The thing that I find astonishing about his article is that he completely manages to avoid asking the only important questions. Why? Why did this happen?
Several possible answers. One is that the owners are waiting on these mysterious ‘new investors’. Is that likely? Not really. They’ve been trying to sell the club for ages and, due to lack of interest at the price they want, have resorted to bringing in others alongside them. To get them to fund any outside attempt at getting up and allowing them to recover their initial outlay on shares.
Second is that they don’t want to give Martin any funds and want to keep powder dry until the summer. This is more possible. Two reasons could be 1. That they have actually lost faith in him due to dismal recent results. 2. The negotiations they were supposed to be in about extending his contract have fallen apart because he is demanding too much. This may well be the case. If they think he’s off at the end of the season then why bother giving him money - better to save it to allow a new person to shape the squad.
Third possibility is that they genuinely thought someone would pay a lot for Obafemi, Patterson, Whittaker etc. Naive and the club went about it in completely the wrong way by making it so obvious they weren’t needed, but they’ve done that quite a bit before and seem to have no idea how to go about negotiating any football deals whatsoever. Either in or out.
What hasn’t changed though is their lack of interest. They haven’t given a toss for ages now. Written off their initial purchase price against tax, win some lose some, no gain in owning a club no one in America can ever watch on the Tv - no kudos there.
It’s a sorry state of affairs whichever way you look at it, but for the main journo to not explore this is beyond a joke.
