CONFIRMED Michael Cooper signs for the Blades

[Flatulent_Bob]

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to post a detailed response.

Of course there is lost revenue from being relegated, but we hardly committed to being in the EPL. We had the lowest wage bill, of which 15 players have now left, many of which would be the highest earners. Our net transfer spend last summer must have been close to zero. We bought Hamer and Souza (who hasn't been paid for yet I'm reliably informed and will be sold this summer before the first instalment is due), and sold Ndiaye and Berge.

We spent little in January - a fee for Garbage and BBD.

Our revenues have dropped by around £30m from last season to this and our wage bill in comparison to other teams is irrelevant as there are many clubs who do not have to live to their means. Their owners are happy to fund significant losses, and that isn't only true in the Premier league, the vast majority of Championship sides are also covering significant losses running into the millions, season on season. Last season it was reported Championship clubs on average lose between £10-15m per season. Our owner isn't going to cover those level of losses, meaning while we are fine to cover our costs while we have parachute payments, there is still the £30m drop in revenue to cover which will have to come from player sales or owner investment. While our operating costs will decrease from players leaving that will be replaced with the new signings and while our wage bill wasn't particularly excessive in the first place, it was more than we could fund if we were being self sufficient, and the owner wasn't putting that £15m in each season like a lot of other Championship clubs.

This summer we have sold Bogle and Jebbison for £8.5m. so far we have paid (?) for Burrows, although this is shown as not disclosed.

And I know there are fees, signing on and agents, and I know these are significant.

To get to £8.5m I'm assuming you are also including Traore as well? Those figures don't stack up with what I would have thought we will have got but even if we use them, that is less than what we have paid to secure Burrows, Moore, McCallum and in particular O'Hare. If those do balance out, and I'm not convinced they will, then a £3m initial fee, plus signing on, plus wages for Cooper is a significant further outlay and to say it's embarrassing that we can't just do the deal is nonsense.
Things are tight, and it's entirely logical, not embarrassing that we can't just continue to proceed when we also clearly have players to bring in at Centre half, right back, midfield and upfront.

You ask me to educate, and I genuinely can't. I cannot reconcile how 3 out of 5 years we have been in the richest league in the world, have had the lowest wage bill in the league when we were there, and aside from the first year, have spent next to nothing. We have spent last season and this, publicly saying we are looking for frees and loans.

I genuinely cannot understand how our club is being run at the moment.

I can. Massively overpaying for the players we brought in, against what we could afford crippled us for a number of seasons until those deals were paid off.
We also didn't sell significantly in the first two seasons of relegation to cover our drop in income, and we spend a lot of money on loans and wages in order to get back to the PL. Some would call this ambition, others desperation maybe even necessity, however it all needs paying for and if your income doesn't cover it and your owner can't or won't then there's the shortfall as we found to our determent and it's already costs us points.

You talk as if signing Cooper is signing Jordan Pickford. It's £3m we are talking about, not £30m. If this takeover is happening, then the new owners should realize that they will need to invest in a team, having got rid of 15 players already. A decent goalkeeper is not an unreasonable request, and £3m isn't an unreasonable amount of money.

The new owners can't be involved yet as they do not currently own the club, so these decisions are on the Prince as he's the one who's going to have to pay the bills if the takeover falls through. It's not £3M, it'll be closer to a £10-12m investment over several years, at least a couple of those will be without parachute payments which he cannot fund. Yes a decent keeper isn't unreasonable, and £3m isn't an unreasonable amount of money, but how many Championship clubs will be paying that for a keeper this season? How many did it last season or the season before, and as I've already mentioned, lots of them have owners who are willing and able to cover multi-million pound losses each season? As we're not in that position, is it still unreasonable that we can't just sign that deal off immediately?

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

It was reported that Luton had a lower bill last season. So far this summer they’ve sold players for approximately £10m, lost Osho and signed 2 free transfers.
Do you seriously believe that we have not paid a single penny for Souza?
We also have bought Kieffer Moore.

<cough> lost Barkley from the wage bill too.

 

[originaltrueblade]

Come on BLADES get COOPER in

 

[SouthStandGBlock]

It was reported that Luton had a lower bill last season. So far this summer they’ve sold players for approximately £10m, lost Osho and signed 2 free transfers.
Do you seriously believe that we have not paid a single penny for Souza?
We also have bought Kieffer Moore.

I think we must have paid something for Souza, but the instalments start this year, and apparently this why he will be sold.

Agreed about Kieffer Moore, and this looks like a £ swap for Jebbison, although I suspect Jebbison wasn't on £40k a week.

