Short-Termism?

[Prem owner needed]

Us, Norwich, Burnley and it also looks like Rotherham manage that as well.

Norwich are now only self sustaining after a pretty poor season in the prem and not spending any money, however they had considerable debts before promotion and not a self sustainable club at that point.

Us, lets see just where this approach leaves us at the end of this season?

Burnley are now reported to be £90m in debt.

Rotherham, again L1 to Championship and back, really!

 

[guancheblade]

I feel similar.
I'm pleased that Slavs getting some help with signings. (Worrying he had to threaten a little and how many would we have got without that!?)
But hope it works. 5 loan signings seems like alot to me. Although hourihane is out of contract at end of season so could feasibly become a perm.

How about 4 loan signings?

 

[Bennyand the Blades]

Apparently some on here believe you can't use premiership tactics in the Championship and Championship tactics don't work in the premiership..
So if this is right logic say's we will have to build one team to get promoted and change it when we do,
So if we need to change the team when we get promoted, what is wrong with signing loan players to get us out of the Championship and then keeping the one's who show promise while replacing the others who don't and will not be on long and expensive contracts with better players ? ......

 

[Yogi]

For the club to be sustainable in the long term the academy is key the prince has said as much himself. We need to generate incoming from player sales as a club our recruitment is mixed and the approach is likely to change as managers change so that probably isn’t something we can rely on to make us money in the long term. However, we have a very respectable record of producing academy players and if handled correctly the academy could secure our future by providing players for the first team who are then sold for good fees to sustain the club. In order to achieve this two things need to happen we need to move away from shirecliffe and secure category one status and we need to hold onto academy players for a bit longer. We need to be selling players in their 20’s with a good amount of exposure and experience behind them as opposed to selling them as low value teenagers.

 

[Caseh]

Norwich are now only self sustaining after a pretty poor season in the prem and not spending any money, however they had considerable debts before promotion and not a self sustainable club at that point.

Us, lets see just where this approach leaves us at the end of this season?

Burnley are now reported to be £90m in debt.

Rotherham, again L1 to Championship and back, really!

You asked me to name clubs, I provided exactly that. I don't really know what else you wanted from the post?

 

[Champagneblade]

True, but then having some tread on your toe is better than being kicked in the balls.

Id just love United for once to have owner that was competent. It just beggers belief to me that we can have a target lined up ( and reported to have passed a medical) only to find out they are ineligible, why was the research done previously, give the mess they got in with Blessin? Once is a mistake, twice is incompetence.

These are new rules and they are subject to interpretation.

The French lad is a good example. If he was signed in Jan, or before a ball was kicked this season, he would be eligible. It's not unreasonable to expect a bit of leniency in some cases or to at least extend historically the view on experience. It's not as if we plucked some kid from Azerbaijani third tier and hoped he'd get approved right away!

I mean, take a guy who is a CEO of a company for 20 years. He takes a pay off and helps his son out at his son's farm, who, as a gesture, pays him a wage. Under the interpretation of the rules for Karamoh as they were applied, the same guy would be judged as a strawberry picker when he applies for his next CEO job!

There are a few things that sit easier with me these days.

1. Long term. If Barcelona can't manage to keep Messi then the expectation that we will sign players and them be here for a long time is a little unrealistic. They will only stay because they are no better than us and we are no better than them and the club will tread water at best or slowly decline. Once you reconcile this, then the whole short term v long term argument fades. It's as short term as 'can we put a decent team out for the next game'? It'll break our hearts less when they leave anyway. It's not as if we will have no permanent players but we do have a high number of contracted players already. It's not like under Blackwell where we were selling starters and replacing them with loans.

2. Are you really not pleased with the QUALITY of this window? It's the first window in a while where on the face of it, all the players are quality additions and none are duds or 'not sure about him' additions and none are 'punts'. Olsen, Sweden's no 1 from Serie A, Davies a player we coveted for 2 years, a ball carrying midfielder who has been in the Wolves matchday squad this season and Hourihane, a capable goalscoring midfielder to supplant a midfield that scored ONE goal from open play last season.

