A little quote I found on the net, regarding Middlesbrough's future

peterattheboro · 2 May 2009 at 14:19

I think the club gave up the desire to stay in this league a long time ago. Thats why the people pleading for Steve Gibson to sack Southgate are wasting their time. In the eyes of the club, Gareth Southgate is an integral part of Middlesbrough FC's new future. And that future does not include Premiership football. Any new manager coming in would not take the job under those circumstances, but Gareth accepted it when he signed on the dotted line and he was most likely assured his job would be safe despite the eventual relegation that was on the cards 2 years ago.

This club cannot financially survive much longer in this league. We've been in this division for 11 years and have racked up a £93m debt. That says it all really. But for those who think losing £30m a year in TV revenue is going to be a disaster, just have a think why we're in so much debt and where the bulk of that TV revenue goes each year. The greed of the modern footballer holds no bounds, and if we have reached the point where we are unwilling and unable to rack up more debt paying silly wages to attract the calibre of player here needed to keep us up every year, then its inevitable that clubs like ours will eventually be priced out of the top league. Thats exactly what's happened to us now. Rightly or wrongly, the club have accepted it and are moving us into a whole new direction that encompasses lower league football, lower quality players, lower wages, and downsizing in every conceivable way to bring financial consolidation at a more manageable level.

We've been clearing the decks and preparing for life outside the Premeirship for some time now. Our summer transfer dealings were the initial hint. We lost 5 or 6 experienced players and replaced them with 2 unknown foreigners, one of which was a reserve from the start. And the inactivity in the current transfer window just confirms it. While every other club around us has added new players in an attmept to preserve their top flight status for another season, we didn't even bother to get a few loan deals in with the un-spent £2m Ben Watson money to freshen the place up - god knows we needed it. We're told we have a squad good enough to survive, we're told our manager is proud of his players efforts, we're told the lads are giving their all. Its all spin. Southgate would make a fantastic politician. But we can't really blame him when he's "only following orders".

So why did we keep Downing then? Its because its pointless selling a player to bring in 2 or 3 more wage earners when the policy of the club is cutbacks cutbacks and cutbacks, and selling Downing and failing to buy players with the money in January would have openly admitted to everyone what the clubs policy and ambition truly was. They were never going to admit what the new direction of the club is as it'd be a blatant kick in the nads to those who forked out for season tickets last summer.

Downing, along with Tuncay and anyone else whose worth a few bob will be sold to the highest bidders in the summer and that money along with any parachute payments will be used to pay off a chunk of our bank debts. And I wouldn't be suprised to see some of it going back into Bulkhaul since that company is currently struggling.... and we can't blame Gibson if that happens since he's bankrolled this club for years.

Next season our squad will be a combination of academy players and free transfers. We WILL NOT bounce back. Our new level will be Championship consolidation, and thats it. The calibre of the players we'll employ in the future will be on par with those at Blackpool, Barnsley, and Norwich City - with a wage structure to match. This is the future of our club now. Our day in ths sun is over. We've got 14 premiership games left so we may as well ******* enjoy them, win lose or draw, because they're the last Premiership games we'll see for a long time. Boro's surrender is just the first though... and I think we're the first because we have a chairman who has seen it all before. The experience of 1986 has made him more aware than most and he knows the signs when he sees them. But I expect a few other smaller clubs will follow suit and gladly go down with a whimper over the next few seasons.

When the founding clubs got together and formed the Premier League back in the early 90's, they should have insisted on some form of salary cap like they have in Rugby. They didn't and now that short-sightedness is coming back to haunt all but the richest clubs.
Clubs like ours who aren't willing to mortgage their futures or continue to allow themselves to spiral into more and more debt playing in a league we'll never win, or even get a sniff of a top 6 finish now that Man city have joined the elite, will dissapear back into lower league obscurity.

Like I mentioned on another thread, Gibson made the choice wether he wanted to see this club play russian roulette with its future, or take it to somewhere were it can be kept financially sound. No foreign billionaire is on the horizon to come take it off his hands so can we really blame him?

Sauce is another forum, no idea if it's reliable but interesting nonetheless.

G|mp · 2 May 2009 at 16:37

A little quote?

CliffyBiro · 2 May 2009 at 16:40

drunkenmaster's Boro cousin?

wassap · 2 May 2009 at 16:41

Looks like a DM ramble

peterattheboro · 2 May 2009 at 17:19

It does. I expect DM to return with double that

Amnesia · 2 May 2009 at 17:26

i watched the first half of their match last week....wow they suck big time.
long gone are those days when they had the likes of Juninho, Ravanelli & Emmerson.

placeholder · 2 May 2009 at 17:34

If you are meant to be fighting for your PL life and you dont have the heart and desire to over-run a midfield consisting of 2 guys in their mid-thirties who cant tackle then you are doomed.

There is no way Giggs and Scholes should have been coming off the pitch today looking like they hadnt broken sweat.

Weebull · 2 May 2009 at 19:25

wohoo said:
Looks like a DM ramble

Hardly, it's got grammar, and it's actually a decent read.

Thumpsta · 2 May 2009 at 19:31

memory said:
i watched the first half of their match last week....wow they suck big time.
long gone are those days when they had the likes of Juninho, Ravanelli & Emmerson.

Went down that year as well I believe. Made 2 cup finals and won nothing.

chimaera · 3 May 2009 at 01:57

To be fair i hardly think the £12m (?) signing of alfonso alves was the sign of a club who has resigned themselves to relegation, it was a crap buy yes but he was considered a top player, hence the large transfer fee.

I don't buy into that at all, i think they racked up debt through bad transfer dealings and poor on pitch performance and are now reaping the benefits. Same thing happened to Leeds, Newscatle, Sunderland and will happen to many others in the next few years.

I also like how the writer says at the end how the club are taking the moral highground to be financially sound but earlier stated how they had £93m debt, doesn't really go together considering it's the same ownership.

Naf · 5 May 2009 at 10:34

I don't need to read that quote to know that we're pretty much relegated

such a shame.

SMN · 5 May 2009 at 11:52

Strange as it sounds, i think they have missed Lee Cattermole - someone who is industrious and can run around and pressure people.