Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Viking Chat => Topic started by: TonySoprano on December 26, 2025, 05:09:31 pm
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Noticed GM had a dig at our poor budget before today's match.
Makes sense given just how awful the summer recruitment was.
Relegation this season would take a decade to recover from, TB needs to get his cheque book out if he wants us to be competitive.
I worry the signings in January wont be good enough, and I worry just as much that we will lose molyneux and /or Bailey.
I dont think the club has shown any ambition for this season really, and as a result we are staring relegation in the face.
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
It was in a Yorkshire post article, saying 1 blackpool signing is as much as his entire team.
I'll try to find it
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Another defeat, followed by another negative Tony post...
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Here it is
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/football/blackpool-v-doncaster-rovers-grant-mccann-cites-major-league-one-difference-between-clubs-5454400
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Another defeat, followed by another negative Tony post...
Ive only said some harsh truths that need addressing
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Their last accounts show a wage bill of just under £10 million in League One. We aren't going to be near that.
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Here it is
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/football/blackpool-v-doncaster-rovers-grant-mccann-cites-major-league-one-difference-between-clubs-5454400
Thanks.
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Their last accounts show a wage bill of just under £10 million in League One. We aren't going to be near that.
Perhaps not, but we're also nowhere near to what's needed to survive, never mind be competitive
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Ah so now it goes to blaming the money. Can’t remember him saying that when we were flying.
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Ah so now it goes to blaming the money. Can’t remember him saying that when we were flying.
He has been hinting around this a few times, I said a few weeks back that it sounded like a challenge to the board.
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Ah so now it goes to blaming the money. Can’t remember him saying that when we were flying.
No, but yet expectations were set, and mcann doesn't have the tools to meet them
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
It was in a Yorkshire post article, staying 1 blackpool signing is such as his entire team.
I'll try to find it
So you infer that to be a dig at our budget?
By all means, discuss the merit of hoe he's chosen to spend the resources he has and his recruitment in the summer, although we already have a thread about that.
Where are we in the attendance table BTW?
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Player recruitment is down to budgets but it’s taking in the right player has to a decision based on how you want to play . Why have we never had players throughout the squad above the average height . Our stature is slight and fleeting with pace . But L2 has teams with more muscle and brawn who will fight . We will loose our better players if we go down . Bailey maxwell McGrath do it will be exiting and it’s very much back to rebuilding AGAIN !!
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
It was in a Yorkshire post article, saying 1 blackpool signing is as much as his entire team.
I'll try to find it
Was that wages (certainly not) or transfer fees. The former is the important number.
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
It was in a Yorkshire post article, saying 1 blackpool signing is as much as his entire team.
I'll try to find it
Was that wages (certainly not) or transfer fees. The former is the important number.
Doesn't matter.
Still boils down to mcann not having the funds to sign players to make us competitive
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Hands tied behind his back and doing best he can wjth what he has got and muppets are calling him out on management ability?
100% long term performance is linked to budget. It is a business. You get what you pay for.
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Does himself no favours when he's renewing Close & Westbrooks contracts. Just bizarre
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
It was in a Yorkshire post article, saying 1 blackpool signing is as much as his entire team.
I'll try to find it
Was that wages (certainly not) or transfer fees. The former is the important number.
Doesn't matter.
Still boils down to mcann not having the funds to sign players to make us competitive
The article is more about Blackpool under performing considering what they spent in the summer.
Just simply now blaming our budget is a cop out because it's easy and lazy.
No matter what the budget is, it's how the manager recruits, prepares, coaches and manages the players week to week once the transfer window shuts, every time they cross the white line.
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Does himself no favours when he's renewing Close & Westbrooks contracts. Just bizarre
I agree it was strange at the time but this may have been in the knowledge of what our budget was/is. Still need a squad. No one knows what they renewed at but assumes it was top dollar.
Also part of budget may have been taken up in promotion bonuses or raises. Maybe the new contracts got rid of promotion raises for an additional 12m which gave him more wiggle room?
There is so many moving parts that we wont know about.
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
It was in a Yorkshire post article, saying 1 blackpool signing is as much as his entire team.
I'll try to find it
Was that wages (certainly not) or transfer fees. The former is the important number.
Doesn't matter.
Still boils down to mcann not having the funds to sign players to make us competitive
The article is more about Blackpool under performing considering what they spent in the summer.
