LCFCJohn

Yet it gets called rewriting history to bring these things up. It is not rewriting history and not just attacking Aiyawatt or questioning Vichai as a reason to get at Aiyawatt. We just turned a blind eye to it for years. It’s embarrassing having the club behaving like this. I agree with a point that was put to me yesterday on this thread, that we wouldn’t have been bringing this up had the club been sold in 2018. But it doesn’t make it rewriting history to call it out now, in retrospect.

I would consult Nigel Pearson (consult not employ) on what he saw when he walked into the club in 2008. The sports science, the scouting both in terms of value and characters (the absolutely critical) and the sports psychology side. These areas were the envy of other clubs in his time. Sports science and fitness - as we have seen this season, you don’t get anywhere when your players aren’t fit and putting the hard yards in. As well as fitness, the sports science side we had maintained an excellent injury record, in terms of reduction of injuries in the first place and quicker recovery. Scouting - lower wages, up and coming players from lesser known leagues who will want to be here. Accompanied by solid pros to add experience. Think the likes of Kevin Phillips and Wasilieski. Every signing being completely with moving the player on in mind. We have so many now who we have given too higher wages to and can’t shift and they are too comfortable. Psychology - we heard how important Ken Way was during the title season. We are such a weak minded club right now. Even thought Puel and Macia brought in good technical players, the mentality side has been neglected bar the odd signing since Pearson was here. Players like Maddison and Ricardo. Very good players but not ones you’d want to be in the trenches with when the going gets tough. And no jobs for people based on just being around the club for a long time. Best people get the jobs. No sentiment.

Why? I’d say most are at the state of acceptance that we aren’t catching Portsmouth so it doesn’t really make a difference. It is just about when it becomes mathematically confirmed.

I don’t really get how anyone can be stunned or surprised by where we are. It’s been increasingly obvious for a while. That thread from August that resurfaced was interesting. I didn’t expect us to go down this season, back at the start. I thought it’d be a couple of years decline but that we would end up relegated to League 1 before long. Whilst falling straight through this season is worse than predicted by most, there’s a difference between not predicting it being this bad and being shocked about it. In terms of why, nothing to do with the points deduction. We are fast heading into territory where we go down by more points than the 6 deducted. Even if we are relegated by less, our on the pitch performances would only have seen us scrape survival anyway. It’s not the investment as every time this ownership ‘invests’, it results in crimes against football. The reason is we are a toxic club, Southampton and Ipswich aren’t. We are a club in a civil war state. Owner against fans. Fans against fans. Players not playing for the fans or each other. And it all comes from those at the top being toxic and not taking any accountability (or not being held to account by most of the fanbase).

It’s not really clear if you are defending them or not here! I mean Pearson did get promoted after he sorted the mess out from the ‘investment’. If you’re saying it’s hypothetical he would have got us promoted if he’d stayed originally, it’s no more hypothetical than us getting promoted with KP’s wasting money left right and centre before Pearson came back. Wasn’t 116% wages to turnover more recently? Either way, it’s reckless and not sensible investment. If it was 116% at the time of promotion, what the hell was it before Pearson came back and stripped it all back? 150%? 200%? Is there evidence that figure was from then as that doesn’t seem right?

I don’t know. It’s hard to know how he will react when it unravels (obviously it has already unravelled to many of us but when administration happens). I speak to a Sheffield Wednesday fan at work and he says a lot of what has happened at our club sounds like Chansiri. The Thai propaganda, thin skinned, ego etc. I hope he wouldn’t react the same but I wouldn’t trust him with anything.

Investment is always useful if done sensibly. I would say the investment under Pearson was modest not significant but it was maximised by Pearson/Walsh. At the point of the takeover, if you had the following two options and had to choose which one would result in promotion, what do you think? 1 - Pearson in charge with his structure and the minimal investment that had brought us back up from L1 and straight to the playoffs and on the up. 2 - Chuck money at individuals like Matt Mills, Neil Danns and Jermaine Beckford in the name of investment. I strongly think option 1. I think Pearson could well have got us promoted on the limited investment he had before. But I don’t think KP would have got us promoted at all if they had just thrown money at expensive mercenaries (sounds familiar).

We are better off if the club owns it. If it ends up with a Chansiri situation with him owning the asset and holding it out of spite, are we better off? I don’t have the answers. But I’d fancy the chances of dealing with a council or at least an impartial and professional business than a vindictive individual with a bruised ego.

