow. The SBC loan is something in particular I can’t defend. I think he was badly advised and didn’t know enough about the sport. Quinn leaving fucked his reign really as we never really had someone who knew the sport and short flitted around from appointment to appointment trying to fix it. Each time he kept making it worse.
I honestly can't decide on whether spending 1m in the championship was ineptitude or complete disinterest. I don't want to think malice but the fact that he got Bain in to cut everything to the bone and paid him a salary to match our transfer budget makes me wonder. I don't think malice but he was sick and turned the tap off...whatever the consequences. That's not the act of a true fan with the clubs best interests at heart.
