duncanjwitham

Quantuma insist on £5m, all the bidders refuse, and then they liquidate us?  That's the plan?  Quantuma basically had zero leverage throughout the entire process - they were entirely at the whims of the various bidders.  It's not like a normal sale process where the current owner has absolute power to place conditions, and ultimately decide not to sell if they didn't feel the deal was right.
Don't get me wrong, Quantuma appear to have done a pretty poor job, but they aren't supposed to be miracle workers.

Ah yes, Quantuma's biggest mistake was not simply selling us to one of those guys with a massive pile of money to burn. Silly Quantuma!
The facts are, the amount of debt we had far outweighed the actual value in the club/stadium, and arguably the minimum price to even keep us as a league club was higher than the actual value in the club.  So at that stage, every bid is scraping around trying to reduce costs and make an offer viable.
If we assume Kirchner was an honest bidder (for arguments sake), then saving £23m on the ground and reducing the upfront cost was his way of making the offer into what he thought was viable.  Everything we heard about Ashley's bid was about slashing costs (wanting Morris to pay for the stadium, Quantuma to reduce their fees etc), he clearly wasn't going to swan in and throw £50m+ to buy the stadium and clear the debts upfront.  Appleby and co seemed to be forever scrabbling around for investors, with no suggestion he ever really got a solid group together.  The Binnies disappeared very quickly when it became clear they didn't have the funds.  Who were these other credible bidders that were going to pay a big deposit,  buy the stadium and pay 25% up front?  Clowes has basically been forced into burning his own money to save his football club as a last resort.

No, you were proven right to have your concerns. Your justification was off though.
You say Kirchner's bid wasn't credible because he was buying a club with only 5 players for £28m. Yet Clowes just bought the club for the same amount. You have no idea what arrangement was in place between Kirchner and Clowes regarding the Stadium. It's more than feasible to say Kirchner was going to buy the stadium for £30m once we're back in the PL.
You say Kirchner's bid had red flags all over it without actually having the evidence to look at. The administratiors, the EFL, TripleS, and Clowes were all convinced he was legit based on the actual evidence provided to them. Goldman Sachs also invested $60m in Slyncio and wer convinced he was legit. He bought a jet worth $15m...
What a nonsense analogy. There's a very large list of clubs who pay rent for their stadium.
A better analogy would be owning a franchise to sell Subway sandwiches. The franchise itself is pretty much worthless without a place to sell food. But, rent somewhere to sell them and suddenly it's a a much better deal. Of course, you could buy a place instead to save on the amount you're paying out on rent, but it's a decent chunk of money to pay upfront.
Our previous rent of £1.1m, which would be reasonable for a £23m property. An investor could do what they do... invest the remaining £21.9m in something else. They'd only need a 5% return to effectively use the stadium at zero net cost whilst paying nothing upfront. 
Andy Appleby who struggled to get the investors to raise the cash in the first place, then still bid lower than Kirchner AND Clowes...

Quantuma insist on £5m, all the bidders refuse, and then they liquidate us?  That's the plan?  Quantuma basically had zero leverage throughout the entire process - they were entirely at the whims of the various bidders.  It's not like a normal sale process where the current owner has absolute power to place conditions, and ultimately decide not to sell if they didn't feel the deal was right.
Don't get me wrong, Quantuma appear to have done a pretty poor job, but they aren't supposed to be miracle workers.

Ah yes, Quantuma's biggest mistake was not simply selling us to one of those guys with a massive pile of money to burn. Silly Quantuma!
The facts are, the amount of debt we had far outweighed the actual value in the club/stadium, and arguably the minimum price to even keep us as a league club was higher than the actual value in the club.  So at that stage, every bid is scraping around trying to reduce costs and make an offer viable.
If we assume Kirchner was an honest bidder (for arguments sake), then saving £23m on the ground and reducing the upfront cost was his way of making the offer into what he thought was viable.  Everything we heard about Ashley's bid was about slashing costs (wanting Morris to pay for the stadium, Quantuma to reduce their fees etc), he clearly wasn't going to swan in and throw £50m+ to buy the stadium and clear the debts upfront.  Appleby and co seemed to be forever scrabbling around for investors, with no suggestion he ever really got a solid group together.  The Binnies disappeared very quickly when it became clear they didn't have the funds.  Who were these other credible bidders that were going to pay a big deposit,  buy the stadium and pay 25% up front?  Clowes has basically been forced into burning his own money to save his football club as a last resort.

