conwaytwitty
New member
Summed up the whole sad story pretty perfectly there Indeedido
That's not what I asked.
Ticket sales are what? £1 million a season? Compare that with Gibson's £12 million
Oh what so he’s punishing him!If wilder feels let down due to lack of spending, then maybe Gibson feels let down after he interviewed for the Burnley, Watford, Stoke jobs...
Fair enough, I plucked a million out of the air. Still doesn't disguise the fact that Gibson was putting a million a month into the club just to keep it stable. Maybe he's putting less in this season I don't know but there's no way the club could budget properly if it tried to rely on walk ups.It will be significantly more than £1m a season.
We have something like 18,000 season ticket holders this year.
Even if every single season ticket holder was an early bird child (which it wouldn't be close to), that's £3m.
With the actual sales, it's probably going to be about £6-8m.
Our attendances this season have been 23k, 26k and 26k.
So that's another 5-8,000 walk ups and away fans, if that carries on consistently through the season, that's probably another £3m on top of season ticket sales.
Those are all rough estimates, but it's much more than £1m regardless.
As I said I'm no Gibson apologist and accept he's got things wrong.I genuinely can't think of many things Gibson has actually got right since appointing Steve McLaren.
1993-2006 he was a bold visionary who transformed a middling club with a massive inferiority complex hovering above the third tier into an established club in the richest league in the world. One of the people admire most in my life, especially as he was not a wealthy man at the time he was being boldest and most successful.
2007-2011 he got nothing right at all.
Hired Southgate, hired Strachan, wasted PP's.
2012-2013 he paid for the previous 5 years and current couple. Injected £56m in two lumps, converting debt to equity. Saved the club from the consequences of the losses incurred since 2007 and through the Financial Crisis. He had no choice other than to try and sell the club. Hired Mowbray who saved the club from the drop before coming perilously close to dropping himself. Retained far far too long.
2014-16 made his best decision since 2006, listened to a football pro Kenyon and hired Karanka. Unquestionably backed his manager and was thankfully rewarded with promotion and his opportunity.
2017-2020 a series of horrendous decisions around under-investment and not backing his manager, before sacking him, appointing a totally unqualified interim, inevitable relegation.
Then hired an idiot and allowed him to spend over £50m on what we didn't need, not signing what we did and then sacking Monk once he realised he had hired a crook and a useless one at that.
Then hired an even bigger crook who sold our silver and bought plastic and wasted the parachute payments going nowhere and leaving us with a massive wage bill on players with no resale value.
Then hired a buffoon to manage a squad so poor it was on it's way to the third tier. Woodgate had no chance.
Then hired Warnock who saved his bacon during Covid, before again sticking around past his sell by date for a job done.
The decks are finally cleared.
2021 hires Wilder, an ambitious manager and a shiny new swaggering DoF and there is talk again of promotion, great recruitment and that long last ambition from Gibson. The crowd get on board, season tickets are sold.
Then the 2022 window brings in tens of millions, commits little and leaves a manager hostage to a squad that is blatantly incomplete.
Mowbray and Warnock saved him but stayed too long. Karanka gave him the big opportunity but he blew it.
He obviously hasn't the ambition, vision or balls he once had judging by this summer.
It’s telling that after a year in the job the players we managed to “get over the line” the Forss, Hoppe, Mujiz players, these were identified prior to KS & CW arrival. So WTF has gone on. I completely agree with the sentiment it’s people controlling or meddling with things still that shouldn’t be making decisions. KS & CW won’t be here next season - you can bet the 25m we’ve trousered on that.I know me and @indeedido disagree on how much of the money should have been spent and how it should have been spent but his posts nail it. I was absolutely fine with Hoppe and Forss at the time because I was convinced there was more to come but now it looks ridiculous. I thought by the end of the window Watmore would be 5th choice striker, turns out he's probably 2nd or 3rd, that is not good enough.
At a push I can forgive the strikeforce, we look like we are going to create enough chances to score the required amount of goals but having 4 midfielders for 3 slots is just incompetence, there is no other way to describe it. There is no point in having a manager like Wilder if you do not provide him the tools to do the job, you might as well have gone for Mowbray or someone like that. Why loan players like Giles, Steffen and Muniz who I assume won't be cheap if you're not even going to have a go? It's a waste of money, I don't mind the loans when you're trying to go up but otherwise you might as well just sign some cheaper players that you can actually sell on.
