Out of the Red into the...

[Yeti01]

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26 December 2015



Movin’ on up



Our 2nd game of the Christmas period as against West Brom. Despite a few guys showing signs of fatigue, not wanting to mess with anything, I sent the same side out and the tired legs showed a bit in this one.
In the end the game was decided by a single goal. A guy who, not that long ago I was bemoaning somewhat, has come right on lately and Bamford was the hero again as he scored when played in by Atsu. Really he couldn’t miss but these are the ones you have to be scoring if he wants to take the next step.
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Despite dominating the game we couldn’t get any more goals and had to settle for the one nil win.
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This though was our 5th Premiership victory in a row and meant we have now climbed up into 8th spot. I’d be lying though if I didn’t point out that all I see when I look at the table is how we would be equal 2nd on points with Liverpool, 2 points behind United with a game in hand but for the FA!!!!
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[Yeti01]

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29 December 2015



Not Happy Jan



I gave the guys a couple of days off after the Baggies game as I could see they were still tired. Unfortunately when you give young footy players an inch they want to take a mile and an impromptu Christmas Party was organized by the group (without my knowledge) 2 nights before the Norwich game undoing any good served by the break. As such we were flat, real flat, when we made the trip to Carrow Road and were summarily punished.


In a game I’d rather forget Van Wolfswinkel and Erasmus were the scorers for Norwich.
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No amount of ranting and raving from the sideline helped today and we ran out 2 nil losers.
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I really wasn’t happy with the performance and had let the guys know it in the shed. When fronting the media after the game I tried to kept things even keeled but my mind kept going back to the group’s decision to get on the sauce when I’d given them time off and I let lose.
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After the match we found out that due to Matic’s involvement in the United game we were now due another 5.75 million pounds – that will help.
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A couple of days later we also found out that we had trifecta’d the Player of the Month Award and got 2 out of 3 in the Young Player of the Month. I must admit that made me a lot more happy and caused me to remember, although they may make stupid decisions from time to time caused by the rashness of youth, that this team is going places and have been performing really well for the most part.
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The other bit of news I got was slightly disappointing. When the awards came out It turned out Boga was pipped to the post in the Golden Boy award by Kovacic of Inter. I can help think that if Boga hadn’t of picked up that late injury then he would have been a shoe-in. Having said that Kovacic is 21 at the time of picking up this award and Boga is only 18 still! He has another couple of chances at least to get his name on the trophy.
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[Yeti01]

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3 January 2015



Indifference



We broke in the new year with a trip to Chesterfield for our FA cup 3rd round tie. We fully rotated the squad here and most of the guys haven’t featured since our final Europa League group game so we thought we’d be a bit rusty. Couple that with a team who, driven on by the romance of the cup and a home tie against a big side, came ready to play and we knew things were going to be tough.


Any notions of rustiness were quickly dispelled though. Colkett got us on the board with less than a minute gone, running onto a through ball and tucking in after rounding the keeper with ease.
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With only 13 minutes on the board Romeu put us two ahead. Eidur Gudjohnsen was tripped up in the area and the big Spaniard stepped to convert from the spot.
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Cruising along with less than a quarter hour gone and a two goal lead you could be forgiven for thinking we were now going to run away with it, Chesterfield are obviously a team with a lot of pride and they weren’t going away without a fight. They worked their way back into the game and scored a goal when Tendayi Darikwa fought his way through and finish high to Beeney’s right.
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Chesterfield continued to be out match also and have more chances but so did we. In the end I’m just glad we don’t have a replay to content with.
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[Yeti01]

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5 January 2015



Wake Up



We’re in a bit of a slump at the moment. The Norwich game was disappointing and, although we didn’t lose here, today wasn’t much better. Watford came out firing and took the lead early when Ciprian Marica scored, firing in among a scrum of players at the far post.
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Traore evened things up for us 6 minutes later when he got up and headed in an Atsu free kick that he had floated in.
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Parity didn’t last long though at Ighao got in behind us and made no mistake when one on one with Delac.
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The end to end nature of the game continued with Traore again levelled for us, this time scoring after he had collected a short corner.
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7 minutes later and we had the lead! Bamford this time slotting home with Atsu collecting yet another assist.
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Seconds later and we were all tied up… This time Beeney exploited Ake who was deputizing in Central Defense with Terry picking up a knock in training and he blasted home from close range…
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6 goals before half time… Crazy, crazy scenes at Vicarage Road – so you’d expect more of the same after the break, right? Nope, nothing, zilch, nada. No goals and we had to settle for a 3 all draw. Ake has probably sealed his fate as a rotational defender in my eyes – he just hasn’t taken that next step to be a dependable starter.
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[Yeti01]

END OF DAYS??????​

Ok guys time for a timeout!



When I started this little journey I wanted to prove if Chelsea would be still alive and kicking if Abramovic ever just upped and left. In the beginning of November (in-game) I kind of got my answer.
This was just after the Administrators had been appointed in-game and I got the following message.
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Here is what my Loans (red box) and Bank Balance (blue box) looked like just before receiving the above message. Now you can disregard the 140 million pound loan as I’ve already explained how I dealt with that at the bottom of page 2 in this story (I ended up editing the inflow out). The key figures are the 59 million remaining on the 500 million loan to Abramovic and the 76 deficit in the bank balance so all up we had a net debt of 135 million pounds outstanding.
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Now here is the screenshot 4 days later showing the Company Voluntary Agreement at 100 million (red box). Despite this being lower this is actually correct. Typically when a CVA is negotiated it is done so at a discount on the outstanding amounts payable. The creditors trade off reducing the uncertainty of getting their money over receiving less. Note also the bank balance has been reset to 0 (blue box).
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Speaking frankly the way the game has done this, to me, doesn’t make sense. In my understanding CVA’s are used to stop a company from actually going into administration, they allow the Board to retain control and are essentially are a mechanism to manage debt and smooth cashflow (https://www.gov.uk/company-voluntary-arrangements & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_while_insolvent). Part of the attractiveness of them is that you don’t have to make an announcement that you are in administration.


