Possibly the reason we have so much debt is because he has made so many mistakes over the years. Numerous poor managerial appointments where a huge overhaul is required almost every summer don’t exactly come cheap. Just how many players have we made a profit on over the last few years?
You just need to look at our top signings recently to see why the club is apparently skint
Assombalonga 15 million
Rhodes 10 million
Braithwaite 10 million
Flint 7 million
Saville 7 million
Fletcher 7 million
Gestede 7 million
Payero 6 million
Around 70 million worth of transfer fees on 8 players alone plus huge wages that we would be lucky if we got back 15/20 million on them. When you add in poor managerial appointments for almost every manager over the last 15 years you soon realise it’s not a sustainable way to run a club
I don't think all of those are mistakes, especially not the most expensive ones, Rhodes, Assombalonga and Braithwaite anyway. Braithwaite got ***ed off as he was being managed by a clown, then we reverted to lump ball, we should have got a lot more out of him at this level (dubious character mind). Rhodes got some important goals and we didn't make a loss, we probably made 50-100m on being promoted. Assombalonga was scoring a goal every 200 minutes or so, which isn't bad considering what we weren't supplying him with.
Flint and Savage were ok players, but waaay too much money, and so was Fletcher eventually but then he had no contract left.
We got over 20m: Rhodes 10.5m, Braithwaite 5m, Flint 4m, Saville 2m. Lost Britt and Fletcher as we miss handled them and let them both run their contracts down, which happens to all teams I suppose. We could have easy got our money back on Fletcher (surprisingly) and maybe got a fair amount for Britt after a couple of years. Gestede wasn't worth a bean, why we bought him for the prem is a mystery, and £6m on Payero was ludicrous for an unknown, we won't be getting anything back from that.
I think the bigger problem has been the managers, going from defensive Karanka, to Monk wanting to play football but not knowing how, to lump ball Pulis (rebuilding/ clearing out), Woodgate who wasn't good enough (rebuilding/ clearing out), Warnock a bit old school (rebuilding/ clearing out), Wilder (back to football again). There's no clear identity there, so how are we meant to get the most out of players and some continuity over 3-6 years etc (which is what we should expect transfers to stay). 6 managers in 4.5 years, all with different styles/ formations and a lot of them on a recovery mission.
We still got good money in from Gibson, Tav (not enough), Traore (not enough), Spence (had their pants down), probably £60m in that lot alone.
