We aren't back where we started though. Our finances are incomparably worse. I started supporting the club in the 70s. This is by far the most jeopardy we've ever been in. Bassini was a wannabe asset stripper, but didnt end up taking that much out of the club. Even if we'd gone into adminustration we were still buyable in those days. Now we are fooked on an astronomical level. Gino has run up a huge debt while profiting massively from the use of those funds in player transactions and the rest. We are a complete basket case financially. God help us if any of our debt repayments arent fixed rate with the way interest rates are heading right now.
Another Head Coach sold a dream of running the club for a few weeks to then get paid off for the rest of their contract. Gino continuing to pay future outgoings for immediate results rather than actually investing in sorting out the squad. Unbelievable
TBF we are playing the most physical team in the league and missing our 4 first choice CBs and first choice 2 RBs. No wonder our defence looked crap.
The only positive thing about last night was that I was back home and tucked up in bed with my coco by 11.30
We'll be fine. Slav will turn this around. I've liked the sound of him since he came in. We've got the best squad in the league. Let's see where we are in May.
Unfortunately I’ve pretty much given up on the club. Had a season ticket consistently for years prior to Covid when a career change meant I wouldn’t be able to attend every week. From that point, it seems the club has taken a nose dive and is heading for the drop again. We as fans have seen it all before with clubs twice the size of Watford and it seems lessons have not been learnt and are still being made day in day out. This year is ever more bewildering though as the club is not following the tried, tested and generally successful loaner route with Udinese. Last time we got promoted we gained our 2 best CBs that year in WTE & Sierralta with a solid defence that arguably was the reason we got promoted. Instead we are seeing players leave and return back on loan to balance the books and multiple loans as advance payments of transfers out. I’d be surprised with the club wasn’t put up for sale in the very near future. The desire to succeed on and off the pitch is all but gone and I don’t see much difference in now and the end of the Bassini era, only that we have much higher expectations as the players we have and wages are worlds apart.
The club is for sale, or at least Gino is looking for a buyer or a significant investor The problem is we are laden up to our eyeballs in debt, so nobody in their right mind would want to buy us. We would be an awful, awful purchase for anybody right now.
We are up for sale like someone who has spent loads of money on a clapped out Renault Megane, adding fins, tasteless interior upgrades and ludicrous body mods, but the engine, gearbox and chassis is ruined. They still expect to get all their money back and a big profit, even though an identical model in better condition is available for 1/4 the price.
Any normal business would be sold on a debt free cash free basis, so if someone believes (stupidly) that WFC is worth 120m but it has 100m debt , then they would pay net 20m to the equity owners. Ultimately Gino is the one who carries his company value reduction by this continued slide into mediocrity
Point of order: The Den, SE16, is still the closest football ground to St Mary-le-Bow (EC2V 6AU) and therefore the 'Bow Bells' as the crow flies / sound travels. Furthermore, Millwall are the only professional club to have ever played in the East End proper, having been founded by workers at the Morton & Co. factory next to Millwall Dock, E14. Whilst playing on the Isle of Dogs, Millwall built up a large local following across the East End, thanks to epic runs to the FA Cup semi-finals, when football was dominated by northern and midlands club, earning the team the nickname 'Lions of the South. According to my research, this makes Millwall the only senior club to be given their nickname by an outside agency (Victorian newspapers) based on football endeavor in English football. This reputation was further boosted by Millwall founding and dominating the first ever competitive league (Southern League) competition for clubs south of Birmingham. Therefore, given the nature of football fandom, despite moving just across the river to another docklands area in New Cross in 1910 (for need of a larger stadium), it is hardly surprising that Millwall retained many of the East End fans that had started supporting them in the 1880s. The love of the Lions was often passed down through families. Which is why you still get Millwall fans from the East End to this day (a good example that you may know is ex footballer Darren Purse, born in Stepney and from a big Millwall family). It is also why you get an unusual number (given Millwall are now a SE London club) of Millwall fans in Essex, as many old East End families moved out that way in the post war era. Your comment wasn't a silly one though, as I even have this debate with over Millwall fans. That is because the majority of Millwall these days are from SE London or have roots in SE London. So, the term 'south of the river' does apply. My counter argument to that is that Millwall are a club born out of docklands communities, both on the Isle of Dogs and then when we moved across the river, where the Surrey Docks operated. The reason I make that distinction is because I think the neighbouroods of Bermondsey, Rotherhite, New Cross and Deptford are very different to south London neighbourhoods like Crystal Palace, Dulwich, Sydenham etc, where, for example, Crystal Palace draw their support from. Millwall have a very different character as a fanbase to Palace or Charlton, fellow 'south London' clubs. I think this is down to being born out of a docklands community, with deep roots in the old East End. Indeed, when George Graham took over as Millwall manager he commented that it was the only time since moving to England for football that he felt that he was in a similar community to the one he had known in Glasgow.
