Fans Comment
Richard Jones

£20M — Shrewd or Stingy?
17 May 2005

Following from Big Keith's statement — and as a way of idling away the boredom that comes to all contractors - that Moyes would have around £20M to spend on new players and retain current staff. I thought I'd get the old grey matter working and see where potentially, that pot of cash will come from.  I'm not an accountant, but even my basic schoolboy maths shows what is either a huge lack of ambition or a shrewd limit on the cash Moyes has to spend.

• Budgetted Premiership position (17th) £2M
• Actual Premiership Position (4th) £8M
• Additional Budget* £6M
• 1st Installment Rooney Money £10M
• Minus Bent, Cahill and Beattie £9M
• Net Profit on Transfers* £1M
• 2nd Rooney installment* £10M

*That totals to £19M additional revenue on top of ordinary/expected income.  Which means that the club is stumping up a massive — wait for it! £1M!!!!!!!  (Assuming that Big Keith's approx £20M wasn't £19M!)

Now, taking into account the half-dozen players that are likely to get new contracts, that's probably half the budget up the spout as Wyness's statement read that the £20M had to go towards wages and signing on fees as well!

• 2 years at £15k:  £1.5M x 6 = £9.5M
• So that leaves a conservative £10M left.

Now Moyes has shown he's pretty shrewd in the transfer market (the jury's still out on Beattie!) but that equates to two (possibly three) decent players or another half-dozen workmanlike 'honest' journeymen. Which strikes me as a little odd. With Weir, Naysmith, Pistone, Watson, all looking like they're off, it leaves us pretty flat in squad quantity — let alone quality!

The next 12 months offer a glorious chance to get this club, that we all love, back to where it and we deserve to be.  We do have a choice, we can:

a) sit on our laurels - probably qualify for the group stage and walk off with £8M to £10M, clear off the overdraft, and consign ourselves to being mid-table mediocrity (word of warning! Southampton were always happy to finish 13th!)

OR......

b) once qualification for the group stage is in the bag we can use the predicted revenue from that to secure Moyes an additional transfer pot or pay for the new academy.

Now I'm not talking about doing a Leeds and shafting the Club's future up against a wall but surely this is the time to invest not only in the playing squad but on cementing the future of the Club. Let's take a small risk for a potentially huge gain.

Fingers crossed that Moyes can work the magic his team show on the pitch in the transfer market and milk the most out of the £10M he has to spend on new faces.

Richard  Jones

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