The reality of our finances

[Pragmatist]

It is very clear that many of our fans have simply not been paying attention to our finances. The absolute need to raise money this summer by selling numerous players seems to have passed over their heads.  Read the going concern paragraph again in the audited accounts, which already factored in that we’d taken out the £20m loan.  This was taken out to ensure that we bought time to raise funds from selling players and to offloading high earners from the wage bill as there cannot be any guarantee that other clubs would take them.  That uncertainty was enough to force us to take out the loan to ensure that we could get through this season. 

As a reminder, our income has dropped by around £35m per annum. Yes, that’s annual.  Taking out a £20m loan only replaces £20m ONCE from that annual cash flow drop.  We therefore needed to sell several players and offload several more this summer to deal with the cash flow drop for this season.  We’ve just about done that by selling O’Shea and seemingly now Palmer, and offloading several high earners, but still probably still need to sell another player in other to get replacements in on loan or as Bosmans.  We’ve got the wages of Kipre and Mowatt back on our wage bill after their returns from loan, and we’ve taken the lad from Brighton on loan. 

Be under no illusions.  Diangana may well still be sold but his injury may well prevent that in this window.  Dike almost certainly will have been sold had he been fit.  If we don’t go up and if we don’t get a new owner then the chances of Dike, Diangana, Griffiths, TGH, Yokusku, Swift, Wallace, BTA, Taylor being here in 2024/25 are not great. 

The most crucial thing is to ensure the survival of the club.  That matters more than anything else.  We all still want a club to support.   Those who seem incredulous that we are selling our best players are deluded and have really not been paying attention. Taking out the £20m loan has merely bought time to prevent all of the above players being sold this summer.  We clearly can’t repeat that process with a further loan next summer. 

We have to use the loan market wisely and also sign more BTA-type signings. We then have to rely on CC repeating what he achieved at Huddersfield. He’s quite capable of that once he mounds the squad.  Above all, we need a new owner before things will improve. 

As supporters we need to get our heads around all this.  If we keep being astonished at player sales then we are simply not “reading the room”.  It could get a lot worse before it gets better, but let’s make sure that we still have a club to support.  If we don’t raise cash by selling players then the chances of the club going into administration will be much greater. Burying our heads in the sand about the reality of the situation does not help at all.  We are a club who, for the first time in many years, have no Premier League money and no parachute payments.  Clearly we have lots of supporters who aren’t able to grasp what this really means in financial terms and how we now must operate and cut our cloth accordingly.

[Sliced]

Everyone accepts we need to sell players.

The issue is with the amount of money we're receiving. You seem to think the amounts are fine, the vast majority of people disagree.

That's the dissonance, we all know we have to sell players to stay afloat, but if every penny counts then there should be some effort to try and sell at reasonable prices.

Everyone grasps that.

[Babel]

Sounds a reasonable description of where we are, Prag.

[Duffers]

Hills currently have us at 5/4 for a bottom half finish. That feels like the cornerstone of a pre-season accumulator.

[Pragmatist]

Everyone accepts we need to sell players.

The issue is with the amount of money we're receiving. You seem to think the amounts are fine, the vast majority of people disagree.

That's the dissonance, we all know we have to sell players to stay afloat, but if every penny counts then there should be some effort to try and sell at reasonable prices.

Everyone grasps that.

If there are no buyers at the prices that we would like to achieve then the ultimate cost to us of NOT selling is massive.  We are desperate sellers.  We need cash above all else.  We are in no position to risk sales falling through.  I hate that as much as everyone but it’s the reality of where this awful ownership has taken us.

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Hills currently have us at 5/4 for a bottom half finish. That feels like the cornerstone of a pre-season accumulator.

It does, but this great club will still exist.

[Mr Nimbus]

I am very much a realist and pragmatist myself, but even I was surprised by this one. Then you give your head a wobble and realise we are selling a 26 year old keeper without a full season of first team football to his name to a PREMIER league club. Yep.... LUTON for at least the next four years are higher in the food chain than we are.