Just simply now blaming our budget is a cop out because it's easy and lazy.
No matter what the budget is, it's how the manager recruits, prepares, coaches and manages the players week to week once the transfer window shuts, every time they cross the white line.
Thats a bit of an odd spin your trying to put on that article :lol:
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Their big money signing went off injured after six minutes!
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Whatever our budget is, it's the best budget he's ever going to get at this club, in this league.
If he can't keep us in the league with this budget then maybe he ought to start packing his bags now.
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We are a half decent team at this level, currently suffering low confidence - more than good enough to stay up. I think that is what the budget allows us to do, stay up. It is never a top of the league budget, or probably anywhere near.
Sort the midfield and defence out and we’re good. I just hope he can see where we need to move players on in certain positions, he does seem attached to some players regardless of their form.
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He can't moan one bit about the budget with contract renewals he gave out. Close and Westbrook ridiculous for starters.
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
It was in a Yorkshire post article, saying 1 blackpool signing is as much as his entire team.
I'll try to find it
Was that wages (certainly not) or transfer fees. The former is the important number.
Doesn't matter.
Still boils down to mcann not having the funds to sign players to make us competitive
The article is more about Blackpool under performing considering what they spent in the summer.
Just simply now blaming our budget is a cop out because it's easy and lazy.
No matter what the budget is, it's how the manager recruits, prepares, coaches and manages the players week to week once the transfer window shuts, every time they cross the white line.
Thats a bit of an odd spin your trying to put on that article :lol:
You said "Noticed GM had a dig at our poor budget before today's match"
I think others can decide how accurate our interpretations were. compared to what the article actually said.
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Where did he mention the budget? Not seen anything.
It was in a Yorkshire post article, saying 1 blackpool signing is as much as his entire team.
I'll try to find it
Was that wages (certainly not) or transfer fees. The former is the important number.
Doesn't matter.
Still boils down to mcann not having the funds to sign players to make us competitive
The article is more about Blackpool under performing considering what they spent in the summer.
Just simply now blaming our budget is a cop out because it's easy and lazy.
No matter what the budget is, it's how the manager recruits, prepares, coaches and manages the players week to week once the transfer window shuts, every time they cross the white line.
Thats a bit of an odd spin your trying to put on that article :lol:
You said "Noticed GM had a dig at our poor budget before today's match"
I think others can decide how accurate our interpretations were. compared to what the article actually said.
It was a clear dig
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In your eyes. You've decided we have a poor budget and I suspect you won't be shifting from that stance.
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Do you not think he had to give them contracts out to enable us to have a half competent squad? Maybe because the budget he had didn’t allow us to go out and get better players than we had.
It’s a calculated gamble- these are/ or should be good enough to do a job should injuries or form of others be poor, and at least they know the club and team set up.
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In your eyes. You've decided we have a poor budget and I suspect you won't be shifting from that stance.
Because all evidence points to that
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He can't moan one bit about the budget with contract renewals he gave out. Close and Westbrook ridiculous for starters.
It’s a bit deeper than them two.
The list of players given contracts by McCann in order to extend their stay here during his time is as follows:
Lawlor
Close
Westbrooke
Hurst
Senior
Sharp
McGrath
Maxwell
Molyneux
Sterry
Many here could have been let go to allow for better replacements. How many is up for debate. The first six on this list should (at the time) have been let go.
Our budget is not high but this highlights that the use of it is the bigger issue.
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If the budget is so bad why did he waste it on extending contracts of players he had no intentions of using?
Thi is his team make no mistake and he isn't getting a tune out of it. Random selection generator today.
Pick your best 11 and stick to it, nowheere near good enough to chop and change based on opponenets. Find a style and stick to it.
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So people think we only have 2 or 3 players suitable to this level, half a dozen of maybes
What are people expecting GM and the management team to do? Release 20 and sign 20 top L1 players? Or even 10 L1 players?
People who think budget dont matter need to have a re-think.
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So people think we only have 2 or 3 players suitable to this level, half a dozen of maybes
What are people expecting GM and the management team to do? Release 20 and sign 20 top L1 players? Or even 10 L1 players?
People who think budget dont matter need to have a re-think.
We’ve signed 5 loans that have all been substandard. That doesn’t help when it’s a quarter of your squad. That’s not particularly budget related.
