Lack of January additions hurting us?

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Berkshire Blade

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Often hear it said a new face just freshens the squad up a bit and keeps everyone on their toes. This January we got rid and didn't replace. Pretty much all our rivals strengthened.

Burke and Archer involved in goals against us who were January additions.

I hope our boardroom farce isn't something we talk about at the end of the season.
 



Often hear it said a new face just freshens the squad up a bit and keeps everyone on their toes. This January we got rid and didn't replace. Pretty much all our rivals strengthened.

Burke and Archer involved in goals against us who were January additions.

I hope our boardroom farce isn't something we talk about at the end of the season.
Yes, just when we needed to add PA decided to take his bat and ball home. Another dismal owner to add to the collection from the past.
 
Yes, just when we needed to add PA decided to take his bat and ball home. Another dismal owner to add to the collection from the past.

We needed to accept the N'Diaye and Berge to stay financially secure

but someone in the boardroom showed massive ambition by gambling on promotion.

At the time 99% of our fans thought that was a fantastic move

but I warned our fans at the time....that it's a massive gamble and if it fails you can bet the same fans
who wanted ambition will accuse the owners of being reckless, with a lot of fans you can't win whatever you do.

As I've said there's no such thing as a good owner or a bad owner, it's all based on results during each season.
So every year there are 3 great owners, the teams that achieve promotion and 3 terrible owners (the relegated teams).
 
The Prince has tried running the club using it's own money and we're running out. That's not bad ownership, that's the reality of English football these days. The Prince doesn't have the money to sustain the club himself. That said, he's still run it far better than McCabe ever did. He warned us that this season was the last for parachute payments and it was go for broke as far as chances of promotion are concerned. If we don't go up and fail to get taken over, then dark days are coming. We were warned last summer.

Unless you are bankrolled by a billionaire playboy you can't compete financially anymore. If clubs truly spent only the revenue that they generated themselves without billionaire owners and dodgy sponsorships, then most Championship clubs would be spending £2-3mil max on players every summer, unless they sell players for millions first, with a wage bill akin to that of League One. The English game is broken when it comes to football finances, but the FA don't care as the Premier League and sexy billionaire owners bring them in billions of pounds which don't get filtered down to the football league.
 
uniteds board will be to blame if we dont get promoted without a doubt getting us in to an embargo and not allowing us to sign the likes of o brien and archer in january and it could well cost the club 150m plus by not getting to the premier league well done the prince and mr bettis 🤨🤨🤨
 
Can't reply to posts for some reason but nopigfansintown is 100% correct.

Why we havent signed a mobile, aggressive, defensive midfielder is beyond me. We've needed one for years and now we are really paying the price.Our midfield is powder puff, Berge never tackles anyone, Norwood is too slow to tackle most and the rest of them are attacking midfielders. To not have one viable option to bring on that kind of player when needed is criminal. It would have helped us immensely against Boro and again today.

How can we be so unbalanced that we have loads of left centre backs/wing backs and not one viable number 4 ?
 
Obviously. We've needed a defensive midfielder for four or five windows now. Another forward and left footed defender to tide us over would also have helped..

Can't reply to posts for some reason but nopigfansintown is 100% correct.

Why we havent signed a mobile, aggressive, defensive midfielder is beyond me. We've needed one for years and now we are really paying the price.Our midfield is powder puff, Berge never tackles anyone, Norwood is too slow to tackle most and the rest of them are attacking midfielders. To not have one viable option to bring on that kind of player when needed is criminal. It would have helped us immensely against Boro and again today.

How can we be so unbalanced that we have loads of left centre backs/wing backs and not one viable number 4 ?
Didn't we have that kid Watford signed lined up if Berge left? Also rumours Archer for Khadra?

We seem to be looking at the right areas but there's just no cash.
 
Where do you want to magic the money from for January signings? If you wanted them we would have had to have sold N'Diaye and/or Berger? We kept them, right decision imo. N'Diaye needs to show more tho, he's gone off the boil.

We are financially handicapped principally due to that awful Brewster signing.
 
owners who just decide to cut the clubs off from their money are the very worst and should never be allowed to own clubs in the first place
 
Hecky worried about finances said he would be happy just to get through the window keeping this group of players together without having to sell anyone. He got his wish.
 
Often hear it said a new face just freshens the squad up a bit and keeps everyone on their toes. This January we got rid and didn't replace. Pretty much all our rivals strengthened.

Burke and Archer involved in goals against us who were January additions.

I hope our boardroom farce isn't something we talk about at the end of the season.
End of the season?

We'll still be talking about this at the end of the decade

But at least we still have Berge! 😂

Most fans were pleased! But no strengthening meant no reason to expect improved performances. And the performances weren't good enough. To not strengthen was to take a risk. That shouldn't have been allowed. But in no time, we're not only at risk. It is far beyond that already

So well done to all concerned. This will define a generation
 
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The prince has left us in the shit. caused the embargo could not to get anyone in the transfer window with no money even loans.

I considered that he had been responsible regards finances up to embargo but that view has now changed. The football club should not have been left in this position and injuries have only served to exacerbate the situation.
 



The Prince has tried running the club using it's own money and we're running out. That's not bad ownership, that's the reality of English football these days. The Prince doesn't have the money to sustain the club himself. That said, he's still run it far better than McCabe ever did. He warned us that this season was the last for parachute payments and it was go for broke as far as chances of promotion are concerned. If we don't go up and fail to get taken over, then dark days are coming. We were warned last summer.