Quantuma insist on £5m, all the bidders refuse, and then they liquidate us?  That's the plan?  Quantuma basically had zero leverage throughout the entire process - they were entirely at the whims of the various bidders.  It's not like a normal sale process where the current owner has absolute power to place conditions, and ultimately decide not to sell if they didn't feel the deal was right.
Don't get me wrong, Quantuma appear to have done a pretty poor job, but they aren't supposed to be miracle workers.

The administrators are legally obliged to accept the best offer for the creditors. The evidence presented to them (the EFL, and other parties) must have shown he had the money. The latest article from Forbes somewhat hints at why the money got held up.
As I told you several times in the past, the financial difference between 25% and 35% was only about £1m. An investor would have been better off investing Y2 and Y3 money into something else and cash in on those investments when Y2 and Y3 instalments were due. They would have made more than just £1m in interest off those investments.
And you rightfully got slated by my for the exact reasons I gave.
Let's not forget well regarded administrators have come out and said they wouldn't have dared touched this case due to the complexities. Sure, Q could have done some things better (a lot better?), but still managed to get us out of admin in around 282 days.
Wigan, with much lower debt and many more saleable assets took 272 days (and several PBs), yet didn't come under anywhere near as much ridicule.
Portsmouth were in admin for 427 days (2012-2013). Trevor Birch was the administrator for that one.

Ah yes, Quantuma's biggest mistake was not simply selling us to one of those guys with a massive pile of money to burn. Silly Quantuma!
The facts are, the amount of debt we had far outweighed the actual value in the club/stadium, and arguably the minimum price to even keep us as a league club was higher than the actual value in the club.  So at that stage, every bid is scraping around trying to reduce costs and make an offer viable.
If we assume Kirchner was an honest bidder (for arguments sake), then saving £23m on the ground and reducing the upfront cost was his way of making the offer into what he thought was viable.  Everything we heard about Ashley's bid was about slashing costs (wanting Morris to pay for the stadium, Quantuma to reduce their fees etc), he clearly wasn't going to swan in and throw £50m+ to buy the stadium and clear the debts upfront.  Appleby and co seemed to be forever scrabbling around for investors, with no suggestion he ever really got a solid group together.  The Binnies disappeared very quickly when it became clear they didn't have the funds.  Who were these other credible bidders that were going to pay a big deposit,  buy the stadium and pay 25% up front?  Clowes has basically been forced into burning his own money to save his football club as a last resort.

Ah yes, Quantuma's biggest mistake was not simply selling us to one of those guys with a massive pile of money to burn. Silly Quantuma!
The facts are, the amount of debt we had far outweighed the actual value in the club/stadium, and arguably the minimum price to even keep us as a league club was higher than the actual value in the club.  So at that stage, every bid is scraping around trying to reduce costs and make an offer viable.
If we assume Kirchner was an honest bidder (for arguments sake), then saving £23m on the ground and reducing the upfront cost was his way of making the offer into what he thought was viable.  Everything we heard about Ashley's bid was about slashing costs (wanting Morris to pay for the stadium, Quantuma to reduce their fees etc), he clearly wasn't going to swan in and throw £50m+ to buy the stadium and clear the debts upfront.  Appleby and co seemed to be forever scrabbling around for investors, with no suggestion he ever really got a solid group together.  The Binnies disappeared very quickly when it became clear they didn't have the funds.  Who were these other credible bidders that were going to pay a big deposit,  buy the stadium and pay 25% up front?  Clowes has basically been forced into burning his own money to save his football club as a last resort.

Ah yes, Quantuma's biggest mistake was not simply selling us to one of those guys with a massive pile of money to burn. Silly Quantuma!
The facts are, the amount of debt we had far outweighed the actual value in the club/stadium, and arguably the minimum price to even keep us as a league club was higher than the actual value in the club.  So at that stage, every bid is scraping around trying to reduce costs and make an offer viable.
If we assume Kirchner was an honest bidder (for arguments sake), then saving £23m on the ground and reducing the upfront cost was his way of making the offer into what he thought was viable.  Everything we heard about Ashley's bid was about slashing costs (wanting Morris to pay for the stadium, Quantuma to reduce their fees etc), he clearly wasn't going to swan in and throw £50m+ to buy the stadium and clear the debts upfront.  Appleby and co seemed to be forever scrabbling around for investors, with no suggestion he ever really got a solid group together.  The Binnies disappeared very quickly when it became clear they didn't have the funds.  Who were these other credible bidders that were going to pay a big deposit,  buy the stadium and pay 25% up front?  Clowes has basically been forced into burning his own money to save his football club as a last resort.

