"In fact there’s been an ‘overspend’ by more than the original budget we set when we were trying to sign Naughton, Delph, Elm and others, in June."
--------------------

I don’t believe that for a second. The fact that he’s deliberately subtracting new player wages from the Lescott money received - simply makes it another bit of financial gerrymandering... He should’ve quit while he was ahead.

After blocking the shareholders from asking questions, why do they feel the need to "post blogs" on our spending? Guilt?

Well there you have it! All along the board have been feeding us BULL! But we all knew that didnt we?! So there was NO money to sign players until Lescott was sold for the highest price, which — correct me if I'm wrong — we valued him at £30m yet sold him for £22/24m (ha, ha, mugs City). How much more BS do we have to put up with from BillyBullshitter and now BobbyBullshitter!?!
It's not all doom and gloom, Moyesie has done well regards transfers, even if it was left late (due to our dickhead board). SACK THE BOARD!!! COYB!!!!!

As I’ve often said you can always trust this board................. to put the dampeners on our hopes and aspirations.

Every time we look like making the "next step up" they take us down a step and the process starts again.

It seems that whoever comes in has to follow the culture of bullshit that has been so evident under Kenwright - Wyness, Ian Ross, Elstone in fact the only one who didn't want to play left after a few weeks.... Trevor Birch.

Jay, was it not Trevor Birch? Or did Spandau Ballet have a foothold in our club at one point?

I was once introduced to Trevor Birch at Highbury and tried to engage him in discussion of Everton. He would say only, "A club of great tradition with the potential to be great again. Alas, it may never be." And then he was off.

Got it about right, methinks!

The main worry for me is that our prick of a chairman may already be thinking about how to spin the story when they sell Rodwell, and what lies to tell to the fans.

Can't stand the man and hope someday he will be driven out, unfortunately there are a number of fans who lap up his lies and bullshit.

The hands of time...

Picture the scene. It’s the year 2050 and the super-fit Robert Elstone has finally passed away. Surprisingly the 86-year old is made to queue outside the pearly gates for 40 days and 40 nights.

Eventually Mr Elstone is granted an audience with the Almighty. ‘Have you ever told a lie?’ asked God. ‘I don’t think so. Let me check with my secretary. No, I haven't. Why?’ queried Mr Elstone.

The All Powerful answered: ‘Well up here in blue heaven every Evertonian is assigned a clock which shows the number of times they have told a lie. This includes deceptions, falsehoods, misrepresentations, white lies and Goodison whoppers. Look over my shoulder at the blue wall.

The clock on the left belongs to David France. As you know Dr France is one of the most respected Evertonians of all time. He is a blue saint and has never ever told a lie. Therefore the hands on his clock have always been on zero.’

God continued: ‘Now the clock on the right belongs to David Moyes, another great Evertonian. As you know, the Moyesiah is an honest man but was required to tell a fib or two during every transfer window. The hands of his clock are on number eight.’ God smiled: ‘Oh Mr Kenwright. His clock has been relocated to Jesus’s special room.’

Mr Elstone looked shocked: ‘Wow, it’s in your son’s special room?’

God laughed out loud: ‘Yes, Jesus is using it as a ceiling fan!’

What has happened to our prize money and this years TV revenue?

Firstly, Elstone’s candour is welcomed if, on the face of it, a little confusing. There are obviously some people who oddly feel it is their right to know every last detail of Everton’s business. I’m not one of them.

It is not misleading in the slightest to suggest that an unplanned increase in wages counts as expenditure. It’s all current expenditure, none of this is capital investment. It’s not trickery, it’s just how it is.

The observation that we were somehow chasing Naughton, Delph, Elm etc, and yet had no obvious way of paying for them is an astute one. The truth is somewhat simpler. Man City’s courtship of Lescott began last season. It was public knowledge. One assumes that the signs were there with Lescott somewhat before it came to a head. And I think it’s stating the bleedin' obvious that we had anticipated a non-trivial bid from City.