We have some of if not the most expensive tickets in the Championship, the club promised a big window and didn't deliver. I was not expecting us to spend £22m but spend £15m of it and if you do only spend £8m of it, why are we spending it on "development" players!? It is bizarre, there are plenty of 21-23 year olds available for £3m that can go into the 1st team. That is what I expected with Kieran Scott, it's what I meant when I said we should follow the Brentford model. Brentford signed Bryan Mbuemo for £6m when they sold Ollie Watkins, he was 20 year old, he went straight into the first team and was a star at Championship level.
I didn't think this would ever happen again when we got Kieran Scott, I thought we'd moved into the 21st century finally and we were doing things properly but apparently not, I guess that tells you Scott has nothing to do with it and it's someone above him that's failing the club.
I am one of the most positive Boro fans you will find so for me to be ***ed off with the club they have to have got something badly wrong.
The players screwed Karanka and blew it. Not Gibson.I genuinely can't think of many things Gibson has actually got right since appointing Steve McLaren.
1993-2006 he was a bold visionary who transformed a middling club with a massive inferiority complex hovering above the third tier into an established club in the richest league in the world. One of the people admire most in my life, especially as he was not a wealthy man at the time he was being boldest and most successful.
2007-2011 he got nothing right at all.
Hired Southgate, hired Strachan, wasted PP's.
2012-2013 he paid for the previous 5 years and current couple. Injected £56m in two lumps, converting debt to equity. Saved the club from the consequences of the losses incurred since 2007 and through the Financial Crisis. He had no choice other than to try and sell the club. Hired Mowbray who saved the club from the drop before coming perilously close to dropping himself. Retained far far too long.
2014-16 made his best decision since 2006, listened to a football pro Kenyon and hired Karanka. Unquestionably backed his manager and was thankfully rewarded with promotion and his opportunity.
2017-2020 a series of horrendous decisions around under-investment and not backing his manager, before sacking him, appointing a totally unqualified interim, inevitable relegation.
Then hired an idiot and allowed him to spend over £50m on what we didn't need, not signing what we did and then sacking Monk once he realised he had hired a crook and a useless one at that.
Then hired an even bigger crook who sold our silver and bought plastic and wasted the parachute payments going nowhere and leaving us with a massive wage bill on players with no resale value.
Then hired a buffoon to manage a squad so poor it was on it's way to the third tier. Woodgate had no chance.
Then hired Warnock who saved his bacon during Covid, before again sticking around past his sell by date for a job done.
The decks are finally cleared.
2021 hires Wilder, an ambitious manager and a shiny new swaggering DoF and there is talk again of promotion, great recruitment and that long last ambition from Gibson. The crowd get on board, season tickets are sold.
Then the 2022 window brings in tens of millions, commits little and leaves a manager hostage to a squad that is blatantly incomplete.
Mowbray and Warnock saved him but stayed too long. Karanka gave him the big opportunity but he blew it.
He obviously hasn't the ambition, vision or balls he once had judging by this summer.
If wilder feels let down due to lack of spending, then maybe Gibson feels let down after he interviewed for the Burnley, Watford, Stoke jobs...
He got interviewed for the Burnley, Watford and Stoke jobs?
I think that’s a fair assessment - I have to say i find some of the clubs, or Gibson’s, decisions baffling. Didn’t really back Karanka when we got promoted but six months later gives Monk more money than any manager in our history? And now when we finally get a high grade manager at the helm once again we send him into the season with a squad that’s clearly under strength in key areas. I just don’t know why the club haven’t got the required numbers in when we are in the position to do so.He doesn't put it in - he guarantees with cross Group loans the losses his decisions result in. GON (he) last injected £8m in 2016. It is a decade since he put the significant sum of £50m in to covert debt to equity.
The club formally owe Gibson O' Neill well over £130m. Gibson hasn't given the money to Boro, the Group he part owns has lent it.
The reality is that every season in the Championship means the club lose money. Gibson O' Neill either offset that loss with an additional loan, or the Club folds.
I fully understand the reality.
He has provided those guarantees to fund losses, fundamentally made through:
1. High amortisation charges as bad signings since 2017 were written down over contracts through which they couldn't be/weren't sold.
The Club have bought spectacularly badly since 2016.
2. High wage bill to pay those awful signings across their long contracts.
Double whammy of bad transfer business.