Yes, we didn't get a winger. But it's not as if Slav has to play with 10 men now. He's not been a good manager that can only play one formation. He played 4-3-3 at Fulham but he played many different formations at Watford and latterly he played 4-2-3-1 at Al Qarafa.

Plus of course there must be a chance the new guys will lift the performance of others who have been at their lowest ebb.

 

[Bookers Mullet]

These are new rules and they are subject to interpretation.

The French lad is a good example. If he was signed in Jan, or before a ball was kicked this season, he would be eligible. It's not unreasonable to expect a bit of leniency in some cases or to at least extend historically the view on experience. It's not as if we plucked some kid from Azerbaijani third tier and hoped he'd get approved right away!

I mean, take a guy who is a CEO of a company for 20 years. He takes a pay off and helps his son out at his son's farm, who, as a gesture, pays him a wage. Under the interpretation of the rules for Karamoh as they were applied, the same guy would be judged as a strawberry picker when he applies for his next CEO job!

There are a few things that sit easier with me these days.

1. Long term. If Barcelona can't manage to keep Messi then the expectation that we will sign players and them be here for a long time is a little unrealistic. They will only stay because they are no better than us and we are no better than them and the club will tread water at best or slowly decline. Once you reconcile this, then the whole short term v long term argument fades. It's as short term as 'can we put a decent team out for the next game'? It'll break our hearts less when they leave anyway. It's not as if we will have no permanent players but we do have a high number of contracted players already. It's not like under Blackwell where we were selling starters and replacing them with loans.

2. Are you really not pleased with the QUALITY of this window? It's the first window in a while where on the face of it, all the players are quality additions and none are duds or 'not sure about him' additions and none are 'punts'. Olsen, Sweden's no 1 from Serie A, Davies a player we coveted for 2 years, a ball carrying midfielder who has been in the Wolves matchday squad this season and Hourihane, a capable goalscoring midfielder to supplant a midfield that scored ONE goal from open play last season.

Yes, we didn't get a winger. But it's not as if Slav has to play with 10 men now. He's not been a good manager that can only play one formation. He played 4-3-3 at Fulham but he played many different formations at Watford and latterly he played 4-2-3-1 at Al Qarafa.

Plus of course there must be a chance the new guys will lift the performance of others who have been at their lowest ebb.

Happy with the quality on paper. Still disappointed that we weren't able to initiate the background checks sooner, I appreciate that may have been due to circumstances outside our control.
I definitely owe the board an apology, was a far better window than I'd hoped, however I still believe our lack of flexibility, a footballer with pace and a domineering centre half will leave us midtable

 

[Prem owner needed]

You asked me to name clubs, I provided exactly that. I don't really know what else you wanted from the post?

I thought that you were going to name a string of clubs that have been running on a self sustaining basis for quite a number of years that have had noticeable success, not a club (Burnely) that are not self sustaining, Rotherham that have been recently bouncing between L1 & Championship (surely no one can want that for SUFC?) and Norwich that up until promotion were far from self sustaining.

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

Happy with the quality on paper. Still disappointed that we weren't able to initiate the background checks sooner, I appreciate that may have been due to circumstances outside our control.
I definitely owe the board an apology, was a far better window than I'd hoped, however I still believe our lack of flexibility, a footballer with pace and a domineering centre half will leave us midtable

Can I ask who the domineering centre half will come into the starting 11 for? I can’t see where there’s a space for that kind of player, especially when we’ve got a couple of kids who can sit on the bench or make cameos when needed.

 

[Bookers Mullet]

Can I ask who the domineering centre half will come into the starting 11 for? I can’t see where there’s a space for that kind of player, especially when we’ve got a couple of kids who can sit on the bench or make cameos when needed.

