Gibson's appointments

The negative points are difficult to argue against and I would be more concerned if he was in it purely for 'business' purposes, which he clearly isn't. But there has been no mention that isn't just a business. It's sport where luck and chance play a huge part. A dodgy pen or bad offside decision can have a massive impact on a club. The championship is also football's equivalent of financial wilderness. Some choose a safe sustainable path and settle year on year to just remain above the bottom 3. That's seen as success at the majority of championship clubs, but very few in the modern game are profit making enterprises, especially if you are ambitious. Gibson clearly want's out of this division (in an upward direction). But it's football. Nothing comes guaranteed and it's a cruel business. I would argue 90% of Boro fans thought Wilder was a great appointment. But equally, in a relatively short period of time, a similar percentage probably agreed it was time for him to go. And I'm not hearing too many screaming 'unfair'. I agree Wilder might have not been too happy with the structure around recruitment and he's probably an old school manager who thinks he can hire better but I don't accept he wasn't backed. I believe there was genuine attempts to bring in a top striker and the paper talk around Gyokeres and JSL wasn't just paper talk but some seem to see it different. No doubt if he had looked under the sofa and found a extra couple of million here and there to bring one of those 2 in, the SM channels would be full of experts telling us we have been robbed etc. etc. I also think Gibson hasn't given up on this season and the new manager will also be backed in January. But as with managerial appointments, there is an element of luck involved in signing every player. On paper they can tick every box but some just click and some don't. One final thought on Gibson, I still think he's the sort of Chairman that still checks the league table and player stats before he checks the clubs financial performance. He's still a fan and when he does move on I can't wait to read the book. We will all know then what went on...
 
Mart I'm 60, my old Man is 86, my lads are in their mid twenties.
I've been dafter than a daft brush in supporting the club over the years. I'll always love the club, it will always be my club. But Gibson has less clothes than that Emperor had.
He's definitely made a lot of mistakes in the last decade. Far more bad than good appointments and decisions
 
Don’t forget Agnew, who gets a 1/10, which is coincidentally almost his managerial record of played 11, won 1.
caretaker, so didn't really count him, but yes, the only worse caretaker I can think of is.....(nope, deleted it, bad taste). Yes, that was a terrible decision, surely there was someone with experience that could have come in and done the job for 3 months and got some kind of tune out of the team. That was the most desperate and inevitable relegation I've seen, and I've seen a few. Just an utter surrender.
 
caretaker, so didn't really count him, but yes, the only worse caretaker I can think of is.....(nope, deleted it, bad taste). Yes, that was a terrible decision, surely there was someone with experience that could have come in and done the job for 3 months and got some kind of tune out of the team. That was the most desperate and inevitable relegation I've seen, and I've seen a few. Just an utter surrender.
He wasn’t really a caretaker though was he in the traditional sense as he wasn’t appointed until we could get some one else in short time.

No incredibly he was given half a season in the premier league dnd had he done well im Pretty sure he’d have got the job.

I do think think though that’s appointing a man who even now had only ever put out the cones for Steve Bruce as your main man in the so called greatest league in the world, a league you’d gambled everything on and took 7 years to reach - is arguably the dumbest idea in the history of the prem.

I still can’t believe we actually did it.
 
This means nobody in their right mind would pay anything to take control of the club in the Championship. Why buy something worth MINUS £117m? with a turnover of c £25m that loses money outside the PL?
could only happen if Gibson were to write off most or all of the debt owed to him.

There is always an investor out there, and with the facilities and recent history it would be a club that could attract investment. when you look at similar clubs like Leicester and smaller ones like Cardiff and Hull having no problem attracting rich investors, should the club come on the market without all or most of it's debt, it would attract a lot of interest. Clubs of our stature don't become available very often, clubs capable of midtable prem finishes and occasional euro runs and cup finals.

Alternatively, one season in the prem, for Gibson to recoup most of the debt, would again make the club sellable.
 
He wasn’t really a caretaker though was he in the traditional sense as he wasn’t appointed until we could get some one else in short time.