3. Reduced revenue through Covid, only partially offset by FL funding and insurance.
4. Low player sale profit as players could not be sold above their book value and no Academy reared players had major value.
5. Parachute Payments ended 2019.
6. Continuing Cat 1 Academy spend which is all FFP allowable, but does cost real money to fund.
He had little choice but to do this, as he IS the club from a financial perspective.
If GON don't extend further loans every year, the Club is declared bust and ceases trading. The Club has seriously negative net shareholder value over £80m. If the Club goes, Gibson loses everything he has ever put into the Club and can't get all his loans out.
His only real way out of this cycle of extended loans and debt is to step change revenue and get the club promoted. It is possible that if he did this he could make the debt appear much more reasonable to a prospective investor. So he could stop the need to fund and eventually possibly even recover money.
But he needs the PL for that.
His alternative would be to minimise his costs, slash the wage bill, be a huge net seller of players and then hope his squad can survive in the lower reaches of the Championship. This was his approach in 2011-2015.
Then came Karanka, some investment, promotion and the revenues he unfortunately went on to waste.
So after years of fire fighting his mistakes of 2016-2020, there was a chink of light.
The decks were being cleared, the expensive rubbish written off and paid off.
Amortisation all but eliminated, Wage bill slashed, Revenue post Covid and amid fan optimism, well up.
Then the windfall; a £12.5m rising to £20m boost to this year's revenue, through profit on the sale of Djed Spence who has no book value. A massive FFP boost for the next 3 years and a huge P&L boost this year.
Then the decision: to sell one of the Academy products Tavernier. Another £10m rising to £12.5m boost to this year's revenue, through profit on another player with no book value.
So costs much more under control, revenues up and a minimum bookable £22.5m profit from player sales THIS season.
I honestly thought - more fool me - that he had got us in a position to build on an average squad and go for promotion.
There were 5 loan places to fill if required. There was this supposed rich array of free transfers we could step in for.
We still had other players that had no book value but good market value to trade, or build on (Jones, Fry, Dijksteel, McNair)
We have a very strong FFP from which to progress.
We had a £22.5m windfall.
We could either invest it, or save it.
So, we have moved out 4 loans from last season end (Siliki, Sporar, Connolly, Balogun).
We've let 3 players go at end of short contracts (Taylor, Peltier and Bamba).
We have released 5 more contracted senior players ( Ameobi, Olusanya, Stejanovic, Wood and Ikpeazu)
And sold 2 for big money (Spence and Tavernier)
We've then loaned out 3 more who will never come back as contracts are up next summer (Lumley, Hall and Coulson)
We've also loaned out 4 more who will return (Payero ?, Coburn, Hemmings and Brynn)
That is a 21 player swing.
There was a big need to recruit and lots of scope to do it.
We have signed 3 on frees (Lenihan, Roberts and Smith). Fine if they were simply cover.
We have signed 4 on loan (Steffen, Giles, Mowatt and Muniz). Steffen and Mowatt are at best meh.
We have bought 3 for £7.75m (Clarke, Forss and Hoppe) Clarke appears decent, but it is crystal clear Wilder doesn't see the other two as anything but cover/development.
Amortisation of those 3 will be £1.75m per season across the length of their contracts, or 7% of the profit from player sales this season.
It is a fundamentally underwhelming window. To disagree is to swallow the Gibson propaganda machine.
We have a small 22 man squad, this from the Club's own website.
3 Keepers (Roberts, Daniels and Steffen)
5 CB's (Lenihan,Clarke,Fry, Dijksteel and McNair)
4 WB/LB (Giles, Jones, Bola, Smith)
1 DM (Howson)
4 AM (Crooks, McGree, Mowatt, Boyd Munce)
5 ST (Muniz, Watmore, Akpom, Forss and Hoppe)
Within that the manager clearly doesn't fancy some of those who have been signed and we are expected to believe Akpom is Lazarus.
If not for the signing of the brilliant Giles and exciting Muniz, it would be a horrendous window.
Middlesbrough will make a huge trading profit this season. Gibson is entitled to save it, or repay loans to Gibson O'Neill with it. But one things is clear he has shown no intention to invest it, and therefore has absolutely no chance of promotion and thus ending the need for GON to shore up the inevitable future losses.
He screwed up his big opportunity in 2016. I am stunned he has done the same with his next in 2022.
He deserves what he gets. I say that for the jaw droppingly bad decisions he repeatedly makes.
Sadly we will remain stuck with each other as a result. We have no alternative.
