VILLAMARV

Because a few on here wanted Curtis Davies at villa?

and I thought I was going mad!

FFS

he should go down molineux and then end up at the saddlers......

Luciano Becchio - Leeds to Norwich - Steve Morison - Norwich to Leeds - 

hopefully the cash Leeds just got from Norwich will mean they confirm taking warnock off us. 

His photo has been gone from the villa OS for a couple of days but still no confirmation?

Is Darren Bent capable of causing such a buzz?

who knows? but if i cant get excited about nothing on transfer deadline day when can i?

Just a bit of perspective on this mad day - just caught this on the BBC website and it reminded me it could be worse! 

"If Celtic's Gary Hooper moves to the Premier League today, the sell-on clause might just keep my club Scunthorpe in business."

anyway then I saw this and thought I'd fan the flames on the idea that we might see the back of bent today. Apparently the stoke dressing room is all excited  

 Stoke striker Michael Owen on Twitter: "Never known there to be such a buzz around deadline day. Everyone talking about it in the dressing room."

Personally I'm writing off Everton, Arsenal and Man U away - and Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea at home.

so in my head we have 8 games left 4 at home (W.Ham, QPR, Fulham and Sunderland) and 4 away (Reading, Stoke, Norwich and Wigan)

The worst thing for me is Wigan are so our bogey team and we have them away last day. But if we cant beat W.Ham, Reading and QPR in the next 6 games we're gone.

Fact is, I doubt anyone on here has seen him play, so it's pretty impossible to make informed opinions either way on this signing. All I'll say is he plays in a position we need to strengthen so let's hope he's a success in strengthening it!

Switters speaks the truth IMO - and lets face it he's already our best defensive midfielder even though we haven't seen him yet

lol, no point getting excited, if its true, he wont make the ounce of difference at all, he wont save us from relegation, just another arrogant french @@@@ looking for the money, plus the fact hes young hes got as much experience as the smack rats in our youth set up, give it a couple of months he will go back to france on loan, somewhere like lyon

 

EDIT: cant see why you are all saying hes the DM we need, yes we need a DM, but we need one with experience, who can pick out a pass, lead the attack and turn a game around, that sort of thing costs money

 

next...

I only logged in coz i heard on the radio we were actually gonna sign someone and a DMC too I was so happy, my missus said it was great to see me smile for the first time since xmas, maybe its not so bad after all, maybe lerner and lambert have a plan after all, maybe - just maybe we wont end up in the championship - didnt last long though eh!!

Cheer up mate, we're gonna turn them wheels, fight like hell, not lie down (always an advantage in football methinks), give it a right good go and then we'll be fine. 

YAY

Happy to admit I was wrong in thinking we wouldnt sign anyone in the window. they've gone and made me look a bit sylla now

That is despite the newly-published Deloitte Football Money League 2013 placing Villa among the world’s top 30 clubs in reported revenue terms in the 2011/12 season.

Quote above from the Birmingham Mail article,

Very surprised at this, how is our revenue so high when our attendances have been on the decline for years? Are we really making that much from merchandise, sponsorship etc.

only thing i can find on us so far was in the daily mail 24th jan - 

In 2009/10 we were in the top 20 so as with our position in the Premier League we have gone backwards.

yes. but as snowychap and others have pointed out its based on turnover. suggests we have the 9th highest turnover in the premier league last year

Nonsense.

The original point was that you appeared to know little about what you were going on about (transfer balance sheet and so on) and the follow up posts would seem to confirm that.

Ok, everyone's always entitled to their opinion obviously. Sorry if the fact that I copied and pasted a term you're not familiar with upset you in some way. Ive not suggested I have the accounts - but we can piece together a good picture from the freely available information at our disposal. Operating cashflow figures for 2010/11 was +£4m. yes deals for players may involve staggered payments. but also our signings may also have been paid in this fashion. All I suggested in the first place was since those last accounts where we made a £53m loss, between McCleish and Lambert they've spent on transfer fees alone the same amount as we've received since A Young and Downing left. 

add to that the £12 - 14m drop in income in one year i mentioned above, the money being paid in interest repayments to the loan from Randy, the payments to McCleish, Grant and Norwich, agents fees, wages and all the day to day costs incurred running the club. do you think it was nonsense to think that the players wages we lost in that time aren't going to cover these losses? I said the cupboards are bare. Is that the bit you call nonsense?