We also have an England under 21 keeper ready to step up. Risky but probably right for his development. It's obvious CC is desperate to get rid of Button and will have a replacement number 2 in mind.

The only question is over the value, but again post wobble, you have to accept that it's probably not that far off. But what's horrible, if not to be expected, is to see us selling players like it's the last 15 minutes at the car boot....just taking whatever is on offer to cover the pitch fee.

But as Prag has pointed out we just cant afford to NOT sell for the sake of the club. It does feel like Kilbane time all over again.

[KRO]

Pragmatist is right though. If offers are made , even though they’re low, can the club really risk turning them down and waiting for better offers? The easy answer is to say yes but being desperate for cash and trying to balance books, usually means desperate measures. There’s too many players on too much money. Promotion was a must whilst receiving parachute payments, which makes the Bruce appointment, his second contract to take charge in the pre season and then refusal to sack him early last season even more bewildering to even outsiders like me

[hudds]

If Prag is right, we risk trading insolvently. Which would be worse than selling players at a low price to keep cash coming in to keep us solvent. That's business. Unlike football, it's not a game.

[wba13]

It is very clear that many of our fans have simply not been paying attention to our finances. The absolute need to raise money this summer by selling numerous players seems to have passed over their heads.  Read the going concern paragraph again in the audited accounts, which already factored in that we’d taken out the £20m loan.  This was taken out to ensure that we bought time to raise funds from selling players and to offloading high earners from the wage bill as there cannot be any guarantee that other clubs would take them.  That uncertainty was enough to force us to take out the loan to ensure that we could get through this season. 

As a reminder, our income has dropped by around £35m per annum. Yes, that’s annual.  Taking out a £20m loan only replaces £20m ONCE from that annual cash flow drop.  We therefore needed to sell several players and offload several more this summer to deal with the cash flow drop for this season.  We’ve just about done that by selling O’Shea and seemingly now Palmer, and offloading several high earners, but still probably still need to sell another player in other to get replacements in on loan or as Bosmans.  We’ve got the wages of Kipre and Mowatt back on our wage bill after their returns from loan, and we’ve taken the lad from Brighton on loan. 

Be under no illusions.  Diangana may well still be sold but his injury may well prevent that in this window.  Dike almost certainly will have been sold had he been fit.  If we don’t go up and if we don’t get a new owner then the chances of Dike, Diangana, Griffiths, TGH, Yokusku, Swift, Wallace, BTA, Taylor being here in 2024/25 are not great. 

The most crucial thing is to ensure the survival of the club.  That matters more than anything else.  We all still want a club to support.   Those who seem incredulous that we are selling our best players are deluded and have really not been paying attention. Taking out the £20m loan has merely bought time to prevent all of the above players being sold this summer.  We clearly can’t repeat that process with a further loan next summer. 

We have to use the loan market wisely and also sign more BTA-type signings. We then have to rely on CC repeating what he achieved at Huddersfield. He’s quite capable of that once he mounds the squad.  Above all, we need a new owner before things will improve. 

As supporters we need to get our heads around all this.  If we keep being astonished at player sales then we are simply not “reading the room”.  It could get a lot worse before it gets better, but let’s make sure that we still have a club to support.  If we don’t raise cash by selling players then the chances of the club going into administration will be much greater. Burying our heads in the sand about the reality of the situation does not help at all.  We are a club who, for the first time in many years, have no Premier League money and no parachute payments.  Clearly we have lots of supporters who aren’t able to grasp what this really means in financial terms and how we now must operate and cut our cloth accordingly.

Well said prag, but I’m the prat who some seem to think is on the clubs side, I’m not I just realise what’s going on. 
Getting 3 mill + add ons for Palmer is decent in our currant climate. We can only get what the buyer wants to pay and with no bidding war we won’t get any more. There will be a couple more out the door I’m sure of that but the club will survive and I’m sure before long there will be new owners in place and we will be rid of the idiots from China who haven’t a clue how to run a football club.