I genuinely can't think of many things Gibson has actually got right since appointing Steve McLaren.
1993-2006 he was a bold visionary who transformed a middling club with a massive inferiority complex hovering above the third tier into an established club in the richest league in the world. One of the people admire most in my life, especially as he was not a wealthy man at the time he was being boldest and most successful.
2007-2011 he got nothing right at all.
Hired Southgate, hired Strachan, wasted PP's.
2012-2013 he paid for the previous 5 years and current couple. Injected £56m in two lumps, converting debt to equity. Saved the club from the consequences of the losses incurred since 2007 and through the Financial Crisis. He had no choice other than to try and sell the club. Hired Mowbray who saved the club from the drop before coming perilously close to dropping himself. Retained far far too long.
2014-16 made his best decision since 2006, listened to a football pro Kenyon and hired Karanka. Unquestionably backed his manager and was thankfully rewarded with promotion and his opportunity.
2017-2020 a series of horrendous decisions around under-investment and not backing his manager, before sacking him, appointing a totally unqualified interim, inevitable relegation.
Then hired an idiot and allowed him to spend over £50m on what we didn't need, not signing what we did and then sacking Monk once he realised he had hired a crook and a useless one at that.
Then hired an even bigger crook who sold our silver and bought plastic and wasted the parachute payments going nowhere and leaving us with a massive wage bill on players with no resale value.
Then hired a buffoon to manage a squad so poor it was on it's way to the third tier. Woodgate had no chance.
Then hired Warnock who saved his bacon during Covid, before again sticking around past his sell by date for a job done.
The decks are finally cleared.
2021 hires Wilder, an ambitious manager and a shiny new swaggering DoF and there is talk again of promotion, great recruitment and that long last ambition from Gibson. The crowd get on board, season tickets are sold.
Then the 2022 window brings in tens of millions, commits little and leaves a manager hostage to a squad that is blatantly incomplete.
Mowbray and Warnock saved him but stayed too long. Karanka gave him the big opportunity but he blew it.
He obviously hasn't the ambition, vision or balls he once had judging by this summer.
Brilliant detailed analysis piece indeedido. This is where the Achilles heal of Gibbo comes to the fore. It is lost on his admirers and defenders that the saviour of the club has made us virtually unsellable with assets of far less value in comparison to the losses made. This alone should be of concern of every Boro fan.He doesn't put it in - he guarantees with cross Group loans the losses his decisions result in. GON (he) last injected £8m in 2016. It is a decade since he put the significant sum of £50m in to covert debt to equity.
The club formally owe Gibson O' Neill well over £130m. Gibson hasn't given the money to Boro, the Group he part owns has lent it.
The reality is that every season in the Championship means the club lose money. Gibson O' Neill either offset that loss with an additional loan, or the Club folds.
I fully understand the reality.
He has provided those guarantees to fund losses, fundamentally made through:
1. High amortisation charges as bad signings since 2017 were written down over contracts through which they couldn't be/weren't sold.
The Club have bought spectacularly badly since 2016.
2. High wage bill to pay those awful signings across their long contracts.
Double whammy of bad transfer business.
3. Reduced revenue through Covid, only partially offset by FL funding and insurance.
4. Low player sale profit as players could not be sold above their book value and no Academy reared players had major value.
5. Parachute Payments ended 2019.
6. Continuing Cat 1 Academy spend which is all FFP allowable, but does cost real money to fund.
He had little choice but to do this, as he IS the club from a financial perspective.
If GON don't extend further loans every year, the Club is declared bust and ceases trading. The Club has seriously negative net shareholder value over £80m. If the Club goes, Gibson loses everything he has ever put into the Club and can't get all his loans out.
His only real way out of this cycle of extended loans and debt is to step change revenue and get the club promoted. It is possible that if he did this he could make the debt appear much more reasonable to a prospective investor. So he could stop the need to fund and eventually possibly even recover money.
But he needs the PL for that.
His alternative would be to minimise his costs, slash the wage bill, be a huge net seller of players and then hope his squad can survive in the lower reaches of the Championship. This was his approach in 2011-2015.
Then came Karanka, some investment, promotion and the revenues he unfortunately went on to waste.
So after years of fire fighting his mistakes of 2016-2020, there was a chink of light.
The decks were being cleared, the expensive rubbish written off and paid off.
Amortisation all but eliminated, Wage bill slashed, Revenue post Covid and amid fan optimism, well up.
