Jeff Shi Out

[WW1963]

First defeat in months and this thread reappears.

So predictable

Always going to happen. I guess the crash is greater because of the high from Sunday. Nobody is going to feel good about calling for GON to be sacked, so Shi is the obvious target for anger.

 

[North West Wanderer]

So why were we told to see this season as like we are a newly promoted team in his letter where he admitted multiple failings with transfers and the rebuilding of the squad? Needing a mass fire sale to avoid FFP failings to the point we need a striker and we cannot afford to get one in the last window……

The fall out and JL situation, does not scream a well run and competent management structure. The exits of Ruddy, Sais, Raul and Coady were shocking in how they were treated by the club! Two of whom the manager wanted to keep and one had an agreed Contract disappear…..

Again not the actions of a competently run club.

his organisation and senior team saying to the fans on YouTube, that those who go to matches and separate themselves with their cash directly to the club had been underpaying and were actually partly the reason they couldn’t spend more, so had to up the ticket prices to see us be more competitive……. What a ****, horrible and disrespectful and thing to say to the fans who create the atmosphere in the ground!

The actual result….. annual increases (more in succession than any team in the league) and the largest difference in prices in that period across the league and two straight seasons of poor performances and dropping in the league and a weaker squad year on year….. so basically took more money and didn’t deliver on the promise to make us more competitive for the added cost, we in fact got worse!

Then a mass fire sale last summer, reducing squad size and depth after yet another set of price increases…….

Annual price increases and the stadium is looking grubbier and grubbier each year, with little if anything done to keep the stadium looking decent.

We very nearly fell foul of FFP and it took mass sales to avoid it…… I wouldn’t call the actions of the summer to avoid ffp those of a competently run club…..

With all the TV money, merch money, matchday revenue and prize money we shouldn’t have been close to needing the actions of the summer.

Fair play that he fixed the problems HE caused….. but we shouldn’t have been in the trouble we were in.

We will stay up again, but we aren’t a competently run club. When you look at what has been going on the last few seasons, it is chaotic and reactionary, that isn’t competent management of our club at all.

They were great at the start with Nuno and the mendes carousel doing the job. But look at the last few years in isolation and they have gotten more wrong than right.

loads of good stuff in here as normal, want to do it justice so will reply properly tomorrow when not drinking!!

 

[wolfslair]

loads of good stuff in here as normal, want to do it justice so will reply properly tomorrow when not drinking!!

Enjoy the night out!!!! Hope the hang over isn’t too painful in the morning hahaha

 

[Vicious Sid]

Yeah , it was so much better before fosun and shi, we spent so much more time in the prem and finishing so much higher.

 

[sc91]

So yet again, from the quotes from GON almost mirroring those by JL, it seems likely that the finances weren’t as good as thought at the start when planning.

So it makes the line people won’t accept about Jeff lying to JL about transfers and constant moving of goal posts even more believable.

Jeff doesn’t seem to run a very accurate shop when it comes to setting budgets or running finances well……. That is Worrying for a bloke who is there for his financial skills over the football knowledge.

Jesus wept, finances are constantly on going, you project what you want to get (£9mil profit for this year as far as we know) and you constant adjust depending on what actually happens. It's as simple as that, in the same vein where we likely didn't factor in selling Nunes or Neves for such decent prices.

Finances change until they are final. It's really not that hard.

 

[sc91]

I'm honestly astounded how an entity like Fosun, who have proved their business acumen can not have a lot more clarity over FFP. This is the second season in a row now where it seems management have got told one thing, then had the rug pulled from under them the next.

Well run clubs know their budgets, they know what they can spend and if we come into more money, it increases the limits, yet we for some bizarre reason change from month to month. Its pretty basic finance. I doubt for example 3 weeks ago when they were expecting to have players in suddenly things have changed so much we have had to rethink our strategy yet again. Something just seems off.

Well run clubs know their budgets, well run businesses react to their actuals. You adjust constantly, you budgeted for taking 10mil and only took 9mil, which means what we projected to get is now 1mil short, so now we have to react to what has happened.

3 weeks ago I'd imagine the finalising of the December figures were done and now we got through to January and actually extra expenses means we are below the target.

I don't particularly have much love for Fosun but going all conspiracy is madness. Business is fluid and constantly moves.

 

[VancouverWolf]

You do realise he's the Apologist in Chief?

Don’t be silly.

 

[Mugwump]

i work in banking but Project related so no expert!
But for sure, SOMETHING isn’t right. i don’t buy into Shi deliberately misleading people at all.
But for sure, id expect a company turning over £1m to be on top of their finances never mind us turning over what we do!
I get Shi is the CEO, but i’m honestly not sure how much sway he has over finances.