The (mock) indignation from Moyes and Kenwright had clearly one aim in mind, to boost the fee for Lescott. And nothing wrong in that whatsoever. But I believe indignation was anything but false in relation to City’s timing and opening offer. To leave it so late in the window and to bid so much below the final fee was pathetic. And Moyes and Kenwright were quite right to say, "if you’re going to take the piss in the way you have then you can fuck right off".

Lescott had his price all along and Moyes and Kenwright saw an opportunity. And so they should. It’s a fucking business. IMHO they wanted £30m. That would have helped us big time. But £24m or thereabouts ain’t bad trade. Lescott was a good player and a good guy, but Beckenbauer or Bobby Moore he was not.

THE REAL ISSUE

I have previously defended Kenwright when these threads are polluted with offensive and often disgusting insults, often personal. I’ve also played devil’s advocate in the interests of a debate rather than a KKK feeding frenzy. But something isn’t quite right, and it’s this:

Robert Elstone, perhaps inadvertantly, revealed that Bill Kenwright is almost always the driver in our transfer negotiations. And even, it seems, with the players themselves.

Now I can understand the value of someone like Bill Kenwright, with is business experience, acumen and contact network. That’s how much business is done. But I wonder what a Chief Executive Officer is for if it isn’t to manage & negotiate club business valued in the millions.

The idea of Abramovic, or Statler & Waldorf, or Randy Lerner getting involved in transfer negotiations or speaking with players & agents is ridiculous. And frankly so it should be with Bill. This seems to be enthusiasm gone mad. It undermines Elstone for a start. If he can’t be trusted to front up such transactions then what’s he doing as CEO?

Perhaps... and WTFDIK? But perhaps Wyness was of stronger mind than Elstone is right now. Now I’m of the view that Bill Kenwright does do good for Everton. To many people in the game, he’s the highly acceptable face of club ownership or chairmanship, albeit one who doesn’t invest tons of his own money (which, for the record, is not something I think should happen, but that’s a different thread).

So I thank young Robert for his candour. One can muse as to his motivation in being SO candid at this point. But it brings into question who does what at EFC. An executive officer should be just that. I think Elstone has the makings of a good guy. It will be a good thing if Bill starts to plan for the future right now. His first task is to hand over full running of the club to Robert Elstone and to begin the de-personalisation of the club.

It’s not exclusively Bill’s. But nor is it ours either.

Alan,
If you think that’s all that’s not right, the mind boggles ...and you’ve some balls, intimating that David Moyes is a two-faced liar

Phil, I intimated no such thing. What are you on about?

"The (mock) indignation from Moyes and Kenwright had clearly one aim in mind, to boost the fee for Lescott. And nothing wrong in that whatsoever"...

I strongly disagree Alan..

There’s a big difference between being a "two-faced liar" and pretending to be outraged in order to facilitate a multi-million pound negotiation.

I read Alan’s opinion as being that Moyes’s mock indignation was a deliberate ploy to screw a few extra million out of City — well, that’s my reading of it, but I’m sure Alan will agree.

Of course, whether or not that’s true is a different matter, and I guess only Moyes/Kenwright/Elstone know the truth on that one. IMO though, it worked pretty well.

If ’lying’ to the media and to City (by Moyes and Kenwright) got us an extra £5M+ for Lescott - well done boys! (You paid for Heitinga.)

Some of the comments on here are so naive as to be unbelievable. The Lescott affair between us and City was a high stakes negotiation between adults - not teaching children good behaviour in a kindergarten.

Well said, Neil, you beat me to it. To all the posters, the next time you’re selling your house or your car make it known to all and sundry that you're strapped for cash and see if you get the asking price.

I think the almost pathological hatred of BK has turned some Evertonians minds. I’m not a BK apologist, but I recognise that he hasn’t got the financial clout to take us to the next level, but as I continue to say on these threads, nobody wants to buy us. If there was someone out there they would have made it known and it would be splashed across every paper, the fact that BK didn’t want to sell (as the conspiracy theory goes) wouldn’t stop the potential buyer — have none of you heard of a hostile buy-out?