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He can't moan one bit about the budget with contract renewals he gave out. Close and Westbrook ridiculous for starters.
It’s a bit deeper than them two.
The list of players given contracts by McCann in order to extend their stay here during his time is as follows:
Lawlor - good value 2nd string keeper
Close - I guess he's done better?
Westbrooke - fools gold
Hurst - could easily make our first XI currently
Senior - SOLID
Sharp - Good bench option (value depends on wage)
McGrath - poor season, good extension
Maxwell - good player, despite recent form
Molyneux - Legend of the club
Sterry - Amazing player
Many here could have been let go to allow for better replacements. How many is up for debate. The first six on this list should (at the time) have been let go.
Our budget is not high but this highlights that the use of it is the bigger issue.
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Imo squad depth is more important for promotion than staying in a division and consolidation. We never rebalanced the squad so have a large but weak group. We got L2 quality loans, I expected we would get better as in L1 the better prospects come available, which means we don’t have any star quality those spots normally provide.
Get 4/5 decent loan players in this Jan window and we can have a good finish imo. It’ll be expensive as we can’t just get 5 untested youngsters who have only ever played U21s. Terry has back Grant and I’m sure he will again. I want a bit more accountability on how the money is spent but in fairness it’s not my cash and I don’t know what’s said behind closed doors so maybe that’s happening.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
Strictly speaking we were wasting six figure fees on some of those.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
And I'd wager ( actually it's fact) that our budget knows is bigger than back then too.
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He can't moan one bit about the budget with contract renewals he gave out. Close and Westbrook ridiculous for starters.
It’s a bit deeper than them two.
The list of players given contracts by McCann in order to extend their stay here during his time is as follows:
Lawlor - good value 2nd string keeper
Close - I guess he's done better?
Westbrooke - fools gold
Hurst - could easily make our first XI currently
Senior - SOLID
Sharp - Good bench option (value depends on wage)
McGrath - poor season, good extension
Maxwell - good player, despite recent form
Molyneux - Legend of the club
Sterry - Amazing player
Many here could have been let go to allow for better replacements. How many is up for debate. The first six on this list should (at the time) have been let go.
Our budget is not high but this highlights that the use of it is the bigger issue.
Our aspirations (being an established L1 club) are now at a point where someone being an ok, hard-working player isn’t enough to be getting a new contract. (Lawlor, Senior, Close, Westbrooke).
Hurst can’t even easily make Gateshead’s first XI in the National League relegation zone, so I’m not sure how he’d walk in to ours. Sharp isn’t a good bench option because nothing happens when he comes on.
Some of this business could have been used to make current players in our first XI rotation options instead. If the consensus is that our squad isn’t good enough and needs to improve, then that is what needs to happen. The above examples were missed opportunities to enable that down the line.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
Strictly speaking we were wasting six figure fees on some of those.
Show me a club where every signing works????? Even the big ones.
Manu - Veron, Antony, Di Maria, Sanchez
Chelsea - Crespo, Shevchenko, Mutu
Liverpool - Wirtz, Issak, balotelli
The fact is we were trying
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
And I'd wager ( actually it's fact) that our budget knows is bigger than back then too.
That doesn't mean much, a litre of diesel is more than it was then.
Proportionally how can it be more if we can't muster more than a few grand for lads from Irish league and hoping a young loanee first time in mens football comes off?
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Wages a lot less. We pay fewer fees but higher wages. Our successes eg Molyneux, Bailey, Sterry all came at end of their deals. No fees but decent wages.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
Strictly speaking we were wasting six figure fees on some of those.
Show me a club where every signing works????? Even the big ones.
Manu - Veron, Antony, Di Maria, Sanchez
Chelsea - Crespo, Shevchenko, Mutu
Liverpool - Wirtz, Issak, balotelli
The fact is we were trying
Not sure throwing money about on the offchance it works is the arguement you want to be making. Potentially it's how we've got to where we are now.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
And I'd wager ( actually it's fact) that our budget knows is bigger than back then too.
If the policy is that we pay no fees, then we exclude from consideration the very many players who have time to run on their contracts… so that immediately reduces the field of options. There may be some, like Olowu, who decline to re-sign, but the overwhelming majority will not be considered worth keeping by their current clubs. We are thus largely dependant on improving those whose potential is not rated by their previous employers. So, whilst we may have occasionally been successful in this, the wastage has been unsustainably high and I don’t think you have to be a Management Consultant to perceive that the pre January policy has failed particularly badly this term.