Shi has very little say over the finances Fosun decide to give us imo. He's not a part of Fosun, he works for Fosun. What he should be doing is running the club and its finances so we have a clear vision of what we have and havent got. This is the part i am having a big problem with. You will get variations, but i dont believe they should be to the extent we seem to be having them.

 

[Wolf316]

Well run clubs know their budgets, well run businesses react to their actuals. You adjust constantly, you budgeted for taking 10mil and only took 9mil, which means what we projected to get is now 1mil short, so now we have to react to what has happened.

3 weeks ago I'd imagine the finalising of the December figures were done and now we got through to January and actually extra expenses means we are below the target.

I don't particularly have much love for Fosun but going all conspiracy is madness. Business is fluid and constantly moves.

How did we go from telling Lopetegui we could make a number of signings in the £10-15m range to telling him we could make no signings at all in the space of a few weeks? That’s a heck of a change that someone should have seen coming.

 

[Stourport wolf]

How did we go from telling Lopetegui we could make a number of signings in the £10-15m range to telling him we could make no signings at all in the space of a few weeks? That’s a heck of a change that someone should have seen coming.

When your girlfriend packs you up, it is best to forget about her. There is nothing to be gained by telling your friends that she really loves you and she did nothing wrong. She is history now.

 

[Wolf316]

When your girlfriend packs you up, it is best to forget about her. There is nothing to be gained by telling your friends that she really loves you and she did nothing wrong. She is history now.

It’s not a post about JL so leave that out. It’s about finances and why they changed so quickly and apparently no one saw it coming.

 

[lycophilos]

Unless you have endless amounts of money, and are allowed to spend as much as you like, then running a professional sports club is a difficult business. Look at all the spectacular crashes over the years. Saracens, Wasps and Worcester in top-level rugby are recent examples.

Let's look at the situation at Wolves, and compare it with the situation at comparable clubs in professional football, in the time period since Fosun became the owners. Is it really true that this shows that Fosun/Shi are liars/incompetent to the extent that some of the most frequent posters on this forum seem to think?

On the one hand, the club is lambasted for sailing too close to the FFP limit. On the other hand some are still claiming that FFP was/is being used as an excuse not to spend money. It would not surprise me if some individuals actually believed these two contradictory ideas at the same time.

As for this January transfer window - how many clubs have done any real business at all? It hardly needs pointing out that this has been perhaps the quietest window ever. A combination of the economic situation and, probably more important, the Everton and Nottingham Forest situations warning clubs that, contrary to the views of many fans, not just Wolves ones, FFP is not a paper tiger. And that if their clubs are not rushing to spend vast sums of money to buy the current fans' favourites (I recall Guedes being such a one on this forum before he was eventually signed), it isn't because they are using it as an excuse to lie to fans.

And sailing close to a limit is actually how I would expect "well-run" club to act. It's slightly similar to the offside rule. If you are dead scared of breaching it, then no forwards would ever make forward runs, without the ball at their feet.

I am not claiming that Wolves are necessarily a very well-run club. But the progress since Fosun took over has been quite remarkable. Were Wolves just very, very, very lucky to have managed a spectacular promotion to the EPL, followed by two consecutive 7th place finishes? Of course that wasn't luck, but due mostly to the magnificent Nuno, and his cohorts (including Conor Coady, whose influence as a club captain I suspect has been undervalued). However it was Fosun who appointed Nuno, and gave him the opportunity to weave his magic.

 

[Bill McCai]

Fosun share price is down 9% this year, 43% year on year and 65% over the last five years. They have been making divestments but it doesn't seem like the market is responding as they would like?

 

[Wolf in Kenilworth]

Fosun share price is down 9% this year, 43% year on year and 65% over the last five years. They have been making divestments but it doesn't seem like the market is responding as they would like?

We are small fry to them in reality.

Maybe not in the brand sense but in the financial sense.

That said if someone offered them £400-£500 million they’d snap our hands off IMO.

 

[Bill McCai]

Record Fosun Asset Sales Can’t Halt Stock Drop to Decade Low - BNN Bloomberg

Even after a record stretch of asset sales that total at least $6.6 billion in just two years, financial markets are indicating that Fosun International Ltd. will need to do more to weather China’s economic downturn.

www.bnnbloomberg.ca

 

[wolvesjoe]

Fosun share price is down 9% this year, 43% year on year and 65% over the last five years. They have been making divestments but it doesn't seem like the market is responding as they would like?

Fosun's "strategy" of selling off assets to pay debt is unlikely to convince anyone with any knowledge of corporate finance.

 

[WolvesinBrum]

I do worry that Jeff (and Fosun) think they know more about football than they do. And they have the challenge of who to trust if not themselves.

