What the chuff is going on?

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Not long ago we were laughing at our neighbours and the lack of information coming from Tunaman and the club. Looks like the Prince is following that business model of incompetence and lack of information. I've said in other posts that the club has been treading water for a year and especially since Wilder indicated players needed a new voice. That should have kick started an overhaul.
 

A few quick reminders:-

  • The board stopped backing Wilder because he was spunking money down the drain
  • When Slav arrived he said that the squad was the best that he had ever inherited
  • It was widely reported that we had to sell before we bought and that only happened last week

Given the above, we shouldn't have been expecting an influx of players until Slav worked out whether the existing crop was any good, so the lack of activity doesn't necessarily signify that something is wrong behind the scenes as many seem to think. Funnily enough, the same people probably weren't expecting last year's squad to struggle so badly in the opening games but let's conveniently forget that......
Good reminders to be fair.

I fully agreed with the no spend in January. In fact I would have gone further and been more aggressive at pushing 1 or 2 through the door, though to be fair the ink was not long wet on their signing anyway. Lowe and Burke two examples.

January was going to be a face saving exercise for Wilder and this gratification was probably going to cost a further 5m or more in wages alone. The Prince may have also saved face in stating he didn't know if Chris was leaving or not so how could he further back him? But the truth is the futility of this exercise would have been of chocolate teapot proportions having failed to notch a single win by January having royally fucked up the summer recruitment. Going down anyway, but by a little bit smaller margin wasn't worth the cash to be frank.

It looks like we may get Burke and Lowe out now, but it is rather disappointing we have been so hand-to-mouth this summer. I think we could have overshot the budget a bit earlier to get a few more loans in for Slav and then focused on offloading. Yes there is risk with that but you could argue that without that injection we've written off a few early season games we could have won.

As a final aside, I'm very disappointed with Bettis. It's Slav's job to talk football, results, tactics, decisions. Bettis has communicated nothing, offered no dialogue at all to the fans since relegation. In his role he should be outlining th vision or at least managing expectations instead of having Slav there basically saying "I know mate, I don't know where the reinforcements are either, they should have been now already. Those in charge of this must be really shit at their jobs."
 
Midfield is the obvious priority, we need more zip and composure + someone who can win the ball and let our creative players do their job. Poor old Berge is currently crowded out and is probably our only creative outlet, we need someone else to cause problems.
 
How is running a english club any different to another club in a different country.
One is the massive difference in income received by top flight clubs and second division clubs. I don’t think there is another league with such a disparity.

Second, connected with the above, are parachute payments for relegated clubs.

Third, is the number of clubs in the championship whose owners are prepared to put money into them every season so they run at a loss. It is almost impossible for a championship club to run at break even and still remain competitive for a sustained period of time.
 
There just seems to be more and more talk of people being sold ...and no real suggestion that anyone is coming in ... despite the almost daily press reports that, firstly, 'Jokanovic is excited by prospect of adding 'whoever'' always to be soon followed by the news that 'whoever' will not be joining United but will instead be going elsewhere given the options open to him . There is much talk of our 'riches' in attack ...and yet the evidence ( goals scored ) suggests otherwise . Something is seriously wrong with our recruitment strategy ...although here I am optimistically assuming that our transfer policy is something other than 'let's sell off all our assets ...and 'under offer' on both fees and wages to avoid adding anyone worthwhile to our payroll'...in other words , 'asset stripping'. We have an aging and imbalanced squad desperately short on confidence ...that is rapidly losing most of its more valuable members ... with nothing other than minimal talk of free transfers coming in to replace them . This is surely not the way to run what was initially touted as being 'a promotion campaign'. You can fool some of the people all of the time ....... etc .
 
Me too. I was shocked that so many people on here thought that the squad who were dire in the PL would suddenly walk the Championship because they'd been promoted before. I was hoping that we'd use the opportunity to freshen up the squad and bring in some up and coming players who we could develop to replace those knocking on a bit. There seems to have been no steps to do any of this, which is disappointing. I was expecting a mix of loans and relatively cheap permanent signings.
I actually think now that this was not confined to our fans and pundits. I think the club thought we’d walk it too.

Wrong.
 
Ramsdale jumping ship is an indicator that something behind the scenes isnt right
 
Ramsdale jumping ship is an indicator that something behind the scenes isnt right

I think it's more likely to be the fact that Ramsdale could go to an historical huge club like Arsenal, stay in the PL, live in the bright lights of London which is great for a young man with all its trappings and young ladies, probably triple his wages, whilst also getting a signing on fee which would set him up for life.

That might just have helped sway him rather than alleged problems at Utd.
 
the Prince needs to be held account for the utter shitshow way we've gone about this transfer window and pre-season.
OK. And what does this "being held to account" actually look like? Is it jolly angry posts on social media? Shoes off in the car park? Telling him he has to sell, even if there are no bidders with sufficient funds or interest? How shall we hold him to account?