I hope I'm proven wrong and there is time yet, but I'd rather it have been instead of Davies rather than as well as. Don't get me wrong hes a good player, but I'm just not convinced he is the type of player we need

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

I hope I'm proven wrong and there is time yet, but I'd rather it have been instead of Davies rather than as well as. Don't get me wrong hes a good player, but I'm just not convinced he is the type of player we need

Cool, I know you didn’t rate him I just wondered who you’d be dropping. If it’s instead of then I get what you’re wanting although I can’t think of too many left footed, ball playing centre half who as also dominant. Apart from JoC of course

 

[Bookers Mullet]

Cool, I know you didn’t rate him I just wondered who you’d be dropping. If it’s instead of then I get what you’re wanting although I can’t think of too many left footed, ball playing centre half who as also dominant. Apart from JoC of course

Yeah we have truly been spoiled by JoC, i don't think we'll see a player of his quality in that position for a long time

 

[blade67]

Loans don't have to give a shit ,simple.

And in contract players do?

 

[robbiez666]

For the club to be sustainable in the long term the academy is key the prince has said as much himself. We need to generate incoming from player sales as a club our recruitment is mixed and the approach is likely to change as managers change so that probably isn’t something we can rely on to make us money in the long term. However, we have a very respectable record of producing academy players and if handled correctly the academy could secure our future by providing players for the first team who are then sold for good fees to sustain the club. In order to achieve this two things need to happen we need to move away from shirecliffe and secure category one status and we need to hold onto academy players for a bit longer. We need to be selling players in their 20’s with a good amount of exposure and experience behind them as opposed to selling them as low value teenagers.

This is all well and good but there needs to be investment to move away from Shirecliffe, build a new training ground and upgrade the Academy/facilities. This should have been done when we were getting PL money. We now have no money. I'm not sure how we're paying for any of it.

 

[robbiez666]

Apparently some on here believe you can't use premiership tactics in the Championship and Championship tactics don't work in the premiership..
So if this is right logic say's we will have to build one team to get promoted and change it when we do,
So if we need to change the team when we get promoted, what is wrong with signing loan players to get us out of the Championship and then keeping the one's who show promise while replacing the others who don't and will not be on long and expensive contracts with better players ? ......

That's no sustainable though.

Start of next season, assuming we're playing 5:3:2, which the manager seemingly doesn't want to play, we'll have

-------------------------------no GK
Baldock/Bogle--No RCB--Egan--JOC or NO LCB---RBD/Stevens
------------Berge--------Norwood-------------Fleck
--------------------Brewster------McBurnie

subs: Verrips, Foderingham, Jebbison, Burke, Lowe, kids

If we don't go up, this is what we have. The ones in black are in the last year of their contract and we either try and cash in or extend if we want to and if the player wants to stay. I presume Berge will likely go in January, and definitely in summer if we don't go up but PA seems to indicate that selling him would be covering debt.

Loans are great, I calculate with no money by the look of it we'll need to bring in:

1-2 GKS
1 - LWB
3 - CBs
5 - CMs
3 - STs

so 13 players with no money if we don't go up. Maybe do with 7-8 if a few suddenly remember how to play football.

Now, the kids might plug the gaps. Maybe. However, that's a big maybe. I suspect 2-3 might be involved in the squad.

You might say that we could go up. It's possible. But we'll still need to replace a large number of players, and the players we have might not be good enough.

And if we brought in 5 loans again, then the year after we likely have a total squad of 8-12 players.

The squad is badly misbalanced as well. Take midfield for example. We have 5 midfielders. 2 are leaving at the end of the season. 1 will probably be sold. 2 will be 31 and don't look up to it at 30. Of the kids there's Brunt. And that's a bit question mark. He's not gone out on loan which means he's unlikely to get any senior football experience until at least January and probably lowest FL or Non-League.

This is why I'm saying it's short-termism. It's fine relying on loans if you have players coming through to replace them.

