Quote ="stouffer"Would you honestly be surprised if he did turn out to be an Allen Stanford style character though? Not saying he [idefinitely[/i is ">mind.'" No,he's not a Sandford type character. He has a shed load of racehorses and the upkeep of those requires frequent and substantial payment. I think it suits his purpose to be described as a billionaire,and he never denies it, and I can understand why he wants the club to stand on its own feet financially but it never has and never will. This is partly about money,but mainly about the character and personality of the owner. Things will not change.

Quote ="stouffer"Would you honestly be surprised if he did turn out to be an Allen Stanford style character though? Not saying he [idefinitely[/i is ">mind.'" No,he's not a Sandford type character. He has a shed load of racehorses and the upkeep of those requires frequent and substantial payment. I think it suits his purpose to be described as a billionaire,and he never denies it, and I can understand why he wants the club to stand on its own feet financially but it never has and never will. This is partly about money,but mainly about the character and personality of the owner. Things will not change.

If Dr K were not a billionaire (or damn near) then the horses could be funded by a third party or third parties. This is not an uncommon practice.



His enormous training conglomerate - and no doubt the substantial staff it requires - are based overseas. He can run a billion dollar business based in the Middle east from the UK but struggles with a very small business in Salford.

I'd think it's more a case of the training business and horses are run by someone else but he seems incredibly hands on at Salford.



Does make you wonder what Vickers does with the Doc getting so involved.



We'd be better employing a proper CEO and the Doc becoming more of a figurehead than the current role he has seemingly doing a bit of everything.

I've no idea what's going on behind closed doors, but the doc would be well advised to delete his Twitter account. The volume of abuse he regularly gets on there is bound to drive him crazy and prevent him thinking clearly.



For what it's worth, I think he got it completely wrong from day one. He never should have said we were going to sign the game's best players, as the current squad were always going to feel threatened and unwanted by such a statement. His next major error came when the club jettisoned many of the players who had been around the for a few years. People like Broughton, Jewitt and Sneyd should have ben kept within the fold. They were the people to give us some identity and link to the recent past. He then went to make much of the same errors of the Wilkinson era signing flashy backs, rather than top quality forwards. I'm not even going to begin talking about the elderly signings made during Noble's tenure.



It's not all bad and with a little improvement, possibly a conditioning team not so caught up cross-fit might help, things could quickly turn around.

Re the racing: like it or not, according to friends who follow that sport, he's successful (by using Fahey [spelling? as his trainer).

I feel he has become the victim of his image: the missing Oasis brother : a winner but cannot shed some personality traits that cause failure when dealing with others. The call for Sheen or "a manager with balls" to sort him out are, on the evidence we've had, doomed to failure. The Dr. holds the cash, the ownership and the club. His is the only say in this: I think he would have taken on the Murphy. We, the fans, cannot choose another Doctor. If he walks and cuts his loses, then we go. We cannot raise the funds ourselves except at the lowest semi-pro level and then we need a ground. If he stays, we are faced with the same choices as the generals who served under Churchill had : "What's he going to say next?"



Well, I've nearly given up on many occasions in the past. I've even thrown my season ticket onto the pitch. I've been around too long to give up now.

Dr Koucash: it's up to you. Stay and make us proud again. And that includes not acting like Churchill. Or go. Simply go: you're not making me give up.



See you all on Sunday at teh bouncy castle.



[size=85(Churchill wa snot as popular as many say