It all must have seemed easy when Nuno took over and Mendes produced magical players but then came a cropper - Jeff getting more directly involved? - the summer of Fabio and two seasons later with Guedes and Nunes.

Then they got their man finally JLop but all went sour quickly.

It's gone lean and mean with Matt Hobbs performing his miracles in the summer and GON his magic in the autumn. But actually do Jeff and Fosun catch the detail? Or just think they have beaten the market again? I think GON's and Hobbs' wish for a striker was about protecting Cunha, Neto and Hwang a little bit and enabling a really go at the cup and maintaining a mid-table position as tiredness sets in playing the way GON wants.

Football finances are complicated but there seems always a whiff of boom and bust with Fosun in the transfer market. The key will be them really trusting in Matt Hobbs and GON and not congratulating themselves on a new strategy well done and again being disappointed.

I think generally Fosun have been great for Wolves - this who to trust and better medium / long term judgement in the transfer market would make it even better!

 

[tonto]

Well he's not completely failed has he and its not a simple task? Off the top of my head we could easily sell one or two out of Kilman, Ait Nouri, Gomes, Hwang and Neto in the summer for pretty decent profit and completely reinvest it.

I don't know if Fosun will be as unhappy with the bloke as people think and there is some mitigation to be had. For example, I know the Silva deal gets talked about, and whilst we gambled, I do think it likely his fee was inflated significantly as payback for some pretty sweet deals? Neves and Jota for example cost us £30 million or so, were both instrumental in us becoming an established premier league team and then left bringing in about £70 million profit. I think we probably owed a few people? I fully agree he's made plenty of balls ups along the way for sure.

Spot on it is really robbing Peter to pay Paul stuff we owed, we paid no way was the full fee for Fabio not even a fraction
Neves in the Championship, full price to be paid once in Premier League,doesn’t take a genius to work it out

 

[Bostin]

Always going to happen. I guess the crash is greater because of the high from Sunday. Nobody is going to feel good about calling for GON to be sacked, so Shi is the obvious target for anger.

Give it time, they will!

 

[wolfslair]

Give it time, they will!

With GON now letting the lads be more free in movement on the whole since the games pre mid dec, plus the fact the lads are playing for him and it isn’t empty platitudes to the press for soundbites, I am disappointed he didn’t get the striker who fits what he wants especially after the “sasa wont go unless another is coming in” and that not happening.

After this window closed, with him not getting what he wanted, it will be hard to be overly critical of him if the goals dry up or if injuries/suspensions hit and we struggle as he wasn’t given the chance to build on the foundations built to date.

 

[AndyY]

Record Fosun Asset Sales Can’t Halt Stock Drop to Decade Low - BNN Bloomberg

Even after a record stretch of asset sales that total at least $6.6 billion in just two years, financial markets are indicating that Fosun International Ltd. will need to do more to weather China’s economic downturn.

www.bnnbloomberg.ca

This, if nothing else, explains to the hard of understanding why Fosun do not want to fund regular losses at wolves (even if within FFP), and can’t just pump money in for transfers, and want us to be self sustaining.

 

[lycophilos]

With GON now letting the lads be more free in movement on the whole since the games pre mid dec, plus the fact the lads are playing for him and it isn’t empty platitudes to the press for soundbites, I am disappointed he didn’t get the striker who fits what he wants especially after the “sasa wont go unless another is coming in” and that not happening.

After this window closed, with him not getting what he wanted, it will be hard to be overly critical of him if the goals dry up or if injuries/suspensions hit and we struggle as he wasn’t given the chance to build on the foundations built to date.

Perhaps he didn't get the "striker who fits what he wants" because there wasn't one available at the right price, or with the right conditions?

From his statements recently, I get the impression that GON is, rightly, quite involved in the transfer decisions.

As has been pointed out, his statements since the end of the transfer window are no different in character from those at many other EPL clubs. There seems to be a lot of "disappointment" all round the League.

It doesn't necessarily mean that he has been let down/not backed/not given a chance etc., as you seem to assume.

 

[wolfslair]

Perhaps he didn't get the "striker who fits what he wants" because there wasn't one available at the right price, or with the right conditions?

From his statements recently, I get the impression that GON is, rightly, quite involved in the transfer decisions.

As has been pointed out, his statements since the end of the transfer window are no different in character from those at many other EPL clubs. There seems to be a lot of "disappointment" all round the League.

It doesn't necessarily mean that he has been let down/not backed/not given a chance etc., as you seem to assume.

The line from him was sasa wouldn’t go unless one was coming in…….

Sasa left, one didn’t come in.