No incredibly he was given half a season in the premier league dnd had he done well im Pretty sure he’d have got the job.
That's exactly the situation people like Di Matteo found themselves in and then it went bad the next year. We should have got someone experienced from outside the club with new ideas and a 'been there, done it' certificate.
 
That's exactly the situation people like Di Matteo found themselves in and then it went bad the next year. We should have got someone experienced from outside the club with new ideas and a 'been there, done it' certificate.
I get that but Agnew is not a manager and look now he went back to being Steve Bruce no 2. I just couldn’t understand the loyalty and almost devotion ( Remember the press conference) Steve Gibson had to a man not local never played for us and was never part of the set up.

Yet he gave him effectively the shop to look after in the best league there is.

Only to see him leave after it and go back to Steve Bruce. I just didn’t get it.
 
I get that but Agnew is not a manager and look now he went back to being Steve Bruce no 2. I just couldn’t understand the loyalty and almost devotion ( Remember the press conference) Steve Gibson had to a man not local never played for us and was never part of the set up.
Gibson has often signed people he admires as people Southgate, Strachan, Warnock, and Agnew all fall into that category.
 
arguably the dumbest idea in the history of the prem.

I still can’t believe we actually did it.
Strongly agree with this.

Ironically, most of the managers we’ve appointed since would have had a good chance at keeping us up, or at least far more chance than Agnew, and we’d now be Brighton or at least Palace.

Easily Gibson’s worst decision, and rank surrender of something we fought so hard for. I can’t believe we actually did it either.
 
could only happen if Gibson were to write off most or all of the debt owed to him.

There is always an investor out there, and with the facilities and recent history it would be a club that could attract investment. when you look at similar clubs like Leicester and smaller ones like Cardiff and Hull having no problem attracting rich investors, should the club come on the market without all or most of it's debt, it would attract a lot of interest. Clubs of our stature don't become available very often, clubs capable of midtable prem finishes and occasional euro runs and cup finals.

Alternatively, one season in the prem, for Gibson to recoup most of the debt, would again make the club sellable.
As I posted above, if he writes off most of the debt to self then the club could be attractive to another owner. I don’t think he will do that or let go.
He would need five years back in the Prem himself to make debt low enough for someone else to take on. He hasn’t the capability to deliver promotion and 5 years.
It’s easy to say just write the debt you’ve created off and step aside. But at least then people would be right in saying he’d put so much money actually in. And we would have a real chance of investment and better leadership.
 
My take on it:

Robson - a big name which helped change everything. Had more money than anyone else ever (compared to other teams at the time) and wasted an awful lot of it. Good start but we were heading back down with him for sure. Gascoigne!!!

McClaren - I wasn't a big fan of the style of football at the time but you can't knock the results and we'd kill for anything like that now. We bought a lot of oldish players with no sell on value in his time.

Southgate - Shame. Love Gareth but what a job to be given! First job - reduce the wage bill and average age drastically. Plenty of experienced managers would have struggled in my opinion. Maybe we should have stuck with him.

Strachan - Disaster but to me it made sense at the time. Terrible buys.

Mowbray - I think he did a good job and wish he could have had some of the money the others got.

Karanka - Certainly sorted that defence out! Did very well up to his walk out. That should have been the end. Terrible in Premier. Recruitment not good - Gestede!

Monk - Slimy toad. Didn't like him at all. What a waste of money on all those transfers!

Pulis - Again understandable for me. Wasn't too far off but didn't win many friends with his style of football.

Woodate - I felt very sorry for him. Had no chance. far too big a job. Another inexperienced manager with no money to spend like Southgate.

Warnock - I thought he did well but I understand why they let him go - he was going anyway so when Wilder became available......

Wilder - I was very happy about his appointment and the first few months were great. But what went wrong? Everybody assumes its Burnley and maybe it was. I think he was let down by recruitment a bit this summer but who tries to change a whole team in one summer? Was that ever possible or likely to succeed? How do you build a TEAM like that? Same at Forest.

Its obvious to everyone that recruitment has been a problem all the way through that list. And as someone else mentioned the flip-flopping from expansive football to pragmatic football. Please lets have another who wants to play football but give him some money and time - the last bit to the fans as well!
 
