Jump to content

The Official Dundee United 2016-17 Thread

lionel hutz

Recommended Posts

Sarto Mutiny

Sarto Mutiny

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, mishtergrolsch said:

I know alot more than the general public re the Toshney deal too. I'm ITK. Big time.

Not only do I know more than the general public about the Toshney deal, I know more about the Toshney deal than Lewis Toshney does. ITK as f**k.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Replies 6k
  • Created
  • Last Reply
mishtergrolsch

mishtergrolsch

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Sarto Mutiny said:

Not only do I know more than the general public about the Toshney deal, I know more about the Toshney deal than Lewis Toshney does. ITK as f**k.

We should combine our ITK of the Toshney deal. We could be so ITK that we would know what he had for breakfast the day he signed and how short he likes the Tannadice pitch to be cut. #ITKAF.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gibby82

Gibby82

Posted
Posted

"The 21st of June, 2016. Close to 2 months. If you’re looking for the answer to the question of “When did we last hear a peep out of Stephen Thompson?”, There it is. A man once so eager to get his face on TV, in the papers and his voice on the radio, now posted missing.

Yes, Again.

Back then, At his media friendly peak, you could barely go 3 days without a new interview, quote, or a picture of him trying to look presidential in the United Boardroom.

So often were his appearances in the media, it’s really not too much of a ridiculous presumption to feel he probably had his phone sat next to his bed with the ringer on full blast just in case a journalist needed a direct quote from him at 4am. It’s a wonder he didn’t go full Putin and pose topless on a horse, thankfully we were spared that particular sight.

It was however, frankly, ridiculous. But at a time when the club appeared to be going from strength to strength, nobody really questioned it. Why would you? We were very much on the up. Regularly competing for silverware, financially looking solid, with a string of assets on the park, A highly regarded youth setup with a seemingly endless supply of talent coming out of it, we seemed a modern, forward thinking club. The standard bearer for smaller clubs looking to compete on the park and blossom off of it.

Whilst not everyone was entirely comfortable with out chairman lapping up the press attention, it’s fair to say it just became the accepted norm. The club was good, heading in the right direction. Even if other teams fans found him a tiresome bore/media whore, At the end of the day people were sitting up, taking notice and talking about Dundee United, And with a media so obsessed with certain west coast clubs, media exposure is hard to come by, That couldn’t be too bad a thing.

So roll onto today, where is he?, the only correct answer to that in the eyes of virtually every fan, is “Not far enough away from the club”.

You won’t find any search parties being called or any detectives being hired in order to trace his whereabouts, There will be no TV or radio appeal to check your sheds or under the nearest rock. Frankly, the only things people want to hear from his mouth nowadays are where all the money has went and that he has sold the club. And even then they’d settle hearing it third hand. He could be in the sea for all the majority care. From selling key players mid season after promising he wouldn’t, to botched managerial appointments, vanishing to Australia to try and buy a club over there, seemingly not paying the blindest bit of attention while he was away, to spectacularly careless deals being signed off at will and lack of simple answers to serious questions, there’s a lot to add to his charge sheet. And that’s just for starters.

The whole mess of the club is on his head. We are where we are and he is the reason.

It almost takes a special level of skill to manage to run a club into the ground the way he has, at the speed he has. The scariest part of the whole sorry mess is that so many “errors” have lead us to where we are, they can’t be considered errors at all. There are only so many coincidences that can happen before they stop being coincidences. There are only so many errors that can happen before someone realises it then goes out their way to rectify it. It doesn’t take a crack squad of number crunchers and business analysts to figure it out, it hasn’t even been hidden or done craftily. Absolutely nothing adds up between what he has said in his increasingly fleeting interviews over the past 18 months or so and what has actually happened. All we have heard are self congratulatory soundbites on the clubs achievements under him, a reminded that his family have put in x amount (which comes across as him telling the fans they should be thankful for him)  and talk of “Business”. There hasn’t been a single word on footballing ambition, growing the club or what he hopes to achieve.

There is simply no other way of putting it, he has brutally asset stripped the club, presumably to recoup as much of the money his family has put in and then some, then hoped to flog the carcass on at an over inflated price allowing him to swan off with a massive profit in his pocket and start a new life down under, whilst leaving any new owner to pick up and clean up the mess.

