We are all aware of the bankrolling that Roman has been providing since he became the club owner. But what was startling is the magnitude of his charity.

We are 736 mil quid in the red, with 578 of those in interest-free loan to our benefactor, repayable over 18 months. Even though those monies have brought success over the last 4 years - 2 titles, 2 League Cups, 1 FA Cup & a CL final appearance - It doesn't take a fool to realise that this is an untenable proposition in the long haul.

While it makes business sense to want to be self-financing in 2011-12, it would take 38 years of 15 mil pound profit to pay off Roman's loan !

The days of huge spending is truly over and unless we are sold to another baron like Sheik Mansour with 15-30 bln pound net worth, or if Mr Roman writes off these loans, frugal days are here to stay.

It is obscene and immoral to build a team with a 103 million pound bid for a former World Player of the Year, but that argument was also directed at us when we bought Sheva.

While it has been proven (by us) that fantasy football can bring success, the long-term viability of the club presupposes that we manage it the way Arsenal & Manure do. There's stability when a manager is at the helm for a long time. Decent profits can be eked out if we develop young talent (instead of splashing on stars) or buy players with a suitable cap on transfer fees, develop the core supporter's revenue & development of marketing effort to cement the Chelsea branding globally.

We have bought high expectation in such a short time that sometimes, my emotion gets the better of myself.

Arsenal may have paid the price for Emirates Stadium by not having much kitty to spend but you have to admire Arsene Wenger's effort ( not his confrontational approach from time to time) in attempting to make this balance at Arsenal. Arsenal may not have won much success in the past years since Roman's arrival, but they are always exciting to watch, great with young talent ( Fabregas, Flamini, Van Persie etc) & kept pace in the Top 4 hunt despite limited resources.

Hence, we need a practical business plan in the next few years. Forget about treble or double winning effort. The key is to focus on the long-term stability and development of the club, on and off the pitch

My thoughts exactly. I have already mentioned how I think Scolari is only short term and we should get young passionate managers who bleed blue (Zola and Clarke) in and let them grow in to the role while bringing in young players who also bleed blue.

Edited January 19, 200917 yr by Dave McD

Yeah Arsenal may offer a club record 15 million pounds for Arshavin, 15 million a club record for a squad of that caliber is unbelievable.

But i think we are headed in the right direction financially, the massive amounts of money spent got us in to the spotlight, and hopefully because of that we can recruit better, and players will want to come here for the competition, not the money, so we wont have to pay them as much.

It may or may not be a rough few years to come with a lot of key players aging, and young players not getting the experience they need, but things will turn around on the pitch, and we will be more financially stable in due time, then we can watch man city have worse problems than us.