He would need five years back in the Prem himself to make debt low enough for someone else to take on. He hasn’t the capability to deliver promotion and 5 years.
Is that true, isn't it 100m+ revenue boost? It all depends on what he spends, how good the squad that goes up is, what assets the club has and it's prospects for staying in the prem.

If a club with 150m debt, but a midtable prem finish and a youngish and talented squad were on the market, it would easily be sold. There would be multiple suitors because prem clubs don't go on the market often.

I'd say he needs one, maybe two seasons in the prem to sell it
 
Is that true, isn't it 100m+ revenue boost? It all depends on what he spends, how good the squad that goes up is, what assets the club has and it's prospects for staying in the prem.

If a club with 150m debt, but a midtable prem finish and a youngish and talented squad were on the market, it would easily be sold. There would be multiple suitors because prem clubs don't go on the market often.

I'd say he needs one, maybe two seasons in the prem to sell it
Not a chance Mart.
The club spent the lowest of any PL club the last PL season and still only made £6.9m PBT.
Even inadequate current and new players get a massive pay hike in the PL. The wage bill more than doubled, but only to £64.9m, which was another low measure in reality.
The Club lost £32m Before Tax in the promotion season 2015-16. He certainly backed Karanka to go up (£8m equity and significant liability increase), which was all the more ridiculous he didn't invest to stay up when the stakes were so high. The club desperately needed to invest on promotion to have a chance. It didn't. Very very dumb.
Gibson has not invested since 2016 which was £8m for FFP purposes. On promotion he had no such worries with very different FFP rules up there.

It is not just the debt the club would have, it is the book value overall.
The club on promotion would need investment to stay up, real equity injection, not loans; it will struggle to make an initial profit even at the higher income, even if they are commercially better led and optimise income.
Now, the club when established, would see some market value develop as intangible assets (players) grow value well above book value and potential investors might start to assign probability to high future income. Without investment that will not happen.

Gibson has not the guile to get us up and keep us up, or the financial power or willingness to invest what is required.

Ashley took many years at Newcastle to get value from a sale. He had to reduce debt, make the club solvent with positive shareholder value and keep them in the PL season after season (or get them back immediately). All this with a much bigger club in reality. Even then he only got $409m which was c£300m at the time.

I am absolutely sure that with investment the club can go up and stay up, well ran.
We can't ever be a top 6 club, but there again we haven't been since the war and our fans don't remotely expect that.
Without investment and being badly ran by Gibson it will take a miracle to get up.
He really is the core problem.
 
The club spent the lowest of any PL club the last PL season and still only made £6.9m PBT.
We didn't spend big on transfers, but in Valdes and Negrado we had the two highest paid players we've ever had. Wasn't Negrado on 4m plus a loan fee, and Valdes on about 4m.

Bernardo was a full international and wouldn't have signed for peanuts. De Roon was 12m, Barragan was about 2.5m, Guzan would be a couple of mill on wages as an established prem player. Fabio 2m plus wages, Callum chambers will have been about 3 or 4m loan package, Traore 8m, Fischer 3.8m plus we signed Gaston on about 4m a season. We went for established players on big wages. There are other models. We may have only spent about 30m on transfer fees, but we probably doubled and more our wages.

Since that season, Prem money has increased. If we go up in the next couple of seasons and take the Sheff U or Brentford route, of a couple of signigns of well scouted players but keep the championship nucleus, we could easily reduce those debts in a couple of seasons to something very manageable and making the club attractive to offers.

Sheff United is a good case study, 20m profit despite spending more than we did last time up. That include half a season shutdown with covid too. So could easily have made 25m profit. On top of that the value of their playing assets will have increased due to holding their own in teh prem. That will have led to them getting better fees when players like Sander Berge left.

It's not a given of course, a lot of work is needed on and off the pitch to get the finances back in shape. But it is possible with just a couple of seasons in the prem, and some good scouting. Debt should always be looked at as a ratio to assets and as I said, when a player does individually well in the prem, his transfer potential shoots up massively. A player like Jones might attract a 4-5m bid having done well in the champ, one good prem season and the 25m offers start to come in.