One flaw in his plan though, so brutal has his financial recovery operation been, not a single person will touch the club with a barge-pole. It’s not worth a penny on the financial market, He won’t give it away, he’s got us relegated, refused to answer questions as to where so many millions of pounds we have received for players has vanished to. We’re a Championship club with an unsettled fanbase and a hole in the accounts. The team is backed, Thompson is not.

The fans, rightly want the man who has ruined our club gone, and the man himself says he wants away, but without a buyer, we’re stuck with each other.

But that leads to the question, “Does he really want away?”, The evidence we have seen is a resounding “no”, Not unless it’s on his terms and at a profit. Not a single thing we have seen suggests he is actively trying to sell or make the club more attractive to a buyer. He looks less and less like a man truly trying to sell and more and more like a dictator grimly holding onto power by any means necessary. Most likely, as much as he wants away, he has realised he wont get what he wants for the club and wants to hold on until he gets it. A scenario that is nothing but damaging to the club.

There’s been recent murmurings about him seeking investment abroad, all of which will keep him in charge should it go through. For somebody wanting away, that in itself is a strange way to sell and whilst it would provide a cash injection now, only waters down the value of the club further. For somebody so apparently keen on selling and getting top dollar, that’s a bizarre way to go about it and suggests he has absolutely no intention of budging. It seems as though even if there was a viable buyer for the club, Thompson would chase them away unless they offered well above the true value and tell the world “they weren’t right for the club”.

And he’d say it straight faced, as if he is.

Thompson himself, when pressured always talks of being a fan who also has to balance the books, yet he has behaved in a way no fan can related to and continues to damage the club. A true fan would have done what it right for the club he loves, yet Thompsons own ego seemingly won’t let him. It’s all about him, all about the money. His greed has got the better of him and he won’t back down and be seen to have lost.

Fans will not forget and most certainly will not forgive. He has ripped the heart out of our club on and off the park and cheated fans with empty soundbites and claims, all whilst lining his pockets. And those around him on the board are equally culpable. From player sales to staff departures, not a chance has been missed to earn a quick £, many of which have seemingly just vanished again.

His right hand man, his main advisor on the board appears to be Mike Martin. A Former banker for HSBC. Serious questions need to be asked about just what he is “advising”. It can only be assumed it’s purely advice on how to get as much money in his account as fast as possible, it’s certainly nothing to do with the Footballing side of the club.

Considering we’re meant to have somebody so financially savvy advising Thompson, Serious questions also have to be asked as to why, when we restructured our debt to pay off the bank, we repaid the interest free/low interest loans first but didn’t wipe the slate clean of the more expensive debts. Being kind, at best, that’s negligent.

All sorts of rumors have been surfacing about the clubs financial state, about how close we are to potential administration, about how small Thompson tried to make our playing budget this season, there has been very little positive in a financial sense and absolutely no denials of trouble. Quite the opposite in fact, the little info those close to the club have given out has been fairly negative, doom and gloom.

Given how much money we have brought in and how little of that has been reinvested, that is astonishing and points to serious mismanagement.

Of course the club needs to operate within a sensible budgetary range, but surely no matter what the scenario, the easiest way he’ll get the club turned around and an attractive proposition for a buyer is to invest a little more in the team than normal under the circumstance, give the manager the best tools he can possibly give him, try to get us back into the Premiership, or at least look like we were heading back there and help bring as much of a feelgood factor about the place as possible?.

If fans see positives on the park, see a bit of ambition coming from the top, as well as maybe a little less arrogance, they would likely be a little more tolerant of the frustrations of Thompson hanging around like a stench behind the scenes. It will never change the fact he ultimately has to go, but it would at least buy him some time as well as benefit him come sale time, yet aside from that and him claiming he is a fan as well, he is still happy enough with us having our manager being tied up picking between Dillon, Durnan or Donaldson every week in defence and won’t go out his way to rectify that. Ray has done his best so far, but it’s quite clear there has been a hard limit put on him financially.

Surely, given the state the club is in, the alleged “errors” Thompson has made and being a fan of the club, he should be doing everything in his power to rectify it. He is in a position to do so, yet fails to release the funds. It doesn’t add up. If only we’d pocketed well over £4 million more than we had total debt over the past few years…. oh wait, we did.

So where is it, Stephen? it seems we are about as likely to find that out as we are to keep a clean sheet 2 games running. He has been asked, he has never answered.