Unless you are bankrolled by a billionaire playboy you can't compete financially anymore. If clubs truly spent only the revenue that they generated themselves without billionaire owners and dodgy sponsorships, then most Championship clubs would be spending £2-3mil max on players every summer, unless they sell players for millions first, with a wage bill akin to that of League One. The English game is broken when it comes to football finances, but the FA don't care as the Premier League and sexy billionaire owners bring them in billions of pounds which don't get filtered down to the football league.
2 years of prem money, followed by 2 years of parachute money and we're skink.
Financial mismanagement on an epic scale
 
2 years of prem money, followed by 2 years of parachute money and we're skink.
Financial mismanagement on an epic scale
We wasted the Premier League money on poor signings who largely didn't improve us. Blame Wilder for that.

Henderson (loan)
Osborn
McBurnie
Morrison
Rodwell
C. Robinson
Mousset
Freeman
Besic (loan)
J. Robinson
Jagielka
Verrips
Berge
Retsos
Zivkovic
Ramsdale
Burke
Ampadu (loan)
Foderingham
Lopata
Lowe
Bogle
Coulibaly
Brewster

No wonder the Prince demanded a director of football if he stayed on as manager. He was backed to the hilt and wasted the money on largely garbage signings. The Prince backed him more than any other manager and Wilder blew it and now we're suffering for it.

The Prince always said that the parachute payments would be used to sustain the wage bill to keep the squad together. Our only money to buy players would have to come from selling first. We've allegedly turned down offers for Berge, Baldock, Coulibaly and Ndiaye since.
 
I doubt we ever turned down 20m

It would have even been worth loaning him out with a view to a guaranteed permanent if it meant allowing us to bring in a couple

But it was better to pretend Berge is some sort of matchwinning superstar, to make ourselves feel better about spending 20m in the first place and loudly proclaim how we aren't a selling club anymore
 
Not been able to bring in 2 or 3 acquisitions in Jan definitely weakened us , I think there was a lot of smoke and mirrors around Ndiaye & Berge to deflect away from this . Hecky in his Dec interviews when questioned around Khadra said that we had the last word on it as he had triggered the min amount of appearances .
I can’t imagine for one minute despite Khadra’s unhappiness that he would have deliberately weakened his options if he knew the embargo was on the horizon .
I get it from the prince that he’s selling his asset , but would have thought that in dialogue with the prospective new owners they would have come to some agreement , when there is a potential £180M windfall as a prize .
I get the impression the prince has completely disappeared into the background and Hecky is completely in the dark around things in the background & he’s gambled on us having a large points difference & thought i do t need to invest further .
The irony is there is the potential for this to backfire big time , the more protracted the takeover becomes & if our loss of form was to continue the potential new owners could think hold on I was looking at a pretty much nailed on auto promotion team , to one that’s got a 1 in 4 play off chance & maybe sour their intentions ?? I don’t know ..I just find it bizarre that you’d risk all that for the sake of a couple of loans or shifting a couple on to bring a couple in .
The only really additions will be the injured players returning .. Certainly RND pace pre injury has been a miss for us while he was playing LCB .. I’d love see a fit Brewster returning but after 2 major hamstring injuries I think that ship will have sailed .
Hecky worked wonders getting us into the play offs with walking wounded last season , hope he can do the same getting us top 2 this season with a hand tied behind his back , we’ve still got a decent squad when they’re fit but I’ve said all along we’re light up top .⚔️
 
Correct Wilder spent a lot of money. However, you have to keep spending millions if you want to stay in the Premier League.
 
The Prince has tried running the club using it's own money and we're running out. That's not bad ownership, that's the reality of English football these days. The Prince doesn't have the money to sustain the club himself. That said, he's still run it far better than McCabe ever did. He warned us that this season was the last for parachute payments and it was go for broke as far as chances of promotion are concerned. If we don't go up and fail to get taken over, then dark days are coming. We were warned last summer.

Unless you are bankrolled by a billionaire playboy you can't compete financially anymore. If clubs truly spent only the revenue that they generated themselves without billionaire owners and dodgy sponsorships, then most Championship clubs would be spending £2-3mil max on players every summer, unless they sell players for millions first, with a wage bill akin to that of League One. The English game is broken when it comes to football finances, but the FA don't care as the Premier League and sexy billionaire owners bring them in billions of pounds which don't get filtered down to the football league.
The Prince needs to take some responsibility, in my opinion. His running of the club over the last 12 months has been very poor and that is putting aside his shambolic attempts to sell us.

I’m not criticising him for not having the money, but how can a club of our size not budget for a 12 month period without running out of cash half way through? I’m not an accountant but surely it is the very basics - i.e. work out what your incomings and outgoings are at the start of the season and then don’t over commit. Surely we knew what our revenue would be and what our expenditure would be? It’s not like the Brewster payment and other staged transfer payments came as a bolt from the blue. We didn’t have to spend £3-4m on a new centre half in the summer or £2m+ on new training pitches if we didn’t have the money. Don’t forget he also pissed a lot of money away last season on Slav’s redundancy through poor planning, or no planning at all according to our chairman. Ridiculous in our situation. The pitches are even more baffling when we can’t afford to switch the under soil heating on, which has rendered them unusable anyway.

Whether he stays or goes, it is likely the prince will leave under a bit of a cloud, which is a shame as he’s done a lot right.
 
Correct Wilder spent a lot of money. However, you have to keep spending millions if you want to stay in the Premier League.
Wilder said Summer 2020 was "the best ever transfer window". We were virtually relegated in January 2021 and it was understandable that the club didnt want to spend more millions
 
You are correct Silent Blade.however was they no money to spend at all as we all now know the prince is broke?
 
Should have still used that January to prepare for the championship, then we might have had a bit better than Hourihane and Guedioura
 



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