Indeed recent history shows that grabbing some loanees who are in-contract elsewhere in January actually proves that those who other clubs have committed to employing, but are just missing out on regular selection, tend to provide better quality than hoping for a miracle amongst the summer cast-offs. We have been lucky two years running, but given the basic (lack of) quality of the present core, it’s a very big ask this time round.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
Strictly speaking we were wasting six figure fees on some of those.
Show me a club where every signing works????? Even the big ones.
Manu - Veron, Antony, Di Maria, Sanchez
Chelsea - Crespo, Shevchenko, Mutu
Liverpool - Wirtz, Issak, balotelli
The fact is we were trying
Not sure throwing money about on the offchance it works is the arguement you want to be making. Potentially it's how we've got to where we are now.
No it isnt the argument Im making, and no it isnt how we got here now.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
Strictly speaking we were wasting six figure fees on some of those.
Show me a club where every signing works????? Even the big ones.
Manu - Veron, Antony, Di Maria, Sanchez
Chelsea - Crespo, Shevchenko, Mutu
Liverpool - Wirtz, Issak, balotelli
The fact is we were trying
Not sure throwing money about on the offchance it works is the arguement you want to be making. Potentially it's how we've got to where we are now.
No it isnt the argument Im making, and no it isnt how we got here now.
That's matter of opinion.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
Strictly speaking we were wasting six figure fees on some of those.
Show me a club where every signing works????? Even the big ones.
Manu - Veron, Antony, Di Maria, Sanchez
Chelsea - Crespo, Shevchenko, Mutu
Liverpool - Wirtz, Issak, balotelli
The fact is we were trying
Not sure throwing money about on the offchance it works is the arguement you want to be making. Potentially it's how we've got to where we are now.
No it isnt the argument Im making, and no it isnt how we got here now.
That's matter of opinion.
I agree it is.
My opinion is signings or descisions we made 10-15yrs ago are not affecting our current position.
Decisions made in the last 2-5yrs are.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
Strictly speaking we were wasting six figure fees on some of those.
Show me a club where every signing works????? Even the big ones.
Manu - Veron, Antony, Di Maria, Sanchez
Chelsea - Crespo, Shevchenko, Mutu
Liverpool - Wirtz, Issak, balotelli
The fact is we were trying
Not sure throwing money about on the offchance it works is the arguement you want to be making. Potentially it's how we've got to where we are now.
No it isnt the argument Im making, and no it isnt how we got here now.
That's matter of opinion.
I agree it is.
My opinion is signings or descisions we made 10-15yrs ago are not affecting our current position.
Decisions made in the last 2-5yrs are.
Not withstanding the £1m paid for Billy Sharp I very much doubt the club has ambitions to repeat . But if we don’t start building a club with player prospects in mind and that attracts up and coming young talent , we will remain a third division club with championship facilities. The world of football is getting more competitive and complex , with its tv coverage players who have their own following generating social media creating incomes beyond what some clubs pay in salaries.
DRFC is still building from the ground up and until this project has achieved its potential, it will yo-yo up and down between L1-L2 and we will all believe we know the answers to its ills but can do nothing it . IMO It’s about who ware's the shirt and who makes the decisions, we pay watch that all and hope we see the positives out of the mistakes. I’ve been watching for over 50 years and I’m still fed up with poor results but it only takes one good one to remind me why I still bother . Rtid
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We're starting to feel like a League 2 club again, as it always felt during the Blunt years.
If we don't get it right in January, we'll soon be down to League 2 attendances.
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So much of fan opinion is results based. For the first couple of months of the season there were no complaints about what we’d spent, and loads of gratitude to Terry Bramall for providing a war chest to assemble a squad with plenty of cover whilst keeping our players that other clubs were after.
Fast forward a few months after a few defeats (OK, a lot of defeats) and suddenly it’s a lack of investment that’s the problem.
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So much of fan opinion is results based. For the first couple of months of the season there were no complaints about what we’d spent, and loads of gratitude to Terry Bramall for providing a war chest to assemble a squad with plenty of cover whilst keeping our players that other clubs were after.
Fast forward a few months after a few defeats (OK, a lot of defeats) and suddenly it’s a lack of investment that’s the problem.
The gratitude was a reaction to words in the media that funds had been made available.