Quantuma insist on £5m, all the bidders refuse, and then they liquidate us?  That's the plan?  Quantuma basically had zero leverage throughout the entire process - they were entirely at the whims of the various bidders.  It's not like a normal sale process where the current owner has absolute power to place conditions, and ultimately decide not to sell if they didn't feel the deal was right.
Don't get me wrong, Quantuma appear to have done a pretty poor job, but they aren't supposed to be miracle workers.

Obviously you don’t want to read too much into preseason games, but the slightly concerning thing is that we’re carrying on last seasons pattern of playing well against footballing teams (Hertha Berlin), and struggling against teams that try to stop us playing (today). And in League one, there are going to be significantly more teams trying to stop us than trying to outplay us.

Usual caveats about preseason/heat etc, but the thing I found most worrying last night is that we seemed to have no answer to them stopping us playing out from the back.  It's not a case of our midfielders passing sideways/backwards because they're lazy or scared, it's because Stevenage were blocking off their forward passing options.  A certain amount of that is definitely down to preseason+heat - you need players busting a gut to get into space to receive the ball, and the conditions were definitely not ideal for that.  Likewise when we did manage to break the lines, the player often found themselves isolated and ended up going backwards anyway, but players won't be sprinting up to support and sprinting back afterwards as much in a game like last night.
The thing I find most interesting is the way we've used James Collins.  He's barely touched the ball in the 2 games I've seen this week - he's played much further forward than Plange and CKR have previously, basically like a proper striker rather than dropping off to link the play.  Which means we've basically been playing with 10 men for large parts of the game.  If you want to play possession football, you can't afford to be a man down like that.  But we also haven't (as far as I can remember anyway) gone direct to him even once.  When we have been more direct, it's been balls over the top for wingers to run onto.  If the opposition are doing a high-press, then one of the ways to beat it is to go direct to a striker and play from there - at the very least it will force the opposition to sit back a bit more because they have to be wary of a longer ball - but we haven't even tried that.  It seems to be like we're not playing to his strengths, and his strengths don't seem to suit the way we want to play.  Obviously early days etc though.  (And I'm not saying play direct all the time, just mix it up occasionally so you don't become predictable.)
It could also be the case that Rosenior is deliberately telling our players to not go direct in preseason, to force us to get used to moving the ball under pressure, and he's going to mix it up a bit more when the real games start.  And if that's the case them fine.

Usual caveats about preseason/heat etc, but the thing I found most worrying last night is that we seemed to have no answer to them stopping us playing out from the back.  It's not a case of our midfielders passing sideways/backwards because they're lazy or scared, it's because Stevenage were blocking off their forward passing options.  A certain amount of that is definitely down to preseason+heat - you need players busting a gut to get into space to receive the ball, and the conditions were definitely not ideal for that.  Likewise when we did manage to break the lines, the player often found themselves isolated and ended up going backwards anyway, but players won't be sprinting up to support and sprinting back afterwards as much in a game like last night.
The thing I find most interesting is the way we've used James Collins.  He's barely touched the ball in the 2 games I've seen this week - he's played much further forward than Plange and CKR have previously, basically like a proper striker rather than dropping off to link the play.  Which means we've basically been playing with 10 men for large parts of the game.  If you want to play possession football, you can't afford to be a man down like that.  But we also haven't (as far as I can remember anyway) gone direct to him even once.  When we have been more direct, it's been balls over the top for wingers to run onto.  If the opposition are doing a high-press, then one of the ways to beat it is to go direct to a striker and play from there - at the very least it will force the opposition to sit back a bit more because they have to be wary of a longer ball - but we haven't even tried that.  It seems to be like we're not playing to his strengths, and his strengths don't seem to suit the way we want to play.  Obviously early days etc though.  (And I'm not saying play direct all the time, just mix it up occasionally so you don't become predictable.)
It could also be the case that Rosenior is deliberately telling our players to not go direct in preseason, to force us to get used to moving the ball under pressure, and he's going to mix it up a bit more when the real games start.  And if that's the case them fine.

