Championship 2017/18

[Norbert Rassragr]

Wolves will end in tears one day. Either the agent will get bored and foist too many Myles Anderson types, or the agent and the owner will fall out over 'consultancy fees' and suchlike and the Chinese owners pull the plug.

[chaddyrovers]

On ‎14‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 22:51, DE. said:

Sunderland almost certainly down now. 6 points adrift with only three games remaining. They need to win all three of their remaining matches (only won 6 all season) and hope pretty much every team above them fails to win.

feel for the Sunderland fans as Ellis Short has been disgrace as owner there

[Bigdoggsteel]

1 hour ago, Norbert Rassragr said:

Wolves will end in tears one day. Either the agent will get bored and foist too many Myles Anderson types, or the agent and the owner will fall out over 'consultancy fees' and suchlike and the Chinese owners pull the plug.

They have made it to the Premiership though, so whatever happens, right now their fans are on top of the world 

[JacknOry]

Isnt it funny that it took agents to successfully run a club for it to become hot gossip? We barely got spoken about while they were destroying us - but now its suudenly wrong when Wolves are scaring some of the big boys.

[JHRover]

21 hours ago, Norbert Rassragr said:

Wolves will end in tears one day. Either the agent will get bored and foist too many Myles Anderson types, or the agent and the owner will fall out over 'consultancy fees' and suchlike and the Chinese owners pull the plug.

Not so sure. Depends whether the Chinese are genuinely interested in football and building something or whether they're only in it for short term publicity and because the agent sold them a dream that they bought into. It could go either way but the evidence so far is they have a lot of money to invest, are going to do it regardless of the pathetic FFP rules, and aren't bothered what people or the authorities think about it.

There's no reason we couldn't do what they have done these last 2 seasons, by which I mean spend massive money, build a very strong side and stroll to promotion to the Premier League but we haven't got the brainpower or determination to do it.

If it is a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby they can promote their company, develop Wolves overseas and Mendes meanwhile gets to move his players around then everyone wins, meanwhile the Wolves fans are delighted just to be remotely successful after nothing of note for decades and the media love them because they've got loads of fancy foreigners playing 'good football' which is always preferred over British players and managers doing it the old fashioned way.

[JHRover]

19 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

feel for the Sunderland fans as Ellis Short has been disgrace as owner there

Difference with Short is he has been honest. He's gone on record and admitted he wants out and has no interest in it anymore and just wants to sell up. He's even offered to give them away but the debt situation makes that very difficult. Its not a nice situation to be in at the moment for them but at least he doesn't continue the charade that our owners do where they pretend to care and be interested and want what is best when they clearly couldn't care less. Sooner or later Short will find someone to take the club off his hands and Sunderland will come back as they are an attractive investment with their fanbase and stadium.

[Norbert Rassragr]

15 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Not so sure. Depends whether the Chinese are genuinely interested in football and building something or whether they're only in it for short term publicity and because the agent sold them a dream that they bought into. It could go either way but the evidence so far is they have a lot of money to invest, are going to do it regardless of the pathetic FFP rules, and aren't bothered what people or the authorities think about it.

There's no reason we couldn't do what they have done these last 2 seasons, by which I mean spend massive money, build a very strong side and stroll to promotion to the Premier League but we haven't got the brainpower or determination to do it.

If it is a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby they can promote their company, develop Wolves overseas and Mendes meanwhile gets to move his players around then everyone wins, meanwhile the Wolves fans are delighted just to be remotely successful after nothing of note for decades and the media love them because they've got loads of fancy foreigners playing 'good football' which is always preferred over British players and managers doing it the old fashioned way.