I'm interested though, because if you're going to point out I'm wrong and that we're in great financial shape, with a huge transfer kitty at our disposal and no need for help from Lerner RIGHT NOW believe me I'm all ears coz we're all looking for something good to cling onto at the moment. 

from the telegraph 10 May 2012, 2010/11 figures. came with this little write up:

• Solvency index for 2010-11 is compiled using operating cashflow minus interest paid/plus received

Cant find much of this years figures yet (released 2013 for 2011/12) apart from this line from the mail - 

Which shows bugger all really (not even the cash flow, I'd guess, as it would appear that very few transfers are paid in full on transfer of registration).

So in the same way that our wage structure wasn't sustainable under O'Neill, Lerner's continued cost cutting exercise won't be sustainable in the Premiership or Championship and eventually he will have to spend to stop his investment from drowning.

Absolutely. Nail on the head. When though?? we all know the TEAM desperately needs it. Makes me wonder if McCleish went and messed up their plans last year by staying up tbh. Without basically Bent, Ireland and Given off the books with no replacements I dont see how we're going to be solvent in the premiership. Going down (and getting what? 40m a year less due to parachute payments) and an everything must go sale will reign. 

The only time? Apart from the previous year you mean, when we sold Milner and Young?

 

And the season before that the net spend was £3m.

The whatty what?

Just saying the +/- figure for transfer fees for the listed transfers shows we took £20m more than we spent. - which in turn was spent by Lambert pre season.

Also when it comes to the 'Downing money' or the 'Milner money', shouldn't the amount we paid for them be factored too. I'm just thinking when people moan about Lerner not putting in any dosh. I think sometimes it gets forgotten.

depends on the context of the conversation really. If we add up all the in and subtract all the out fees since Lerner walked in the door we show a loss of -£97m. (a sizeable chunk of the reported £133m owed to him by the club) maybe i should refer to it as the same figure we received some time before from the sale of Stewart Downing I'll find a way of linking the sale of stewart downing to Lamberts transfer kitty if it kills me

When are the next set of accounts due out? Would be nice to know exactly where we are on that front now, instead of all the hear say and educated guesses.

Club will probably release a statement march / april / may time for 2011/2012.

Does anyone know when the EUFA financial fair play rules are supposed to come in effect? I know we are opposing it along with Chelsea, Fulham and WBA. I'm not sure how much this has forced the clubs arm in dropping the wage bill. Im too cynical so i think if we aint turning a profit we cant make the loan repayments to the holding company! 

we carry the 4th highest debt of all the clubs after Man Utd obviously thanks to the Glaziers, Fulham and Newcastle. Ashley and Al Fayed have smaller interest repayments than randy though. at 90% of turnover our percentage of turnover spent on wages was the second highest in the league behind Man City unsurprisingly as they were the only club to show a defecit (114%)

In contrast Man Utd (ok their turnover is HUGE) showed 46% of their turnover spent on wages. Not surprisingly 4 of the 5 clubs with the biggest turnovers back the new proposals (Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs)

the downing money, like the money from most of the rest of our sales, was spent on the massive deficit the club runs up paying wages every year

 

when we sell someone the money doesnt sit in a box waiting to be spent on players, it's used for the running of the club

thanks for that P3te. I shall spend my time more wisely at Villa Park and stop looking for a box of money to tell me whether the transfer kitty cupboard is bare or not. Should save me hours. 

The point was about whether Lerner had "handed" Lambert a kitty of £20m and whether that was from him or not. 

Following the last published accounts from 2010/11 It was announced that we were on a costcutting exercise. we know the starting position (£54m loss in the previous year. turnover at £92m wages at £83m) Lerner we know put £25m in (effectively financing the Bent + Makoun initial payments) he may have put in more in the form of loans through the holding company we dont know for sure. We know since may 2011 we had to fork out for Mccleish both in and out and Lambert coming in. 