Whilst it is fair to point out that the figures quoted in the press are never what the club actually gets by the time various fees are deducted, there’s just too big a discrepancy. Yes, managers have been backed before Ray, There have been several expensive payoffs of managers and youtube special signings, but it doesn’t even begin to cover the missing amount. The lack of answers only further fuels the mistrust.

Not being seen to give us the best chance possible of promotion not only makes the situation more poisonous, it devalues the club, especially if we stay down another year. It’s impossible to see what Thompsons aim is right now. Perhaps he is hoping we will benefit from the sell on clause of Andy Robertson at Hull, or that selling only real saleable asset in Harry Souttar will see money being freed up, But i doubt many fans will hold their breath over any money being reinvested. It’s been clear for a while what we have needed, nothing has been done, why should this change matters now?

There is no ambition. No matter how clear the issues and how much we could all benefit, he won’t budge.

You feel his ego has taken such a walloping, he’s just in the huff rather than focusing his efforts on rebuilding the club.

The few things you can point to, as in the signings of Cammy Bell, Willo Flood and Van Der Velden, were likely as much about selling tickets as anything else. Yes, whilst they are relatively “big” signings, not only were they replacements for outgoing high earners, but they were in areas we had no bodies, let alone a level of quality to fall back on. Any side with true ambition would have supplemented these signings with a couple more players in key areas where we maybe had bodies but no quality.We’re still waiting for Defenders and have one senior striker on the books.

Are the current signings really that far beyond what we should have expected for our relative size of club?, they are perhaps at the upper end given where we are, but certainly not overly pushing the boat out. To claim they are is just spin.

A lot of it appears to be spin, stalling, buying time until the football started so the focus would shift away from the goings on at the club.

They had Ray working overtime all summer “building bridges” with the fans, attending Q+A’s, In the shop, visiting peoples homes, the works.The club appointed Jim Spence to help communicate with fans better, there was all sorts of ideas coming out and being floated, it’s all gone quiet again. You feel it’s all now a bit half baked and that effort has been wasted. Now the fans focus is on the football, it feels like the board don’t really care again. The promised “More openness” has already completely dried up right after a plea to buy tickets.

Under the circumstances, the fans have been utterly magnificent in their backing for the team. There can’t be too many clubs who have been so readily backed despite such turmoil and anger at those controlling the purse strings. Many fans feel a real dilemma on whether they want to put money towards the Thompson regime any more and that’s totally understandable. It’s a complete catch 22 scenario where we’re all desperate for change but don’t want to hurt the club. We have nothing to unite behind other than the team whilst Thompson lurks, hopes we fluke our way up with the bare minimum of investment and counts the ticket sales. And you get the feeling right now, As somebody that is in no rush to leave, sadly, that suits him just fine."

From some guy's blog. Probably WaWa.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Alert Mongoose

Alert Mongoose

Posted
Posted
"The 21st of June, 2016. Close to 2 months. If you’re looking for the answer to the question of “When did we last hear a peep out of Stephen Thompson?”, There it is. A man once so eager to get his face on TV, in the papers and his voice on the radio, now posted missing.

Yes, Again.

Back then, At his media friendly peak, you could barely go 3 days without a new interview, quote, or a picture of him trying to look presidential in the United Boardroom.

So often were his appearances in the media, it’s really not too much of a ridiculous presumption to feel he probably had his phone sat next to his bed with the ringer on full blast just in case a journalist needed a direct quote from him at 4am. It’s a wonder he didn’t go full Putin and pose topless on a horse, thankfully we were spared that particular sight.

It was however, frankly, ridiculous. But at a time when the club appeared to be going from strength to strength, nobody really questioned it. Why would you? We were very much on the up. Regularly competing for silverware, financially looking solid, with a string of assets on the park, A highly regarded youth setup with a seemingly endless supply of talent coming out of it, we seemed a modern, forward thinking club. The standard bearer for smaller clubs looking to compete on the park and blossom off of it.

Whilst not everyone was entirely comfortable with out chairman lapping up the press attention, it’s fair to say it just became the accepted norm. The club was good, heading in the right direction. Even if other teams fans found him a tiresome bore/media whore, At the end of the day people were sitting up, taking notice and talking about Dundee United, And with a media so obsessed with certain west coast clubs, media exposure is hard to come by, That couldn’t be too bad a thing.

