[Maresca Was A Baggie]

Even though he has lost a fortune, his money is probably safer in the club than if he were to sell and take the money into China. He may never see any of it.

[EastYorksAlbion]

Has anyone checked to see if Lai is connected to Fosun Group?  Surely the only explanation for his continued destruction of our club is that he is an agent of the Dog Heads sent in to bring us down?

[SmethDan]

Has anyone checked to see if Lai is connected to Fosun Group?  Surely the only explanation for his continued destruction of our club is that he is an agent of the Dog Heads sent in to bring us down?

Funny you should mention this. Henry Pu (I kid you not with the surname) is our current Finance Director. Formerly an employee of both Wolves and Fosun.

[chonobaggie]

From Hal Robson Kanu on Twitter.

It is always a pleasure working with @SkySports and last night I was covering the @pnefc v @WBA game at Deepdale. It was cold, so I’m bringing some of that coldness into this football thread below 👇

@WBA slumped to another defeat, having won 1 game in 12 league games so far this season, falling into the relegation zone. Fans have been calling for the manager to be sacked, and calling out the players - but feel like they aren’t being listened to.

I agree with them. But in a situation like this, we need to zoom out to understand the true nature of the accountability period. Let's remove emotion and incorporate a 360-degree view to identify the root issues.

18 months ago the team were relegated from the @premierleague. The owners decided to sack a manager who had delivered success (and $$$) to the club, hours after a 1-1 draw with then champions @ManCity.

Such an early change had removed any momentum that the group of players had. The season continued under new management, traction wasn't achieved and relegation followed. Following relegation, the owners decided that investment into the team wasn't required.

Key players were lost (without replacing them with significant signings) with money diverted away from the pitch and the fans. Now the club sits in the bottom 3 of the Championship in October, with a group of players, coaches, and a manager who are giving their all.

But the root cause and the value driver for change isn't down to any of them. Success or failure always starts at the top, and so should accountability.

[ex coseley kid]

Funny you should mention this. Henry Pu (I kid you not with the surname) is our current Finance Director. Formerly an employee of both Wolves and Fosun.

That's that, then. Lai is an agent of D.I.N.G.L.E. (Dastardly International Nefarious Group of Lowlife Eejits)

[South West Steve]

赖国川，滚出WBA足球俱乐部。你是在给自己和更广大的中国人民丢脸

Lài guóchuān, gǔn chū WBA zúqiú jùlèbù. Nǐ shì zài jǐ zìjǐ hé gèng guǎngdà de zhōngguó rénmín diūliǎn


(Guochuan Lai, get out of the WBA Football Club. You are dishonouring both yourself and the wider Chinese people, please save face.)


I've taken to Google Translate into Mandarin I'm so hacked off. I'm sure he won't read it here but makes me feel better. Going to try other social media platforms next. 😉

[skyclad99]

赖国川，滚出WBA足球俱乐部。你是在给自己和更广大的中国人民丢脸

Lài guóchuān, gǔn chū WBA zúqiú jùlèbù. Nǐ shì zài jǐ zìjǐ hé gèng guǎngdà de zhōngguó rénmín diūliǎn


(Guochuan Lai, get out of the WBA Football Club. You are dishonouring both yourself and the wider Chinese people, please save face.)


I've taken to Google Translate into Mandarin I'm so hacked off. I'm sure he won't read it here but makes me feel better. Going to try other social media platforms next. 😉

20 minutes Steve, do you want prawn crackers with that?

[tambag]

https://twitter.com/AhmedShooble/status/1578032404635131904

Bournemouth are just about to be sold for a reported 120 million !

Lai really did over pay on us !

[Hunnington Baggie]

https://twitter.com/AhmedShooble/status/1578032404635131904

Bournemouth are just about to be sold for a reported 120 million !

Lai really did over pay on us !

you could buy the whole town for less than that!!

[Dan]

It was always a worry that whoever buying us was so clearly going to be making a terrible business decision that it immediately called question on their competency. The clubs entire worth was valued around bringing in TV money, and unless you are one of a select few megaclubs who never get relegated you have to have mega wealthy owners putting their money in or at some point you will get relegated. Coming in trying to run the club like he did was always going to end in failure at some stage or another.