Then the windfall; a £12.5m rising to £20m boost to this year's revenue, through profit on the sale of Djed Spence who has no book value. A massive FFP boost for the next 3 years and a huge P&L boost this year.
Then the decision: to sell one of the Academy products Tavernier. Another £10m rising to £12.5m boost to this year's revenue, through profit on another player with no book value.
So costs much more under control, revenues up and a minimum bookable £22.5m profit from player sales THIS season.
I honestly thought - more fool me - that he had got us in a position to build on an average squad and go for promotion.
There were 5 loan places to fill if required. There was this supposed rich array of free transfers we could step in for.
We still had other players that had no book value but good market value to trade, or build on (Jones, Fry, Dijksteel, McNair)
We have a very strong FFP from which to progress.
We had a £22.5m windfall.
We could either invest it, or save it.
So, we have moved out 4 loans from last season end (Siliki, Sporar, Connolly, Balogun).
We've let 3 players go at end of short contracts (Taylor, Peltier and Bamba).
We have released 5 more contracted senior players ( Ameobi, Olusanya, Stejanovic, Wood and Ikpeazu)
And sold 2 for big money (Spence and Tavernier)
We've then loaned out 3 more who will never come back as contracts are up next summer (Lumley, Hall and Coulson)
We've also loaned out 4 more who will return (Payero ?, Coburn, Hemmings and Brynn)
That is a 21 player swing.
There was a big need to recruit and lots of scope to do it.
We have signed 3 on frees (Lenihan, Roberts and Smith). Fine if they were simply cover.
We have signed 4 on loan (Steffen, Giles, Mowatt and Muniz). Steffen and Mowatt are at best meh.
We have bought 3 for £7.75m (Clarke, Forss and Hoppe) Clarke appears decent, but it is crystal clear Wilder doesn't see the other two as anything but cover/development.
Amortisation of those 3 will be £1.75m per season across the length of their contracts, or 7% of the profit from player sales this season.
It is a fundamentally underwhelming window. To disagree is to swallow the Gibson propaganda machine.
We have a small 22 man squad, this from the Club's own website.
3 Keepers (Roberts, Daniels and Steffen)
5 CB's (Lenihan,Clarke,Fry, Dijksteel and McNair)
4 WB/LB (Giles, Jones, Bola, Smith)
1 DM (Howson)
4 AM (Crooks, McGree, Mowatt, Boyd Munce)
5 ST (Muniz, Watmore, Akpom, Forss and Hoppe)
Within that the manager clearly doesn't fancy some of those who have been signed and we are expected to believe Akpom is Lazarus.
If not for the signing of the brilliant Giles and exciting Muniz, it would be a horrendous window.
Middlesbrough will make a huge trading profit this season. Gibson is entitled to save it, or repay loans to Gibson O'Neill with it. But one things is clear he has shown no intention to invest it, and therefore has absolutely no chance of promotion and thus ending the need for GON to shore up the inevitable future losses.
He screwed up his big opportunity in 2016. I am stunned he has done the same with his next in 2022.
He deserves what he gets. I say that for the jaw droppingly bad decisions he repeatedly makes.
Sadly we will remain stuck with each other as a result. We have no alternative.
I owe you a response to a direct question Gene.As I said I'm no Gibson apologist and accept he's got things wrong.
What would you have him do right now if you could force his hand?
He got interviewed for the Burnley, Watford and Stoke jobs?
Fair response & I don't disagree too much. I just think Gibson deserves a bit more credit for what he's done overall not just criticism for the last 10 years or so where its all gone a bit t*ts up.I owe you a response to a direct question Gene.
We can't sign any players now until January. If we are remotely in touch with the play offs then he needs to sign the players that should have been signed this summer and pray that Wilder is still here and can galvanise the squad to qualify then win the play offs.
This will cost him more than it would this summer as nobody sells quality in Jan window and he only has one loan spot left.
If we are not in with a Play off shot, then he should not spend further in January and be deciding whether he wants to keep Wilder or not.
He should be reflecting on this summer and Kieran Scott's input since joining the club.
There will be a profit made this season now.
He should try and recall what made him so admirable back in the day.
In all honesty its like saying he's just **** himself at work, so what should he do next.
I am annoyed with myself for giving him much more credit as being about to act boldly through this summer. I fell for it, again.
I love my Club and always will. Steve Gibson not so much.