The optics on that aren’t good! Especially after the repeated moving of goal posts on JL in the summer.

 

[Hawkguy]

Yeah , it was so much better before fosun and shi, we spent so much more time in the prem and finishing so much higher.

It's absolutely shambolic, isn't it? It's not like we are 15 years in and have been winning the league and are falling down badly.

If I didn't love Wolves so much, I'd wish for things to go back to how they were before FOSUN so maybe people would realize just how ****ing good we have it right now.

 

[Hawkguy]

The line from him was sasa wouldn’t go unless one was coming in…….

Sasa left, one didn’t come in.

The optics on that aren’t good! Especially after the repeated moving of goal posts on JL in the summer.

He also said Sasa wouldn't have played so why the heck would we keep around an asset and kill it's value completely?

 

[wolfslair]

He also said Sasa wouldn't have played so why the heck would we keep around an asset and kill it's value completely?

He said that after it was clear that we weren’t getting anyone…….

So sorry mate, I take that comments timing and sentiment with a pinch of salt!

As if hwang, Neto or cunha get injured, he would have played as he would have been a significant improvement on a badly out of position JRB

 

[Hawkguy]

He said that after it was clear that we weren’t getting anyone…….

So sorry mate, I take that comments timing and sentiment with a pinch of salt!

As if hwang, Neto or cunha get injured, he would have played as he would have been a significant improvement on a badly out of position JRB

Ah my bad, I guess Sasa had been playing lots the past two months.

 

[wolfslair]

Ah my bad, I guess Sasa had been playing lots the past two months.

In a pinch an option in Sasa is better than a guy playing woefully out of position in JRB and frankly JRB is just being nothing more than a shirt on a pitch as he offers nothing when playing the CF or false nine role.

Guy has two goals in the league in sod all time, would have been a better option in the role.

 

[Hawkguy]

In a pinch an option in Sasa is better than a guy playing woefully out of position in JRB and frankly JRB is just being nothing more than a shirt on a pitch as he offers nothing when playing the CF or false nine role.

Guy has two goals in the league in sod all time, would have been a better option in the role.

And that's on Gary. He should have just put Bellegarde on the wing where he's comfortable.

 

[Timberwolf]

Fosun's "strategy" of selling off assets to pay debt is unlikely to convince anyone with any knowledge of corporate finance.

I’m no financial guru but…It never makes sense to buy a TV on tick from John Lewis, only to then sell it on eBay a year or two later, while still paying off the finance.

 

[Rowzed]

Can’t for the life of me understand how Jeff’s still here,
entertainment at an all time low, 4-2 away to Chelsea, get rid,
Everton, Forest, Chelsea, Blues, Baggies, Wigan, all clubs better run than us

FOSUN said we’d win the league: you’ve let us down AGAIN

 

[Wolf316]

Can’t for the life of me understand how Jeff’s still here,
entertainment at an all time low, 4-2 away to Chelsea, get rid, Everton, Forest, Chelsea, Blues, Baggies, Wigan, all clubs better run than us

FOSUN said we’d win the league: you’ve let us down AGAIN

Thanks to Hobbs choosing O Neil

 

[sc91]

How did we go from telling Lopetegui we could make a number of signings in the £10-15m range to telling him we could make no signings at all in the space of a few weeks? That’s a heck of a change that someone should have seen coming.

Time passed and potentially didn't get sales we wanted, or actually what we were hoping to recover in the back end of the season actually didn't happen.

 

[Rowzed]

Thanks to Hobbs choosing O Neil

And Jeff appointing Hobbs and letting him do his job

 

[VancouverWolf]

And Jeff appointing Hobbs and letting him do his job

Nice reply to the sour grapes post.

 

[Wolf316]

Nice reply to the sour grapes post.

It’s a fact maybe you’d like to debate it rather than making sly posts.

 

[Stafford]

Now he's learnt to leave the footballing side to the footballing people.
I reckon he could squeeze another 5 years of premierleague revenue without having to ask for any money off Fosun.

Obviously we probably won't hold onto Gary O'Neil that long. But what an appointment from Hobbs/shi. I'm sure Beale was just a joke.

 

[Wolf316]

And Jeff appointing Hobbs and letting him do his job

He also appointed Sellars and look at the mess that got us into.

 

[Timberwolf]

Thanks to Hobbs choosing O Neil

Give it up mate….

 

[Rowzed]

He also appointed Sellars and look at the mess that got us into.

There is that, and it’s not the only mistake he has made. But he learns, he hasn’t got the ego of some of these megalomaniac owner-operators and he trusts people until the ****-up and then isn’t shy about kicking them out
on balance I’d rather have him than roll the dice on another CEO- or indeed an American owner who is a wannabe CEO