So roll onto today, where is he?, the only correct answer to that in the eyes of virtually every fan, is “Not far enough away from the club”.

You won’t find any search parties being called or any detectives being hired in order to trace his whereabouts, There will be no TV or radio appeal to check your sheds or under the nearest rock. Frankly, the only things people want to hear from his mouth nowadays are where all the money has went and that he has sold the club. And even then they’d settle hearing it third hand. He could be in the sea for all the majority care. From selling key players mid season after promising he wouldn’t, to botched managerial appointments, vanishing to Australia to try and buy a club over there, seemingly not paying the blindest bit of attention while he was away, to spectacularly careless deals being signed off at will and lack of simple answers to serious questions, there’s a lot to add to his charge sheet. And that’s just for starters.

The whole mess of the club is on his head. We are where we are and he is the reason.

It almost takes a special level of skill to manage to run a club into the ground the way he has, at the speed he has. The scariest part of the whole sorry mess is that so many “errors” have lead us to where we are, they can’t be considered errors at all. There are only so many coincidences that can happen before they stop being coincidences. There are only so many errors that can happen before someone realises it then goes out their way to rectify it. It doesn’t take a crack squad of number crunchers and business analysts to figure it out, it hasn’t even been hidden or done craftily. Absolutely nothing adds up between what he has said in his increasingly fleeting interviews over the past 18 months or so and what has actually happened. All we have heard are self congratulatory soundbites on the clubs achievements under him, a reminded that his family have put in x amount (which comes across as him telling the fans they should be thankful for him)  and talk of “Business”. There hasn’t been a single word on footballing ambition, growing the club or what he hopes to achieve.

There is simply no other way of putting it, he has brutally asset stripped the club, presumably to recoup as much of the money his family has put in and then some, then hoped to flog the carcass on at an over inflated price allowing him to swan off with a massive profit in his pocket and start a new life down under, whilst leaving any new owner to pick up and clean up the mess.

One flaw in his plan though, so brutal has his financial recovery operation been, not a single person will touch the club with a barge-pole. It’s not worth a penny on the financial market, He won’t give it away, he’s got us relegated, refused to answer questions as to where so many millions of pounds we have received for players has vanished to. We’re a Championship club with an unsettled fanbase and a hole in the accounts. The team is backed, Thompson is not.

The fans, rightly want the man who has ruined our club gone, and the man himself says he wants away, but without a buyer, we’re stuck with each other.

But that leads to the question, “Does he really want away?”, The evidence we have seen is a resounding “no”, Not unless it’s on his terms and at a profit. Not a single thing we have seen suggests he is actively trying to sell or make the club more attractive to a buyer. He looks less and less like a man truly trying to sell and more and more like a dictator grimly holding onto power by any means necessary. Most likely, as much as he wants away, he has realised he wont get what he wants for the club and wants to hold on until he gets it. A scenario that is nothing but damaging to the club.

There’s been recent murmurings about him seeking investment abroad, all of which will keep him in charge should it go through. For somebody wanting away, that in itself is a strange way to sell and whilst it would provide a cash injection now, only waters down the value of the club further. For somebody so apparently keen on selling and getting top dollar, that’s a bizarre way to go about it and suggests he has absolutely no intention of budging. It seems as though even if there was a viable buyer for the club, Thompson would chase them away unless they offered well above the true value and tell the world “they weren’t right for the club”.

And he’d say it straight faced, as if he is.

Thompson himself, when pressured always talks of being a fan who also has to balance the books, yet he has behaved in a way no fan can related to and continues to damage the club. A true fan would have done what it right for the club he loves, yet Thompsons own ego seemingly won’t let him. It’s all about him, all about the money. His greed has got the better of him and he won’t back down and be seen to have lost.

Fans will not forget and most certainly will not forgive. He has ripped the heart out of our club on and off the park and cheated fans with empty soundbites and claims, all whilst lining his pockets. And those around him on the board are equally culpable. From player sales to staff departures, not a chance has been missed to earn a quick £, many of which have seemingly just vanished again.

His right hand man, his main advisor on the board appears to be Mike Martin. A Former banker for HSBC. Serious questions need to be asked about just what he is “advising”. It can only be assumed it’s purely advice on how to get as much money in his account as fast as possible, it’s certainly nothing to do with the Footballing side of the club.

