Nils Koppen says he felt ‘ambition’ from Daniel Kretinsky. Well, that’s great, but fans will need far more convincing.
Speaking on the club’s Iron Cast podcast, our Director of Player Recruitment explained how he arrived in east London, which was via a Zoom call with board member Jiri Svarc, then a trip to Prague to meet Kretinsky face to face.
“Quickly, we aligned on a lot of things we needed to do,” he said. “You feel like you’re going to be backed and people are going to trust you to do the job.”
We all know why these words matter.
It’s understood we finished the summer nearly £150 million in profit after the effects of relegation. Fernandes, Summerville and Diouf went for big fees, while only around £40 million went back into new signings.
When that’s the balance sheet, fans are entitled to ask questions.
In fairness, Koppen wasn’t working with nothing. Arne Engels cost £22 million, which is a record fee for a Championship club.
Piroe, Morato, Boiro and Mukasa came in on loan, and three of them have options to buy. There was too of course money set aside for Axel Disasi and a top striker, which never materialised.
But we of course understand how it works – Koppen was never going to criticise the owner on the club’s own Podcast.
What he describes does sound sensible, though. The board sees a financial plan for every deal, decisions are made together, and he talks about “full transparency from day one till the end”. That’s a lot better than the chaos we’ve had over the years.
But patience only looks clever if it works. If we’re still in the Championship next August, that £150 million profit will look like horrendous business.
We’re second after eight games, and the squad has started well. Koppen’s signings are already doing a job.
So I’ll take him at his word for now. Lets hope that come May, the business done was spot on as we then hand it back to Kretinksky to again show how ambitious he really is.
