A little more Mauricio!

  • by Raedwulf
  • Filed: Thursday, 27th February 2014

I must admit, when I indulged in a little "blue sky thinking" I didn't expect to produce a lightning bolt that would blow up a powder keg! Perhaps I should have finished with a couple of questions to make the intent of my previous article just that little bit clearer.

Nevertheless, I'm slightly surprised that instead of simply making a lot judgements, no-one stopped to ask why I wrote or thought what I did. Without wanting to throw back any of the epithets that have been slung my way, allow me to explain the why and wherefore a little better. Hopefully then there'll be no-one calling anyone else stupid and ignorant, arrogant, etcetera...

One accusation is that I was jumping on a media bandwagon, I presume of bashing Sam. Afraid not. I've always been quite clear in my opinion, from the day of his appointment, that he's a decent manager, but not the right one for our club. I've never changed that position yet and have written variations on that theme since I started commenting on KUMB this season (I've been a "silent" browser for some years).

Having said that, I've also always said that I don't think he'll take us down (he just won't take us onwards either, to any great degree). When people on here were saying he had to go a few weeks ago, I was actually disagreeing. If the injury crisis eased, he'd keep us up; if it didn't, no-one else would. Lo and behold! Where are we now? It wasn't Sam that was issue in that regard. I just don't think he's the right man for West Ham overall.

The irony is that, whilst I would have been less strident, I agree with most of what Tom wrote in his first post (though not the vitriolic bits!) on the original. I lay the blame for much of it at Sam's door. If he wanted to develop the youth and the training facilities, I'm sure the Davids would back him.

Does he, though? He complains occasionally about the Chadwell Heath facilities. I suspect if he were offered £30million to re-develop or build anew, he'd ask for half of it to be spent on players and the other half on first team facilities. He's never had much of a reputation for bringing on youth, let's face it.

In short, I'm well aware of the Saints' investment, rather envious of it, and didn't mention it for exactly the same reasons that Tom did - it's a reason why Pochettino would not come. I was thinking out loud about whether he was the sort of manager we would want to attract and whether we could.

It's one very good reason why I'd love to see us recruit Pochettino or a manager like him (getting rid of the turgid football is another). Perhaps he'd like the challenge of rebuilding our Academy to its former glory? The two Davids have a lifetime each of successfully flogging dodgy merchandise; maybe they could come up with a sales pitch on that basis!

Anyway, back to first causes. I'd been looking forward to the Saints game (a bit disappointing as a spectacle, in the end), and it occurred to me that Pochettino would be just the sort of manager I'd like to see in charge of us. One game doesn't make a season; we beat Spurs 3-0 on their patch, but they're in fifth and we've been in the relegation zone.

What happened on the day has nothing to do with the context of the article. That we were more effective than them and won 3-1 doesn't make Sam a genius or Pochettino a dunce, and says nothing overall about the players on either side. In case it wasn't already clear enough, let me be more explicit.

I'd love to see us pinch Pochettino precisely because I admire what he's doing. In fact, I have considerable admiration for the Saints' late owner, former chairman and manager as well, for what they've done in rebuilding the club from the parlous state it was in. There but for grace of the gods we too nearly went!

There was no disrespect intended (although the crack about "a successful season for Southampton" was over-egging things; I got carried away a bit, mea culpa!). Quite the opposite - take my wish to recruit their manager as the compliment that it is.

As for whether we're a bigger club or a slightly wealthier one, there's a reason these articles are in the Opinion section of the site! Both statements are arguable, particularly the second, and I certainly wouldn't expect any Saints fan to let either pass without disagreeing.

Then again, if we all agreed about everything, everyone would support the same team, and that'd make a football league a bit of a difficult proposition!

Bigger? Our profile has been higher in recent years, albeit not always for the right reasons (e.g. Tevez); any Iron would probably argue it has been so for most of the last 50 years. A more telling coment may be that ESPN has our current average attendance at over 34,000, 98 per cent capacity, near enough.

Southampton's is some 4,500 lower, a little over 91 per cent. This in a season where they are being admired, and we've been playing crap, booing our own team (something I neither indulge in nor agree with), and some of our fans have been calling for a change of manager.

Slightly richer? And I only said slightly, please recall, and that with considerably less than certainty. That extra 4,500 bums on seats doesn't just mean more tickets and pies, although it's worth remembering that Arsenal built the Emirates, rather than build the team, because they were looking a decade ahead. Match revenues are a significant part of the overall picture, even if TV money is greater still.

It also implies a bigger fan base, and has a knock-on effect on advertising and merchandising revenues. We won't fill the Olympic Stadium when we move in, notwithstanding the expected flood of special offers and cheap tickets, but it certainly looks like our gates will grow if we can avoid any more injury-ravaged seasons and achieve top ten finishes as we did last year, and may well do this year.

When I looked before (not very hard, I admit), the latest Southampton accounts I could find were from our promotion seasons of 2011/12. Saints turnover £21million; Hammers £46million. £25million is a hell of a gap for that size of revenue, though I do wonder whether, or how, transfers are figured into "turnover". But has it shrunk? West Ham's last figures were just short of £90million for 2012/13. If it's still £25million, it's still a big revenue gap.

We've both got owners who may or may not put more money in, within the FFP limits (if they are made to stick), so we're even there. Then there's that debt, as Saint pointed out. I'm no financial wizard, but I do know that how much a company owes depends on how, or what, it chooses to define as debt.

The figure was held, by most sources, to be around £35million when the Davids took over. It was in their interests to loudly talk it up (to talk their purchase price down), which they did. It remains in their interests to publicly maintain that it is still high until such time as they want to sell (when it will suddenly start dropping). So how much is it really? Cynical? Moi?

Truth is, it doesn't matter whether West Ham are actually slightly better off or not. The real point is that IF West Ham were to make an approach, I don't doubt that a much rosier picture of our finances would be presented to Pochettino.

That "IF" is where this little day-dream falls apart, of course, and I come back to end of my first piece on this subject (hopefully with most of you understanding a little better what I was getting at). I don't believe there's any prospect of an approach being made. Our owners are too conservative to do so. Until Sam decides to retire from club management or our owners change, I think we'll be stuck with him.

Even if they did, those in charge at Southampton would be daft to let us talk to Mauricio. I certainly wouldn't! But, to conclude this with the two questions I maybe should have finished with last time, just suppose that unlikely scenario were to come about.

I'd like to think that West Ham is a club that would interest him, for reasons already laid out (and seemingly broken Academy ignored). He might well say no to us but, if we were at all serious, we ought to be able to sell the club well enough for him to talk to us. In that unlikely event, would you want him, or would you rather stick with Sam?

And in the far more likely event that no approach will be made, let alone accepted, if you just said yes to Pochettino, who else might you consider?

That, more or less, was the sort of discussion I thought might arise from the original piece...

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