Noted on Luton, but they built a new stand and I'm pretty sure they are in the process of building a new ground, so they might be looking at the bigger picture and using the EPL money for this.

We haven't spent anything like this on the ground.

 

[SouthStandGBlock]

Check out the transfermarkt site.

It shows that last year we brought in 30.9 million euros in transfers and paid out 66.95 in purchases. That’s a net spend of 36 million euros.

This is higher transfer spend than Everton, Brighton, Wolves, West Ham, Luton and Fulham.



The same transfermarkt site shows our spending during our PL seasons as

2020 spent 72.5m brought in 0.3m = 72.2 million euros net
2021 spent 62.7 million brought in zero = 62.7 million euro net

Steve Bettis was interviewed a few months ago and he explained that other clubs like a Brighton or Southampton might look like they’re spending more than us but they’ve managed to sell players for 50 million plus.

The last time Brighton had a net expenditure on players was the 20-21 season where their net spend was 29.5 million euros.

Bettis stated that our issue relates to player sales, no one has offered 20 million, never mind 50 million for any of our players.

Who did we spend £67m on ?? Hamer - £15m, Souza £12m, Traore £5m, Slimane £4m, Garbage £2m, Trusty £5m - I get that to £43m.

Have I missed anyone?

 

[SouthStandGBlock]

Check out the transfermarkt site.

It shows that last year we brought in 30.9 million euros in transfers and paid out 66.95 in purchases. That’s a net spend of 36 million euros.

This is higher transfer spend than Everton, Brighton, Wolves, West Ham, Luton and Fulham.



The same transfermarkt site shows our spending during our PL seasons as

2020 spent 72.5m brought in 0.3m = 72.2 million euros net
2021 spent 62.7 million brought in zero = 62.7 million euro net

Steve Bettis was interviewed a few months ago and he explained that other clubs like a Brighton or Southampton might look like they’re spending more than us but they’ve managed to sell players for 50 million plus.

The last time Brighton had a net expenditure on players was the 20-21 season where their net spend was 29.5 million euros.

Bettis stated that our issue relates to player sales, no one has offered 20 million, never mind 50 million for any of our players.

Who did we spend £67m on ?? Hamer - £15m, Souza £12m, Traore £5m, Slimane £4m, Garbage £2m, Trusty £5m - I get that to £43m.

Have I missed anyone

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to post a detailed response.



Our revenues have dropped by around £30m from last season to this and our wage bill in comparison to other teams is irrelevant as there are many clubs who do not have to live to their means. Their owners are happy to fund significant losses, and that isn't only true in the Premier league, the vast majority of Championship sides are also covering significant losses running into the millions, season on season. Last season it was reported Championship clubs on average lose between £10-15m per season. Our owner isn't going to cover those level of losses, meaning while we are fine to cover our costs while we have parachute payments, there is still the £30m drop in revenue to cover which will have to come from player sales or owner investment. While our operating costs will decrease from players leaving that will be replaced with the new signings and while our wage bill wasn't particularly excessive in the first place, it was more than we could fund if we were being self sufficient, and the owner wasn't putting that £15m in each season like a lot of other Championship clubs.


To get to £8.5m I'm assuming you are also including Traore as well? Those figures don't stack up with what I would have thought we will have got but even if we use them, that is less than what we have paid to secure Burrows, Moore, McCallum and in particular O'Hare. If those do balance out, and I'm not convinced they will, then a £3m initial fee, plus signing on, plus wages for Cooper is a significant further outlay and to say it's embarrassing that we can't just do the deal is nonsense.
Things are tight, and it's entirely logical, not embarrassing that we can't just continue to proceed when we also clearly have players to bring in at Centre half, right back, midfield and upfront.


I can. Massively overpaying for the players we brought in, against what we could afford crippled us for a number of seasons until those deals were paid off.
We also didn't sell significantly in the first two seasons of relegation to cover our drop in income, and we spend a lot of money on loans and wages in order to get back to the PL. Some would call this ambition, others desperation maybe even necessity, however it all needs paying for and if your income doesn't cover it and your owner can't or won't then there's the shortfall as we found to our determent and it's already costs us points.

The new owners can't be involved yet as they do not currently own the club, so these decisions are on the Prince as he's the one who's going to have to pay the bills if the takeover falls through. It's not £3M, it'll be closer to a £10-12m investment over several years, at least a couple of those will be without parachute payments which he cannot fund. Yes a decent keeper isn't unreasonable, and £3m isn't an unreasonable amount of money, but how many Championship clubs will be paying that for a keeper this season? How many did it last season or the season before, and as I've already mentioned, lots of them have owners who are willing and able to cover multi-million pound losses each season? As we're not in that position, is it still unreasonable that we can't just sign that deal off immediately?

