Mirth wrote:
Personally I think we'll be extremely lucky to get a manager as good as Klopp to begin with. I don't have faith in the board to make the right appointment. The target has always been finishing in the top four and I don't think that's changed
IMO it doesn't need to change, just as our self funding financial strategy doesn't need to change.
Much can be achieved in both aspects by simply changing the strategies HOW we look to achieve those outcomes.
The issue re top4 is that our strategies were based upon minimal effort, and the best example being AW's stated strategy this season based upon missing out on top4 by 1 point. Too often we've heard one thing stated by the club as wanting to challenge for the title, but the strategy is based upon the minimum outcome to retain top4, and accordingly we have little margin for error particularly if the circumstances change.
This is the same core issues with our long term strategies re our finances being based upon match day gate and the subsequent failures to adapt to changes in the market re commercial and investor owner revenues. Rather than adapt our strategies particularly regarding commercial revenues, we elected to supplement our extant revenues via player trading in the first instance, and then we didn't review or change once we updated our core commercial deals.
Under a new manager the top4 outcome can still be retained as the minimum requirement, but the strategy can be changed to be based upon doing our best to mount a genuine title challenge - top4 should be a consequence of what/how go about achieving our objective, and not the objective its self. Top4 becomes the safety net rather than the high wire we are aiming for.
Similarly with regards to our financial resources.
Currently we only spend any surplus cash on hand (and nothing that we know we are to receive before we receive it), and only anything that is over and above our known seasonal operating costs. This impacts both what we spend and when he have it available to spend. Likewise we also look to start each season fresh and do not include any residual cash on hand in our season transfer budget.
By including the previous surplus and any known revenues to be received we can still maintain the self funding policy but we then make those same funds available when they can have most impact - particularly if we are to operate under restrictions.
In both instances it's more HOW we do it rather than WHAT we do.
We simply need to adjust/adapt our strategies to be more efficient and productive, whilst at the same time ensuring that they compliment each other rather than to hamper.