This, of course, is apart from the fact that you don't have a clue about what has or hasn't happened behind the scenes.
 
OK. And what does this "being held to account" actually look like? Is it jolly angry posts on social media? Shoes off in the car park? Telling him he has to sell, even if there are no bidders with sufficient funds or interest? How shall we hold him to account?

This, of course, is apart from the fact that you don't have a clue about what has or hasn't happened behind the scenes.
As Chief Exec of a multi million pound business, he is accountable, to his Board of `Directors.
in the real world those directors would be accountable to shareholders, who would appear before annual general meetings.
As supporters of a football club, we can hold people to account by a number of means, by voicing our opinion on forums like this, protests, voting with our feet, by simply not renewing season tickets, buying match day tickets, not buying merchandise etc.
Ultimately, he should be judged on the performance of the club, in meeting it;s goals.
Does that answer your question?
 

As Chief Exec of a multi million pound business, he is accountable, to his Board of `Directors.
in the real world those directors would be accountable to shareholders, who would appear before annual general meetings.
As supporters of a football club, we can hold people to account by a number of means, by voicing our opinion on forums like this, protests, voting with our feet, by simply not renewing season tickets, buying match day tickets, not buying merchandise etc.
Ultimately, he should be judged on the performance of the club, in meeting it;s goals.
Does that answer your question?
No, it doesn't. He isn't the Chief Exec. He's the owner. The two are very different.
 
No, it doesn't. He isn't the Chief Exec. He's the owner. The two are very different.
Sorry, I thought the question was about Betts.
My mistake, but you get my drift about accountability.
If the club continues it’s fall in performance, shareholders, will raise and voice concerns, and supporters will vote with their feet in the form of reduced attendances, and inevitably,income.`
That’s a form of accountability, which the Prince, as a businessman will not like.
 
Sorry, I thought the question was about Betts.
My mistake, but you get my drift about accountability.
If the club continues it’s fall in performance, shareholders, will raise and voice concerns, and supporters will vote with their feet in the form of reduced attendances, and inevitably,income.`
That’s a form of accountability, which the Prince, as a businessman will not like.
I'm not sure which shareholders they will be? Who are they, other than the Prince?

I agree, some supporters will seek to further damage the club by voting with their feet and make a very loud noise about doing it which most of us will ignore. They will be the ones who struggle to accept that all clubs go through ups and downs for a variety of different and sometimes unconnected reasons, sometimes to do with incompetence behind the scenes (such as Wilder's transfer dealings and, possibly, how we have conducted this transfer window), sometimes not.

But the majority of fans will swallow their disappointment, as Blades have always done, and carry on supporting the club, hoping for better times.
 
There just seems to be more and more talk of people being sold ...and no real suggestion that anyone is coming in ... despite the almost daily press reports that, firstly, 'Jokanovic is excited by prospect of adding 'whoever'' always to be soon followed by the news that 'whoever' will not be joining United but will instead be going elsewhere given the options open to him . There is much talk of our 'riches' in attack ...and yet the evidence ( goals scored ) suggests otherwise . Something is seriously wrong with our recruitment strategy ...although here I am optimistically assuming that our transfer policy is something other than 'let's sell off all our assets ...and 'under offer' on both fees and wages to avoid adding anyone worthwhile to our payroll'...in other words , 'asset stripping'. We have an aging and imbalanced squad desperately short on confidence ...that is rapidly losing most of its more valuable members ... with nothing other than minimal talk of free transfers coming in to replace them . This is surely not the way to run what was initially touted as being 'a promotion campaign'. You can fool some of the people all of the time ....... etc .
“Most of its more valuable members”?
Lowe, Tyler Smith, Burke?
We’ve sold one valuable player, for a very good deal.
As for this asset stripping bollocks, why go to all the trouble of hiring someone like Jokanovic and then embark on a programme of asset stripping?
 
I'm not sure which shareholders they will be? Who are they, other than the Prince?

I agree, some supporters will seek to further damage the club by voting with their feet and make a very loud noise about doing it which most of us will ignore. They will be the ones who struggle to accept that all clubs go through ups and downs for a variety of different and sometimes unconnected reasons, sometimes to do with incompetence behind the scenes (such as Wilder's transfer dealings and, possibly, how we have conducted this transfer window), sometimes not.

But the majority of fans will swallow their disappointment, as Blades have always done, and carry on supporting the club, hoping for better times.
We certainly don’t support the `Blades for the glory, that’s for sure,which makes those 4 glorious years, not so long ago, all the sweeter.But not everyone that goes at the moment, are die hard blades,like,I suspect, you and I are.
They will vote with their feet and rightly so, as will some of the die hards, if this slide continues,and who can blame them. Being a football fan of a club, does not mean that you should be prepared to put up with any old crap, on or off the field.They have earned their cash in most cases, and will decide on whether it’s worth turning up each week based predominantly, on performances on the pitch, and less so, but still important, their feelings of connection to the club.For a period we got both of those things right, which saw full houses, and `Prem football.Get those wrong and it will be back to 17500 av attendances in league 1, and apathy amongst the fanbase.
 