Ive been peed with GP/SD for the last few years, but the last year has really turned me cold. Some of you guys are far more ITK than me but I just don't understand why and when it all started going wrong.? We had great loanees from Udinese to begin, and we seemed able to bring in some decent players like capoue and doucoure. Then suddenly we went haywire, and then the icing on the cake was the big Sarr spend when we really could not afford it.? We refuse to spend £5m on decent young British players from say championship and Scotland, but we will invest £3m on a player who's been injured for 9 months but might come good. It's all a big gamble and we continually buy players totally unready to slot in to our team. This is totally crazy, to the extent now that any championship team can outplay us if they put their heart into it. I see bulls£it talk fro m players for 4 years now but there is absolutely No Heart, balls nor soul in this incipid bunch....
I can only see three options to get us out of the mess Gino Pozzo has put us in: Get promoted Find a rich idiot to invest Enter administration Spoiler alert, the first two aren't happening.
"That was the most weak minded display by a bunch of spineless ******s I've ever witnessed". I have been bored as nauseam by this feeling post match over the last four years. I don't even know what to say. Pozzo out.
As you say, for 7 years or so pretty much every decision seemed to be the right call. Since then the decision making has generally been poor with some bizarre signings leading to poor results and poor debt position and a weird reliance on one dodgy agent. It's as though they have just lost it. The Sarr signing was exciting at the time but was clearly a poor use of funds.
I re-watched the "low lights" this morning (because I am glutton for punishment) and worked out one thing I was not totally sold on, but I am now.We are not a Championship side anymore. We are a League One/Two side who at present have a beautiful stadium with fantastic facilities, and a very memroable history to look back on. What are we right now, at this very point? We are heading into League One (or that direction) with a squad of spinless cowards who don't give one feck about this club or the fans who loyally still play money week after week to turn up and watch that pile of manure from last night especially. I can accept losing. I can accept losing when the team is technically a much better side (most of the PL) and we were just capable of hurting them. I cannot accept a loss when we didn't even try. Blackburn, Swansea, Blackpool and Millwall. (QPR was alright overall) Hardly touched them. Sat off them, sat back and did nothing more or less for the whole game. Where's that fight gone? Where is the steele we all saw in the GT games? Why are these players not getting forward and pushing on to try and make a game a competition? You can blame the fans' for not booing or being clappers etc, that's up to them as they pay their money and have a right to enjoy the game as they see it. Players however have at least a sense of duty to give a crap when they step out onto the pitch. Can you really see GT taking any of that BS last night? No - he would of torn into them at half time and during the first half and shown passion and demanded they buck up and get involved. I know half this team is build around am owner who has lost any grip on where we should be long side a lapdog who blows hot air and lies with the used car salesman who is dodgy as anything with over-inflated prices on players who are just not good enough for where we want to be. I miss the Hobans, Mooneys, Dyches. Giftons, Wrights, Holebas's, Anya's and Helguson's who put that yellow shirt on on a Saturday or midweek and cared. None of this squad care, not in my view, and Sunday will just be another game to cross off the list of fixtures as they toddle around and get hammered no doubt. It's not the player's fault they aren't good enough and are possibly out of their depth at even this level. It IS their fault though for not caring and trying. I'll leave this rant with one of my all time beloved quotes from the great man himself. "When you lose a game. that is disappointing. "When you don't care or try that's worse than losing" I hate being negative about a club I still love. It's killing us all to see what EJ and GT brought to life all those years ago.
