Neil Lennon upbeat ahead of summer transfer window opening

luckyPeterpiper wrote:It is y2j. 

Guess my hangover isn't quite as over as I thought. 

Never, ever drinking again. 

 i had a feeling that would be the case

luckyPeterpiper wrote: And in response to sluffy, there is no way in hell Eddie is going to write off a 100 million plus. If we owe it to him on paper he'll want it all back. For crying out loud it's more than his reported net worth!

It's a meaningless paper valuation.

No one is going to pay close to £200 million pounds just to buy the club - then spend another fistful of money to invest in it on things like players!

Anyone who wants to buy will put in a bid based on what they think the true value of the club assets are and it is then up to how badly or not Davies wants out of the club.

He will have in mind what actual investment he's put in the club and what sort of return he wants back - anything beyond that will be writen off if he wants a sale.

Common sense really - what's the point in holding out for a paper valuation of the business that no one will ever pay anyway?

I agree on that sluffy. My personal feeling though is that he'll want to sell the club for a fee of about 40-50 million and write up some sort of "loan" deal for at least a part of the rest to be repaid over a fixed term, say ten years. The main sticking point imo is that he seems determined to impose a condition of the new owners keeping Gartside aboard which strikes me as really bad business. After all if he's selling the club to someone else they're going to want the freedom to pick their own people to run the place and frankly Gartside hasn't exactly done a stellar job. 

I suppose it will all come down to money as always but frankly we are very, very deep in the mire right now. I don't see Eddie being able to sell us at all, not when we're such a currently unattractive proposition.

Rumour has it Gartsides heading up a consortium to buy Davies out.

bwfc1874 wrote:Rumour has it Gartsides heading up a consortium to buy Davies out.

   please God no, he couldn't run a bath nevermind a club

Serious backing from the Middle East says my source.. don't shoot the messenger.

Heard it all before, actions speak louder than words, you small orange.

Big season coming up, something special is brewing

Boggersbelief wrote:Big season coming up, something special is brewing

I actually believe something is brewing... the main reason is the clean-out of assets to make the books look better for a potential buyer.  Almost everyone who was making good money is gone... the Academy has been downsized... all things one must do to clean and give the books a good scrubbing for someone to look over.  My guess is there is someone on the horizon (or closer) who is examining the books for purchase... and we can only speculate on the fact there may be more than one potential buyer... a Gartside syndicate would not be out of the question as well as external possibilities... the least of whom may be our new shirt billionaire. 

Lennon has not put out any money so far... and if a new buyer does in fact come through, the potential for new players may be better than we hoped for.

Lots of unknowns going into the season... but hopefully we will have some good changes in the near future.

observer wrote:

Boggersbelief wrote:Big season coming up, something special is brewing

I actually believe something is brewing... the main reason is the clean-out of assets to make the books look better for a potential buyer.  Almost everyone who was making good money is gone... the Academy has been downsized... all things one must do to clean and give the books a good scrubbing for someone to look over.  My guess is there is someone on the horizon (or closer) who is examining the books for purchase... and we can only speculate on the fact there may be more than one potential buyer... a Gartside syndicate would not be out of the question as well as external possibilities... the least of whom may be our new shirt billionaire. 

Lennon has not put out any money so far... and if a new buyer does in fact come through, the potential for new players may be better than we hoped for.

Lots of unknowns going into the season... but hopefully we will have some good changes in the near future.

i seriously think this is the most exciting pre season we have had in a while

It is exciting especially as we're trying to trade within our means. I think everyone is fed up with us handing out fat contracts for average players so it will be interesting to see what can be done when the pressure's on.

wanderlust wrote:It is exciting especially as we're trying to trade within our means. I think everyone is fed up with us handing out fat contracts for average players so it will be interesting to see what can be done when the pressure's on.

I hope your optimism is justified lusty. But right now I worry that we can't afford or simply won't offer even an average contract to good players let alone ordinary ones. If sluffy and others are right and the books are being 'streamlined' to make us look more attractive to a potential buyer we might well see another summer of waiting till the last minute then diving frantically into a loan market where the best have already gone. 

I don't expect us to sign world beaters or pay huge numbers to fading stars like Sam was able to in the early part of his tenure but I'm worried we might well wind up with an even thinner squad than we had over the last two years, especially with the downgrade of the academy. I know, the window's not even officially open yet but after the Morgan fiasco (not Neil's fault, perhaps not even Phil's) I'm worried that every player we really want will wind up elsewhere simply because we can't afford to pay him. And yes that does include Madine.