I agree that it might 'take years', but there are other strategies that would not. It would be very difficult to get a buyer tomorrow, the club needs to be financially righted, and it seems the only way to do that would be in the prem. But we might have to take a couple of season of up and down like Norwich with little investment in the prem.
 
We didn't spend big on transfers, but in Valdes and Negrado we had the two highest paid players we've ever had. Wasn't Negrado on 4m plus a loan fee, and Valdes on about 4m.

Bernardo was a full international and wouldn't have signed for peanuts. De Roon was 12m, Barragan was about 2.5m, Guzan would be a couple of mill on wages as an established prem player. Fabio 2m plus wages, Callum chambers will have been about 3 or 4m loan package, Traore 8m, Fischer 3.8m plus we signed Gaston on about 4m a season. We went for established players on big wages. There are other models. We may have only spent about 30m on transfer fees, but we probably doubled and more our wages.

Since that season, Prem money has increased. If we go up in the next couple of seasons and take the Sheff U or Brentford route, of a couple of signigns of well scouted players but keep the championship nucleus, we could easily reduce those debts in a couple of seasons to something very manageable and making the club attractive to offers.

Sheff United is a good case study, 20m profit despite spending more than we did last time up. That include half a season shutdown with covid too. So could easily have made 25m profit. On top of that the value of their playing assets will have increased due to holding their own in teh prem. That will have led to them getting better fees when players like Sander Berge left.

It's not a given of course, a lot of work is needed on and off the pitch to get the finances back in shape. But it is possible with just a couple of seasons in the prem, and some good scouting. Debt should always be looked at as a ratio to assets and as I said, when a player does individually well in the prem, his transfer potential shoots up massively. A player like Jones might attract a 4-5m bid having done well in the champ, one good prem season and the 25m offers start to come in.

I agree that it might 'take years', but there are other strategies that would not. It would be very difficult to get a buyer tomorrow, the club needs to be financially righted, and it seems the only way to do that would be in the prem. But we might have to take a couple of season of up and down like Norwich with little investment in the prem.
I can only assume you are selectively picking things out.
ALL the transfers and loan fees and wages are included in the numbers, they don’t hide.
We did not spend much, we did not pay overall high wages, we still only made £6m or so PBT in the season. We are £120m net underwater. Loads of clubs have huge debt but they usually have high equity and or huge assets. We don’t.
I agree Media money is higher now than 2016, but so too are wages and fees.
It would take miles longer to make the club saleable by really reducing nett negative value. The most significant thing in creating market value above book value would be confidence in future revenue only possible through sustained PL status, which in itself requires time. That and having PL quality players under contract.
It needs investment to get up, stay up, build a PL squad that has market value above book value and another investor having confidence in future PL revenues to budget with. Then debt is manageable and a legitimate tool to work alongside continued owner investment.
 
Sheff United is a good case study, 20m profit despite spending more than we did last time up. That include half a season shutdown with covid too. So could easily have made 25m profit. On top of that the value of their playing assets will have increased due to holding their own in teh prem. That will have led to them getting better fees when players like Sander Berge left.
You are right that Sheff U is an interesting case, completely different to our actions.
In the 2 seasons prior to being promoted to the PL, Sheff U lost over £23m combined PBT across those two seasons, despite making £22.5m profit from player sales (shown in their accounts).
Their wage bill was £41m the season they went up. Amortisation was very low at just £5.7m combined over those 2 seasons.
They went for promotion through paying big wages in relation to their turnover (which was unremarkable at just over £20m in both seasons).
In their promotion season, wages were over 200% of turnover, but the profit from player sales kept them FFP safe, although getting promoted seems to make that worry disappear!
On promotion they spent a reported nett £63.4m, backed up by an amortisation figure of £20m that season, followed by nett spend of £56.4m in their relegation season backed up by amortisation charge of £26m for that season.
Their turnover soared to £143m in their first PL year and dropped to £115m in the Covid relegation season. They made just £5m combined profit from players sales, but charged £46m in amortisation.
Their wage bill averaged just £67m across those two years which looks incredibly odd (they altered their year ends across the 2 years)
It is true they reported a PBT in both seasons, £19m in their first season and £10m in the relegation covid season.
What they were able to do is turn a small nett negative shareholder value of -£25m (after the all out assault on promotion through paying wages funded by player sales) into a positive nett shareholder value of £2m.
There has been no injection of equity at Sheff U, they were just managed well and bloody lucky.
They do owe their group £18m, but also have a £30m external loan as at June 2021.
They have £97m of debt due within one year, but their assets offset and they are solvent. Crucially they don't have a long history of losing money on their balance sheet.