Yes ideally when a business sells they have no debt, but not in all cases. Business can sell carrying debt (reduces value) as long as the debt is serviceable. Most investors are more interested in Growth. Problem with football is there's very little growth so the debt does need to be at a minimum and being managed. Gino here has hamstrung himself as he's accruing more debt (even consolation of loans is simply just moving debt around). We've seen this happen in other clubs and the ramifications and we're walking into it. Next will be selling the stadium rights
It's hard to be positive or have constructive criticism when you have witnessed a shyt show . We got done by Route 1 football , which is really disappointing. Whilst Bachman has made some crucial saves this season he does not dominate his 6 yard area . Who is our dominant CB that "route 1 knock it up to the big man" is food and drink to him ? . I fear for Sunday as that lot up the road will not try and tika taka us off the pitch they will just go long ball MK 2.0. I know it , you all know it and our players know it. But we cannot deal with the lowest common denominator. Some years ago I watched Ricardo Fuller bully our 2 CBs in the Championship. They made him look like Haaland . The following season I saw Fitz Hall bully Ricardo Fuller. Who is our team bully ?
Very true, last time when we played Norwich they were going through the middle so we could influence , fair play to Millwall their tactic was to bypass our attack and midfield hoof it into the box from anywhere on the pitch and then intimidate our defence a very effective strategy. Unfortunately more teams play this strategy than not so unless we get some big physical players back we might be screwed. the only glimmer of hope is that once JP and Kalu came on we seemed to nullify the threat (mainly by those two and aspira running around attacking anything that moved).
I dont know if its been said already but up until the end of 2018 Pozzo Snr had a very active involvement in the club albeit being wound back. Gino was then given the reigns completely so it seems no suprise that his first "full" season of 2019/2020 was the start of the slow motion car crash
Yeah, first 30 minutes last night and Millwall just lobbed ball after ball into the box, which caused absolute panic. Either it ended up in the net or we cleared it at about the 5th attempt, only for it to come back in 15 seconds later.
I feel your pain, however I think billic can see the problems as well, I think last night we had a league 1 defence , But I think part of our problem is that the rest of the squad is actually a lower PL squad in terms of quality , enjoy playing when it’s going there way but only a hand full of players (JP / Asprilla / Louza) can be arsed to fight when it’s tough. When the game is as direct as last nights they can’t be arsed to track back and then run the other way when we break. I think the Championship is so different in terms of physicality from the PL this is why great championship players don’t always make great PL players and reasonable PL players make **** championship players.
It is easy for me to tap away on a keyboard and say we should have done this or done that however I couldn't tell what our tactic was to deal with Millwall's long ball\press . Surely it is either keep the ball at the back and tire the Millwall pressers, which we are not really capable of doing in reality, or play long ball ourselves , turn the Millwall defence around and stretch them as a unit . We did neither as our defenders tried to play "feet balls" and these were either cut out or our forwards got swarmed by Millwall defenders. Maybe that was the tactic , to play to our strikers feet who were facing away from goal?
This is turning out to be a roller coaster season with this Jekyll and Hyde team. Also, I think it's pretty clear that the problem is not the head coach and there's a stinking culture at the club. Also, we can pretty much write-off promotion this season which should always have been a rebuild season. Imagine this squad in the Prem? Yuk. An early Halloween horror show.
I understand your anguish however Pozzo has had numerous opportunities to address the obvious deficiencies in the squad. He is clearly not capable of selecting the correct targets, unlike his father. The over reliance on Mange tout Buyout is symptomatic of the malaise. In GT's day players had to put the effort in as the rewards were still relatively understandable to the average individual. Not now and especially at our club where even the dimmest have learned that they don't have to lift a finger to earn their absurd wage. Pandora's Jar has been opened and it can't be replaced. We will find our level. The trouble is where that level may be is deeply alarming. As a footnote, before I leave for Tibet to live as a goat someone told me about Cucho on Saturday. This chap went to "cleanse" Cucho's former apartment in Cockfosters. It's a block used almost exclusively by Tottenham, Arsenal and Watford players. The landlord was delighted that Cucho had left. Parties every night,the usual attendant " entertainment" and damage to the property. Most of our squad wouldn't know professional if it bit them on the ****,nor it seems would the owner and cronies.
Agreed. The roots of football support within communities can be be fascinating. For example take a look at what lies behind the Newcastle/Sunderland rivalry beyond simple proximity.