Neil, I’m sure we’ve had this chat before re honesty and integrity in business and agreed to differ. But, despite being stitched up by experts during 25 years in Whitehall and private industry, I’m still naive enough to think Moyesey was telling the truth when he said, quote:

“There is no way that we are going to be letting any players go … I would like money to spend, but I certainly wouldn’t give up any of my players to raise that money.”
July 2009

I think there’s still ambiguity here. On the one hand, no player is ever "not for sale" in that, if the amount offered is high enough, then he’s gone.

On the other hand, David Moyes, he of utmost integrity, was adamant... ADAMANT that he was not going to be letting ANY players go. Was that a conviction? Or just a negotiating position?

Now Elstone says things changed when the player himself broke ranks... which makes you wonder: what if Lescott had said all along he was staying...???

All hypothetical, I know. I just find it hard to respect Moyes’s integrity if back in June/July he knew Lescott would eventually go, but was making public statements, from behind those intense blue eyes, that he knew at the time to be false.

Obviously there comes a tipping point in the saga... was it really the written transfer request? Or was it (as some said at the time), when the deal was first mooted publicly and Lescott’s silence was "deafening"?

That last one fits with Moyes’s final statement along the lines of "If you’d come to us in June with a proper bid, you could have had him then and avoided all this silliness" (paraphrasing).

A lot of sense, Michael.

I doubt if Ebay would’ve been successful without the feedback system being used to prevent ’it’s OK to lie where money’s concerned’ sellers ripping people off

2 questions to the ’don’t be naive’ people
1. If Kenwright and/or Elstone told you a ’fact’ and Moyes differed, who would you tend to believe?

2. Sheff Utd renaged on an accepted bid and Leeds Utd honoured their agreement with Villa... one got extra cash, the other lost an opportunity to gain extra cash; whose behaviour do you admire more?

I’m actually in two minds about this - I agree with Alan that I as a fan have no right to understand the minutia of the financial dealings of the club - so why do they bother trying to tell me? Whereas on the other side, I firmly believe that all player transfers should be declared publicly in their entirety:

Contract Cost
Wages
Agents Fees
Legal Fees

All this crap with undisclosed fees should be binned. As far as I am concerned, ’agents’ should be paid by players and players only, if clubs are paying agents then there is something rotten in the football world - and I am convinced that there is. I am sure that if the public knew how much money went to these agents from clubs then there would be a public outcry.

That said, I am not convinced by the ramblings of Elstone about how much the club spent, but it is possible that more than the Lescott money was spent if all things are considered; unfortunately, the club lost all its credit with me over their atrocious Kirkby campaign and I no longer believe a word Kenwright says. Shame that a public trust gaining exercise could backfire so stupendously - at least in my mind.

Phil and Michael - what you’ve got to ask yourself about the kind of statements that we are discussing is: who is this statement addressed to and meant for (it may be more than one person or persons), and why are they saying it now?

People do not usually say things to provide information. They say things to achieve outcomes that they want.

When Moyes says to the media for public consumption, "I’m not letting anyone go", by far the least important thing he is doing is telling us what he thinks.

So what IS he doing? He is signalling to various people: probably Kenwright ("don’t sell my players cheaply!"); his own players ("I value you and want to keep you here!"); and of course Man City or other wannable buyers of our stars ("you will have to pay top dollar!").

The truth vs. lies debate is naive and irrelevant. That is simply not what is going on with the vast majority of public utterances. They have other much more important purposes.

We should criticise Kenwright much more for saying stupid and unhelpful things, than for saying things which are not strictly ’truthful’. Like all the public figures and all the public utterances, up and down the land, truth is not primarily what they are about. Private psychotherapy is for truth, not pronouncements on the OS.

Neil,
I thought Moyes was addressing Everton fans (including prospective season ticket buyers), current players and potential targets. What a dummy!
Just tip me off if you ever put your house or car up for sale
Oh, and, if you ever sign up for Ebay, please let me know your ID

On your questions Phil:

1. It would depend on the circumstances and my judgement as to why they might be saying what they are saying. The recent transfer example makes my point perfectly.