Having said that, in effect, they represent a very likely outcome for this story. In this we have worked out that through various asset and player sales as well as through operational income we have repaid almost 900 million of the 1 billion dollar in loans to Abramovic in the period of just under 18 months, as promised. It is highly likely, in such a scenario, when the cashflow is such that it can support a long term loan with ease, that the final amount would be paid out in a debt restructure. Essentially getting a bank loan for the final 100 million to pay out Abramovic immediately and then paying that back over many years. The way the game has structured the CVA is effectively that.





So what does this all mean????



In short, we have proven, in fact, that Chelsea would likely be fine in a financial sense should Abramovic up and leave. Let’s not forget that I was selling players here at an in some cases ridiculous discount that wouldn’t happen in real life.


Having said that there are also a number of other issues that haven’t occurred in this story,
* It is unlikely that the results would be nearly as good in real life.
* This would likely lead even more players who would want to leave, in turn negatively affecting results more
* There would be loss of sponsorship,
* gate receipts would be lower,
* but the big thing is TV money, the new premiership deal is so big that not being a part of that would be huge.





So What’s Next?



Even with the CVA in place I wanted to play on a bit and see if any sellers would be forthcoming. In the end that didn’t really happen and as the repayment amount on the new CVA was so small we started to turn quite a large profit – particularly with the big sell on clauses that have come in lately. We’ve now got ourselves to the position were our bank balance is a healthy 30 million pounds.
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It’s not as if this is all due to the player sales also. See the attached Income and Expenditure pages. In the month of December the club made a profit of 22 million. Of this, basically 7 million was in the form of ‘Player Sales’. Given this was December that was all trail income, now even if you assume none of that will continue (although quite a bit will) the operating profit for December was still 5 million pounds – that’s very healthy.
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Now all of that led to me getting the following message on 4 January 2016.
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Again all of this is a plausible outcome to Abramovic ever pulling all his money out of Chelsea. The Club could pay back as much as it possibly can and then restructure the remaining debt. Looking at the terms of the CVA I must admit though if I was the bank 11.25 million in interest across 15 years seems incredibly low (something like a 0.8% interest rate on the loan) but even it was much higher, say 7%, I work out the monthly repayment to be in the vicinity of 1.5 million a month so easily manageable as shown above.


In any case I’m kind of at an impasse in terms of the story on a personal level. I’ve achieved what I wanted to when I set out but I’m still enjoying it for the time being. Using what’s happened I can come up 3 scenarios that I think could be used to either allow the story to progress or to wrap it all up succinctly and I’m going to allow the people to decide what course of action to take.




Option A – Chelsea choose to go with another manager


As shown Chelsea now have a decent amount of funds in the account and are spinning, at least, a 5 mill profit or so a month. Why wouldn’t they go and chase now a big name? With the promise of a sizeable transfer kitty at the end of the season I’m sure there would be plenty of applicants. Obviously, for Rob York, this would be the end of the story.


Frankly, given Chelsea’s often ruthless treatment of managers, I think this is the most likely real world scenario.




Option B – Chelsea decide to keep York on, with conditions


Another reasonably plausible scenario. York has developed a good relationship with the playing group and has them playing good football. A change in management now could prove disastrous for the season, especially given there has been no indication of any kind of transfer budget being given for the current January window so York is kept on. There is some caveats however, York must finish in the top 6 to keep his job (so an improvement on last season). If he stays on till next season then the team must finish in the top 4 the following season. Failure to do so would result in immediate termination.
My favorite of the bunch as it keeps me playing but makes it semi realistic.




Option C – Bruce Buck and Co love York so much he is allowed to manage as per normal


Least likely for me. Apart from having to meet the season expectations (mid table finish from memory) York has no other conditions placed on his employment.


Whilst I want to keep playing this doesn’t make as much sense to me.




Now I am going to be away with work until Thursday next week so I’m going to leave this until I return. In the mean-time here is a straw poll to vote in, or if you would prefer to keep this story visible, please feel free to comment with your preference either A. B or C.


Poll <<< Vote here!!



In any event thanks for being a part of this, I hope you’ve found it somewhat enjoyable and next time you hear someone say “if Abramovic left Chelsea they’d be nothing” you can say “well hold on now!!!!”

 

[SaintMotbot]

I can tell you right now which option will win everybody wants to see this story continue! loving it so much, and you have done incredible work to get Chelsea to the position they are in! Personally I would like to see it carry on, I would be interested in seeing what sort of names you could attract/get in.. Chelsea from a blank slate! But it really depends if you still have the interest in carrying it on!

 

[SeanFlett]

Excellent story would be brilliant to continue it. Would like to see you continue with the youth players rather than going down the tried and boring route of buying big names and known wonder kids. Be good to see how far the kids could go.

 

[JamesScott2908]

Ive gone Option B because this story has been fantastic and would be such a shame to see it come to an end!