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But it's clear to see now that many thousands of disgruntled fans are no longer falling for the PR and deceit and have had enough.
Please don't quote entire posts, especially when they are long, unless it is really necessary. I've edited your post. This is exactly the kind of comment that gets me mithered, since the implication is that those who do not feel like these fans are too stupid to see through the owners, rather than accept that they have informed themselves and come to a different opinion.
Well it's just the same when you hear remoaners tell leavers how thick, stupid, naive and ignorant they are for voting leave.
Personally I wouldn't use such language as we are all west ham fans, however, it is clear that slowly the penny is dropping for many thousands of fans.
There is no 'penny' to drop, imo.
Some fans are coming to conclusion that others would not draw.
That's it.
To insist that you and they have seen the light, or caught the dropping penny, is to imply that others have failed to do so.
Express your view of the owners by all means, but don't tell us that we are too stupid to see what you see (not even by implication.)
I have read/heard all the stuff the owners have said.
So what have the 'disgruntled masses' heard or read that I have missed?
Because I don't believe I was promised anything.
He has been guilty of maybe ‘predicting’. I found it irritating to see him confess “the move only gets us one £12m player with the extra income” AFTER the move, when in campaigning for it that bit of info was conveniently left out.
What they are on record as saying, both the Daves, is something along the lines of “there is no reason why West Ham can’t be competing for the top four/five places in a few years time”. Comments like that, whilst not promises, show an ambition which just has not been matched by money spent, the ONLY way the gap between us and the top 6 can be bridged.
I am not anti-GSB. I think they have done good, nor do I think those who support them are ‘blind’ to their shortcomings. I like the new ground. It’s not the Boleyn but it’s the future. The view is absolutely fine, the stadium brilliant and getting an extra 20,000 fans in there (I appreciate there are issues with neutral fans, fans being absent etc), is only a good thing for the club. We will continue to grow into it over the next decade. No doubt.
Sully, we can all agree, has put his foot in it on several occasions. Whilst there will always be an explanation or something to excuse his behaviour, the fact of the matter is, as an important club official, he is incredibly unprofessional and naive, given his experience. However, they have toned it down over the last year, especially little Jack, now that he’s growing up.
But the first point is what is going to irritate certain people. If you DON’T have the money, fine. I don’t care. We’re not Man City or Chelsea. Let’s look for young local talent, players from the lower leagues and the very best abroad to build a side with the finances we have. No problem with that. But they have made the call (immediately after taking over) to move us to the now London Stadium, and they have gone on record on more than one occasion stating the Champions League is achievable in the future. It’s not, IMO, but they have said so. Those things combined plus the perceived lack of significant funding in proportion to what it is that is needed to move on from a mid-table/bottom half side, is what is causing unrest. Have they spent money on paper? Yes, as grey has pointed out with detailed breakdowns, the money has been spent. Has it been spent well? I would say, on the whole, no.
But stop talking about ‘next level’ when we know and they know it’s not likely to happen without, in Sully’s own words, an ‘oil baron or investor from Abu Dhabi’. The contradictions are slightly tiring.
Let’s focus on 10th for the short term and making sure we finished 10th-8th every season and that will allow us a shot at cup glory. Another thing that irritates certain fans, the almost sacrifice of the cup.
I think a lot of their 'ambitious talk' shall w call it (about wanting to compete with the top 6 etc) is silly. I don't know if they believe it or they think it is what we want to hear.
I suppose offering a more realistic appraisal (we want to be consistent top 10 and maybe pushing regularly for a EL place) and a more modest assessment of the benefits of the stadium (will help make us look a bit better to foreign players, and bring in a bit of extra cash which will give us a small advantage over our direct competitors) would have upset some fans but for different reasons.
1. Appoint the right manager - Bilic looked like he was the one, it didn't work out
2. Sign new players - We have signed new players
3. More investment in the Academy - We upgraded the academy, so it is ranked in the elite grading (or something like that)
4. Continue to clear the debt - Debt being paid off
5. Freeze season ticket prices for renewals - I believe this has happened
6. Build the status and image of the club - The OS has done this, things like Henry knock this. Hard to quantify.
7. Make it enjoyable to come and watch - Totally subjective.
8. Get closer to the community - They are doing this
9. Go for the Olympic Stadium - Got it
10. Listen to supporters - Again subjective, but they have improved stuff since we moved in to the stadium. Was this on the feedback from supporters?
What was the concrete promise on the seating? Is it the capacity? The colour? The views?
We all know Sully opens his mouth without thinking, so which transfer statement in particular was a concrete promise that they have broken?
World class stadium for a world class team is an aspiration, that is not a promise. It's a statement of where you want to be. They can promise to try to become a world class team but you can't promise it's going to happen.
As I have said, this is my problem with people who have issues with the board. When pressed on the actual promises, lies etc the owners are meant to be held to account for, that information isn't there.
Surely the Facebook group of 13000 members have collated a very simple to view, concise list of each and every verifiable promise the owners have made and how they have not delivered on those promises.
Otherwise, how can they request time to sit down with the owners and talk about transparency etc.
Comments like that, whilst not promises, show an ambition which just has not been met by achievements on the pitch?
Personally I get really fed up with the assertion that success can only be achieved through spending (other people's) money. Clearly it helps acquire players, but players alone do not a successful team make.
I will get far more satisfaction from a successful team built by West Ham, than one bought in.
I am certainly not a fan of Sully or Karen Brady, but we should not forget the position they inherited where we could be now without them.
If that form had been displayed throughout the season, we would be level on points with Arsenal.
I think the rotten start we had under Bilic is wrongly colouring people's judgment of our squad.
They are showing that, under a decent Manager, they are good enough to be on the fringes of the top 6.
