Soccer 2014 - 2015

Welcome to the new season of Soccer ! Now that the World cup is done and dusted, we can get into the serious matters of football. Sorry, couldn't wait any longer.

First point of call, welcome any new comers. Most of the discussion here is based around the teams in the Premier League and the sometimes the other leagues from Germany/Spain. Mostly Liverpool FC thanks to a bit of a fan majority on that front, also in part with such a dreadful season from Manchester United that I had very little to say over the last season.

We'll be discussing transfers, rumours, sponsorship and preseason matches which will start for many teams in a weeks time. In fact the team I support, Manchester United kicks off vs LA Galaxy in Pasadena on the 23rd!
After that, there's a small yet interesting preseason tournament in USA, with Liverpool, M.Utd, M.City, Real Madrid, AC Milan, AS Roma, Inter Milan & Olympiacos. Mostly set in a 'friendly' competitive scenario, with matches all over the States. Teams there will be trying to run out new players, combinations, reserve players looking for promotion, new managers getting to grips with the team, etc.

The season will kick off eventually on the 10th of August, with a Charity Shield match between Arsenal and Manchester City. Arsenal won the FA cup, City won the league.
Otherwise, the actual season kicks off on the 16th of August. But we are a long way off of that yet. The fixtures list are hit and miss for some, United got a great starting one this season for example. Van Gaal should be able to ease into the league with this no problem.

Anyway ! On to more important things.

On the M.Utd front:
+ Van Gaal
+ Ander Herrera
+ Luke Shaw
- Evra
- Vidic
- Rio
- Giggs
- Moyes
+ ?750m 10 year contract with Adidas for shirts! GET IN!

For perspective: Real Madrid get ?31m a year per season in comparison! They'll eventually be theonly team that might beat it, when they get a new contract but that's far away until 2020 ! This is huge for the team because of the debt management that has pretty much created the problem with squad reinvestment (culminating with Ferguson jumping ship at a timely fashion and Moyes inheriting a pile of rubble, poor dude). In the last couple of seasons they've managed to reduce the debt to a healthy amount, but it still restricted transfers in the market. United have been trailing behind in this regard compared to Bayern, Madrid, Barca, City, PSG, and it's just fortunate that they had the manager like Ferguson at the time to get by with what he had. It prevented him from having a strong starting 11 to win many knock out competitions (the last time the FA cup was won in 2003/4!!)

And what would you know, a central midfield signing in Herrera, a good one at that, can't quite wrap my head around this concept. Luke Shaw will get a lot of run outs now Evra has gone (and this was forced on by his Wife... Manchester weather?). More signings to come, surely. With Suarez off to Barcelona, it's been a good week.

Of course. As we both know, United have revenue streams to match the teams I listed, but because of the debt interest repayments, they do not have the means to compete with those type of teams on the transfer market. United's transfer policy has been pretty weak in comparison. The difference with Ferguson is that he could create a squad that could win the league or at least finish top 3. It wasn't often that they would have a stronger 11 than a rival in the league... the types I feel account for the lack of cup trophies over the last decade.

Ossoi_sl said:

I've just proved that you have absolutely no reason to cry about UTD spending power or lack of it.

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Have you? Nice confidence

There is a major reason to complain about Uniteds lack of spending power(AFTER 2005 - OF COURSE 2000 ERA WAS DIFFERENT) and you obviously know fuck all about it. I don't complain about any spending power before Glazers, and I'm a life long fan so fuck you for that.
Since Glazers took over from 2005. Did you know that United spend more on interest alone than on net transfers, for every season (other than the Ronaldo sale season - which funded debt anyway) up until 2012 (equals) ? Are you that obtuse that you would think halving or more a teams transfer budget is a thing to not complain about? Fuck man.

For more perspective: United have spent on interest alone, over ?350m since 2005. The total cost of it with repayments and the like, is over ?600m. But I suppose that figure isn't worth complaining about, right? Fuck man.
The season where United spent '?90m', please. ?30m was for both Nani & Anderson, with the Hargreaves fee (?16m?). Carrick was the previous season, but they sold players (Mikel/RVN) and had a surplus. So they went a bit over their standard ?25-?30m range (ie a Berbatov, Mata, RVP per season). And still, they managed to spend close to ?60m this year on interest alone, which was more than those transfers combined. And thats nothing to complain about, right?

More perspective: United were spending up to 75% of their profits annually on debt interest. How would any non Oil team be able to compete with that? They wouldn't. Eventually, United couldn't either after Ferguson left! Everyone knows United needed serious reinvestment in different areas of the pitch, but it never transpired. If they could afford to spend ?30m on Ferdinand in 2002! 2002!! Maybe they would have, in theory, been able to spend more than ?30, nearly 10 years later? Nope. Not until now anyway. And besides, transfer records isn't important when you need multiple players ?15m-30m range.

The difference is now United have finally addressed the debt, they had to put a part of the club out on the market and continue to use funds to lower it. But it's manageable, - they still have around ?300m? but the interest is like ?10-15m per season whilst the revenue streams have been growing extremely well, even excluding the new Adidas ?75m per season deal. Hopefully the spending doesn't end up on dividends to the share holders, or Glazer staff costs though. Pretty much out of the woods!

So yes, wheres this fucking point that you proved again?

Ossoi_sl said:

Fellaini in Summer, Mata in the January transfer window. ?64m total, ?53m spend the previous season, ?22m season prior, and ?44m the previous season. UTD don't seem to have an issue spending cash

Yes UTD have interest to pay but my point stands - cry me a fucking river. LFC were 24 hours from administration due to worse American owners than the Glazers.

You are crying about not being able to outspend City or PSG - whilst completely ignoring the fact that for the majority of the last 15 years, UTD spending power has completely dwarfed the rest of the Premiership. Yes Russian/Arab money has transformed Chelsea/City but they have not been able to translate that spending into a run of continued success.

Moaning about the interest whilst conveniently ignoring that under the Glazers turnover has increased significantly, especially via commercial deals, is retarded.

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Your point does not stand. If you merely suggest that a ?600m black hole from 8 years of interest and debt repayment is offset by the commercial increase from the Glazer take over, which could in theory occur with any other debt free owner, you are simply an idiot. This shit is common sense, common knowledge to people in the football and anyone who pays attention to accountancy. Just not LFC fans. /surprise
If this is, again, acceptable to you because lesser clubs like LFC have had their own problems, or other teams can't compete with United's spending power even though severely impeded, again you are an idiot.

Guess when the debt was re-serviced? Late 2012. It's specifically between 2005-2012, where the majority of ?600m hole was formed, stifled united squad reinvestment potential and culminated in a squad which was out of it's depth, which eventually showed itself in a 7th place finish last season.

Your point is simply reduced to this: "Bla bla, United usually can outspend everyone anyway, so fuck em if they were crippled by debt - they have no right to complain!!"
The opinion of a bitter jealous rival fan. No less, no more.

Ossoi_sl said:

It's right there, in bold. You pretty much agreed with me that UTD fans shouldn't be crying about their finances.

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And I never said otherwise about CURRENT finances. Right now, it's healthy - assuming they don't take the piss with dividends & Glazer staff expenses. And with the Adidas deal and TV revenues catching up with La Liga, in a year or 2 United could be the richest team in the world. And that, sir, is why United has the muscle to compete with FFP restricted Oil clubs (or a feeble attempt at restricting) , Bayern, Madrid & Barca. The previous debt finances meant they simply couldn't, even though they were still generating revenues in line with those power house teams. Do you finally understand now?