 

[Yogi]

This is all well and good but there needs to be investment to move away from Shirecliffe, build a new training ground and upgrade the Academy/facilities. This should have been done when we were getting PL money. We now have no money. I'm not sure how we're paying for any of it.

Agreed funding any move currently appears to be a significant problem. Without that move and the step up in academy level which would accompany it I’m not sure the princes vision of having the academy supplement to first team side on a semi regular basis is realistic.

 

[robbiez666]

Agreed funding any move currently appears to be a significant problem. Without that move and the step up in academy level which would accompany it I’m not sure the princes vision of having the academy supplement to first team side on a semi regular basis is realistic.

and it goes further than that as well. we have:

A Cat B academy
An unsuitable training ground
An unsuitable scouting/recruitment network

All probably need millions of investment but we have no money.

So while it seems possible that we could somehow fund one of these, given we can't afford to sign anyone permanently I'm not convinced that we can sort more than one of those. And that's with selling our most valuable player.

 

[Yogi]

and it goes further than that as well. we have:

A Cat B academy
An unsuitable training ground
An unsuitable scouting/recruitment network

All probably need millions of investment but we have no money.

So while it seems possible that we could somehow fund one of these, given we can't afford to sign anyone permanently I'm not convinced that we can sort more than one of those. And that's with selling our most valuable player.

I think there’s evidence of small steps being taken on the recruitment side of things and that being expanded seems like it’ll take us a while to get in right though.

On the infrastructure side of things that needs to be improve and I don’t see us finding it outside the prem.

 

[nopigfansintown]

That's no sustainable though.

Start of next season, assuming we're playing 5:3:2, which the manager seemingly doesn't want to play, we'll have

-------------------------------no GK
Baldock/Bogle--No RCB--Egan--JOC or NO LCB---RBD/Stevens
------------Berge--------Norwood-------------Fleck
--------------------Brewster------McBurnie

subs: Verrips, Foderingham, Jebbison, Burke, Lowe, kids

If we don't go up, this is what we have. The ones in black are in the last year of their contract and we either try and cash in or extend if we want to and if the player wants to stay. I presume Berge will likely go in January, and definitely in summer if we don't go up but PA seems to indicate that selling him would be covering debt.

Loans are great, I calculate with no money by the look of it we'll need to bring in:

1-2 GKS
1 - LWB
3 - CBs
5 - CMs
3 - STs

so 13 players with no money if we don't go up. Maybe do with 7-8 if a few suddenly remember how to play football.

Now, the kids might plug the gaps. Maybe. However, that's a big maybe. I suspect 2-3 might be involved in the squad.

You might say that we could go up. It's possible. But we'll still need to replace a large number of players, and the players we have might not be good enough.

And if we brought in 5 loans again, then the year after we likely have a total squad of 8-12 players.

The squad is badly misbalanced as well. Take midfield for example. We have 5 midfielders. 2 are leaving at the end of the season. 1 will probably be sold. 2 will be 31 and don't look up to it at 30. Of the kids there's Brunt. And that's a bit question mark. He's not gone out on loan which means he's unlikely to get any senior football experience until at least January and probably lowest FL or Non-League.

This is why I'm saying it's short-termism. It's fine relying on loans if you have players coming through to replace them.

Yep, we probably need ten in before any outgoings (Berge, Norwood, Fleck, Burke, Verrips/Foderingham,, Lowe/Stevens, Mcburnie (owt is better than nowt) all possible outgoings imo? An enormous undertaking given the lack of assets at our disposal, and the increasingly cash strapped outlook coming from the high ups. This leaves me with the fear that we'll extend deals for players that look increasingly like their race is run because we can't afford to overturn the squad with the required numbers even with Champ players on Champ wages.

 

[robbiez666]

Yep, we probably need ten in before any outgoings (Berge, Norwood, Fleck, Burke, Verrips/Foderingham,, Lowe/Stevens, Mcburnie (owt is better than nowt) all possible outgoings imo? An enormous undertaking given the lack of assets at our disposal, and the increasingly cash strapped outlook coming from the high ups. This leaves me with the fear that we'll extend deals for players that look increasingly like their race is run because we can't afford to overturn the squad with the required numbers even with Champ players on Champ wages.