The reaction now is following the realisation of what L1 is now and the level of players and resources other clubs have.
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Providing rovers remain in tact as a football
Club, quite frankly I don’t care what league they play in. The next few years will see clubs going to the wall for sure. Players wages have been for some time and will continue to be the single biggest Achilles heel of football clubs.
It’s. The unprecedented move of GM to rid all of the loan players before their time os up is testament to that. Balancing the books best he can before the next tranche of hopefuls arrive.
As the simply red song goes: Money’s too tight to mention .
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You only have to look at where we’ve been shopping to see that the budget and, more importantly, the recruitment is the real issue. Almost every signing has either been surplus to requirements at their previous club or allowed to run their contract down. Some may have turned down extensions to join us, but it’s a far cry from the days of signing players like Wellens or JOC, when we knew we were getting proven League One players with Championship potential.
There is a big difference between genuine ambition, going out to dominate a league, and hoping you can polish average players into something better. Unfortunately, our recruitment feels far more like the latter. I honestly would not be surprised if the recruitment team looked at Pearson’s past appearances at a higher level rather than what he is actually producing now. Hanlan is another example. You do not suddenly go from those numbers at Wycombe to turning into a prime Billy Sharp. Gotts spending that long at Barrow was not some mystery either. There was a reason for it.
People can argue until they are blue in the face that this is a playoff level budget like we were told, but let’s be serious. We started the season with a veteran striker who struggled for minutes with us in the league below, alongside another striker with 13 goals in over 100 games. Then we act surprised when we can barely score more than one goal a match.
We used to be a club that should be operating at this level. Right now, we are very much a League Two club in how we are run. That’s not a stab at TB either, it’s just harsh reality that some need to get their head around.
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If they are producing somewhere else potentially even at National League level, we aren't going to afford them. The role of the recruitment set up is to identify players that are either undervalued on current performances or have the potential to improve. These are the two areas where we seem to be falling down - identifying these types of players and then improving them when they are here.
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He can't moan one bit about the budget with contract renewals he gave out. Close and Westbrook ridiculous for starters.
It’s a bit deeper than them two.
The list of players given contracts by McCann in order to extend their stay here during his time is as follows:
Lawlor
Close
Westbrooke
Hurst
Senior
Sharp
McGrath
Maxwell
Molyneux
Sterry
Many here could have been let go to allow for better replacements. How many is up for debate. The first six on this list should (at the time) have been let go.
Our budget is not high but this highlights that the use of it is the bigger issue.
The other side of the story is that the funds to replace players wages and transfer fees if required are not sufficient. I don't agree in signing a lot of those players again but if you cannot afford better permanent signings with the funds at your disposal then it's either loans or signing some players again.
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
The difference being we had john Ryan then, a man with huge ambition.
We simply dont have that now unfortunately
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
The difference being we had john Ryan then, a man with huge ambition.
We simply dont have that now unfortunately
Totally agree
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
The difference being we had john Ryan then, a man with huge ambition.
We simply dont have that now unfortunately
Totally agree
Do you think we have a lower budget than Wimbledon, Burton, Exeter and Northampton?
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
The difference being we had john Ryan then, a man with huge ambition.
We simply dont have that now unfortunately
Totally agree
Do you think we have a lower budget than Wimbledon, Burton, Exeter and Northampton?
Personally I would take Wimbledon out of that list. Being a London club they are quite attractive for loans from the big fish scattered around them. Good level for their players to move to, easy to keep an eye on etc. It astounds me that we don’t take more fringe players from Sheffield Utd or Leeds based on that.
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Beginning of the season it was all about how good the squad was and the depth we had people believed it bought the season tickets, it was apparent after the first month our squad is not league one standard nobody who can beat an opponent does not bode well all we want is honesty just say how it is, and personally if someone offered five hundred thousand for any of our players I would snatch their hands off. RTID
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15-20 years ago we were spending money and regular 6 figure fees on players.
Justin Jackson
Sean Thornton
Paul Heffernan
Matt Mills
Billy
James O'Connor
Brooker
Tommy spur
We don't spend ANY money now.....and we are not going to remain in league one without spending money.
All of the above were over a decade ago!!!!!!!
The difference being we had john Ryan then, a man with huge ambition.
We simply dont have that now unfortunately
Totally agree
Do you think we have a lower budget than Wimbledon, Burton, Exeter and Northampton?
