TBF under Bill we lived within our means, albeit with a measure of debt mate, the difficulty he had was developing the business commercially, to broaden the base of income to fund football operations, that created the glass ceiling - one step away from the CL.
Was only when Moshiri came in that the business became unsustainable and dependent on him as a sugar daddy - then he walked away, leaving us in the Manure business.
Getting back to self sustainability will take a couple of years and that is Priority 1 for me.
But what really to keep an eye on, is broadening the base commercially - i like what these lids have done at Roma on that score.
Priority 2 is is to repair the reputation of the club, to be very frank Moshiri has taken the reputation, profile and heritage of this great institution and flushed it down the toilet - we are a laughing stock in football now, a no mark clubs you can come to and softly extract good players for cut price deals, a club to be bullied - aka what Utd are trying to do - a basket case many players wont want to touch via relegation battles and point deductions. we have hard yards to do to prove we are a serious club again both with out peers and those we hope to recruit and also those we look to do business with. Dyche's dignity, leadership and bravery gave us some and a little of our dignity and respectability back last year in my opinion.
Priority 3: Keeping our best players, you cant compete or build by every season selling your best players, right now we could be a serious team by having Richarlison, Gordon and Branthwaite in it - on the way building and competing, you get no where selling your best players and we are too happy to do it and to happy to accept it as fans. Im pragmatic in the sense players will want to move on and at times you have tot sell them, but should only be done when you get a ridiculous fee and you are fully compensated for their loss and then some.
Personally i just cant see past kenwright.
If it wasnt for Moyes we'd of been relegated and if that happened we'd of been done as a club. Even without relegation we could of gone into administration without the sales of assets such as rooney, arteta ect.
Kenwrights mo of hiring his mates or yes men over people who are actually good at their job is what nearly killed this club for me. Said it before Sunderland over a decade ago had a shirt sponsor worth £20mpa and ours was £1m. That was why we were in the crap.
Then he sold the club to the only jokers in town that would keep him in charge (strange that while kenwrightwas here the best we could get is 777 then now hes not here we have the pick of billionaires). Where he went ape with spending their money and made the club totally unsustainable without them. Then the war in Ukraine happened and the money stopped. Then people were asked to do their jobs but unfortunately kenwrights mates weren't good at them.
The oy good thing to come out of this club during kenwrights period in charge is the stadium and thats because he had sod all to do with it.
100% agree with you on being self sustaining though. Think that'll be friedkins first priority as well tbf. Positively i think that that'll be fairly easy though not immediate throught the new stadium and having a commercial department who will actually be good at bringing in sponsors.
As for priority 2 i think our reputation has been in the toilet since Martinez 2nd season tbh but under moshiri it got alot worse. Although personally I dont think dyche has really done much to change that. Think the only way that changes is by regularly getting back into the top half and not being run like a basketball club.
With your 3rd priority i think selling our best players is always going to be an issue. This league is set up so that any team outside of the top 6 is forced to sell their best players to them. Weve already seen how the PL enforcement of the PSR ruling had the big 6 hopeing to take other teams best players for cheap. Or the better a player becomes to us the more his agent will push for higher wages so the only thing we can do is either match their ambition and wages or sell them on.