Overall wages have surely fallen with the departures of Downing, A Young, L Young, Makoun (loan), Lowry, Carew, Salifou, NRC, Hogg, Osbourne, Friedel, Pires, Forrester, Bradley (loan return), Beye, Collins, Cuellar, Heskey and then Makoun [out again!], Delfouneso, Warnock, Hutton, Johnson (all loan) since those figures were released

although the savings are slightly offset by the arrivals of NZogbia, Hutton, Given, Jenas (loan), Benteke, Vlaar, Lowton, Bennett, KEA, Westwood, Bowery, Holman, Makoun (loan return)

I can only guess Lambert and McMuppet are/were on less then Houllier too

With attendances down you would assume that the commercial wing have also seen a downturn in profits so with wages at 90% of turnover in 2010/2011 we may well have seen overall spend drop but who knows what percentage of the wage bill the turnover is covering last season and this? we will probably have to wait until march/april/may time to find out the cost of mccleish's reign. 

The exodus following Houlliers brief stint: 

So 2011/12 Transfer balance sheet  +20.600.800 £ (The ONLY time under Lerner we've received more than we spent) 

I have said before round here I'm glad McMuppet never got his hands on the other £20m!! Whether thats because Man Utd and Liverpool's payments were staggered over time or whether the club decided to spread the money it took over 2 years to get to the new TV deal who knows? but since the last publicly acknowleged cash injection from Randy the money we've spent on transfers can clearly be traced back imo. culminating in having to sell Collins to free up the cash and wages for Vlaar.

so for me to paraphrase that all as "effectively the downing money" I think seems pretty fair myself  

Harewood? He's not even on that list ..

I knew it was a mistake to name him! I know, but he was one of the ones you missed off from the timeframe you seemed to be talking about

But to answer your question .. No. i don't want the ones on your list back. My point was that whether the players on that list were good, bad, indifferent, crap or whatever is irrelevant.. & obviously Heskey, & Beye were among the worst on that list as you well know, but the fact still remains that the squad was decimated & we were in desperate need of extra bodies in pre season. The squad was desperately threadbare when Lambert arrived & a budget of 20m was nowhere near enough to fill all those holes with quality players & that i actually thought he had done Ok in this regard.

 

So do you disagree with that?

Nope, totally agree with the rest of the original post too, just wasn't entirely sure on your point with the list of players we've let go. 

What i meant by "Myth" was that i have lost count of the posts on here claiming Randy had been generous by giving Lambert this 20m transfer kitty. It is often implied that this is in some way a further personal investment on Randy's part taking his personal investment to up to 250m etc when it is in fact just money generated by transfers..So the Myth i am getting at is the Myth that this was an additional personal investment of some sort by our owner. Randy has indeed invested a lot of money in the club of course he has, but i don't see how reinvesting money generated by player sales can be classed in the same light. 

 

Lambert was given 20m yes but he was also given a very threadbare squad which was desperately short in numbers. He inherited a squad that had survived by the skin of it's teeth last season & had been decimated still further since then with the losses of Collins, Cuellar & Petrov amongst others. Yes the quality of many of those sold/released was poor anyway but we did have some "Stars" & established Internationals in that lot too which have not been replaced... So yeah i'd prefer a number of those back here for sure although thats never going to happen obviously.

Ok so a myth that it came out of Randy's pockets, I haven't seen that. But you're 100% correct that Lambert's transfer kitty was just money we still had from previous sales (effectively the Downing money). 

Just for the record im pleased with the signings of Lowton, Vlaar, Benteke, I'd rather Bennett to Warnock, I think Westwood will become a regular and it's a shame KEA seems to be the one who isnt adapting to the pace of the premier league when he is probably the one of all his signings we couldn't afford to fail because we knew Stan was not gonna be available. 

It has cheered me up a bit remembering all the crap players that I dont have to watch any more though  

I think this debate between "is it Randy or Lambert" will run & run lol!

 

Emile Heskey------------------------free

Alan Hutton (Ousted)

Steven Warnock (ousted)

Stilian Petrov (ill)

James Collins-----------------------2.8m

Carlos Cuellar----------------------free

Jean Makoun (loaned)------------1.3m

Nathan Delfounso (loan)

Jermaine Jenas (end of loan)

Habib Beye--------------------------free

Gary Gardner (serious injury)

John Carew-----------------------free

Ashley Young --------------------£15.8m

Stewart Downing-----------------£20m

luke Young------------------------£1m

Brad Freidel----------------------free

Nigel Reo Coker-----------------free

Robert Pirez----------------------released

Michael Bradley----------------- (end of loan)

Moustapha Salifou--------------free

Isaiah Osbourne-----------------free

 

                                                             total: 41.8m

in the season previous with Milners departure etc it was 25m from transfers so £66.8m since MON left.