Basically every club in the premier league is now bankrolled by the owner, if you want to do what Lai did and buy a premier league club without putting your own resources into it you need to be working smarter than the rest to make up for the financial shortfall. Instead we have one of the most outdated set ups in English football and he's had numerous people take advantage of his lack of knowledge leading us to be a gravy train for slimy "football man" types.

It's really difficult to see where he goes from here because the clubs value is only going to dwindle a lot from this point, and the longer he stays the more it will depreciate. To get even close to what he paid back he'd need to get us promoted and then keep us there for at least a few seasons, and there's no chance of doing that while we are stuck 20 years behind every other club.

[AlbionFan]

After sacking Ron, I would go cap in hand to Mark Jenkins and ask him to return to the club as CEO and ask him to name his own price for doing so.

I'm pretty sure, however, he would refuse the offer as he knows what a hopeless basket case of a club we are.

[baggie82]

After sacking Ron, I would go cap in hand to Mark Jenkins and ask him to return to the club as CEO and ask him to name his own price for doing so.

I'm pretty sure, however, he would refuse the offer as he knows what a hopeless basket case of a club we are.

It is irrelevant which suit is in charge if the budget is the same. You get what you pay for.

[mateinone]

From Hal Robson Kanu on Twitter.

It is always a pleasure working with @SkySports and last night I was covering the @pnefc v @WBA game at Deepdale. It was cold, so I’m bringing some of that coldness into this football thread below 👇

@WBA slumped to another defeat, having won 1 game in 12 league games so far this season, falling into the relegation zone. Fans have been calling for the manager to be sacked, and calling out the players - but feel like they aren’t being listened to.

I agree with them. But in a situation like this, we need to zoom out to understand the true nature of the accountability period. Let's remove emotion and incorporate a 360-degree view to identify the root issues.

18 months ago the team were relegated from the @premierleague. The owners decided to sack a manager who had delivered success (and $$$) to the club, hours after a 1-1 draw with then champions @ManCity.

Such an early change had removed any momentum that the group of players had. The season continued under new management, traction wasn't achieved and relegation followed. Following relegation, the owners decided that investment into the team wasn't required.

Key players were lost (without replacing them with significant signings) with money diverted away from the pitch and the fans. Now the club sits in the bottom 3 of the Championship in October, with a group of players, coaches, and a manager who are giving their all.

But the root cause and the value driver for change isn't down to any of them. Success or failure always starts at the top, and so should accountability.

Pretty impassioned by HRK

I have to say that it is clear the problem is at the top, but I think Bruce has been an absolute failure also. I also wonder why any manager would want to manage us. Come to a club that will not invest any money at all, that has no football leadership and is heading down the drain.

We are well and truly on the way to becoming Coventry or Charlton, a club with a decent support base, decent ground size, but absolutely a basket case of a club.

If it continues I will be truly stunned if we could rescue the season and finish top half, I would think there is more chance of relegation than a top half finish. This owner has destroyed the joy that football is meant to bring fans and he doesn't give a damn about anything to do with the club except trying to save as much of his money as he can.

[tex]

Considering the relative sped he fired previous managers his patience with Bruce is baffling. If he is worried about the money to sack bruce then maybe we have come to a crossroads where to save a few pounds now he is willing to see his long term investment fall. This would be concerning because it would indicate that he is out of money and that is huge for even getting the loan paid back.

[SmethDan]

Considering the relative sped he fired previous managers his patience with Bruce is baffling. If he is worried about the money to sack bruce then maybe we have come to a crossroads where to save a few pounds now he is willing to see his long term investment fall. This would be concerning because it would indicate that he is out of money and that is huge for even getting the loan paid back.

Ron may have told him that bottom three is the new top three, everything's going to plan and we're going to storm the top two once our recently acquired veterans are up to speed. Don't panic Captain Mainwaring, everything will be fine  .

[mig]

Pretty impassioned by HRK

I have to say that it is clear the problem is at the top, but I think Bruce has been an absolute failure also. I also wonder why any manager would want to manage us. Come to a club that will not invest any money at all, that has no football leadership and is heading down the drain.