Elstone says, "We spent all the Lescott money" (he wants most of all to signal that the club is very much behind Moyes, and to reassure the players as well as fans). I totally understand why he is saying this, given the outcomes he wants.

Moyes says, "We spent less than Lescott". He wants to put pressure on the Board to keep coming up with more money, so wants to send the signal that he is not satisfied. I totally understand why he is saying this, given the outcomes that he wants.

Who do I believe? Neither. Any child can see through the self-interest of both statements. I suppose the truth is somewhere in between.

2. Obviously Leeds are more admirable. But that’s not the most important issue. Who is going to achieve more over time with their behaviour? Difficult one. Sheff Utd obviously got more money this time, but they also got a reputation for being much more difficult to deal with than Leeds, so that may make people tougher with them in the future.

Obviously, lying and acting badly can sometimes be to your interest, sometimes not. Case in point: Ferguson and Wenger (and Moyes when he gets the chance) say all manner of ridiculous and ’untruthful’ things to influence referees. If you push it too far, it will probably rebound against you (not going to be many referees playing over the minimum extra time at Old Trafford the rest of this season...).

On your questions Phil:

1. It would depend on the circumstances and my judgement as to why they might be saying what they are saying. The recent transfer example makes my point perfectly.

Elstone says, "We spent all the Lescott money" (he wants most of all to signal that the club is very much behind Moyes, and to reassure the players as well as fans). I totally understand why he is saying this, given the outcomes he wants.

Moyes says, "We spent less than Lescott". He wants to put pressure on the Board to keep coming up with more money, so wants to send the signal that he is not satisfied. I totally understand why he is saying this, given the outcomes that he wants.

Who do I believe? Neither. Any child can see through the self-interest of both statements. I suppose the truth is somewhere in between.

2. Obviously Leeds are more admirable. But that’s not the most important issue. Who is going to achieve more over time with their behaviour? Difficult one. Sheff Utd obviously got more money this time, but they also got a reputation for being much more difficult to deal with than Leeds, so that may make people tougher with them in the future.

Obviously, lying and acting badly can sometimes be to your interest, sometimes not. Case in point: Ferguson and Wenger (and Moyes when he gets the chance) say all manner of ridiculous and ’untruthful’ things to influence referees. If you push it too far, it will probably rebound against you (not going to be many referees playing over the minimum extra time at Old Trafford the rest of this season...).

Thanks Neil for your, as always, courteous and well-argued discussion
However, it’s goodnight from me ’cos I’m off to the Lord Daresbury now as I’ve finally got a potential buyer for the Runcorn Bridge

Phil - what? I agree with you. That’s who Moyes was addressing (Kenwright too).

I’m not sure why you are picking me out for not having the morals of a boy scout, Phil. Like all the rest of the world does?? To see how people actually behave you might want to: turn on the TV; read a newspaper; open a history book.

As it happens Phil, all my friends know that I am a terrible negotiator, so you’d be lucky if you got me as a car or house seller.

Have a good one Phil - make sure you get a good price! (Don’t worry too much about telling the truth...)

Listen guys, we’ve got some good signings in, big picture the squad is much stronger than in was last season. With Neville injured and the midfield looking more balanced, I’m looking forward to the rest of the season. Who cares what money we might have next year? We have enough stress during the transfer window so let's start worrying next July!

I really don’t see what Moyes is supposed to have done wrong here. As MK states above when any manager comes out with a statement that a player isn’t for sale this is always subject to the caveat “unless we get an offer we can’t refuse”.

Man City didn’t make us such an offer and Lescott was staying at Goodison until he made it clear that if he didn’t get his move he was going to throw a tantrum. Faced with this Everton got the best deal they could. Moyes was simply stating the reality that if Man City had come in with a realistic bid earlier and Lescott had indicated that he wanted to go then the deal could have been concluded a hell of a lot sooner.