We lost considerably more to go up in 2016, already had much bigger debt mostly to owner, were already hugely technically insolvent, spent less while up, bought less and made less profit.
We needed to invest in our squad to stay up and didn't. That was the crunch time.
We are now £120m underwater and owe Gibson O'Neill £120m, that is before the likely losses of the year to June 2022.
The Club will have a turnover of c£25m this season at best, but a profit on player sales of an additional £25m. The Club will make a significant PBT this season, very rare for a promoted club. It is the exact opposite of Sheff U going up, or us last time.

Your argument is that Sheff U got up and made profit, therefore so could we.
Agreed, but the chances of that happening while making a profit going up and then not investing in the squad, staying up and making profits are minimal.
Even spending on the squad didn't keep them up. Luckily for them they were not a basket case of a club and technically insolvent, like sadly we are.

We need Gibson to invest to go up and stay up for a long period to reduce huge liabilities, or for him to write his loans off and enable somebody else to.

Mart we very much stay in agreement that the club could have a respectable, self funding PL future, but it needs much better leadership and investment, not loans to cover losses.
 
Robson very ambitious, Venables no brainer ,mcclaren good coach worth a try, Southgate bad choice and timing needed to get his badges and try his hand in coaching first .one for the future, Strachan just as Southgate was finding his feet bad move, Mowbray great move but struggling on shoe string good manager with the right backing,Karanka exciting choice just what we needed but struggled in the prem, Agnew bad choice never a manager,Monk 50/50 to start but how we sanctioned some of his moves bad decisions cost us,Tony sensible appointment, Woodgate again should have learned from Southgat but hard for him to thrive with more money would have done ok,Neil sensible again bailed us out ,Wilder struggled to thrive with bad decisions from a recruitment level again resulted in him making desperate choices.Now for the merry-go-round to continue.We need to learn from mistakes and stop with the chopping and changing.
Robbo was clearly a tremendous appointment in terms of what it enabled us to do, signing the best English footballer of his generation as a player-manager allowed us to sell the club as a hot commodity at the time where we were moving ground and able to spend a lot of money. Still think Big Viv was probably doing a lot of the coaching given how it turned out for Robbo literally everywhere else, but led to a period which seems like a fever dream.

El Tel came in and did what he had to do. Shouldn’t have got to that point with the money we were spending arguably but he took us back to basics and kept an expensive side in the Prem.

McClaren is the best Boro manager in the modern era and took us to heights we’re unlikely to match any time soon.

Southgate was in hindsight the wrong choice. But he inherited a poisoned chalice - an ageing squad with an economic recession on the horizon. Doesn’t excuse some of the signings made but I think he’d have been fine with a more experienced setup around him rather than many of the figures involved with the spending of money who also came into the club during his era (Bausor et al). Could argue that we should’ve stuck with him at the point we sacked him as he finally started to show the promise he’s delivered on for the England national team.

Strachan was an unmitigated disaster but equally what did Gibson expect from a man who spent a fortune to take Coventry down, benefited from Glenn Hoddle’s hard work at Southampton and managed to win the Scottish Premiership at a point where Rangers arguably had their poorest side and set of managers prior to their 2012 demise.

Mogga was a godsend and paved the way for what followed, on an absolute shoestring budget. The only downside to Mogga was that he cared too much and that meant that we were only ever going to have a devaststing break from one another.

Karanka an absolutely genius move. Took us back to the big time at a point where Gibson was financially prosperous and began to put greater funds back into the club. Ultimately from players interviews who were here at the time his adversarial personality and inability to man manage cost him dearly once he did get us up.

Agnew was a daft interim appointment. Should’ve brought in someone to try and keep us up and then reevaluated in the summer.

