I will start with a comment from the Argyle Trust; “The shifting of deadlines, hollow statements and false promises has to end. The line in the sand is drawn. Plymouth Argyle supporters demand and deserve answers“, I couldn’t agree more! P & A Partnership, Brendan Guilfoyle, Kevin Heaney, Bishop International Limited (whoever they may be, still hiding behind Gibraltan law) and Peter Ridsdale have done nothing but dig the club into a deeper hole. P & A had two perfectly viable offers on the table from James Brent and Paul Buttivant well before Bishop International joined the fray. It’s been clear that Bishop & Heaney don’t have the funds; if they have the funds, where are they? why haven’t the players and backroom staff been paid? Bishop Intl certainly didn’t pay the £1m in exclusivity payments as agreed! This situation shouldn’t have been allowed to drag on for this long, it’s been six months since P & A Partnership were appointed as administrators; there shouldn’t have been any exclusivity deals; whoever can put REAL cash on the table should have been prime candidates, none of this bullshit with promises or ‘proof‘ of funding. Bishop Intl were and are not the best option for the club, Guilfoyle should have been fired a long time ago, it’s clear that he has some other agenda, maybe in cahoots with Peter Ridsdale? What’s happened to all the season ticket sales revenue? What happened to the fees received for the sale of players? My bet is that Guilfoyle and co have been paying themselves with that income, the players and staff certainly haven’t seen any of it! It seems to me that P & A are just in this to line their own pockets at the expense of Argyle; the administrators have done a piss poor job of administering the club!
It seems that the staff have had enough as well; several players are considering refusing to play in Argyle’s away game at Burton Albion at the weekend. A number of other players have already left Home Park, Kari Arnason refuses to sign yet another wage deferral a couple of months back and was released from his contract. Liam Dickinson signed onto the Argyle roster only to leave the club for ‘person reasons’ a couple of days later. Stephane Zubar also left the club for ‘personal reasons’ after signing a new contract a month before, it’s pretty obvious that those personal reasons are the lack of wages. Not the mention the sale of Joe Mason to prop up the club over the summer, again where did that money go? the people that needed it most didn’t see it; does the administrator think the staff can live on air? The players have been getting loans from the Professional Footballers Association while backroom staff have been living on public donations.
Peter Reid managed to get a couple of players in on a month loan to bolster the squad with some experienced players on transfer deadline day but will that be enough to stop the slide, I was going to say ‘down the league’, but we can’t get any lower in the whole Football League, so let’s leave it at losing streak! While on the subject of transfers, the other team I support, Liverpool has sold Raul Meireles after the player handed in a last minute transfer request just hours before the transfer window closed. Chelsea paid £12m for the Portuguese international; I would have dangled a £50m price tag in front of Roman Abramovich and see if he is willing to stump up the cash; it worked last time with Torres who has only scored once since donning a blue shirt in January! If Meireles isn’t proud to wear the Liverpool crest on his chest, good riddance! David Ngog also left Anfield heading to Bolton for a estimated £4m signing a three year deal. Christian Poulsen has been sent out on year long loan to Evian, Poulsen was one of Roy Hodgson’s signings that never really broke into the team. Joe Cole, Emiliano Insua and Alberto Aquilani have all also left Anfield while Craig Bellamy rejoined the Reds after leaving the club in 2007 after just twelve months at Anfield! Another good signing for the Reds is Uruguay Sebastian Coates, the 6ft 6in defender will hook up with international team mate Luis Suarez, Kenny Dalglish seems to be building up a strong squad to challenge for league, domestic and European cup glory. Liverpool signed seven players during the summer, in addition to Bellamy and Coates, the Reds have signed midfielders Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing, goalkeeper Doni and defender Jose Enrique, it’s looking good!