You posted the other week that we lost less than £30k in the last set of accounts which you said was pretty much break even. Your other points I've already covered and said that the stadium is the reason we can't compete financially. wire made a large profit on lower attendances than us

It was £74k, so in the context of the £0.8m lost so far not too bad. We're agreeing at least we can't compete on a level playing field income wise, which was sort of my opening point. Unless we get a big hike in season ticket sales (and the opposite will be true if this board is anything to go by), what are the realistic ambitions for the club going forward? Continued downward loop, new owner?

Which is a different point. But the reaction to Pearson merging the academies hasn't been much better TBH. And rightly so - it's a disgrace.

Limited options but a simple choice IMO. Pearson needs to set some of his ego aside, start admitting a few more of the mistakes he's made and rectifying them. Spend the money that is available in the areas it will provide the most benefit for the cost and start rebuilding from there. Unfortunately two of the areas that would seem to be most obvious for this also seem to be where we are/will be doing things on the cheap. Aim to overtake Hudds/Cas/maybe Wire for now and see where that gets us.

He also needs to work on repairing the relationship with the fans IMO, instead of the at times confrontational and patronising way he has spoken. This last point will also cost absolutely nothing.

Agreed. Can't see it happening though. I think he's in a tricky position. For reasons articulated already on this thread, he won't be recouping the £800k losses anytime soon, let alone selling at a profit. There are unlikely to be any buyers willing to take the club off his hands either should be want to cut his losses. The only route IMO to keep the value in his investment is to take us with him. This could fairly easily be done IMO through measured and reasonable explanation of the state the club was in 4 years ago, investments to date and their successes and failures, context of the competition and plans for the next 1-3 years. The tone of comms from both AP and Clarkey is counter-productive but so important.

TBF, in a few interviews Pearson has admitted he has made mistakes.

I think next season we have the squad to challenge the likes of Cas and Hudds.

Warringtons recruitment has been pretty good also.

We have a good squad on paper.... but...

We will find out next year if Radford can progress us to the next level or not.

On paper it looks a solid top 6 squad, IF Ellis recovers and is back for the start of the season and with Pritchard, Taylor et al that is a really, really strong set of forwards that is the match for pretty much everyone.
What happens behind the pack though is where we've tripped up plus we need some mental toughness, we absolutely need to find avenues to get the players stronger in that respect whether that be to stop heads going down and imploding or just being able to stick to the game plan when under duress and ensure we do the basics right.
Not doing that has brought about our downfall too often.

The £11m turnover for Leeds, is this solely the Rhinos or does thus include the Union team? What I do know is, their corporate hospitality is huge in comparison to any other RL club in the UK. Not sure if the Rhinos own their stadium, but I think it maybe part of Caddicks business empire. St's do have their own stadium which I'd imagine they have a decent mortgage to finance it.

Anyway. Realistically what would make the opinion of the stay away fans change? Is it a matter of changing the coach or is it going to take a sustained period of winning to get bums on seats?

Winning will obviously increase gates but the coup for Pearson would be to appoint a first class coach.That would have a bigger impact on fans buying a season pass than signing The likes of Pritchard.It would also show fans he has admitted his mistake appointing Radford.
Apart from Pearson there are very few people who have any faith left in Radford as a coach.

No. Saints have no bank debt, and was majorly financed (currently £15m) by a friend of Eamon McManus who also happens to be a Saints fan. The club can pay this back at any rate, and any debt remaining at the end of the 2018 will be liquidated into shares (or postponed) and the club will again be completely debt free. It will all come down to whether McManus wants to retire, and if he does the baton will be passed into a fan whose already proven his commitment financially (or at least that's my current understanding)

Interesting. If that's the case, how come saints were so skint during the build process?

Mcmanus still poured a lot of his own funds into the project, as well as modernising the training and youth facilities as an aside, and paying off directors loans we had outstanding from the early days of SL at the same time - i think McManus + sale of kr made up the remaining £10m for the stadium. I also think an element of idealism (a saints team in a saints stadium) meant we could have invested more in the playing side but chose not to - but that's more personal conjecture than what the accounts say.

I'll have a closer look on the saints accounts when they're published like I always do, but I'm 95% that's what was gleaned from last years accounts, and presume the accounts this year say the same...

Whatever, you're in a much better financial position than us