You can't know for sure. That's the problem, and in the end judgment, rather than knowledge, is really what separates success from failure. The finance industry has spent billions of pounds/dollars (and economists within it have garnered more than a few Nobel Prizes) for inventions like VaR and Black Scholes, which seek to quantify certain types of risk. But the bottom line in business -- as you say -- is that risk cannot be avoided, only be mitigated. What you can do is hedge.

Our academy, up to a point, provide an example of this might work. If you have, say, a Zaha who you pretty much know is going to be worth millions and who other (big) clubs are already coveting and you know you have him tied to a long term contract then you are enable by that fact d to take more of a risk signing a Peter Crouch in the short term because you know that if you go down, you have an asset you can sell to mitigate the risk that comes with the Crouch expenditure. This is not a real-world example or a recommendation for a deal like that; it is simply to make the point about how a football club owner might take risk management into a account in making a transfer decision.

Bluntly, risk is unavoidable but you have to hold assets that at least in some way cover your potential loss in order for it to be worth taking. This, in crude terms, is why banks don't give 100% mortgages. Your deposit is a hedge against the rest of the loan.

Parish banging on about being prudent as an excuse for doing sweet FA in the transfer market over the past three weeks (while his manager gets ever more frustrated) is pathetic. Far from being an example of prudent management or sensible leadership, it's an example of a CEO paralysed by either the inability to properly quantify risk and thus to make a decision or, more simply, to act in the best interests of his business. To do absolutely nothing is not to reduce the risk of administration; it is simply to near guarantee relegation. Someone needs to hold this guy to account.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

What's he going to say, yes TP is unhappy with the way we are conducting business and moody and SP are interfering in transfers.
It hardly reads a ringing enforcement that all is rosy either!

You really can't stand Parish can you? I actually couldn't stand Jordan from start to finish.

Parish is an idiot? Yeah, course he is. Utterly clueless. I think you're wrong on Parish in bold. Parish knows how to run the business. What he's doing is managing the medium and long term as well as the very short term. If that makes him an idiot then he'll either not care, or think it ironic.

Will we go under if we get relegated? No. Will we be competitive if we get relegated? Yes. Will the others? I wouldn't be so sure. Will there be players available this week? Yes of course, like every last week of January.

How do you know Parish knows more than those he hired? Why would he hire Moody at all? He knows more about contingency planning and having a plan a, b and c. Football managers couldn't give 1 sh1ts about contingencies and the club's condition once their stay in the Prem is over, a lot of us do.

They're prepared to spend £30k and over wages as a Prem club, as is the case with Chamakh. It's more of a clear risk when there's no more possible loans, the ones touted about now are 30+ in their last move, and more players circulating this week.

COYP

Feel better after reading that, hope something good happens in the next few days.

The ups and downs of Palace have left me older than my years

Rudi:

What he's doing is managing the medium and long term as well as the very short term.

Actually, I pretty much agree with this. And my issue with Parish/CPFC2010 is they're being fundamentally dishonest.

Yes, I think they are managing for the medium term. The Premiership this season was an accident, and not entirely a happy one for them. What they wanted to do was secure things financially, invest in and build up the infrastructure, fatten the calf and then go up as the icing on the cake. At which point we'd have had a Premiership team and a Premiership infrastructure simultaneously...the perfect scenario to sell up and cash in (and no, before you say it, I have no problem with that at all).

The problem is that promotion too soon has re-calibrated expectations and the ambitions of at least half the supporters have become a fly in the ointment for CPFC2010; some of usthink that while we might have got here through good fortune, now we should invest to stay here and reduce the expenditure on the infrastructure in order to invest in remaining in the Premiership, Of course, we do need to invest in the infrastructure too, but not as much and not as quickly as first planned. If we do that, though, CPFC's ability to cash in will be pushed a couple of years further back. That, perhaps, is something they don't like.

Perhaps CPFC2010 should openly tell us their long-term plan. Instead of hiding behind "we're being responsible" which a). they're not and b). is neither here nor there at this point, perhaps they'd like to confirm the suspicion above or tell us, if that's not true, what IS going on. If the above is correct, I would not necessarily have a problem with it; I would simply appreciate being told. Then I would understand why they were running the club the way they are, particularly with regard to the present transfer window. But otherwise, if SP wants to behave like an idiot and not explain why he's doing nothing, then I for one and not going to swallow the party line.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

It's a good point put like that, however CPFC2010 have managed to buy the club, buy the ground and buy the training ground, have invested in players and started improving the ground, and at the same time have a reasonable approach to ticket prices and the whole matchday experience even if the cost of beer is a bit too much for some

I think there's a difference between a group of successful businessmen and two guys who did well on the back of certain trends, but got sucked into the success at all costs mindset of football.

The argument appears quite black or white to some fans... surely it makes sense to go for broke because the rewards for success are so high? Which is why Portsmouth, and Coventry are in the state that they are.