I dont know pal, same as everyone else on here.
Ive never said we have lowest budget in the league, just that we will be one of the lowest, which I stand by.
If we have the 5th bottom budget and we finish 5th bottom that will do for me.
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Don't know how accurate it is but Football World quotes Alfie May is on £16 grand a week at Huddersfield. No way can we compete with that sort of earnings.
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So, here we go again, all the budget experts are out again I see.
It never ceases to amaze me that when we're doing well its because we have a great manager and when we're not its because our budget is shit.
In recent months the VSC was invited to go through the accounts for the last financial year, and at the same time we went through the budget for this year as well. So I don't speak from a position of having to guess what we spent on and off the pitch, I have it here in front of me on my desk. Those decrying the state of our budget would be very wrong as its more than a healthy budget, more than enough to keep us firmly in this division. The difference in the budget from last year (when nobody moaned about it as we finished top of the division) and this years is quite stark, with at least another £2m allocated to the playing squad.
According to the financial league tables issued by the EFL, a point I've made on numerous occasions as a part and parcel of financial fair play regulations puts us firmly in the top half of the division. The EFL issue these numbers on a fairly regular basis throughout the season so as to curb the impulses of football clubs to spend more on the playing budget for a fear of missing out. Its certainly not done to encourage clubs to spend more!
As a rule of thumb you would expect clubs that spent the 5th most money should be in and around the top 5, those who spent the 10th should be in and around the middle of the table etc etc. So how does that account for managers then? Shouldn't the ability of managers shine through as well? If you classed yourself as an above average manager shouldn't you be able to pitch your team several positions above what your budget dictates? If managers could only ever achieve what their budget dictated then why spend so much time, effort, and money on looking for better managers?
And once that has been taken into account should the facilities also play a part? The quality of the training ground and gym should count too shouldn’t it?
The point I'm making is that success on a football pitch is a complex picture of all sorts of variables, and pointing a finger at the budget every time we play poorly is not the black and white picture some people seem to think it is. I have my own theories as to why we struggle in areas that we shouldn’t necessarily.
And I can assure all those negative and pessimistic individuals who appear and state with such conviction that its the budget that’s wrong that it quite clearly isn't, its a healthy budget for a team and club like ours, and the documents on my desk bear that out.
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The current situation is not solely down to the budget. Anyone who thinks that is naive and clutching at straws.
Whether we like it or not, we're never going to be spending big money on big wages. We can throw accusations around like 'no ambition' but that's clearly not the case. Yes we'd love to have a big investor around to be able to go and sign Rob Street for £1m but we're Doncaster Rovers so there's no point even having that conversation.
All signs, for me, show that this is the fault of Grant McCann and his staff right now. I'm not calling for him to go but we can't blame budgets as soon as things go wrong. The board have given him so much power and everything he's asked for:
- Full control of the football side of the club
- Full control of recruitment and who leads that
- Investment into the training ground
- Increased/restructured the coaching staff
- New contracts for players a lot sooner than we've ever done historically
Clubs can do very shrewd business on very little. When clubs show a level of competence in the market they can pick up great players for cheap and that goes unnoticed until it starts going wrong and the budget it then suddenly the problem.
The problem is we don't appear to have any nouse or ability to pick up a player at the minute.
What doesn't help is these accounts on Twitter guessing at budgets. As soon as people see those charts created for clout it causes massive divides in the fan base because people take them as a gospel.
Yes on average bigger budgets should mean better success but spending money on Close, Westbrook and the four loanees is purely down to a lack of quality scouting/recruitment information. If the budget was the issue we wouldn't have signed players so early in the summer. i.e he signed Gotts and Middleton pretty much before their contracts even ended at previous clubs. Clearly players he wanted and not players he brought in because it's all he could afford. Both have been failures (so far).
McCann needs help. I'm just not sure he'll want it or accept it. Is he just too proud?
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So, here we go again, all the budget experts are out again I see.
It never ceases to amaze me that when we're doing well its because we have a great manager and when we're not its because our budget is shit.
In recent months the VSC was invited to go through the accounts for the last financial year, and at the same time we went through the budget for this year as well. So I don't speak from a position of having to guess what we spent on and off the pitch, I have it here in front of me on my desk. Those decrying the state of our budget would be very wrong as its more than a healthy budget, more than enough to keep us firmly in this division. The difference in the budget from last year (when nobody moaned about it as we finished top of the division) and this years is quite stark, with at least another £2m allocated to the playing squad.