 

How much have we spent on transfers in that period? approx 72.7m!! so altogether a spend of 1.9m per season!! So much for the 20m myth!!

 

 

 

Thats 21 players with 1st team experience we have lost/sold by the way!! I havn't included the others!!

What £20m myth? 

and yeah 21 players, 7 of whom were ever good enough to wear the shirt and 3 of those I actually miss when I think of it. but what's the point? you want Heskey, Beye and Harewood back? 

It's an answer he should be making, it's not difficult, he should be saying along the lines, it's not good enough, the support has been brilliant and they deserve better.

Spot on. Not along the lines of...just those exact words. Lambert should realise today that even if Kendrick's been in his Mrs bed by not answering a question "from the fans" he's just outwitted you and made you look very foolish and unsympathetic. 

Do we have a PR dept? are they paid anything? cant they at least give him a script to follow?

Ive been thinking about the significance of wheels anyway....

Big Wheels keep on turning - even when the nuts havent been put on right and the wheel comes off, the car careers off the road bursts into flames but the wheel keeps on turning all the way down the road far away from the fiery mess it created................

Weimann's out of contract end of next season. Apart from Baker, who i think we should keep hold of too the rest of them still have something to prove if they think they're worth a new deal:

Ireland, Albrighton, Herd, Clark, Gardner and Bannan

If we manage to keep hold of him then good coz he's been a bright spark on the pitch most of the time and apart from the fact that he needs to whinge less when things dont go his way we need to keep hold of him. If he is to be sold and you want a 7 or 8 million bid for weimann then you better have him tied down for 4 or 5 years or he'll leave for around 1-2 million this summer if not for free next year. 

Folks are mentioning N'Zogbia and Delph improving recently. Is that down to Lambert, their will to win or, the fact that they might just be trying to get themselves a new deal? I wonder.

if you mean new contracts at villa there's no need Delph's under contract till 2015 and Nzogbia 2016! if you mean elsewhere who knows. My point was every one of our players should be playing for their own personal pride right now. We might be seething right now but the rest of the footballing world is laughing at them. Nzogbia and Delph seem to have got that into their heads I reckon.......maybe the reason Lambert keeps saying "we cant lie down" is coz most of our Lions are really Lambs?

He should have got, Ireland, Nzog, Bent, weimann maybe even Warnock playing from game one. Ok you can say there not good enough, but he is the manager, he is paid alot of money yo manage these premadonna players, to get them playing the top of there level, is this not what we employed him for because we thought McLeish couldn't do it and Lambert could. If he played these players consistantly im sure we would have had a middle table team by now. Swapping and changing the team is not the answer, damm the big problem is inconsistancy though we have completely fell apart now. You cannot play different teams week on week out, our team is too inexperienced for that, most of us fans csn see major problems with tactics and team selection, some players just can't play together but he still don't see this and still can't find his best team!!!For these reasons and for me there is no defence (no pun intended) he has to go!

Needs to play a settled team undoubtedly. Defence has been crippled by injurys all season although we all have our opinions on hutton and warnock and that debate will run and run and run till they leave the wage bill. doesnt the fact that we're contemplating 2 of the worst players from last year being our "saviours" if we bring them back into the fold just prove we're scraping the barrell and need some new blood fast? I dont understand the benching of the senior players either to be honest especially as we need to sell them - why not have them in the shop window?......mind you i'll answer myself they are crap aren't they !

How a champions league winning midfielder, who played alongside Sammer, is in charge of a team with the worst central midfield i can ever remember in Claret and Blue is beyond me though. I've got to believe it's the players.

I think he's proving to be very stubborn with his tactics and that could be the difference. considering the amount of possession we already dont have in the opposition half every game (well the second half of every game anyway) what would be the harm of a back 4 and 2 holding midfielders (Clark/Herd/KEA/Westwood) and any 3 + Benteke running round like headless chickens occasionally spawning a chance here and there or giving it to Benteke to carve out a chance for himself which is pretty much the only reason we're out the bottom 3 at the moment?

I also reckon he's hanging Lowton and Bennett out to dry with the fans by not playing a 442 and giving them some help. 