Thanks for your detailed response too.

If just got in from Tramlines after driving home, so I can't tackle all this now as I'm knackered.

On the first point I haven't included Traore, as it was reported that Bogle was close to £7m, and Jebbison £1.5m, so I've rounded up slightly to get to £8.5m.

I am aware that the Prince can't put any money in, and I'm sure he hasn't taken any out. His payday will come when he sells the club, and trousers the benefits, which I suspect will be in excess of £50m.

Any owner in the Championship needs to put £15m+ in, and the EPL £30m+ to stand still. Even Millwall lose £1m a month. The Prince hasn't done this, but has had the benefit of the Sky money which is significant.

The money in from the new owners is a moot point, as Everton have had two substantial loans from Companies who didn't subsequently buy them. Granted Everton are in the sh1t, and some of the cause of this is the loans, so I'm not saying we should go down this route, however it is possible, and I'm sure there will be considerable dialogue between existing owners and prospective owners over transfers. Assuming that this is the case, then finding the down payment for a good, new goalkeeper shouldn't be an issue, which was my original point.

 

[Liaminho9]

Who did we spend £67m on ?? Hamer - £15m, Souza £12m, Traore £5m, Slimane £4m, Garbage £2m, Trusty £5m - I get that to £43m.

Have I missed anyone?

Archer was £18m in theory, had we have stayed up etc.

 

[Irv]

We also spent more on Grbic.

Now you know that’s not true don’t you?

 

[Irv]

I’m not arguing, and I’m not saying I know better. I’m just going off the stats.

Last season he was missing from the playing squad for around 20 games due to injury. The 22/23 season, when he was on loan at Millwall, he was missing for for 1 game. The 21/22 season he was left out of the squad due to injury for about 4 games, the 20/21 season was similar.

He isn’t a player who year on year misses large parts of the season. I’d suggest that any Leeds fan who claims he can’t stay fit is suffering from recency bias.

I’d also tell them that Bogle is far more injury prone than Shackleton!

 

[Shadota]

Who did we spend £67m on ?? Hamer - £15m, Souza £12m, Traore £5m, Slimane £4m, Garbage £2m, Trusty £5m - I get that to £43m.

Have I missed anyone

Bear in mind that the post you're responding to, references that transfermarkt has these fees listed in Euros, not £. That said, you've missed out Archer, whose fee would be counted on paper, but now obviously you can scrub most of it now he's gone back to Villa.

So assuming the €66.95m as accurate from transfermarkt, and using the €:£ conversion I got from Google (84 pence per Euro), it works out at approx. £56 million spent. Using the same calculations on player sales, it works out to roughly £26million. So a deficit of around £30 million overall

 

[EddieColquhoun]

Noted on Luton, but they built a new stand and I'm pretty sure they are in the process of building a new ground, so they might be looking at the bigger picture and using the EPL money for this.

We haven't spent anything like this on the ground.

So you are taking Luton’s £10m ground refurbishment into consideration. You could also add their record signing of £5m (already sold).
How many transfer fees of £5m+ do we have to pay for? Do you take into consideration our loss of £31.4m in 2023? The purchase of land around the ground since? The hotel development? The purchase of a new training ground?

 

[EddieColquhoun]

Any owner in the Championship needs to put £15m+ in, and the EPL £30m+ to stand still. Even Millwall lose £1m a month. The Prince hasn't done this, but has had the benefit of the Sky money which is significant.

The money in from the new owners is a moot point, as Everton have had two substantial loans from Companies who didn't subsequently buy them. Granted Everton are in the sh1t, and some of the cause of this is the loans, so I'm not saying we should go down this route, however it is possible, and I'm sure there will be considerable dialogue between existing owners and prospective owners over transfers. Assuming that this is the case, then finding the down payment for a good, new goalkeeper shouldn't be an issue, which was my original point.

Who put the money in in 22/23 when we lost £31.4m?

 

[bladesmanluke]

Who put the money in in 22/23 when we lost £31.4m?

That's about 1/3 of the Prince's net worth which is incredible really. Something to consider when bashing him for all his flaws. He's very unlikely to be able to do something like that again

 

[EddieColquhoun]

Double post.

 

[Antarctic Monkey]

Deal agreed, waiting on readies...

 

[Ldn_Rd_Blades]

Deal agreed, waiting on readies...

Don’t know where the readies are?

