The Martin Semmens appreciation thread

With all the limitations he's got to work with, I think this man deserves a lot of praise for doing a brilliant job in very difficult circumstances. He must be working his bollocks off for this club and it's starting to show with the pending arrival of Livramento.

I for one certainly appreciate the job he's doing behind the scenes which often goes unnoticed by the fans. So I thought I would create this thread so at least we can show our appreciation.

Thanks Martin!

 

Couldn’t agree more Tom, and the others in the higher management such as Toby Steele and, particularly, Matt Crocker, also deserve praise. As you say, trying to get a pint out of the minuscule bottle they have to work with is almost impossible.

 

Imagine if Les Reed and Ralph Krueger, aka Laurel and Hardy, were still at the helm....*shudders*.

 

Having listened to him as a guest on the total saints podcast, I realised that despite the difficulties of operating under our ownership and in the current climate, we seem to be in very good hands indeed.

 

You called?

 

Toby Steele shouldn’t be understated either. There are people on Saintsweb wetting the bed about our finances. Having accountants as both MD and FD help reassure me significantly

 

Totally agree and the club are in a good place at the minute. From Semmens, to Steele, to Crocker, to Ralph....

I do get a bit frustrated when we look back and try and blame previous postholders though. They all wanted to do the best for the club and some may even been as good as Semmens and Steele - but sometimes other factors work against you and frustrate your attempts to turn things around. (been there, got the T shirt...)

 

Les Reed did preside over the biggest upturn in our recent history, let’s not forget. Only towards the end did he make some silly mistakes.

 

Not only is he doing a great job, but having had a long chat with him when Saints were in Macau a couple of years ago, I must say he is also an extremely pleasant and likeable guy.
Three cheers for Martin!

 

Couldn't agree more. His time at the club has changed my feelings about where we were headed dramtaically. Cheers Martin.

 

Our finances are genuinely very bad. But the conditions that created those bad finances largely pre-date Semmens having an executive role.

 

I guess what I meant to suggest is that there are people on there doing that AND implying we have people in charge who are utterly clueless and who will happily steer us into even more perilous financial situations

Like when they say money for sales will be reinvested. The multiples accountants in senior roles have done the workings on this. Yet people on Saintsweb will shout until they are blue in the face that we will be selling JWP to pay off the loan and other things like that

I think what people miss is that our model for reinvestment does not seem to be 1:1 for ever pound received on a sale we pay it out. It goes to bigger contracts for existing players , contract costs for new players , signing on fees etc. Now you could argue that this means the execs are being economical with the truth when they say it will be reinvested. But anyone who does argue that would just be wrong

 

We were in fact being quite deceptive about that in the past...when we talked about our reinvestment, etc, what we were really doing was establishing a favourable financial position so that the club could be sold for a large profit. Which we did, successfully.

Now, the problem isn't reinvesting transfer sales; the issue is that we're racking up debt at an alarming rate. But because we're not far from the drop zone, there's no easy answer there...we really can't afford to get relegated, either, which means raising funds by selling players is tricky. That's not a mark against Semmens et al; they're doing well having been handed an extremely difficult situation.

 

I could beg to differ but not with intention of convincing anyone. We probably rank around the middle of premier league club debt ranking. It’s peanuts compared to the debts of Chelsea, Spurs, Chelsea and Manchester Utd. But debt in itself is not the sole indicator. It’s how you manage that debt that counts. For example, many of us have mortgages which would be impossible to pay back tomorrow. We manage that debt over a long period so our day to day expenses aren’t affected.

By taking the extra debt on to cover us for the losses incurred during COVID-19 we have effectively protected the budgeted spend on things like transfers, wages and stadium improvements.

If it’s not carefully managed the banks lose faith and patience (as when we went into administration) but as has been said, the current board are managing it well.

 

The reason we have less debt than some teams is that we're not that far removed from having cash sloshing all over the place, owing to our exuberant player sales prior to the takeover. We had a net cash position of £20m on the 2018 books; we're probably at £40-50m or more net debt as of the end of this past season. COVID accounts for a portion of that, but our financial position was eroding quite badly before it hit, too.

 

When higher management make a mistake it tends to show up more. It should be remembered though that the management at the time thought they were doing the right thing and I'm betting most on here agreed. With hind sight though it is easy to criticise. Everyone at some stage will make a decision that proves to be wrong. The skill really is learning how to undo that mistake so that eventually it turns the tide of what you were trying to do. At least that is what I was taught in my business degree!!
Current management in my view have really started to correct some of these mistakes and long may they continue. Are they really on the right road now yes I think they are and good luck to them!!!

 

I thought a word of congratulations on today’s business might be in order. Extracting £30 million from another mid-table club for an injury-prone player who clearly wanted to leave and who only had a year left on his contract was quite remarkable really.

 

Very early for this type of thread

 

Not really Semmens has been great for Saints for ages now.

 

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I'd save that sort of post for after we see how his replacement does tbh.

It won't be remarkable business if we sign a donkey who gets 4 goals while we finish bottom.