A few quick reminders:-

  • The board stopped backing Wilder because he was spunking money down the drain
  • When Slav arrived he said that the squad was the best that he had ever inherited
  • It was widely reported that we had to sell before we bought and that only happened last week

Given the above, we shouldn't have been expecting an influx of players until Slav worked out whether the existing crop was any good, so the lack of activity doesn't necessarily signify that something is wrong behind the scenes as many seem to think. Funnily enough, the same people probably weren't expecting last year's squad to struggle so badly in the opening games but let's conveniently forget that......

Perhaps. But I would counter what you're saying by referring to SJ's frustrated mumblings to the media with regards to "not expecting to have to wait this long for help with signings" that he "wants 4 in" and we're now "running out of time." I would say this does point to a behind the scenes stink.
 
The silence is deafening at the moment. We have a 35 year old here that we're supposedly meant to be signing and yet despite being in Sheffield since the weekend, nothing. There's all kind of rumours of players up for sale or making transfer request and in terms of being linked with players there's next to nothing apart from one or two long shots.

I don't get it.

Our wages will be high for the division but that's partly what the parachute payments are for. Billy, McGoldrick, Moose, Bash, Osborn, Robinson, Freeman all drop off at the end of the season. There are no FFP issues as far as I'm aware as we've just come down.

We're going to make a loss, sure, but again that's what the the parachute payments and wage reductions are for. But, the Prince has stated that we've paid off most of the money for players we signed in the first year of the PL (instead of spreading them over 3 years as normal), so that money isn't necessarily taken up with transfers.

We need to move some players on but this is not going to happen with first team squaders unless we subsidise loans or transfers (Berge aside). We seem to be demanding remarkably high loan fees which I don't understand. Sure, for Lowe, fine. He's a fairly established Championship footballer. But the kids?

Whatever the case, the 'one in, one out' only makes sense if we have a full squad. We do not (as players left in summer). We need a first choice keeper regardless and we seem to be hoping that no one else bids for Olsen and he prefers to come here than stay in Rome or the often injured Randolph is deemed surplus to requirements. We need midfielders as a priority as well. And wide forwards. Regardless of sales.

The kicker here is that we're seemingly mostly chasing loans so it's not like we'd be making a long-term wage commitment or laying down a huge outlay.

We've been relegated since March and yet leaving everything to the last minute.

What an absolute mess.

I'm scratching my head as most are but one thing I think is worth mentioning to temper fans' expectations regarding money to spend,... SUFC like many other businesses are maximising the income they get now to offset losses incurred last year as a result of the pandemic. Our matchday income made up the highest percentage of our overall income compared to all the other PL teams therefore last year we had the biggest percentage drop in income as a result of playing behind closed doors compared to our league rivals.

So its all well and good saying "the parachute payments exist to plug any losses" but when we have the additional impact of Covid then we have a chunk of money going towards making up that shortfall instead of being used for new signings.

But now we have sold Ramsdale you'd like to think there is room to manoeuvre. It's been over a week since we knew he was going and its becoming bewildering why we haven't got anybody at all through the door
 
I'm scratching my head as most are but one thing I think is worth mentioning to temper fans' expectations regarding money to spend,... SUFC like many other businesses are maximising the income they get now to offset losses incurred last year as a result of the pandemic. Our matchday income made up the highest percentage of our overall income compared to all the other PL teams therefore last year we had the biggest percentage drop in income as a result of playing behind closed doors compared to our league rivals.

So its all well and good saying "the parachute payments exist to plug any losses" but when we have the additional impact of Covid then we have a chunk of money going towards making up that shortfall instead of being used for new signings.

But now we have sold Ramsdale you'd like to think there is room to manoeuvre. It's been over a week since we knew he was going and its becoming bewildering why we haven't got anybody at all through the door
Managing expectations is a key issue with the club. To come out with strong statements about going for automatic promotion, then going very quiet, then not much. I mean, I thought it was perfectly acceptable to raise £40 million in player sales but it looks like we've basically sat on our hands with excessive valuations. It might be argued that kind of worked with Ramsdale, but we appear to be waiting to sell in order to even loan someone. This is not the actions of a club looking for automatic promotion.

I think many of us realised that this team wasn't just going to start winning. But if we need to turn over some of the squad and it's a work in progress tell the fans this. There are still a healthy minority who expect to go back up. It's counter-productive to pretend all is rosy. Both in terms of the money other clubs now expect us to bid for players and in the expectations fans will place on the manager and players.

