The reason for mentioning Sartori is that he is often used as a comparator to DE. The fact is that it is easy to make promises, and much harder to deliver on them. DE has delivered roughly what he set out to do. He has made mistakes and the last year has not been great, but equally in contrast to recent times it has been far from bad.
The learn direct situation is interesting but is not comparable to Oxford in my view. The player sales have given DE some money back, but the kind of returns he would want if he saw us as a cash cow. He could have cashed in on Ledson and Eastwood, kept Pep drifting through his contract and spent nothing on Brannagan and Dickie. But he has put his hand in his pocket or sought the funding support of others. Either way, we as a club benefit.
Eh? There are differences of interpretation and then there is just delusion/lying (depending on intent).
There is no doubt that Ensco backed Ashton's vision until Ashton left. Over two years, 4.5 million was 'invested' over and above the 4 million spent buying the club.
Since Ashton left, the clear financials have been very, very different. Net, around 4 million has left the club.
Bringing in a chap who can't make the Reading squad is not 'putting his hand in his pocket' or not in any meaningful way. The total paid for Brannegan and Dickie was about 70k. 4 million goes out and 70k comes in and you call that 'sticking his hand in his pocket' ? Words fail me.
Even before Johnson got flogged (after a two month auction, by the way) the club had net receivables of well over 2 million. The hand certainly went to the pocket but never re-emerged!
This is all fine. Why should someone who put 4 million in not get 4 million back?
But please not let anyone pretend simultaneously that an effort was being made to improve the squad to make a real effort for the championship.
On the point about my supposed bitterness, maybe I am a little bitter. Not because I wanted to own or run the club. I couldn't afford to do either! But just imagine, for a moment, that you found someone with 20 million quid to invest in a League 1 club and brought him to OUFC. Might you feel just a little disappointed if, a week before the deal was due to close, it was stopped?
Frankly, if Tiger has 20 million to stick in then I will be upset if he is prevented from spending it on us!!
Stewart vetted Juan with all the care you would expect of someone who loves OUFC and ensured that the money was real and that he had proper football people around him.
So, Yes, disappointing that - at a stage when OUFC had positive momentum - it was deemed not in the interests of the club for Juan and Stewart to direct their considerable resources and energy to complete the job that WPL and Ensco had started. And all the more frustrating, once that decision had been made, to see things needlessly disintegrate 'in the interests of the club'.
Any fan who is not frustrated right now puzzles me deeply. People talk about this being 'consolidation'. It is not consolidation to have your worst ever result.its not consolidation to sack a manager after six months, but be left with his useless players. It's not consolidation to be humiliated in all three cup competitions.
If MK Dons win one game in hand then we are 5 points off the relegation places. We then have 11 of the 12 best sides in the division to play over the course of the next 17 games (We have already played a bunch of bottom end teams twice). So we need to start getting points against teams in the top 10. Perhaps someone can tell me when we last did that. There is a lot of sleepwalking going on.....