If the intention is to compete with the “big boys” consistenly so top 6 we need to be buying about 400million pounds worth of players.
That ain’t happening unless we get oil money.
Unfortunately that doesn’t marry with keeping the soul of old WH.
You can’t have your cake and eat it...
I also don't think we'll be top 6 in 5/10/15 years time. Look at the clubs which currently hold the top 6 positions. They have had years and years of earning the top money and having billions poured in to the clubs. I very much doubt than unless a new league is formed that the top 6 will never be anything other than Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs.
To me, the next 5 years should be about making us a club which never fear relegation, then the next 5 should be aiming for a solid top half of the table, with really going for FA Cup / League cup because we don't have to worry about relegation
Then the next 5, aim for multiple cup runs, including hopefully the runs in the Europa cup with the aim of winning that to get in to the champions league.
So over the next 15 years, I would like to see no relegation worries, proper attempts at winning the FA and champions league qualification most likely via winning the Europa league.
Think back then - £40m would have got you some of the best players in the world.
Today, £40m apparently will only just be enough to get a tom Cairney
The figures have gotten insane (IMO to the detriment of the game). With this in mind, G&S are out of their league (not their fault).
If the club wants to push towards the top 8 they probably need to either sell up or at the very least dilute their equity and bring in a mohsni type investor whose monies might be directed towards improving the squad
If they hang on and pass it down to their family, it’s not unrealistic to expect us to be typically in the lower echelons of the Prem typically, mixed with spells in the champ too
Please point out where I said that and I will correct it. Ta.
Maybe Everton because they have been in the PL for so long? But I don't see any club outside of the top 6 who we aren't really competing with.
I 100% think that we have wasted a lot of money on bad signings but we have spent the money, each season we are pretty much setting a new club record for signing a player.
We somehow break that player and they turn out rubbish but the money is there, it's just not being spent on the right type of player.
Maybe that's because of the manager, which goes back to the 10 point plan, we still need to appoint the right manager. Moyes seems to be ticking the boxes at the moment. With him at the helm for say the next 5 years our record signings may actually produce the stuff.
Defenders of the board say that they didn't promise us Champions League or define "next level", but it's hard to say that we've moved on as a club since the move. We've spent almost all of the time we've been playing there in the bottom half of the table, and quite a lot of it threatened by relegation.
We were told that there would be world class players for a world class stadium (I suppose in fairness you can argue that we got neither), but it's hard to argue that the squad has particularly improved relative to those in the mid/lower part of the table (most squads have improved due to the attractiveness of the Premier League compared to most foreign leagues).
I'm sure there was reference to Arsenal or Chelsea "looking over their shoulders", again, a clear suggestion that the move would enable us sign a better quality of player which has since been tempered by Sully coming out and saying the club would only be better off by about 11-12m a year. I honestly think there would have been much more resistance to the move if that fact had been presented to the fans before the move as it is never going to be enough to seriously affect the quality of the players coming into the club.
I queried how much financial benefit there would be long before the move, given that so many of the seats were so far from the pitch that they would have to be sold cheap, and it would have been clear to G&S how much a year we would be better off, yet somehow that fact was never put to the supporters who would never have given up the Boleyn without much more protest for such a small amount.
There's also the fact that we were told the stadium would have retractable seating and, according to DG, as close to the pitch as at the Boleyn, whereas in actual fact we have temporary or demountable seating that takes weeks to move, meaning we started this season with 3 away games, and, if we'd have been in early rounds of the Europa, would have had nowhere to play our home leg.
Then there's the transfers. There is just no clear policy discernible, and there's little doubt that Sully has way too much involvement for most people's liking, both where identifying targets is concerned, and they fact that numerous transfers seem to break down due to Sully having to "win" any negotiation rather than reaching an acceptable compromise. I know this is largely heresay, but we've heard it from many different sources in relation to many different transfers that I firmly believe there is very much something in it.
With regards to actual spending, the lack of clear policy means that though we may have spent money, we've often not spent it wisely, especially given Sully recently said we have the 7th highest wage bill in the league even though we're not even at 25 senior pros in the squad. Let's not forget it's Sully that gave those contracts out. Even this summer, 2 of the 4 senior signings were pure vanity, Zabaleta on a free and Hart on loan.
However, looking back over the 3 windows since we've actually been at the OS, and, according to Soccerbase (the first site I came across that had sterling figures), we actually have a minus net spend of nearly £14m over the last 3 windows on permament senior signings, with 9 leaving for a fee and only 5 arriving. We're £14m up. Even at the Boleyn, with the current TV deal, you'd be expecting £30m a season spend on transfers, so increase that to £41m for the added revenue from the OS, we should be looking at a war chest of £96m in the summer, does anyone seriously think that money will be there?
Finally, all the PR stuff that has gone on over the years. At least we hear a bit less from Sully atm, but he's come out with some crackers over the years and even this season has slated some of our own players. However, Brady is still writing her column for the Sun, and this is cited as a reason Leicester refused to entertain the idea of a loan to us, Slimani instead going to a relegation rival. And then there is the article about Sullivan Jnr, born with a silver spoon in his mouth but works so hard for his £1,700 a pair shoes. Will they never learn?
So, all in all, is it any wonder there is discontent among some of the fans?
Liverpool, Manchester City, Man Utd and Chelsea are all cash cows for investors. There are so many smoke and mirror tactics they are using to take money out of the back door. They really do make our owners look like saints. You will find it hard to prove this as these are very high level venture capitalists and oil barons surrounded by the best advisories in the world.
Everyone would love a Levy in charge, I feel
We have a poor mans Levy in Gold, a huge step up from the Icelanders and before him Brown.