Hmm a “Prick” of an Owner Mr Bill Kenwright a respected Lifelong Blue and entrepreneur genius who only has the best interests of his beloved club as his primary intension, or a Mr Andy Codling I wonder who’s opinions I will ‘lap up’. What a dick you are Mr Codling. COME ON YOU BLUES!!!

Neil, I do have to laugh at your "naive" quip at the guys, I think that’s a bit rich.

Alan would you accept Elstone including the lecky bill in the list of what was spent out of the Lescott money?

Bottom line our club is being run by a board of inept gobshites!

All of this does seem to lead to one (disputable) conclusion.

We are a selling club.

Without the sale of Lescott, Moyes would have been unable to bring in new faces.

Neil Pearce and Alan Kirwin — a couple of excellent posts there.

The debate on this subject seems a bit more rational since the team won a couple of games!

Without the big investments from outside we are likely to need to sell a top player every now and again, and frankly if the richer clubs (of the time) come poaching there is nothing we can do about it other than extract the best price possible.

In truth it was always thus — Ball to Arsenal; Lineker to Barca; Trevor and Gary to Rangers etc.

Yes, we do not currently have the financial resources (or onfield success) to be able to hold onto all our players when richer clubs come chasing.

Of course, neither apparently do Man Utd (Ronaldo) or Liverpool (Alonso).

We take players from the likes of Portsmouth and Middlesbrough; Man City and Man Utd take players from us, and Real Madrid take players from Man Utd and Liverpool.

We all have our places in the financial pecking order. And, no, we are not at the top anymore.

I think Fulham have been out-muscling us for a while now too!!

’It is not misleading in the slightest to suggest that an unplanned increase in wages counts as expenditure.’
---------------------

It is however misleading to treat it as money spent in terms of transfer fees...

For a start, it’s future outgoings... and secondly there’s no mention of wages that were cut from the wages bill... only those that were added.

Have a bit of sense.

’Have none of you heard of a hostile buy-out?’

---------------

A little homework required: start by going and finding out what kind of company Everton is...

Richard - Don’t think so on Fulham. The other definition of ’below us in the pecking order’ is: they take our cast-offs that we are upgrading and don’t want anymore... eg, Radzinski, Davies, Johnson.

At the moment, I would say that there are only four English clubs we would really have difficulty resisting if they came after our players with sensible offers: Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, and Arsenal (and not Chelsea right now...). Liverpool are of course a special case (I would be shocked if Rodwell or Arteta went there, but stranger things have happened). Spurs maybe. The bigger threat for a number of our players is Spain or Italy.

It’s same old same old: at the moment, we sit below the ’top five’, about level with Spurs and Villa, and above the others.

Ciaran — yes and no. I’m sure you are right pointing out that we are a privately held and not a publicly listed company. So a ’hostile bid’ cannot be made directly to the shareholders, irrespective of current management.

On the other hand, if someone wanted us badly enough, planting a story in the media would put a lot of pressure on the current owners and almost certainly do the trick. And if — as many of you seem to believe — Kenwright is mainly in it for the money, why wouldn’t he sell?

I’m sure Kenwright's quite capable of planting his own stories to counter such tactics...

And I don’t think there’s much likelihood of this media tactic being emplyed anyway....

The people who buy football clubs don’t seem to be too picky about who they buy... why go through all that hassle Neil, when they could simply try another club... like, er... Notts County?

Now you are just trying to provoke me Ciaran! You know as well as I do that Everton and Notts County are different in all respects (apart from both being football clubs). Those interested - and able to afford - Everton, are hardly likely to be interested in Notts County. And vice-versa.

And I think you over-estimate how difficult it would be to acquire Everton if a sufficiently rich person put their minds to it. Anyway rich investors are very used to going through a bit of hassle to get what they want. It’s actually all part of the fun for them.