Considering we’re meant to have somebody so financially savvy advising Thompson, Serious questions also have to be asked as to why, when we restructured our debt to pay off the bank, we repaid the interest free/low interest loans first but didn’t wipe the slate clean of the more expensive debts. Being kind, at best, that’s negligent.

All sorts of rumors have been surfacing about the clubs financial state, about how close we are to potential administration, about how small Thompson tried to make our playing budget this season, there has been very little positive in a financial sense and absolutely no denials of trouble. Quite the opposite in fact, the little info those close to the club have given out has been fairly negative, doom and gloom.

Given how much money we have brought in and how little of that has been reinvested, that is astonishing and points to serious mismanagement.

Of course the club needs to operate within a sensible budgetary range, but surely no matter what the scenario, the easiest way he’ll get the club turned around and an attractive proposition for a buyer is to invest a little more in the team than normal under the circumstance, give the manager the best tools he can possibly give him, try to get us back into the Premiership, or at least look like we were heading back there and help bring as much of a feelgood factor about the place as possible?.

If fans see positives on the park, see a bit of ambition coming from the top, as well as maybe a little less arrogance, they would likely be a little more tolerant of the frustrations of Thompson hanging around like a stench behind the scenes. It will never change the fact he ultimately has to go, but it would at least buy him some time as well as benefit him come sale time, yet aside from that and him claiming he is a fan as well, he is still happy enough with us having our manager being tied up picking between Dillon, Durnan or Donaldson every week in defence and won’t go out his way to rectify that. Ray has done his best so far, but it’s quite clear there has been a hard limit put on him financially.

Surely, given the state the club is in, the alleged “errors” Thompson has made and being a fan of the club, he should be doing everything in his power to rectify it. He is in a position to do so, yet fails to release the funds. It doesn’t add up. If only we’d pocketed well over £4 million more than we had total debt over the past few years…. oh wait, we did.

So where is it, Stephen? it seems we are about as likely to find that out as we are to keep a clean sheet 2 games running. He has been asked, he has never answered.

Whilst it is fair to point out that the figures quoted in the press are never what the club actually gets by the time various fees are deducted, there’s just too big a discrepancy. Yes, managers have been backed before Ray, There have been several expensive payoffs of managers and youtube special signings, but it doesn’t even begin to cover the missing amount. The lack of answers only further fuels the mistrust.

Not being seen to give us the best chance possible of promotion not only makes the situation more poisonous, it devalues the club, especially if we stay down another year. It’s impossible to see what Thompsons aim is right now. Perhaps he is hoping we will benefit from the sell on clause of Andy Robertson at Hull, or that selling only real saleable asset in Harry Souttar will see money being freed up, But i doubt many fans will hold their breath over any money being reinvested. It’s been clear for a while what we have needed, nothing has been done, why should this change matters now?

There is no ambition. No matter how clear the issues and how much we could all benefit, he won’t budge.

You feel his ego has taken such a walloping, he’s just in the huff rather than focusing his efforts on rebuilding the club.

The few things you can point to, as in the signings of Cammy Bell, Willo Flood and Van Der Velden, were likely as much about selling tickets as anything else. Yes, whilst they are relatively “big” signings, not only were they replacements for outgoing high earners, but they were in areas we had no bodies, let alone a level of quality to fall back on. Any side with true ambition would have supplemented these signings with a couple more players in key areas where we maybe had bodies but no quality.We’re still waiting for Defenders and have one senior striker on the books.

Are the current signings really that far beyond what we should have expected for our relative size of club?, they are perhaps at the upper end given where we are, but certainly not overly pushing the boat out. To claim they are is just spin.

A lot of it appears to be spin, stalling, buying time until the football started so the focus would shift away from the goings on at the club.

They had Ray working overtime all summer “building bridges” with the fans, attending Q+A’s, In the shop, visiting peoples homes, the works.The club appointed Jim Spence to help communicate with fans better, there was all sorts of ideas coming out and being floated, it’s all gone quiet again. You feel it’s all now a bit half baked and that effort has been wasted. Now the fans focus is on the football, it feels like the board don’t really care again. The promised “More openness” has already completely dried up right after a plea to buy tickets.