I think he should try it now in the next few games. no point going and playing so open in the middle at Goodison Park or the Emirates imo and 2 home wins against Newcastle and West Ham who are both gonna battle are so desperately needed. If after the Man City game it's not working and we've seen no improvement its not going to matter that much as we'll need to beat everyone bar Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool to stay up.

sadly alot of fans cant see this, they judge him on how fast he can run and if he stops running then he is shit

or how many aimless boots ionto the air he can win, again, if he doesnt jump and fight for every header he is again .. shit

 

i didnt watch last nights game, i had something more important to do, which i cant remember qhat it was now, it may have been watching crap tv or something, it was better and less depresssing than watching the shit villa anyway.

 

but i do see that bent scored, so he did his job. i bet he didnt go back and defend every corner or tackle back in our own box, that will give the haters something to keep whining about as they cant maon about him not scoring

Lol, He scored with a mishit scuff of a shot that trickled in so yeah, he did his job perfectly. Do you advocate it being a good thing that we have players on the pitch who rarely contribute anything to our play? If so you must be well chuffed at the moment! If he was out there pulling defenders out of position giving a few of them the run around and linking up with the play then there'd be a point to him. He does and will score goals if you play him - even if they are off his shins from time to time. But it seems his nose is out of joint coz we bought someone who is younger and better than him and offers the team more than he does and he doesnt like it. Like richard said If he doesn't want to be here then fine. but 10 games, 2 goals 1 assist is not good enough from our "main man" - "we lack experience" well bent is the most experienced player isnt he? where is the leading by example? APPALLING in the first 5 games, no surprise he lost the captaincy and lets face it the writing was on the wall for his villa career at that moment. 

No-one's gonna come in for him unless they do it on the last day and he will be gone next year whether we go down or not. 

I'm not gonna slate him too much, he's been an important player for us while he's been here and if we lose him we'll have a much weaker squad on paper. I just think the clubs transfer policy has relied on offloading bent for loads of money and every other club in the country knows it so we hold none of the cards.

If I thought we could base the decision on results alone, I'm ready to admit Lambert should go. If I thought that the fact that he obviously can't get the best out of the players he inherited or bought at this moment in time, then I'm ready to admit Lambert should go. If I thought we should base this decision on the totally inept tactics on show every game (Lichaj marking Shittu? WTF) then again, Lambert should go.

Unfortunately for us - and it's a hard pill to swallow - I honestly dont think we have the luxury of being able to make footballing decisions based on footballing matters alone anymore......and that is because of how the club has been run since Randy came. Can we afford to pay off and hire another manager? If we cant afford new players what's the point in guaranteeing we cant sign anyone next year by spending more money and disrupting the club even further? We SO BADLY NEEDED A LIFT after McMuppet - and haven't got one.....yet. I also can't get away from the fact that the players simply aren't good enough, arent consistant enough and haven't been for some time....and its the same names it's always been that are letting us down. If they cant or wont play for Houliier or McMuppet why is it Lambert's fault that they can't or wont play for him? 

It seems to me the only ones with any pride out there are Guzan, Vlaar, Benteke, Weimann, Gabby, Lichaj, Holman, Lowton who visibly try. Nzogbia and Delph seem to have puffed out their chests and seem a bit more determined to prove themseves. The rest......huge huge huge problems whether it be illness, injury, confidence, application or just plain lack of ability. 

The austerity imposed on the club by the owner has been publicly acknowledged and we've heard nothing yet to suggest we're gonna see anyone shipped out or any investment made so there's no hope of signings.

So we're basically up shit creek without a paddle. Lerner's chilling out at the back of the boat doing sweet FA, Faulkners sat in the middle trying to get people to paddle with their hands in the shit in a vain attempt to get us going but actually making us spin wildly out of control and we got Lambert to swim through the shit to join us - seems he bought a couple of paddles with him that have pointed us in the right direction but now we want to **** him off coz he didnt bring 11 paddles and we're not going fast enough.

My heart has been broken this week, my heart does now want Lambert out, My head says we'd be nuts absolutely nuts to do it, especially now. 

As for start of seasons expectations - same players, same shit so i thought we'd be struggling to get to 40 points - guess what - we are.

And finally in my morning rant! Anyone on here saying "I wanted us to lose last night" and "I think we should go down". Go see a doctor. Depression is a real illness.