And joining the discussion just a little bit late from Tanjin, China, we have the following Mailbag submission from Dan Brierley, directly below:

So, after the hounds of hell were unleashed regarding the CEO's comments of spending more than the Lescott money, he has now come out with the following statement:

"Speaking on the Daily Post website last week, I was challenged about how much we've spent. Are we continuing to support the Manager to the limit? Are we looking to build on the successes of 2008/09? The answer is absolutely yes. The answer is that the Lescott proceeds, after the sell-on fee payable to Wolves, and after funding the not unsubstantial agents' fees, transfer levies, solidarity payments and financing charges, and after picking up a significant increase in our player wage costs has been more than fully spent. In fact there's been an 'overspend' by more than the original budget we set when we were trying to sign Naughton, Delph, Elm and others, in June.

"All our efforts have been directed at maximising our investment in players and negotiating skilfully to get the best talent at the best price. Current Dutch, Russian and now, Australian internationals along with a proven and experienced Premier League centre half have replaced yes, an England centre half but also Van der Meyde, Castillo, Jacobsen and Nuno. It does feel like a summer well spent."

After some of the comments such as 'I used to trust him' or 'just another BK puppet', does it not seem rather reasonable what he has actually said? Personally, hats off to the guy for setting this straight.

I’m surprised that in all of this debate no one has mentioned Kirkby. It is the only explanation that sounds reasonable as to why we haven’t actually spent more than the Lescott money.

To suggest Kenwright and Moyes were playing a game and had masterminded what happened with Lescott is ridiculous. Kenwright flies by the seat of his pants and just makes things up as he goes along. It’s why his statements always contradict each other. Everton realy could do with some lessons on how to operate in the transfer market.

The only definite plan Kenwright has is to move to Kirkby and that is what he is saving for. Elstone last year said we accounted for a bottom half finish and no cup success so the eatra revenue from success in the league and cup must have been put towards Kikrby. The fact that Lescott was sold meant Kenwright could save some more. Had Lescott not been sold, some of the Kirkby money, I suspect, would have been used for transfers instead similarly to the Fellaini transfer last year.

So, after the hounds of hell were unleashed regarding the CEO's comments of spending more than the Lescott money, he has now come out with the following statement:

"Speaking on the Daily Post website last week, I was challenged about how much we've spent. Are we continuing to support the Manager to the limit? Are we looking to build on the successes of 2008/09? The answer is absolutely yes. The answer is that the Lescott proceeds, after the sell-on fee payable to Wolves, and after funding the not unsubstantial agents' fees, transfer levies, solidarity payments and financing charges, and after picking up a significant increase in our player wage costs has been more than fully spent. In fact there's been an 'overspend' by more than the original budget we set when we were trying to sign Naughton, Delph, Elm and others, in June.

"All our efforts have been directed at maximising our investment in players and negotiating skilfully to get the best talent at the best price. Current Dutch, Russian and now, Australian internationals along with a proven and experienced Premier League centre half have replaced yes, an England centre half but also Van der Meyde, Castillo, Jacobsen and Nuno. It does feel like a summer well spent."

After some of the comments such as 'I used to trust him' or 'just another BK puppet', does it not seem rather reasonable what he has actually said? Personally, hats off to the guy for setting this straight.

"After some of the comments such as ’I used to trust him’ or ’just another BK puppet’, does it not seem rather reasonable what he has actually said? Personally, hats off to the guy for setting this straight."
---------------

The alternative point being - that we’re none the wiser...

A altogether unecessary sound bite from the CEO - in my opinion.

Can somebody give me an example of a "hostile" leaked bid to the media for the potential buyout of a premiership club.

If not please stop going on about it.

Most deals are done behind closed doors and people with a lot of money prefer it that way apart from the fact they will have signed confidentiality agreements.

@ Jay Harris

I don’t know about “hostile” but didn’t Hick’s & Gillette reject a bid for Liverpool from Dubai International Capital a while back & this made the papers. Also with respect to your confidentiality argument surely this only applies to sensitive commercial information exchanged between the parties during negotiations. It wouldn’t preclude the other party from coming out and confirming that they had been in negotiations but Kenwright wasn’t seriously interested in selling.

Okay Jay. Hell of a lot of media stories from various Arabs interested in Liverpool. Usmanov at Arsenal using the media directly to put pressure on the existing owners. All the fairly public shenanigans at Portsmouth. Others can probably think of more.

