What now for Lennon?

it's a tough balancing act, essentially picking a manager is pot luck, plenty of managers have been fantastic at one club then terrible at another. Gartside got lucky with Big Sam but the rest haven't been successful.
I'm a bit torn on whether i want Lennon to stay to be honest i'm not sure he has the knowledge to pick up gems from the lower leagues, he's a great motivator but it's not always enough, remember Uncle Owen?

Natasha Whittam wrote:
You need to show me evidence that Lennon can work on a tight budget.

The simple answer is you can't.

Well he kept us up last season, hardly spending a penny.

No I don't think of that as conclusive evidence, but nor is this season of the opposite.

I don't understand why you defend a man who keeps picking your arch enemy, Amos.

Never been a huge fan but I do think he deserves to see this through whatever the outcome.

I still can't fathom where the money is coming from to sack the manager AND his mates and replace them with a new manager AND his mates PLUS pay compensation to another team if they are in a job already (eg Brown).

Anybody else thought it was strange when Holdsworth kept mentioning all the time that he wanted to be hands on? Maybe the plan is for him to take over from Lennon and manage with his mates instead for a season or two and save a small fortune on the team managers wages.

After all Holdsworth is only the figure head and the anonymous new owners are the ones who actually pull all the strings.

Stranger things have happened I guess.

Not a bad theory to be honest. Especially if we go down.

If Holdsworth wants a long term relationship with BWFC then it would be madness to become the manager, anything other than success would leave him in the shit. They have a plan does it include a clean sweep time will tell. But new players in the game so it's game on.

Boggersbelief wrote:He must stay. He'd do very well with a decent side, as he was proving until he had to cut costs and let go of players like chungy.

We've struggled this season as he's had no money for transfer fees and very little money for wages. I'm sorry but anyone is going to find it difficult to improve the side.

For once I agree with you completely. I rate Neil Lennon and believe that he should be given a full season where he has some real money and no uncertainty about the very survival of the club to show what he can really do. Replacing him either now or in the summer would be a serious mistake in my opinion.

Phil Brown back at Bolton as boss? Just speculation at the moment but, from what I've heard,  bang on the money. Target of new bwfc regime (talk sport)

Be surprised if this was to happen, sounds like recycling of old news to me. 

Credit to LOVS though, their sources seem on point with this one.

I'll beat a dead horse again ......what is the fooking point of Sports Shield taking over if they don't have money to pump into the club?  All this bull about struggling on and more cuts ..... why did Ed pick this group over the other candidates.  Is this all we have to look forward too really.....it's all bollocks IMO.
Lennon has been scammed like the rest of us and told lie after lie ..... we are lucky he hasn't fooked off already IMO.

Maybe SS was the best offer of a very bad bunch? I'd imagine they were the only ones willing to meet Ed's demands whilst others were happy enough buying out of admin?

Lennon's had a rough ride, very unfair on him. But even given the circumstances it's impossible to argue he's done a good job.

I think sluffy posted before all the other interested parties are only interested should we go into admin. Should we start hoping the court appearance doesn't go so well next week.

I think SS only got the nod because they're were daft enough to agree to pay EDs bills. Which is why Tamraz has run a mile

y2johnny wrote:I think sluffy posted before all the other interested parties are only interested should we go into admin. Should we start hoping the court appearance doesn't go so well next week.

Not really.

Because that would mean the club would possibly be liquidated (no more BWFC) or at the very least, get placed in compulsory administration.

HMRC still need paying their £3m+, so after ED has lodged his claim as main creditor, whatever's left goes to them.

Cue massive fire sale (potentially involving flogging the ground, Lostock, whatever's left of the car park and anything else that Eddie's not already sold off), relegation, wholesale redundancies and the effective death of BWFC as 142 years' worth of history gets binned.

Let's not forget, ED only said he'd waive the debt if the club was sold.

So if it's Administration, he'll be at the front of the queue with his hand out like the rest.

Let's not forget also, all these other clubs who've survived Administration relatively unscathed only owed trifling amounts compared to our "soft, paper debt".

Ours is one of the largest in world football and if ED sticks to his guns, it may well kill us.

So I think it looks quite bleak.

I might have to change my avatar.

Me too

I still can't see what's in it for Sports Shield.

They exist to invest other people's money in the hope of getting a return on it and taking their commission to make a bit for themselves.

How on earth does that model translate or apply to buying an ailing football club with massive debts and who are nailed on to be playing in Division Three next season?

If that wasn't a put-off enough, you've now got FFP to contend with which basically says you can't secure any money you "lend" to the club against its assets any more, you have to gift it and effectively write it off.

And then there's ED's bizarre demands that they (SS) pay the HMRC bill which was allowed to run up under his watch.

And yet they've been hanging round for four months now, desperate to do the deal.

It just all seems very odd to me because I can't see why they'd do it.

However, from ED's side of the table, they've been very useful in keeping the courts off his back and allowing him to flog off the very few bits of BWFC that still have any intrinsic value like Euxton, so they've served him well.

(Where is the Euxton money, by the way....?)

By that I mean, they've been a tool he could use in court to pretend that a deal was in the offing and thus defer any judgement against him and the club.

I honestly still believe this was part of his exit strategy all along.

He knew he could never sell to anyone serious because they'd take one look at the mess in the books and run a mile.

But he had to get out somehow.

And SS have played along since before Christmas and unwittingly facilitated his implementation of Project Do One through their dogged determination not to be put off by his crazy demands, so he's thought "Great! I can proper milk this now! Happy Birthday me!"

That's why the Truss was being rushed through at light speed - just in case SS finally finally lost patience and said "You're taking the piss with these demands, Senor Presidente. Shove it!"

But they never have.

For some unfathomable reason.....and that's allowed ED to take us to where we are now - on the brink of being properly fucked.

If the Football League do knock SS back, I've got absolutely no doubt that the club will be "given" to the Truss after Administration.

(Which was probably ED's plan all along, as I believe I said on here in late December.)

I can't see what SS's business plan is either.

It is a fact that the club will trade at a loss until the end of July - so they will lose money there.

It is a fact that the committed wages for next season up to July 17 will cost more than revenue into the club - so they will lose money there too.

They can sell assets to cover their costs however - but then again so can Davies who can keep the club going until they all run out then hand it over to the ST without any undue haste - if that is what his plan was.

To be honest nobody knows who the investors in Moonshift were and now nobody knows who the investors behind SS are either.

I did speculate that they could be one and the same and this process was some how engineered to hand the assets over legally to pay them back in some way or other.

Yes I know it is probably a load of bollocks but I can't seem to find any other reason why SS has been so dogged on getting its hands on a club that it is trading at a loss (forget the debt element for now) for at least the next year and a bit.

If we get relegated which is looking more likely by the day, my understanding is that League 1 rules say the players wage bill has to be no more than a certain percentage of revenue - which in effect means we are already beyond allowable budget and so HAVE to dump as many of these players for FREE until we get within budget.

OK many of them have been a waste of space but we are looking to virtually wipe out the majority of the squad and start from scratch to be able to fit within the budget limit and that must impact upon our performances at least initially in a new division for us.

I could see the rationale of getting someone like Brown in who is familiar with this lower division BUT where is the money coming from to sack Lennon and his crew and bring in Brown and his?

Non of it makes any sense to me - unless someone has a reason for wanting the club for personal reasons.

So maybe there is something in my load of bollocks theory after all?