It may indeed work out, but we all know the risks of letting an agent more or less run the club. It also takes money of of the teams' pockets as the agent will want millions in fees of all kinds, and would be happy to unsettle the club's top players if a really big club is interested. When you have the president of Sporting Lisbon saying he has no idea who owns his players, surely 3rd party ownership is suspicious.

 https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/oct/03/sporting-lisbon-bruno-de-carvalho-pressure-third-party-ownership-rojo
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/doyen-sports-wins-legal-dispute-with-sporting-lisbon-over-compensation-claim-for-transfer-of-maros-a6787046.html
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2892/transfer-zone/2014/09/10/5096091/sporting-lisbon-president-rages-against-third-party-monster
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-brazil-ownership/brazil-bans-third-party-ownership-in-line-with-fifa-rules-idUKKBN0KM2EY20150113

Whilst outright 3rd party ownership of players has been banned by the EU and FIFA, this set up with an agent and a foreign owner is a way around that. It's probably what Big Sam was caught talking about that brief moment he was England manager. Wolves will be like one of those ants that has been infected with a mind controlling fungus.

[Blue blood]

26 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Difference with Short is he has been honest. He's gone on record and admitted he wants out and has no interest in it anymore and just wants to sell up. He's even offered to give them away but the debt situation makes that very difficult. Its not a nice situation to be in at the moment for them but at least he doesn't continue the charade that our owners do where they pretend to care and be interested and want what is best when they clearly couldn't care less. Sooner or later Short will find someone to take the club off his hands and Sunderland will come back as they are an attractive investment with their fanbase and stadium.

Another thing to mention is that Sunderland have spent HUGE amounts under Short. It's not a lack of investment, it's a complete and utter squandering of vast amounts of money from the Di Canio reign onwards which has made the situation a train wreck. Read an article upon it and the sums they gave out to players was staggering - can only remember Rodwell on £70K a week with no relegation clause for starters, although in fairness I hadn't heard of the other players. Coupled with some big contracts for bad characters who enjoy the party and gambling lifestyle (allegedly according to a Sunderland fan I know) it makes for a very toxic mess.

 

As for Wolves, they're already getting some publicity. A couple of international students I know, whop have less interest in football then I have in knitting, both posted Fosun/Wolves celebration posts on Facebook, so it does seem as if an increased awareness is working.

[K-Hod]

Also, on Sunderland, Darron Gibson has been in court (for the second time) for drink driving (this time took place 6 months or so after he was un banned) and I hadn't realised he had left them by 'mutual consent'.

The judge hasn't ruled out jail time as he crashed into several cars and drove off, even wrote off one young lad's car. When you add Jack Rodwell being on £70k a week and not playing and under contract for another year, you start to think they might even be in more of a mess than we were when we were first in the Championship. At least we had a few years in there, double dip relegations (as is most likely) could be catastrophic....

[DE.]

A lot of their fans appear to be looking forward to being in L1. Hard to blame them considering how many consecutive seasons of depressing football they've had to put up with. Even their "great escape" seasons in the PL were largely miserable campaigns. They had that one glimmer of hope when Allardyce was appointed, only for England to snatch him away (then to add insult to injury he ends up being sacked after a single match anyway). Then they had Moyes in full on 'doom' mode. 

If we can have a successful season under Venky's (assuming we get promoted this season) then in theory there's no reason Sunderland can't have one next year, even with Short at the helm. We had to extract a lot of poison to get moving in the right direction again, and so will they. The difference is we shifted most of ours (Kean, Murphy, Orr, Etuhu, Agnew, Coyle) in the Championship. They will be trying to get rid of theirs in L1 which might prolong their stay a little.

[frosty]

3 hours ago, DE. said:

(Kean, Murphy, Orr, Etuhu, Agnew, Coyle) 

What a repulsive list that is. Seeing one of those names would be bad enough, never mind all of them together! 

[JacknOry]

Wolves are managing it by bringing in players worth $15 mil upwards that are of real quality. Players that will likely move on for bigger fees. We did it by bringing in Edinho, Bruno Mars at RB, another fullback whose name I cannot bring myself to type, a million pound teenager now playing non-league and two past it mercenary CMs that couldnt (or wouldnt) even move their legs. 

The ones with actual potential we let go for peanuts in King and Rochina while the rest bled us dry as we tumbled down the leagues.

[Gav]

On 16/04/2018 at 14:53, Norbert Rassragr said:

Wolves will end in tears one day. Either the agent will get bored and foist too many Myles Anderson types, or the agent and the owner will fall out over 'consultancy fees' and suchlike and the Chinese owners pull the plug.