Monk I believe was Gibson’s stupidest situation. Led to his paranoia over big spending, the FFP quagmire that has plagued this stint in the Championship, and allowed his mates to personally profit out of our descent into mediocrity.

Pulis I will admit I was wrong about. I never liked the bloke whilst he was here. But given what he had to work with, he did incredibly well in keeping us in competition for the top 6 and maximising the potential of some of the players we’d paid way over the asking price for. His playing style and the one dimensional signings which followed ultimately his pitfall.

Woodgate never fit for the job. An ill-fated cost-effective option on the premise Boro fans would “feel good” about a bloke who left us at the first opportunity on two separate occasions and never had any real public affection for the club. Still not convinced that Woodgate knew he was getting himself in for and think it was unfair to drop him at the deep end when he was so obviously unqualified.

Warnock was a great appointment who did what he needed to and was able to leave with his head held high, having never had the backing a man of his calibre deserved. Should’ve paved the way for a golden era with the things he did to stabilise us.

Wilder promised so much. Last season was the most hopeful I have felt about Boro since the summer of 2016. Good football, players who enjoyed playing for the shirt and a genuinely top class manager. Clearly, it’s all gone spectacularly wrong and I think all parties can likely be blamed for that deterioration, but it leaves us exactly where we were when Woodgate left: mediocre, underperforming, in serious danger of spiralling out of control and in desperate need for stability. The next choice has to turn the tide and give fans a reason to believe, because after four managers in just over three years, and immense turnover of playing staff in that time, there will no longer be an onus on blaming coaching staff for future failures. The buck will fall to the upper hierarchy of the club, and the fallout of that could be incredibly toxic and further place the club’s future viability in extreme jeopardy.
 
I can only assume you are selectively picking things out.
ALL the transfers and loan fees and wages are included in the numbers, they don’t hide.
We did not spend much, we did not pay overall high wages, we still only made £6m or so PBT in the season. We are £120m net underwater. Loads of clubs have huge debt but they usually have high equity and or huge assets. We don’t.
I agree Media money is higher now than 2016, but so too are wages and fees.
It would take miles longer to make the club saleable by really reducing nett negative value. The most significant thing in creating market value above book value would be confidence in future revenue only possible through sustained PL status, which in itself requires time. That and having PL quality players under contract.
It needs investment to get up, stay up, build a PL squad that has market value above book value and another investor having confidence in future PL revenues to budget with. Then debt is manageable and a legitimate tool to work alongside continued owner investment.
I'm' not picking anything selectively. Sheff United showed with a 25m profit during a covid year that by not over spending you can make significant profit, while also increasing the saleable value of your players. That two seasons in the prem wiped out their debt issues and turned them from a a pauper into a championship powerhouse.

They spent 67m in that first prem season yet still posted 20m profit. Should we get up, we can try the Brentford model, They had 75m debts going into the prem, they wiped a third of that out first season by not over spending in the prem, and largely giving their promotion team a chance.

Clubs don't have to be in profit or debt free to be saleable. Very few clubs are debt free or in profit. Hull City for example were about 50m in debt when they were bought. We half our debt to somewhere around that in 2 prem years and the club is very saleable. Prem capable clubs are not often on the market, they're a rare commodity. First job is get up there and increase our revenue
 
I'm' not picking anything selectively. Sheff United showed with a 25m profit during a covid year that by not over spending you can make significant profit, while also increasing the saleable value of your players. That two seasons in the prem wiped out their debt issues and turned them from a a pauper into a championship powerhouse.

They spent 67m in that first prem season yet still posted 20m profit. Should we get up, we can try the Brentford model, They had 75m debts going into the prem, they wiped a third of that out first season by not over spending in the prem, and largely giving their promotion team a chance.

Clubs don't have to be in profit or debt free to be saleable. Very few clubs are debt free or in profit. Hull City for example were about 50m in debt when they were bought. We half our debt to somewhere around that in 2 prem yearst Brentford and the club is very saleable. Prem capable clubs are not often on the market, they're a rare commodity. First job is get up there and increase our revenue
We as a club haven't the patience to do what Brentford did. We want it now or you're out of the door. And that's down to Gibson.
 
Back
Top