Tell me Neil,

How do you tell the difference between the pres cooking a story and an agressive would-be owner planting one?

The bottom line is that you’ve no idea how those stories came to fruition...and who was responsible.

Please stop guessing.

Ciaran, granted of course the media plays its part and makes some things up.

But do you really think 100% is made up? Do you think 0% of the DIC and Usmanov stories came from DIC and Usmanov?

You don’t have to guess to believe that SOMETIMES people who want to take over clubs go public.

That disproves Jay’s claim.

Neil
The DIC negotiation was made public by one ex chief executive of Liverpool at the behest of Hicks and Gillette who wanted to take the pressure off themselves with the supporters and DIC’s interest had been known about since before Hicks and Gillette took it over in fact they had an agreed deal on the table.

Usmanov already had a 25% share in Arsenal before talking about a rights issue therefore is not the situation we’re talking about.

So neither of these examples is relevant to Kenwright and buddies position.

Neil
common sense would tell you that the interested party would not want it made public because that would alert other parties.

It’s similar to buying a player if you’re interested in buying you keep it quiet until the deal is done.

If you’re the selling club it is in your interests to make it public.

It does not disprove anything Neil - it’s guesswork, and it will remain guesswork until you can provide some conclusive proof.

The DIC stories were no doubt fuelled by Waldorf and Statler’s wrongly predicted financial doom...

..And Usamov was an existing owner...not a potential owner. That’s a different kettle of fish altogether...

Why aren’t these relevant Jay?

Your argument remember is that NO ONE ever goes to the media to place stories to put pressure on current owners. And therefore it is quite possible that Kenwright has received dozens of good bids but he has turned them all away and we have never heard about them.

My case: this is a bit unlikely to start with. We’ve never heard a whiff of ANY of these bids over all these years? Hmmm... Secondly: we have plenty of examples of non-owners placing stories in the media to try to improve their chances of becoming owners.

QED.

common sense would tell you that the interested party would not want it made public because that would alert other parties.
---------------------------------------------------
Of course Jay - it’s a closely guarded secret that Kenwrigts looking for a buyer!!

Sorry - that last one was in response to Ciaran.

Jay, you are getting a bit desperate now with your ’not alerting other parties’ point. Remember: the person we are talking about has been TURNED AWAY by Kenwright under your assumptions. They are getting absolutely nowhere in this scenario in their desire to purchase our football club. They have nothing to lose by going public!

Maybe you can also try to answer this one. Do you two seriously contest that if a rich Arab or Russian went public tomorrow, it would not put ENORMOUS pressure on Kenwright? Please tell me: if they seriously wanted the club, why on earth wouldn’t they do this?

Remember again: these are people VERY used to doing contested deals and putting up with a bit of hassle.

On a par with Spurs Neil, what planet are you on? every player we go head to head with them on we loose. Europen football or no European football, we indeed end up with there cast offs to use your analgy I think we can use the same Davies your talking about, Villa most recently out did us for milner.

Re Fulham your memory of the Radzinski affair is a little different from mine, to be fair he was upset that Rooney was getting more of a look in but he was offered higher wages there and off he went, same with Collins, Johnson was a forced sale to balance the books as with Lescott, Davies well who cares!! we have been out-muscled by them on a couple of occasions when looking to buy Murphy, Geera and Bullard spring to mind.

Neil
Three points

1. Randy Lerner was interested in Everton before he pursued Villa because "He was given no encouragement by EFC".

That was 4 or 5 years ago and has only just reached the public domain.

2. If a top entrepreneur like BK (not IMO but in many others) is looking for investment 24/7 for over 9 years while the likes of Portsmouth and City change hands twice dont you think something doesnt stack up.

3. There are things I know which I can't and won't say on here but you’re a management consultant. Put a call in to Keith Harris and enquire about the sale. Trust me, he will speak to you and you might be surprised what you find out if you ask the right questions...

Brendan.

Kenwright is stating publicly that he wants to sell but trust me he CANNOT sell until Kirkby is resolved.

Read my answer to Neil.