For me, we need to be going for players in January with 6 months left on their contract. If you leave it and hope we're in a straight shot with a team who will probably pay bigger wages. He needs to find the money from somewhere. We have another large parachute payment next summer so we can afford to spend some money given several will drop off the wage bill. There should be enough money, including the selling of Berge, to spend up to 10 million on getting permanents in. Midfield is desperate.

 

[nopigfansintown]

For me, we need to be going for players in January with 6 months left on their contract. If you leave it and hope we're in a straight shot with a team who will probably pay bigger wages. He needs to find the money from somewhere. We have another large parachute payment next summer so we can afford to spend some money given several will drop off the wage bill. There should be enough money, including the selling of Berge, to spend up to 10 million on getting permanents in. Midfield is desperate.

We've all seen this movie so many times with other clubs. If this isn't managed correctly it will cost a shit load of money and see us in the third tier.

 

[robbiez666]

We've lost a load of the permanent wage bill this summer.

Is we let Billy, McGoldrick, Osborn, Robinson, Mousset all go that's £10 million-ish

To sign say Jed Wallace and Dembele for £5 million in January and use the other loan signing.

It worries me that very few kids have gone out on loan which means it's unlikely that they'll just be able to step up.

We seem to be going down a hole where we'll run out of assets to actually sell.

 

[nopigfansintown]

We've lost a load of the permanent wage bill this summer.

Is we let Billy, McGoldrick, Osborn, Robinson, Mousset all go that's £10 million-ish

To sign say Jed Wallace and Dembele for £5 million in January and use the other loan signing.

It worries me that very few kids have gone out on loan which means it's unlikely that they'll just be able to step up.

We seem to be going down a hole where we'll run out of assets to actually sell.

That's the big worry, you have to buy and develop assets. If you don't do either, you end up without the money to purchase further assets. That alongside creating a more sustainable wage bill that doesn't cripple us financially - and in terms of our 13 million allowed losses per year - should be the goal of the club (You don't want all your allowed losses going on wages). I hope I'm wrong, but I think we miscalculated and assumed we'd be in an automatic promotion fight when we might be nowhere near. I would've been looking to get the average age/wage down this season - restructuring now. As much as I like them I'm surprised we weren't listening to offers for Baldock, Egan, Stevens, Fleck, Norwood etc etc.

 

[robbiez666]

That's the big worry, you have to buy and develop assets. If you don't do either, you end up without the money to purchase further assets. That alongside creating a more sustainable wage bill that doesn't cripple us financially - and in terms of our 13 million allowed losses per year - should be the goal of the club (You don't want all your allowed losses going on wages). I hope I'm wrong, but I think we miscalculated and assumed we'd be in an automatic promotion fight when we might be nowhere near. I would've been looking to get the average age/wage down this season - restructuring now. As much as I like them I'm surprised we weren't listening to offers for Baldock, Egan, Stevens, Fleck, Norwood etc etc.

I think we dropped the ball last season. The Brewster money should have been spent on infrastructure. We didn't need a 6th striker. We should never have extended contracts so recklessly, as well. We have players on a year too long and we did it while we were riding high so they'll be on too much.

During our time in the top flight we bought young players but at over-inflated prices. Our reluctance to shop outside of our own shores really cost us and despite having a head scout who is an expert in the lower leagues we didn't sign anyone to develop and expected the young new signings to be the finished product.

I'd keep Egan (unless we got a large offer but the rest aren't good enough for the top flight and are showing nothing to suggest would be good in a promotion campaign.

Our entire pre-season was a mess from start to finish in just about every way. Allowing SJ to be fair was mad. We were being 'fair' into the league campaign.

I fear that we're repeating the mistakes we made last time we went down to L1.