 

[Bladesman]

Deal agreed, waiting on readies...

Do you think they will notice if we pay them in monopoly money?

 

[jono_t2000]

Deal agreed, waiting on readies...

WUEDP?

 

[Champagneblade]

Deal agreed, waiting on readies...

Ah,minor detail then!

 

[Balham]

Who did we spend £67m on ?? Hamer - £15m, Souza £12m, Traore £5m, Slimane £4m, Garbage £2m, Trusty £5m - I get that to £43m.

Have I missed anyone?

I've covered it extensively elsewhere but 1) the €67m is in Euros so all figures are 10% higher than you've quoted, 2) Archer needs adding back in and 3) they're all overestimates anyway.

We broke even if you exclude Archer. £35m in (Ndiaye £20m, Berge £15m); £48m out (£18m Archer, ~£11m Hamer, ~£7m Souza, £5m Trusty, £2.5m Traoré, £1.75m Grbic, £1.25m Slimane)

Who put the money in in 22/23 when we lost £31.4m?

The Premier League. A lot of the losses were wages and bonuses and we paid those out of the first instalment of PL cash. We had no money in the back half of 22/23; hence welching on the Brewster and Ahmedhodzic payments.

 

[Antarctic Monkey]

Obviously lots in the air about Souza and Osula. Should happen quickly if and when money drops in. Rushworth second option to loan should we not get the money.

 

[Irv]

Don’t know where the readies are?

In the libraries?

 

[YES Blade]

Obviously lots in the air about Souza and Osula. Should happen quickly if and when money drops in. Rushworth second option to loan should we not get the money.

So the money is dependent on player sales and not takeover related?

 

[Antarctic Monkey]

So the money is dependent on player sales and not takeover related?

Everything is until the takeover pal, we will lose deals if we don't make decisions now. CW having to wheel and deal.

 

[Sparky_Blade]

Everything is until the takeover pal, we will lose deals if we don't make decisions now. CW having to wheel and deal.

I got the impression PA had to foot the Burrows money and was probably why the deal was delayed as we were hoping the takeover would have gone through by now.

 

[Yellarbellyblade]

I was talking about Shackleton but not blaming anyone. Injuries happen, my point is that we've already rolled the diced on someone who is perceived as injury-prone - nothing wrong with that, but since there's already a chance he's been badly injured, I just hope it might give the club pause if we're going to buy someone in a vital position who has already had a couple of fairly serious issues in the past.

I'm more advocating "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" rather than having a pop at anyone for the Shackleton situation.

I think the query is more about how accurate the injury prone bit is for Shackleton. Perceived might be accurate of the impression but maybe that might not be backed up with the facts. Egan is a good example. He had a really serious injury last season but barely missed a game through injury before that. Is he injury prone?

 

[SouthStandGBlock]

I've covered it extensively elsewhere but 1) the €67m is in Euros so all figures are 10% higher than you've quoted, 2) Archer needs adding back in and 3) they're all overestimates anyway.

We broke even if you exclude Archer. £35m in (Ndiaye £20m, Berge £15m); £48m out (£18m Archer, ~£11m Hamer, ~£7m Souza, £5m Trusty, £2.5m Traoré, £1.75m Grbic, £1.25m Slimane)


The Premier League. A lot of the losses were wages and bonuses and we paid those out of the first instalment of PL cash. We had no money in the back half of 22/23; hence welching on the Brewster and Ahmedhodzic payments.

Thanks Baltic.

I was pretty sure we were at zero net spend (albeit excluding Archer and Agents fees).

 

[SouthStandGBlock]

Thanks Baltic.

I was pretty sure we were at zero net spend (albeit excluding Archer and Agents fees).

Balham even !!!!

 

[EddieColquhoun]

The Premier League. A lot of the losses were wages and bonuses and we paid those out of the first instalment of PL cash. We had no money in the back half of 22/23; hence welching on the Brewster and Ahmedhodzic payments.

We lost £30.4m in 2022/23 including any PL payments. Who covered those losses?

 

[SouthStandGBlock]

So you are taking Luton’s £10m ground refurbishment into consideration. You could also add their record signing of £5m (already sold).
How many transfer fees of £5m+ do we have to pay for? Do you take into consideration our loss of £31.4m in 2023? The purchase of land around the ground since? The hotel development? The purchase of a new training ground?

You're right, the club is being run fantastically well, every £ is accounted for, the infrastructure is being maintained, there's a clear transfer policy in place, and the Chairman is bankrolling all this out of the goodness of his heart.

Foolish of me to question it - I apologize.