Couldn't agree more.

They brought in Walter Zenga to start off with after bombing Lambert out of the club when he refused to sign players he'd never seen, and Walter failed miserably.

Wolves will fail, its only a matter of time.  

 

[DE.]

56 minutes ago, frosty said:

What a repulsive list that is. Seeing one of those names would be bad enough, never mind all of them together! 

Agreed, apologies, I should have put a health warning up first!

[Norbert Rassragr]

14 minutes ago, Gav said:

Couldn't agree more.

They brought in Walter Zenga to start off with after bombing Lambert out of the club when he refused to sign players he'd never seen, and Walter failed miserably.

Wolves will fail, its only a matter of time.  

 

Thanks Gav. I thought I was the only one who didn't go for the Wolves/Mendes love in. It's like the name Jerome Anderson has been forgotten by some.

[AllRoverAsia]

1 hour ago, Gav said:

Couldn't agree more.

They brought in Walter Zenga to start off with after bombing Lambert out of the club when he refused to sign players he'd never seen, and Walter failed miserably.

Wolves will fail, its only a matter of time.  

 

The Chinese own 20% of Mendes and he has got himself a 'stake' in a PL club, he would be insane to mess up, more in the 2 partys interests to provide Wolves with decent PL standard players.

Mendes and the Chinese are on to a win, win, win situ.

[LDRover]

Sessegnon for Fulham again tonight. What a player, and only 17? You've also got to weep that we only got 2 million for Cairney....

[Mattyblue]

Back to back relegations for Sunderland, that even beats Venky’s for ineptitude...

[roverandout]

Chris coleman being shown up for what he is..a mediocre manager..was made ti look good with wales by gareth bale

[Tom]

51 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Back to back relegations for Sunderland, that even beats Venky’s for ineptitude...

And for Jason Steele - abysmal goalkeeper 

[DE.]

Still can't believe they paid us money for Steele. Absolute robbery but thanks anyway. 

There must be some serious toxic elements at Sunderland for them to not only double drop but be the first Championship team relegated. Not sure they'll breeze through L1 like us and Wigan have either. 

[davulsukur]

Huge season for Sunderland next season. If the club doesn’t get sold, their current owner seems totally uninterested. 

Not totally sure of the debts they have but I can’t imagine it’s small. 

Its going to be a total rebuild for them in the summer with little funding but like us, probably need to be coming back up at the first attempt.

I do have some sympathy with them just because we’ve been through similar with awful owners resulting in league one football.

[Butty]

3 hours ago, DE. said:

Still can't believe they paid us money for Steele. Absolute robbery but thanks anyway. 

There must be some serious toxic elements at Sunderland for them to not only double drop but be the first Championship team relegated. Not sure they'll breeze through L1 like us and Wigan have either. 

There squad needs an absolute full rebuild, tough job for Coleman and whether he's good enough to do that job, time will tell. Worrying times for the Mackems.

[DE.]

Just now, Butty said:

There squad needs an absolute full rebuild, tough job for Coleman and whether he's good enough to do that job, time will tell. Worrying times for the Mackems.

Indeed. The only thing I will say is that the gulf between the Championship and L1 is MUCH larger than the gap between the Championship and the Premier League. There's a very noticeable drop in quality and money in this league definitely talks. IF Short or a new owner is willing to invest a few million into the squad and jettison the poisonous members of the current dressing room then Sunderland should bounce straight back. It's a big if at the moment though.

[chaddyrovers]

4 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Back to back relegations for Sunderland, that even beats Venky’s for ineptitude...

feel for the fans

32 minutes ago, davulsukur said:

Huge season for Sunderland next season. If the club doesn’t get sold, their current owner seems totally uninterested. 

Not totally sure of the debts they have but I can’t imagine it’s small. 

Its going to be a total rebuild for them in the summer with little funding but like us, probably need to be coming back up at the first attempt.

I do have some sympathy with them just because we’ve been through similar with awful owners resulting in league one football.

The current owner isn't interested in club one bit. 

feel for the fans. 

the owner is to blame for the current crisis not Coleman