[Pragmatist]

If Prag is right, we risk trading insolvently.  Which would be worse than selling players at a low price to keep cash coming in to keep us solvent.  That's business.  Unlike football, it's not a game.

We risk it, but that risk is currently managed by having taken the MSD loan and by selling players and offloading wages.  We are buying time pending a sale of the club.  Football finance is made more complex by the two transfer windows preventing players being sold in the other 9 months of the year to bring cash in.

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It is very clear that many of our fans have simply not been paying attention to our finances. The absolute need to raise money this summer by selling numerous players seems to have passed over their heads.  Read the going concern paragraph again in the audited accounts, which already factored in that we’d taken out the £20m loan.  This was taken out to ensure that we bought time to raise funds from selling players and to offloading high earners from the wage bill as there cannot be any guarantee that other clubs would take them.  That uncertainty was enough to force us to take out the loan to ensure that we could get through this season. 

As a reminder, our income has dropped by around £35m per annum. Yes, that’s annual.  Taking out a £20m loan only replaces £20m ONCE from that annual cash flow drop.  We therefore needed to sell several players and offload several more this summer to deal with the cash flow drop for this season.  We’ve just about done that by selling O’Shea and seemingly now Palmer, and offloading several high earners, but still probably still need to sell another player in other to get replacements in on loan or as Bosmans.  We’ve got the wages of Kipre and Mowatt back on our wage bill after their returns from loan, and we’ve taken the lad from Brighton on loan. 

Be under no illusions.  Diangana may well still be sold but his injury may well prevent that in this window.  Dike almost certainly will have been sold had he been fit.  If we don’t go up and if we don’t get a new owner then the chances of Dike, Diangana, Griffiths, TGH, Yokusku, Swift, Wallace, BTA, Taylor being here in 2024/25 are not great. 

The most crucial thing is to ensure the survival of the club.  That matters more than anything else.  We all still want a club to support.   Those who seem incredulous that we are selling our best players are deluded and have really not been paying attention. Taking out the £20m loan has merely bought time to prevent all of the above players being sold this summer.  We clearly can’t repeat that process with a further loan next summer. 

We have to use the loan market wisely and also sign more BTA-type signings. We then have to rely on CC repeating what he achieved at Huddersfield. He’s quite capable of that once he mounds the squad.  Above all, we need a new owner before things will improve. 

As supporters we need to get our heads around all this.  If we keep being astonished at player sales then we are simply not “reading the room”.  It could get a lot worse before it gets better, but let’s make sure that we still have a club to support.  If we don’t raise cash by selling players then the chances of the club going into administration will be much greater. Burying our heads in the sand about the reality of the situation does not help at all.  We are a club who, for the first time in many years, have no Premier League money and no parachute payments.  Clearly we have lots of supporters who aren’t able to grasp what this really means in financial terms and how we now must operate and cut our cloth accordingly.

Well said prag, but I’m the prat who some seem to think is on the clubs side, I’m not I just realise what’s going on. 
Getting 3 mill + add ons for Palmer is decent in our currant climate. We can only get what the buyer wants to pay and with no bidding war we won’t get any more. There will be a couple more out the door I’m sure of that but the club will survive and I’m sure before long there will be new owners in place and we will be rid of the idiots from China who haven’t a clue how to run a football club.

Let’s hope so!

---

If Prag is right, we risk trading insolvently.  Which would be worse than selling players at a low price to keep cash coming in to keep us solvent.  That's business.  Unlike football, it's not a game.

We risk it, but that risk is currently managed by having taken the MSD loan and by selling players and offloading wages.  We are buying time pending a sale of the club.  Football finance is made more complex by the two transfer windows preventing players being sold in the other 9 months of the year to bring cash in.