The Daily Telegraph have just run a story on the latest annual report and it makes for some very interesting reading.

I posted this article back in January and these figures confirm what I said then and confrmed why MON was saying what he was.

The headlines are (some from the Telegraph report, some from the report I have downloaded)

Losses of £43.7m for 2008 -09

£179m total invested which includes £95m in equity and £84m in loans

Players wages of £70m against turnover of £84m – 83% of turnover

Wages in one year increased from £50m to £70m

Match Day revenue increased from £18m to £22m

Full Time employees increased from 336 to 445 due to a big increase of players, football management and coaches

£5.6m paid out in interest for loans from Lerner family trust

£7.6m in ‘management charges’ to the US holding company – Reform Acquisitions LLC

The concerning figure is the % of wages vs turnover this simply is too high and unless turnover can be increased then wages have to go down before we buy, what was made clear in January is the truth of the situation.

Players will have to leave before we can buy new ones and we have to be careful. Whilst the loans are not repayable until at the latest 2019 we can not keep on extending them but at least repayable to the Lerner family trust and not a commercial organisation.

The good news is that Randy has took equity around half of the £200m that has been authorised but the wallet will be getting tougher to get into, we are at the limits of what we and Randy can do. Before anyone worries about a Portsmouth situation because Randy took more than half the investment in equity then the debt is lower than it would be and this means if he sold us tomorrow the total cost would pay of the majority of debt and still give Randy a profit.

Please note the recorded net assets of Reform Acquisitions Limited (RAL) are £40m and shows RAL’s total assets are £175m which is a credible proposition.

Detailed figures show that despite lower attendances matchday revenue increased by £4m which shows the great investment the new Trinity Road suites have made.

This shows the huge investment Lerner has made and we should be very grateful for it but we need now results and to progress further we NEED CL that is clear.

Otherwise we really do have to hope that the kids can be THAT good.

These accounts show totally how expensive PL football is now and the example of Portsmouth is mirrored to lesser degree in every club who do not have CL football, it is now THAT vital

I have downloaded the full copy of the Annual reports of Aston Villa and the holding company RAL, if any accountant would like to confirm or clarify these please let me know