It should have been handled much better. In fact, the handling of the media since Wilder left has been incompetent.
 
Managing expectations is a key issue with the club. To come out with strong statements about going for automatic promotion, then going very quiet, then not much. I mean, I thought it was perfectly acceptable to raise £40 million in player sales but it looks like we've basically sat on our hands with excessive valuations. It might be argued that kind of worked with Ramsdale, but we appear to be waiting to sell in order to even loan someone. This is not the actions of a club looking for automatic promotion.

I think many of us realised that this team wasn't just going to start winning. But if we need to turn over some of the squad and it's a work in progress tell the fans this. There are still a healthy minority who expect to go back up. It's counter-productive to pretend all is rosy. Both in terms of the money other clubs now expect us to bid for players and in the expectations fans will place on the manager and players.

It should have been handled much better. In fact, the handling of the media since Wilder left has been incompetent.
So you want the club to tell the fans the team needs overhauling, and it's a work in progress, and buy or loan players but at the same time not pay inflated prices, because we got decent price for Ramsdale, yeah that should work, and when clubs say no we want more, because you have cash from the sale of Ramsdale, and we watched your last press conference, and you need our player,,what then?
 
Managing expectations is a key issue with the club. To come out with strong statements about going for automatic promotion, then going very quiet, then not much. I mean, I thought it was perfectly acceptable to raise £40 million in player sales but it looks like we've basically sat on our hands with excessive valuations. It might be argued that kind of worked with Ramsdale, but we appear to be waiting to sell in order to even loan someone. This is not the actions of a club looking for automatic promotion.

I think many of us realised that this team wasn't just going to start winning. But if we need to turn over some of the squad and it's a work in progress tell the fans this. There are still a healthy minority who expect to go back up. It's counter-productive to pretend all is rosy. Both in terms of the money other clubs now expect us to bid for players and in the expectations fans will place on the manager and players.

It should have been handled much better. In fact, the handling of the media since Wilder left has been incompetent.
🐷🐷🐷🐷
 
I'm scratching my head as most are but one thing I think is worth mentioning to temper fans' expectations regarding money to spend,... SUFC like many other businesses are maximising the income they get now to offset losses incurred last year as a result of the pandemic. Our matchday income made up the highest percentage of our overall income compared to all the other PL teams therefore last year we had the biggest percentage drop in income as a result of playing behind closed doors compared to our league rivals.

So its all well and good saying "the parachute payments exist to plug any losses" but when we have the additional impact of Covid then we have a chunk of money going towards making up that shortfall instead of being used for new signings.

But now we have sold Ramsdale you'd like to think there is room to manoeuvre. It's been over a week since we knew he was going and its becoming bewildering why we haven't got anybody at all through the door
Mmm, West Brom and `Fulham seemed to have coped with the pandemic and the drop, and still get transfer targets through the door
 
The silence is deafening at the moment. We have a 35 year old here that we're supposedly meant to be signing and yet despite being in Sheffield since the weekend, nothing. There's all kind of rumours of players up for sale or making transfer request and in terms of being linked with players there's next to nothing apart from one or two long shots.

I don't get it.

Our wages will be high for the division but that's partly what the parachute payments are for. Billy, McGoldrick, Moose, Bash, Osborn, Robinson, Freeman all drop off at the end of the season. There are no FFP issues as far as I'm aware as we've just come down.

We're going to make a loss, sure, but again that's what the the parachute payments and wage reductions are for. But, the Prince has stated that we've paid off most of the money for players we signed in the first year of the PL (instead of spreading them over 3 years as normal), so that money isn't necessarily taken up with transfers.

We need to move some players on but this is not going to happen with first team squaders unless we subsidise loans or transfers (Berge aside). We seem to be demanding remarkably high loan fees which I don't understand. Sure, for Lowe, fine. He's a fairly established Championship footballer. But the kids?

Whatever the case, the 'one in, one out' only makes sense if we have a full squad. We do not (as players left in summer). We need a first choice keeper regardless and we seem to be hoping that no one else bids for Olsen and he prefers to come here than stay in Rome or the often injured Randolph is deemed surplus to requirements. We need midfielders as a priority as well. And wide forwards. Regardless of sales.

The kicker here is that we're seemingly mostly chasing loans so it's not like we'd be making a long-term wage commitment or laying down a huge outlay.

We've been relegated since March and yet leaving everything to the last minute.

What an absolute mess.
Just say what the fuck!
What the chuff eh!
 

West Brom appointed a manager who hugely plays into the strengths of their team, and Fulham’s owner is one of the richest men in the world.
WBA signed Mowatt and what a perfect signing it is the way they play. Freekicks and long throws.

Fulham's loan gamble worked. No issues with wage bills there. Got a top championship team back.
 

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