Under the circumstances, the fans have been utterly magnificent in their backing for the team. There can’t be too many clubs who have been so readily backed despite such turmoil and anger at those controlling the purse strings. Many fans feel a real dilemma on whether they want to put money towards the Thompson regime any more and that’s totally understandable. It’s a complete catch 22 scenario where we’re all desperate for change but don’t want to hurt the club. We have nothing to unite behind other than the team whilst Thompson lurks, hopes we fluke our way up with the bare minimum of investment and counts the ticket sales. And you get the feeling right now, As somebody that is in no rush to leave, sadly, that suits him just fine."

From some guy's blog. Probably WaWa.

 



9f799afa3dc0e7cafe4f2d8f50066361.gif

I don't know how anyone can be arsed writing all that to be honest.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
mishtergrolsch

mishtergrolsch

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, Gibby82 said:

"The 21st of June, 2016. Close to 2 months. If you’re looking for the answer to the question of “When did we last hear a peep out of Stephen Thompson?”, There it is. A man once so eager to get his face on TV, in the papers and his voice on the radio, now posted missing.

Yes, Again.

Back then, At his media friendly peak, you could barely go 3 days without a new interview, quote, or a picture of him trying to look presidential in the United Boardroom.

So often were his appearances in the media, it’s really not too much of a ridiculous presumption to feel he probably had his phone sat next to his bed with the ringer on full blast just in case a journalist needed a direct quote from him at 4am. It’s a wonder he didn’t go full Putin and pose topless on a horse, thankfully we were spared that particular sight.

It was however, frankly, ridiculous. But at a time when the club appeared to be going from strength to strength, nobody really questioned it. Why would you? We were very much on the up. Regularly competing for silverware, financially looking solid, with a string of assets on the park, A highly regarded youth setup with a seemingly endless supply of talent coming out of it, we seemed a modern, forward thinking club. The standard bearer for smaller clubs looking to compete on the park and blossom off of it.

Whilst not everyone was entirely comfortable with out chairman lapping up the press attention, it’s fair to say it just became the accepted norm. The club was good, heading in the right direction. Even if other teams fans found him a tiresome bore/media whore, At the end of the day people were sitting up, taking notice and talking about Dundee United, And with a media so obsessed with certain west coast clubs, media exposure is hard to come by, That couldn’t be too bad a thing.

So roll onto today, where is he?, the only correct answer to that in the eyes of virtually every fan, is “Not far enough away from the club”.

You won’t find any search parties being called or any detectives being hired in order to trace his whereabouts, There will be no TV or radio appeal to check your sheds or under the nearest rock. Frankly, the only things people want to hear from his mouth nowadays are where all the money has went and that he has sold the club. And even then they’d settle hearing it third hand. He could be in the sea for all the majority care. From selling key players mid season after promising he wouldn’t, to botched managerial appointments, vanishing to Australia to try and buy a club over there, seemingly not paying the blindest bit of attention while he was away, to spectacularly careless deals being signed off at will and lack of simple answers to serious questions, there’s a lot to add to his charge sheet. And that’s just for starters.

The whole mess of the club is on his head. We are where we are and he is the reason.

It almost takes a special level of skill to manage to run a club into the ground the way he has, at the speed he has. The scariest part of the whole sorry mess is that so many “errors” have lead us to where we are, they can’t be considered errors at all. There are only so many coincidences that can happen before they stop being coincidences. There are only so many errors that can happen before someone realises it then goes out their way to rectify it. It doesn’t take a crack squad of number crunchers and business analysts to figure it out, it hasn’t even been hidden or done craftily. Absolutely nothing adds up between what he has said in his increasingly fleeting interviews over the past 18 months or so and what has actually happened. All we have heard are self congratulatory soundbites on the clubs achievements under him, a reminded that his family have put in x amount (which comes across as him telling the fans they should be thankful for him)  and talk of “Business”. There hasn’t been a single word on footballing ambition, growing the club or what he hopes to achieve.

There is simply no other way of putting it, he has brutally asset stripped the club, presumably to recoup as much of the money his family has put in and then some, then hoped to flog the carcass on at an over inflated price allowing him to swan off with a massive profit in his pocket and start a new life down under, whilst leaving any new owner to pick up and clean up the mess.

One flaw in his plan though, so brutal has his financial recovery operation been, not a single person will touch the club with a barge-pole. It’s not worth a penny on the financial market, He won’t give it away, he’s got us relegated, refused to answer questions as to where so many millions of pounds we have received for players has vanished to. We’re a Championship club with an unsettled fanbase and a hole in the accounts. The team is backed, Thompson is not.