I remember asking my Uncle who was a season ticket holder at Man City if he liked the banner their fans unfurled at Villa park when we were challenging Utd for the title which was something like go on villa hope you win today from all us Utd haters. 

I cant tell you what he said coz it will upset the children. But he was less than impressed lets put it that way. Get a grip people. Whether it's Lambert, No-one, O'leary, McNeil, McMuppet, Venglos I dont care. I want Villa to win plain and simple. If you've lost sight of that you need to have a good hard look at yourself in the mirror and wonder where it all went wrong. Like Stephen Ireland should. 

Just been dumped out of the FA cup by Millwall. Thought I'd find some help on the internet. Found a questionaire and thought I'd share it here. Maybe I shouldn't have taken this quiz this week. Gotta go though coz there's some bloke at the door trying to give me a new coat but I think the arms are gonna be too long for me.............

Am I Depressed?

Apparently, the man said we could all get new coats - just tell your doctors about watching villa and you can have a bit of time off work too

So Benteke given a rest, no Dunne yet and Given is still our cup keeper it seems.

I feel a bit like tuesday only without the first leg defecit to turn around. Still if we go 4 up I might relax a bit ;P

Does anyone think we will sign anyone over the next 6 days. Genuine question.

No. I think we need to sell to buy and i cant see that happening. Loans wont mean a thing imo

Our only hope is the last day goes crazy, someone leaves for cash (not future fees or staggered payments) and we have enough time and money to reinvest before the window shuts.

So like I said - NO  

What did Houllier and Mcleish do? Bent saved us from relegation and we probably would've been a lot higher up the table had he not got injured against Wigan last year. Fair enough, McLeish bought Hutton but he wasn't exactly backed in the transfer market, something that caused further outrage towards the General!

Errr, Jean Il Makoun? Houllier bought him, McMuppet loaned him out so he lost his work permit and is now just sat there leaching money from us to play for someone else. McMuppet (with the benefit of hindsight) spent approx £17m loaning Jenas and signing Hutton, Given and Nzogbia to big, long contracts with no relegation release clauses. I dont think any of them have proved good buys. Personally I'm so glad the club didnt give him the downing money to play with too or god knows what sort of mess we'd be in. 

Add the fact that the club have spent a reported £15m over the last 3 years paying off MON's unfair dismissal case, paying off Houllier and McAllister, paying small heath for McMuppet - then paying him and Grant off to leave and finally compensating Delia for nicking their manager. 

That £15m would have been nice sat in the war chest no?

Though it was just Dunne. don't the other two have a year left?

Dunne, Warnock, Lichaj and Marshall are out of contract in the summer. 

Makoun, Ireland, Albrighton, Bannan, Clark, Herd, Weimann, Gardner and Baker till 2014

Bent, Agbonlahor, Hutton, Holman, Vlaar, Delph, KEA, Guzan, Bowery and Stephens till 2015

Given, Nzogbia, Bennet, Westwood, Benteke and Lowton till 2016

Our midfield is **** shit

Yes, yes it is.

Not really sure why this thread remains open

Very, Very good point. Could it not be left open but renamed "DREAM ON VILLA FANS, DREAM ON" ?

At this point though unless we bring a fee in by offloading someone, Lambert aint got a penny to spend. That much is obvious.

If it's true that Bent, Given, Nzogbia, Ireland, Agbonlahor and Hutton have no relegation release clauses in their massive contracts (Faulkner's so brilliant isn't he)  then anyone interested in them for real would be mad not to wait until the summer when relegated or not they will be available cheaper. If we go down they'll all be available for peanuts. Surely the reason they are all looking so down when anyone mentions transfers is they know that our rivals hold all the cards - Lambert must be well aware that no-one wants to pay for any of them - maybe when he came in he thought he could have forced warnock and hutton out by now and that he could have offloaded Bent, Given and Ireland for decent money and that he could have made himself some money to play with, maybe not - I'm very much guessing at that. If we could get £15 - 17m for Bent right now do you not think Lambert would be biting their arms off? Rumours suggest teams have put cheeky offers of around £7 - 8m for him, just to test our resolve. 

We all know we're in this mess thanks to Lerner, Faulkner, MON, Houllier and McMuppet. Seems Lamberts mistake was to blow all his season's budget before September and gambling on another team giving us some money to play with in January.