Obviously you don’t want to read too much into preseason games, but the slightly concerning thing is that we’re carrying on last seasons pattern of playing well against footballing teams (Hertha Berlin), and struggling against teams that try to stop us playing (today). And in League one, there are going to be significantly more teams trying to stop us than trying to outplay us.

Obviously you don’t want to read too much into preseason games, but the slightly concerning thing is that we’re carrying on last seasons pattern of playing well against footballing teams (Hertha Berlin), and struggling against teams that try to stop us playing (today). And in League one, there are going to be significantly more teams trying to stop us than trying to outplay us.

Obviously you don’t want to read too much into preseason games, but the slightly concerning thing is that we’re carrying on last seasons pattern of playing well against footballing teams (Hertha Berlin), and struggling against teams that try to stop us playing (today). And in League one, there are going to be significantly more teams trying to stop us than trying to outplay us.

Obviously you don’t want to read too much into preseason games, but the slightly concerning thing is that we’re carrying on last seasons pattern of playing well against footballing teams (Hertha Berlin), and struggling against teams that try to stop us playing (today). And in League one, there are going to be significantly more teams trying to stop us than trying to outplay us.

That’s a stronger team than I was expecting.

The ironic thing is, I think every English football fan wants the best young English players going and playing regularly for the best teams in the country, playing in the Champions League etc and really kicking on the national team in the process.  They just don't want the best young English players from their clubs going.

Obviously the admin has caused us issues specifically, but there's a wider issue.  Post-Brexit, English clubs can't just hoover up the best teenagers from Europe any more (FIFA rules make it difficult for Under 18s to move between countries, but the EU Single Market overrides that), so they're obviously focussing on English players instead.  The issue they have is that if they wait until they are 17/18 years old, they cost like £20m+ (see Jude Bellingham), because smaller English clubs are comparatively richer than equivalent European clubs.  So they're hoovering up all the English U16s, who aren't old enough to sign a pro contract yet, and will only cost whatever the transfer tribunal decides they are worth (which is fractions of what the likes of Bellingham cost).

There’s agreements and there’s “agreements” though. The not being able to pay fees thing doesn’t seem to jibe with other clubs that have been in administration, so either the EFL have enforced a stricter rule on us for some reason, or we’ve actively opted for it, presumably to allow some more leeway elsewhere (like wages). Or I suppose there’s some other subtlety to it that explains the difference - we can’t pay fees right now, but could reinvest some proportion of any fees we bought in, for example.
As far as I know, the agreements are normally for 2 years (assuming we’ve paid off the creditors upfront).

I wonder if that's an EFL enforced diktat, or if the club have chosen to say we're won't pay fees, if we can have a slightly bigger wage-budget to play around with.  Given how many free agents there are about, post-COVID, it wouldn't be a crazy position to take.

A few random thoughts, having been to the game… 
Hourihane and McGoldrick look like proper, proper footballers. They should walk this league if we can keep them fit.  NML and Barkhuizen look like they’ll be useful but inconsistent, I think they’ll be frustrating, but will do enough to win a lot of games. Chester and Wildsmith both look good enough on the ball to play out from the back.  Roberts looks excellent - on that showing I’m more than happy for him to be our first choice left back all season.  Oduroh looks very raw - he was good going forward, but all over the place defensively. There’s definitely a player there, but I think he needs more time to develop.  Collins was very isolated at the start of the match, he barely touched the ball for half an hour. He started dropping deeper and getting more involved after that, but we probably need a careful think about how (and maybe when) we use him.  Bird just gets better and better. Both Stretton and Knight look like they’ve bulked up a bit over the summer.  There was a definite drop off in quality as subs came on and the experience levels in the team dropped, which is understandable of course, but it does highlight the lack of depth in places.
I think we definitely need a right back, a backup left back (presumably Fozzy) and another winger, and maybe a backup GK. But that aside, I’m pretty happy with how the squad is shaping up.

Given how isolated Collins got at times today, I think there will definitely be games where playing McGoldrick up front on his own (dropping off to link the play, Chris Martin-style) and a midfield 3 of Bird sitting, plus Hourihane and Knight (running beyond McGoldrick) is the right call.  Obviously picking which games are those games is the challenge etc.
Although I suspect it will be a moot point and Knight will be sold to a top end championship/lower prem team.