We are well and truly on the way to becoming Coventry or Charlton, a club with a decent support base, decent ground size, but absolutely a basket case of a club.

If it continues I will be truly stunned if we could rescue the season and finish top half, I would think there is more chance of relegation than a top half finish. This owner has destroyed the joy that football is meant to bring fans and he doesn't give a damn about anything to do with the club except trying to save as much of his money as he can.

Interesting that both HRK and now Austin have said we should never have sacked Bilic when we did. I imagine that a fair few of the current group therefore feel the same. I get the players absolutely should work hard regardless of who the manager, but sadly I think that’s increasingly rare in the modern game. Goes to show just how important it is to have someone in charge who the players respect, something Lai and co. hugely underestimated.

[baggiejohn]

Interesting video (highlighted by Chris Lepkowski on twitter) about the history of football in China.

Agree with CL's comments, it doesn't look good for WBA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rtgw2wiAMo

[SmethDan]

Their aims and goals were fine. Where they messed up was trying to become Johnny Big Potatoes too soon. They built a roof without foundations or walls

Rather than buy into big established clubs (and even us) they should have adopted the Brentford model. Attract younger cast offs with potential from around the world who are better than their own to raise standards within the base level and take it from there.

Slowly slowly catchee monkey. That's not racist in this instance by the way. More an example of newly acquired wealth meeting arrogance and hubris. Unfortunately for us indirectly. They only needed to look to America in the 70s to know what not to do.

[overseas baggie]

I remain perplexed at why people buy football clubs at the prices they do.  It makes no commercial sense.  Why pay nearly £200m (accepting that it included £40m of cash on the balance sheet) to buy a modest-sized Midlands football club which had been punching above its weight.  Where was the upside as an investment?

The excuse that it was a promotional platform for Lai’s Eco-towns in China doesn’t really stack up either.  Yunwai Sports has over 700 shareholders and they aren’t all associated with Lai’s Palm business.   All very odd indeed.

[stoxman]

It’s called “greater fool theory” in my game.  It doesn’t matter what you buy or what you pay for it so long as there’s a greater fool who will pay a higher price.  Happens every few years.  Dot.com, crypto, NFTs etc are retail examples but there are plenty at the supposedly institutional level too…

[baggiejohn]

I remain perplexed at why people buy football clubs at the prices they do.  It makes no commercial sense.  Why pay nearly £200m (accepting that it included £40m of cash on the balance sheet) to buy a modest-sized Midlands football club which had been punching above its weight.  Where was the upside as an investment?

The excuse that it was a promotional platform for Lai’s Eco-towns in China doesn’t really stack up either.  Yunwai Sports has over 700 shareholders and they aren’t all associated with Lai’s Palm business.   All very odd indeed.

There's a link to an article I posted (number 8343 on 7th oct) explaining the thinking behind China's football expansion programme.
There was enormous potential for Lai's Eco-Town expansion & football development.
I believe he was more interested in developing the academy model in China than the actual football club.
A year after our aquisition, there was a change of direction by the Chinese authorities, which left Lai high & dry.

Like you though, I find it astonishing that he would pay around £200 million for WBA Holdings, especially when the whole club was only valued at around £40 million by S4A.
I get that investors would pay a premium for shares in a company that had great potential, but 5 times it's valuation?

[tex]

The 40 million valuation was by peace when he was trying to squeeze the small shareholders out. This was never the true value of the club, just JP getting greedy.

[Baggies]

The 40 million valuation was by peace when he was trying to squeeze the small shareholders out. This was never the true value of the club, just JP getting greedy.

And taking advantage if genuine fans in the process. Never ever forget folks, never forget.

[overseas baggie]

The 40 million valuation was by peace when he was trying to squeeze the small shareholders out. This was never the true value of the club, just JP getting greedy.

Correct.  A truer valuation for a (then) established medium-sized PL club operating at a small profit with no debt was more like £120m-£130m when Peace sold.  Plus the £40m cash on the balance sheet at the time which got added to the purchase price.  Lai overpaid by around 20-25%.

[LiamTheBaggie]

Surely he has seen our results and position in the table and must intervene?