Somewhere between. Obviously not Stansfield money as a PL side in Fulham gets more than a L1 side. Rightly so in that case as Stansfield has played at Championship level. Leyton Orient are a similar standing to Wycombe and the players of a similar age and performance level at L1 level. It would be the contract length so I reckon he’d go for about £8 mill. Honestly don’t see us spending anything in fees, let alone that much, and let alone that much on one player…

Clubs will definitely be after Nelson. Perfect storm to pick up an England U21 defender who has done well up to this season and whose stock has dropped due to the team he has been in and his performances of course as a result. Not saying he’s been great. But with a year left, us being desperate financially, how much do we really think we can get for him? Of course there’ll be clubs higher up the pyramid willing to take a punt. Given the circumstances, he represents a good opportunity. Stolarcryk also has a year left so represents a chance to get something for him. Otherwise I’d agree. Probably a lot of loans and frees to pad out the team and squad when many leave.

Exactly. Some of the shouts on this forum! Where do people think the money is coming from? I saw something saying that Orient were benchmarking Ballard against Stansfield. That doesn’t obviously mean they’ll get £15 mill but he has a decent length contract left. Kone went for about £5 mill with a year left didn’t he? Bet Orient will have their eyes on around £10 mill personally. Maybe won’t get that high but well out of our range and will have offers from the Championship.

With what, magic beans Freebies and loans from higher division power houses like Coventry City and Ipswich!

Interesting figures. I do buy that they wouldn’t want a club like Leicester to do it again as the big clubs are favourably looked upon and there was a direct quote wasn’t there from someone within the PL about not wanting any more Leicester City’s. But there’s a difference between enforcing the rules in a way that there can’t be any more Leicester City’s (like Villa and Newcastle getting so far and stalling) and actively trying to punish the club years later which is definitely a daft point of view.

I didn’t want to comment on something I wasn’t knowledgable on but I did wonder this. Owning the stadium is only a good thing if the club is protected by it. If it is something that in the event of administration is not an asset or they Aiyawatt could play hardball with and withhold out of spite, it’s not very helpful. In fact we’d probably be better off if it was rented from the council!

Well I am no more hung up on stuff I have said like the trophy lift, Thai king parade, financial shenanigans around our promotion etc than you are about the stadium, clearing debts. As I said, there are some good and some bad which is what I have said numerous times. You haven’t really addressed my point that all I have said is he is not some saint who did no wrong and who was solely responsible for our achievements. You have used the word worried. Why does it worry you what I and others think? You have your opinion that he was great. I have mine. All about the opinions and debate. Doesn’t mean I respect anything else you post on the forum any less for it, even if I don’t agree with you on this. The whole bit about the luck involved is countering a point I have never made as I have never said that was not the case. I agree Pearson wouldn’t have guided us to the title because like you say, it was a perfect storm and if you change a single thing about a perfect storm, it doesn’t happen. Maybe if Ranieri hadn’t bought them pizza it wouldn’t have happened! (Ok maybe a too small detail)! But I was just saying, nothing Pearson did in his time here was lucky as it was all meticulously planned and considered. Thats my point really. There’s always luck involved in football but if you have a strong strategy like a Bloom/Benham or you recruit the right people to run things, you are making your own luck. Whereas we are seemingly in agreement accepting that Vichai was never a football brain but he appointed Rudkin….As I have said numerous times myself, the success becomes tied to the manager. Pearson namely but even Puel/Macia had a vision. A successful club that wants to remain so, needs that approach from a consistent level above and managerial appointments fit in with this. You can see this with how our appointments flipped flopped around even following the title win. I’m not saying we’d have fallen as hard and as fast, even as low as we have under Vichai. But the transfer strategy was already all over the place, contracts handed out going up and commercially we were no better. I think we were in trouble either way but Vichai was of course a better businessman as I have acknowledged and would likely have made more decisive decisions to counteract it. Would he have removed Rudkin? Who knows. On your last paragraph, I do tend to agree but don’t agree that it means rewriting history or using it as a reason to attack Aiyawatt. I think there were things that were just ignored and swept under the rug because we were doing well. If a new administration had taken over after the accident in 2018, and KP had left the club, I think there’d have been no reason for people to revisit what happened before. As it is, his son has tanked us (something I believe you do agree with and feel strongly about) and we have many fans basically using his fathers era to justify not criticising his running of the club now. So if it causes people to think back, I would say it is because of his running of the club and the insistence on defending him, but not to attack him nor rewrite history which to me implies making up events that didn’t happen. The other relevance is, unless you think the behaviour of the fans who won’t hear a word against Aiyawatt is normal, you’d accept there’s somewhat of a cult following developed around KP. Would you agree? If so, it’s relevant as you can definitely trace this type of KP first messaging dating back much before 2018. As I say, we just collectively ignored it.

I agree with you up until your last paragraph. You are still sticking by the narrative that Vichai is only being criticised as a f*** you to his son and I have explained why that is not the case. It is simply looking back and reflecting. You don’t think things like dominating the trophy presentation, picture of Thai king etc are red flags? The financial nonsense that followed us up to the Premier League originally not a red flag? He did good. He did bad. Like most people I’ll add. Due to the fortuitous events that followed, I’d argue the bad/red flags were brushed under the carpet so it is just brining balance. Nothing to do with his son. I disagree Pearson and his team were lucky by the way. That was well thought out strategy.

