barbear

Pedro's got everything to prove but there was a physical aspect to our game tonight that Warburtons teams never had.

Solid performance from Morelos. Drew defenders in with his runs for Pena's goals. Anderson couldn't handle his control and turn and got sent off which secured the win. Had the energy to turn and run at their defence after 86 mins which fucked their defence when ball came into Dorrans Might not have scored but really impressive performance tonight.

John Whittaker?

As the biggest single source of income should we as a support be demanding that any new owner builds fan ownership into the model? IMO we need to ensure that we never have a David Murray/Craig Whyte situation again. One person (or a small group of individuals) cannot have autonomy to control everything. The RFFF has proven fans will pledge additional financial support when it's needed. I'm sure sums pledged would increase dramatically if monies raised put the club in the control of the fans. If you agree then I appreciate the main challenge would be who 'fronts' and administers the investment vehicle to fund the buy-in? My own view would be Smith as the face supported by a board of fan nominated supporters club reps. Keen to get other people views on this. Do you feel strongly enough about fan ownership to threaten a boycott should a new owner dismiss it? Or, are you happy to let a new owner/consortium have full control of the club?

Unfortunately not mate, just a small business owner that's been a creditor on the wrong side of too many 'phoenix' businesses over the years.

Sadly it could be and wouldn't be the first and last time a carpet bagger company director does this.

Murray could argue that he sold the club to Whyte with full disclosure of the tax case and the the potential liabilities that could arise from it to counter any claims of negligence as a previous Director. Whyte could argue that he was not responsible for the decisions that were made by previous Directors that led to the tax investigation and felt it was right and proper to hold back payment of further taxes whilst the club was in 'dispute' with HMRC. It's almost like this situation could suit both of them or something..

Getting to that number of members would be amazing. I'm sure there would be lots of people who could afford to spend more than me but even getting an average of £150 a year from 35,000 season ticket holders is £5.25m which would start to make European revenues a bonus and not a necessity.

Whoever buys the club off Whyte would be mad not to consider building in some element of fan ownership given the lack of other revenue streams in the SPL. I pay £570 a year for my season ticket and would happily pay an extra £250 if I could see where it was going and have a vote against the management team coming in to run the club.

Totally agree, Murray was thick as thieves with the media though where as Whytes told them to pick a window!

My personal view is he will be worth several million pounds. I've not seen anything to suggest he has tens of millions of pounds in hard cash to throw at transfers and wages. I do think he's very good at restructuring businesses and moving money around. I believe Murray was desperate to sell the club last summer as if the tax case goes against us HMRC could have used their enhanced criminal investigative powers to damage him and his other business interests. As Whyte wasn't a director at the time the EBTs were allegedly used for tax evasion this risk is reduced. The other thing that, for me, underlines his strengths is the fact that the former Wavetower business now has Capital Shopping Centres as it's ultimate parent company through Liberty Capital. In my opinion this deal will have been done to reduce the amount of corporation tax paid by the ultimate parent. They can show the debt as an £18m 'loss' in their accounting period. This is common practice and it could be the reason Phillip Betts was brought in. Overall I don't think he has much money but is looking to restructure the corporate side of the club to clean it up and sell it on.

Agreed, but owning a football club and then outsourcing services to other companies you own at the expense of the football club isn't great either. I'd love to know the profit margin built into the deals 'won' by Azure Catering, Response and Carnegie Information Systems.

Him and Edu were excellent and covered the whole pitch today. Both benefited from having an extra man up front and the space it created.

If that's the extent of his plans then he'll offer us nothing as an owner. Most businesses would love to have 200,000+ customers willing to spend an extra £50 a year with them yet the extent of our marketing seems to stretch as far as paying to sponsor a player.

McLeish had it bad in 2003/04 losing the likes of Ferguson, McCann, Amoruso, Konterman, Caniggia and Numan for £10.5m and replacing them with Capucho Ostenstad, Namouchi and Emerson for under £700k