The fans, rightly want the man who has ruined our club gone, and the man himself says he wants away, but without a buyer, we’re stuck with each other.

But that leads to the question, “Does he really want away?”, The evidence we have seen is a resounding “no”, Not unless it’s on his terms and at a profit. Not a single thing we have seen suggests he is actively trying to sell or make the club more attractive to a buyer. He looks less and less like a man truly trying to sell and more and more like a dictator grimly holding onto power by any means necessary. Most likely, as much as he wants away, he has realised he wont get what he wants for the club and wants to hold on until he gets it. A scenario that is nothing but damaging to the club.

There’s been recent murmurings about him seeking investment abroad, all of which will keep him in charge should it go through. For somebody wanting away, that in itself is a strange way to sell and whilst it would provide a cash injection now, only waters down the value of the club further. For somebody so apparently keen on selling and getting top dollar, that’s a bizarre way to go about it and suggests he has absolutely no intention of budging. It seems as though even if there was a viable buyer for the club, Thompson would chase them away unless they offered well above the true value and tell the world “they weren’t right for the club”.

And he’d say it straight faced, as if he is.

Thompson himself, when pressured always talks of being a fan who also has to balance the books, yet he has behaved in a way no fan can related to and continues to damage the club. A true fan would have done what it right for the club he loves, yet Thompsons own ego seemingly won’t let him. It’s all about him, all about the money. His greed has got the better of him and he won’t back down and be seen to have lost.

Fans will not forget and most certainly will not forgive. He has ripped the heart out of our club on and off the park and cheated fans with empty soundbites and claims, all whilst lining his pockets. And those around him on the board are equally culpable. From player sales to staff departures, not a chance has been missed to earn a quick £, many of which have seemingly just vanished again.

His right hand man, his main advisor on the board appears to be Mike Martin. A Former banker for HSBC. Serious questions need to be asked about just what he is “advising”. It can only be assumed it’s purely advice on how to get as much money in his account as fast as possible, it’s certainly nothing to do with the Footballing side of the club.

Considering we’re meant to have somebody so financially savvy advising Thompson, Serious questions also have to be asked as to why, when we restructured our debt to pay off the bank, we repaid the interest free/low interest loans first but didn’t wipe the slate clean of the more expensive debts. Being kind, at best, that’s negligent.

All sorts of rumors have been surfacing about the clubs financial state, about how close we are to potential administration, about how small Thompson tried to make our playing budget this season, there has been very little positive in a financial sense and absolutely no denials of trouble. Quite the opposite in fact, the little info those close to the club have given out has been fairly negative, doom and gloom.

Given how much money we have brought in and how little of that has been reinvested, that is astonishing and points to serious mismanagement.

Of course the club needs to operate within a sensible budgetary range, but surely no matter what the scenario, the easiest way he’ll get the club turned around and an attractive proposition for a buyer is to invest a little more in the team than normal under the circumstance, give the manager the best tools he can possibly give him, try to get us back into the Premiership, or at least look like we were heading back there and help bring as much of a feelgood factor about the place as possible?.

If fans see positives on the park, see a bit of ambition coming from the top, as well as maybe a little less arrogance, they would likely be a little more tolerant of the frustrations of Thompson hanging around like a stench behind the scenes. It will never change the fact he ultimately has to go, but it would at least buy him some time as well as benefit him come sale time, yet aside from that and him claiming he is a fan as well, he is still happy enough with us having our manager being tied up picking between Dillon, Durnan or Donaldson every week in defence and won’t go out his way to rectify that. Ray has done his best so far, but it’s quite clear there has been a hard limit put on him financially.

Surely, given the state the club is in, the alleged “errors” Thompson has made and being a fan of the club, he should be doing everything in his power to rectify it. He is in a position to do so, yet fails to release the funds. It doesn’t add up. If only we’d pocketed well over £4 million more than we had total debt over the past few years…. oh wait, we did.

So where is it, Stephen? it seems we are about as likely to find that out as we are to keep a clean sheet 2 games running. He has been asked, he has never answered.

Whilst it is fair to point out that the figures quoted in the press are never what the club actually gets by the time various fees are deducted, there’s just too big a discrepancy. Yes, managers have been backed before Ray, There have been several expensive payoffs of managers and youtube special signings, but it doesn’t even begin to cover the missing amount. The lack of answers only further fuels the mistrust.