Well yes I agree. But my point was him being lauded by many as a football genius, hence people saying he ‘won the league for us’. Obviously business was his skill set. However, if you are being given credit as the owner of the football club, you either need to be a Bloom/Benham who really understands the football side or recruit the right people to oversee the club. You have said yourself, football wasn’t his area of expertise. But he appointed Jon Rudkin to run things. So he has/done neither of those things. The success was based around the manager at the time and that was risky as we saw there was no continuity or succession plan. That’s why I say it was built on sand. Look at the mess that followed with the sackings of Ranieri, Shakespeare and Puel (obviously after his passing but seemingly on the cards and reportedly delayed because of what happened). On your points, stadium yeah fair enough. It was a good thing that we own it. Clearing the debts. This is the old converting to equity unless I am missing something and Vichai did something different to what Aiyawatt has done. Which isn’t really very helpful as it has just artificially raised the value of the club they would need from a sale beyond what the assets are actually worth. Basically insolvent. If he actually paid off debts that were then not causing a knock on effect to the club and essentially ‘gifted’, then ok. I think you also raised charitable donations. You never know what to believe but allegedly, the donations had to be repeatedly chased. If that was true, it takes away any credit for generousity in my view if it was attempted to be avoided. If it was genuine and given willingly, it is of course generous. But I have said before, without knowing exact amounts regarding wealth and what the donations were, it might be relatively speaking like me or you giving £50 to charity. Yes it’s generous but I wouldn’t expect to be considered a philanthropist forever more because of it. As I say, he was fine. Obviously well liked. But people claiming he won the league for us are what get the backs up of people like myself and others. But I do think, when you look back, there were a number of things that displayed a lack of respect for the club such as the things mentioned before. We had a proud history up to 2010 but the whole club has been conditioned to act as though we have only existed since 2010.

I generally agree with what you post but our views differ here. I am not saying that he was a bad owner, my point is more about his role in the achievement being overstated to the point people say Vichai or KP ‘won’ us the league. This to me, is disrespectful to all those who, in my opinion, had a larger hand in it or were just as involved. I disagree we were stagnant. We had just come up and immediately finished 5th and got in the playoffs, under Pearson. The future was bright as it was. We may not have had as much investment but we shown in the first couple of years of their ownership, that ‘investment’ meant nothing when not done sensibly. Ultimately, I feel Pearson was getting us back regardless and the needless managerial changes after they took over actually set us back. But, he was able to admit mistakes and act decisively and if his son could do the same, maybe we wouldn’t be on the brink of League 1. You can’t rewrite history when it comes to things like hogging the trophy lift, picture of the Thai king paraded round and removal of references to our previous history from the stadium etc. Obviously their part in the achievements is up for interpretation and rewriting of history if that’s what we are calling it. I believe it is more that we were all swept up at the time and understandable didn’t focus on the red flags such as the above. It is more that time has passed and the dust has settled and we can now see what things were glossed over in that era. People would love any chance to stick the ore into his son by highlighting Vichai’s ownership. If people are criticising Vichai looking back, it’s not due to being angry at his son but due to genuine red flags missed during the ownership. As I have said before, this is not a case where success was ownership led, such as Brighton and Brentford’s rises up the league and becoming PL sides where the owners strategy is the reason. Our success was mostly linked to one manager and his team. In terms of the set up. Remember that after the title win, we sacked a manager each season due to being in a relegation battle (or heading that way) up until after we had lost Vichai (Ranieri, Shakespeare and Puel). For me, it was never built on stable foundations. It was built on sand and it’s not surprising it has crashed down. When you look back.

True! Another step towards as we stand!

Yes, in general football terms it will be. But also tempting to see Forest fall apart as their entire run since promotion, including getting promoted, has been based on luck really. Jon Moss handing it to them in the playoff final, us blowing up in their first season back, awful promoted teams (Sheff Utd, Luton and Burnley) the season after and then this season getting through managers on a weekly basis! And their owner is vile.

They won’t have even considered League 1 was an option so I can’t imagine there’d be anything specific like that but I have no idea what goes into these contracts. But even the £4 mill or whatever it was will be unaffordable for us.

Nelson and Stolarcryk will be the ones that are easy to shift on lower wages. We will have to sell them with a year left on their contracts and needing anything we can get. £10 mill is so unrealistic. I reckon maybe £3 mill combined for both of them. It’ll be a case of take it or they walk for free the year after.

It’s always been KPFC since they took over. Huge levels of propaganda. There’s never been any acknowledgement of the clubs achievements in the 126 year it existed before their involvement.

Give it up Not mathematically. I expect it will be mathematically confirmed the mid-week after when we play Hull.

Sunderland and Villa wins please. Forest or Spurs to come down is fine.