The way forward?

[grafikhaus]

In the papers today that Stoke have bought Robert Huth for £5m and this is part of a deal that includes Tuncay (also £5m and on £65k per week).
They are also close to signing Sunderland's Danny Collins for £2m and have a £10m bid on the table for Kenwyn Jones.

So, having survived the first tricky season in the PL, Stoke are looking to spend £22m to - hopefully - remain there.

Is this madness or the obvious logic of getting into the Premier? Scraping by every season is no joke, and Hull are signing the world's supply of has-beens.

So, should United go up, will they be prepared to 'make do and mend' or go for it?

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

It certainly would have been interesting to see what we would have done had we stayed up and the kind of player we'd have gone for.

I think Stoke have got it about right and are doing what needs to be done. You can just about get away with trying to scrape through in the 1st season but the 2nd season does seem to be harder and there's no doubt clubs have to step up their spending and level of player to survive. I'm not saying Huth and Tuncay are world beaters but it seems as though clubs go for the best Championship players in the 1st season and then have to step up a level in the 2nd. Given income of £60M a season, half of that on transfers seems to be a minimum outlay these days.

 

[Darren]

On a related but seperate point, it occurred to meet today, that WBA have been promoted and relegated 3 times in the past 7 seasons, so they have had 6 years worth of parachute payments, which must give them a pretty big financial advantage over the rest of the 2nd tier.

 

[Bladesman]

In the papers today that Stoke have bought Robert Huth for £5m and this is part of a deal that includes Tuncay (also £5m and on £65k per week).
They are also close to signing Sunderland's Danny Collins for £2m and have a £10m bid on the table for Kenwyn Jones.

So, having survived the first tricky season in the PL, Stoke are looking to spend £22m to - hopefully - remain there.

Is this madness or the obvious logic of getting into the Premier? Scraping by every season is no joke, and Hull are signing the world's supply of has-beens.

So, should United go up, will they be prepared to 'make do and mend' or go for it?

We never went for it last time.

We signed mostly free transfers and the 3 good signings we made were Hulse, Killa and Kazim Richards.

If we hadn't pissed money away on pointless signings during our promotion push we may have a few extra £££ to spend on decent players.

 

[Revolution]

We signed mostly free transfers and the 3 good signings we made were Hulse, Killa and Kazim Richards.

And Kilgallon was of course unfit for some time after he was signed, and when he did play didn't do very well.

There was one other good signing in that transfer window - Stead. Mind you, that was a mirror image of the Kilgallon deal, because Stead did very well that year and did little of not thereafter.

On a related but seperate point, it occurred to meet today, that WBA have been promoted and relegated 3 times in the past 7 seasons, so they have had 6 years worth of parachute payments, which must give them a pretty big financial advantage over the rest of the 2nd tier.

I'm not sure they ever admit it, but it always strikes me that their business plan is to build a side that can always get promotion but then under invest when they are there. They have never really pushed the boat out on new players when they've gone up. The advantage is that they can always compete when they come down as they have never over extended themselves financially.

We were a bit similar when we were relegated - no major money worries - but our big mistake was appointing an awful manager, and arguably trying to change too quickly.

The disadvantage of the WBA way is that as I understand it their lack of competitiveness in the PL was starting to wear thin with their fans this time around.

 

[super_pig]

>when he did play didn't do very well
to be fair that's because neil insisted on playing him at left back (a u21 international centre back?)
from another perspective, i think its great stoke have signed boro's two best players.. they will be worse off now.. we just need the barcodes to sell a few of theirs and we're looking peachy.

 

[Vistoma]

On a related but seperate point, it occurred to meet today, that WBA have been promoted and relegated 3 times in the past 7 seasons, so they have had 6 years worth of parachute payments, which must give them a pretty big financial advantage over the rest of the 2nd tier.

Doesn't work that way, its spread over 3 years and if you get promoted in that time you pay it back. That's how I understand it anyway,

 

[rachyblade]

Doesn't work that way, its spread over 3 years and if you get promoted in that time you pay it back. That's how I understand it anyway,

I thought it got spread out between the Championship clubs last season with Birmingham.

 

[Mousey]

I thought it got spread out between the Championship clubs last season with Birmingham.

Yeah that's correct. Each club gets a payment each year but if they are promoted then that payment is shared out equally between the others.