Not being seen to give us the best chance possible of promotion not only makes the situation more poisonous, it devalues the club, especially if we stay down another year. It’s impossible to see what Thompsons aim is right now. Perhaps he is hoping we will benefit from the sell on clause of Andy Robertson at Hull, or that selling only real saleable asset in Harry Souttar will see money being freed up, But i doubt many fans will hold their breath over any money being reinvested. It’s been clear for a while what we have needed, nothing has been done, why should this change matters now?

There is no ambition. No matter how clear the issues and how much we could all benefit, he won’t budge.

You feel his ego has taken such a walloping, he’s just in the huff rather than focusing his efforts on rebuilding the club.

The few things you can point to, as in the signings of Cammy Bell, Willo Flood and Van Der Velden, were likely as much about selling tickets as anything else. Yes, whilst they are relatively “big” signings, not only were they replacements for outgoing high earners, but they were in areas we had no bodies, let alone a level of quality to fall back on. Any side with true ambition would have supplemented these signings with a couple more players in key areas where we maybe had bodies but no quality.We’re still waiting for Defenders and have one senior striker on the books.

Are the current signings really that far beyond what we should have expected for our relative size of club?, they are perhaps at the upper end given where we are, but certainly not overly pushing the boat out. To claim they are is just spin.

A lot of it appears to be spin, stalling, buying time until the football started so the focus would shift away from the goings on at the club.

They had Ray working overtime all summer “building bridges” with the fans, attending Q+A’s, In the shop, visiting peoples homes, the works.The club appointed Jim Spence to help communicate with fans better, there was all sorts of ideas coming out and being floated, it’s all gone quiet again. You feel it’s all now a bit half baked and that effort has been wasted. Now the fans focus is on the football, it feels like the board don’t really care again. The promised “More openness” has already completely dried up right after a plea to buy tickets.

Under the circumstances, the fans have been utterly magnificent in their backing for the team. There can’t be too many clubs who have been so readily backed despite such turmoil and anger at those controlling the purse strings. Many fans feel a real dilemma on whether they want to put money towards the Thompson regime any more and that’s totally understandable. It’s a complete catch 22 scenario where we’re all desperate for change but don’t want to hurt the club. We have nothing to unite behind other than the team whilst Thompson lurks, hopes we fluke our way up with the bare minimum of investment and counts the ticket sales. And you get the feeling right now, As somebody that is in no rush to leave, sadly, that suits him just fine."

From some guy's blog. Probably WaWa.

 

This is what happens when someone from Utd Mad passes standard grade english...

Thompson is not innocent by any means at all, dont get me wrong here. What I will say is that the Jackie Dickheadwankshitefuckstainp***kscumbagnamaras doings at our club have been absolutely catastrophic. Thompson backed his 'manager' and did so too much. Just look at York.

He forced the Campbell issue and we know what happneed there. 

He brought in shite and payed them huge money showing he was backed by the chairman. Wrongly, but he was backed. 

Also the blogger says we've been sold out. Now I don't think he's being 100% fair. If I'd put that amount of my families cash into something, hardly had anything left and had a chance to make a chunk back, I'd do it. Too right I would and I think most people would do the same. He, at the time, probably had faith in Jackie having more playes up his sleeve and was probably being told as much. WRONG.

He gave Jackie way too much time to turn it around, backing him with big wage signigs it decent reputations, Anier, McGowan etc and it didn't work. 

Guilty of backing a silver tounged charlatan.

The media stuff didn't bother me. I liked hearing what he had to say mostly as we were doing well on and off as he says and his odd pop at Rangers were always a good read. Any comments he makes now would just be twised by people like this blogger as a way to put more pressure on him somehow. 

Thompson has done alright over the piece in my opinion. You can twist things, like Ive done or the blogger has done, to suit your agenda but the abuse he is getting is way over the top and the problem that brings is anyone looking to buy isna gonna to touch it wi' yours. It's got to stop.

Last point : I'm actually a little sad it's gone this way as we've been mainly on the up since his family took over. His old man farted more money against a wall than most of us will ever see combined for not alot. Thompson jnr has had to make lots of changes. He made some good and some bad. It would have been nice if he walked away into the sunset with both parties happy but it's not going to happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...