The Directors should be ashamed

[bexleyboy]

When you see Darren Bent, Andy Reid pulling the strings for Sunderland if they had not panicked they could still be doing this for us and in the prem.....

[Deleted]

Agreed !!

[canterburyaddick]

Darren Bent not so sure as we went down with him in the team, although his mid season injury was a major contribution to our relegation. They also got top price for him. Good to see him doing well.
The sale of Andy Reid at a time when we were in the play offs was unforgivable. We could all see that Pardew had no replacement for him, so it was all downhill from there.

[leedsaddick]

Pardew did have a replacement... he wanted Andy Gray and to fund this, Reid was sold..... I'd rather say witht he benefit of 20/20 vision, it was a poor judgement by Pardew....

[canterburyaddick]

nuff said. Even if he had played to his billing, he would never have replaced Reid's creativity. In fact he didn't even replace his goals. Are you saying that Pardew was happy with Reid going, provided he could get Gray. If so Pardew was a bigger plonker than I thought.

[leedsaddick]

From what I understand, Pardew wanted Gray and funds had to be raised and the offer from Sunderland was perceived to be good value given Reid's injury record. So, by default, Pardew must have agreed to the sale of Reid.... another gamble that failed to produce and dividend

For me, I couldn't understand the reason for signing Gray.... he's a journeyman footballer... I think we should have kept Reid until the end of the season..... anyway it's all history now... it's about the team and future that we're building now that matters

[ExeterAddick]

Rarely seen a player better at splitting a defence than Reid.

Also really like Benty, especially after years of watching average workmanlike strikers in our team like Bartlett, Euell, JJ and Svensson (god love them all).
There's the 'A Class' of strikers in the Prem, like Drogba, Rooney, Defoe, Anelka, Torres, V Persie, etc, then Bent is right at the top of the 'B League' in my opinion.
Glad he's doing so well

[liladdick]

"he wanted Andy Gray and to fund this, Reid was sold....."

lets face it, Gray was hopeless compared to Reid, it was a fatal decision to sell him to fund the purchase of Gray

[bingaddick]

Bexley this has been aired so often I just get bored repeating it. Andy Reid was sold on advice to the board buy Pardew who wanted to buy Andy Gray. He was told that to by Gray, they would need to sell somebody. Thomas was put up to go to Pompey but the deal didn't materialise. Reid was offered double bubble and wanted to go but the decision was Pardews. He spent some of the money on Gray, and then didn't pick him and signed unfit Lita and Cook, plus a raw talented winger in Sinclair. You can blame the board, I blame them as well but for not seeing through Pardew.

Darren Bent was sold to pay for the proflagacy of the Dowie season. His value to the club was the reason they gambled in the first place. That gamble backfired. There was no way they were going to gamble again to the extend of not cashing in the price that Spurs offered. The playing budget was still the one of the biggest in that division.

Tangoman hung on to Johnson for one season, they didn't go up either and he sold him for a lot less than he was offered the season before. Now look at Palarse. Crumbling support, crumbling ground (not owned by them), tranfer embargo, and having to rely on their youngsters.

[optimist]

That would be a first… Manager approaches board and asks if he can sell his best player!
Andy Reid was sold for the pure & simple reason. that he was going to double or treble his wages… If we had the clout to match that, he might have stayed… As with many cases we’ll never know, because our board naturally have their financial limits….
No matter what anybody thinks of Pardew, he’s not stupid enough to sell a player like Andy Reid for the likes of Andy Gray,,, If anything Pardew signed Gray as a replacement for the injured Todorov…

[bingaddick]

Sorry, I have heard this directly from somebody senior within the club. Pardew didn't know how best to use Reid. He was told that if he needed money he would have to sell a player. Reid was identified, Sunderland were interested and Pardew made the decison. I am sure he would have wanted to have bought Gray and kept Reid. He was told that he could keep Reid, despite the decent fee and Reid being offered more dosh, however the manager made the final call.

It doesn't work the way you suggest. It's down to a negotiation. Manager wants a new player, there is nothing in the budget. He pushes and pushes hoping that money will be found from somewhere. The Board pushes back saying there is none, except from player sales. Manager suggests a number who might be sold. No one come in for them. So Manager has to decide whether the priority is to sell his most bankable player (who he plays in a 4-5-1 which is not his favoured formation) and buy a striker who he hopes will get the goals to make the difference.

[bingaddick]

Pardew also claimed that he didn't know that Magic needed to be sold. This is not true. He was aware of the club finances from some while before. Of course he hoped that it wouldn't have to happen but he failed to plan for his departure until it was almost too late and ended up with an untried Cranie, and an unfit Primus.

[optimist]

“Somebody senior within the club“.
Who’s that then? Somebody that is in with the board perhaps?
Pardew proved to be a failure on many levels for us, but I can’t believe even he wouldn’t take on the basic rule of football management… You’re only as good as your players…. No, none of them want to sell their best players…. It was Murray who publicly told us the Andy Reid sale was good business….

[optimist]

To answer the original question….
What would many of the same fans say if our debt was £50m instead of £30m?? I hear moans about how useless they are for getting us in the financial mess we‘re in now… Can’t win with some fans, can they? It could be a lot worse, if they did listen to all!

The salary & transfer caps are not so high that we can just cave in to demands of players & their agents … The reality is if some rich club, offers one of our best players, a chance to double, treble their income, the outcome is 99% of the time going to be the obvious one…..
Our board only have so much money to throw around….
Hence the penny finally dropped with them, and they finally realised that they need to sell the club, hopefully to people that can possibly cope with all this financial madness in the game…

[bingaddick]

Sept 28, 2009 21:44:04 GMT optimist said:

“Somebody senior within the club“.
Who’s that then? Somebody that is in with the board perhaps?
Pardew proved to be a failure on many levels for us, but I can’t believe even he wouldn’t take on the basic rule of football management… You’re only as good as your players…. No, none of them want to sell their best players…. It was Murray who publicly told us the Andy Reid sale was good business….

Nope, somebody closer than that. No names no packdrill. You may doubt what was told to me was correct, you may wonder as to the agenda of the person telling it, I am not telling porkies. This is what I heard and having been in Board rooms myself over the years, (not Football I should add) it suggests a ring of truth to me.

Of course Pardew didn't want to sell Reid. Despite having wasted money on McLeod, Varney, Todorov, Andersen, Moo2, and failed to spot that Racon was brilliant (shipping him out to Brighton on loan) and having a huge budget for the Championship, he decided that he need to buy another Striker. The Board wouldn't sanction the deal without selling somebody and they knew that Reid was a saleable asset and were prepared to sell him, Reid wanted to go, but Pardew had to agree otherwise he would have stayed. Thats all.

Of course it was good business - with the fee which was secured. The decision was made by the Manager and ratified by the Board who set the framework.

That is how it works, otherwise you get the situation which Curbishley is suing West Ham over, namely that he was forced out because players were sold without his agreement.

Now Bexley has his point (which I don't agree with) that it was the Directors who flunked it. What happened factually was that Reid was sold to release funds, a chunk of which was spend on a striker who was unsettled, not really up for it, and was confined to the subs bench for long periods. Who does one blame for that? Not the Board IMHO.