According to the financial league tables issued by the EFL, a point I've made on numerous occasions as a part and parcel of financial fair play regulations puts us firmly in the top half of the division. The EFL issue these numbers on a fairly regular basis throughout the season so as to curb the impulses of football clubs to spend more on the playing budget for a fear of missing out. Its certainly not done to encourage clubs to spend more!
As a rule of thumb you would expect clubs that spent the 5th most money should be in and around the top 5, those who spent the 10th should be in and around the middle of the table etc etc. So how does that account for managers then? Shouldn't the ability of managers shine through as well? If you classed yourself as an above average manager shouldn't you be able to pitch your team several positions above what your budget dictates? If managers could only ever achieve what their budget dictated then why spend so much time, effort, and money on looking for better managers?
And once that has been taken into account should the facilities also play a part? The quality of the training ground and gym should count too shouldn’t it?
The point I'm making is that success on a football pitch is a complex picture of all sorts of variables, and pointing a finger at the budget every time we play poorly is not the black and white picture some people seem to think it is. I have my own theories as to why we struggle in areas that we shouldn’t necessarily.
And I can assure all those negative and pessimistic individuals who appear and state with such conviction that its the budget that’s wrong that it quite clearly isn't, its a healthy budget for a team and club like ours, and the documents on my desk bear that out.
I assume your talking about wages and not transfer fees.
Because the club refusing to pay any transfer fees clearly limit the quality we can sign, having to sign other league 1 clubs cast offs, or signing league 2 players.
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You only need to look at our recruitment to suggest that the budget is not good enough to compete at this level. If we are operating with a mid table budget and players like Pearson, Hanlan, Gotts, Sharp and others are taking up a large portion of it, then we have been seriously taken advantage of by their agents. In that situation, McCann and the rest of the decision makers need to go immediately.
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Gotta love this forum. Silent Majority comes on to state the facts and hopefully straighten out the issue. Followed immediately by people who just love to argue black is white.
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You only need to look at our recruitment to suggest that the budget is not good enough to compete at this level. If we are operating with a mid table budget and players like Pearson, Hanlan, Gotts, Sharp and others are taking up a large portion of it, then we have been seriously taken advantage of by their agents. In that situation, McCann and the rest of the decision makers need to go immediately.
The second part of your post is exactly the problem for me.
We have the wrong people in the wrong roles clearly. We don't appear to have any scouting set up or any way of recruiting other than players McCann's fancied for a few years or just on vibes. And then when we do sign a player who has something to offer i.e. Hanlan he gets two starts then he's out of the squad for weeks and months.
The downfall of our season and, possibly immediate future, is that McCann doesn't seem to have a plan/idea of how to work for the long term.
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Gotta love this forum. Silent Majority comes on to state the facts and hopefully straighten out the issue. Followed immediately by people who just love to argue black is white.
If that’s a dig at my post I stated “suggest” as his previous posts regarding budget and spends off the pitch may have been missed. As a result of that, posters will question the budget and rightfully so because we have been sh!te. Not everybody spends their life on this forum yet still do carry on spending time and money travelling up and down the country to support their team. That’s what matters to the club, not people on high horses.
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So, here we go again, all the budget experts are out again I see.
It never ceases to amaze me that when we're doing well its because we have a great manager and when we're not its because our budget is shit.
In recent months the VSC was invited to go through the accounts for the last financial year, and at the same time we went through the budget for this year as well. So I don't speak from a position of having to guess what we spent on and off the pitch, I have it here in front of me on my desk. Those decrying the state of our budget would be very wrong as its more than a healthy budget, more than enough to keep us firmly in this division. The difference in the budget from last year (when nobody moaned about it as we finished top of the division) and this years is quite stark, with at least another £2m allocated to the playing squad.
According to the financial league tables issued by the EFL, a point I've made on numerous occasions as a part and parcel of financial fair play regulations puts us firmly in the top half of the division. The EFL issue these numbers on a fairly regular basis throughout the season so as to curb the impulses of football clubs to spend more on the playing budget for a fear of missing out. Its certainly not done to encourage clubs to spend more!
As a rule of thumb you would expect clubs that spent the 5th most money should be in and around the top 5, those who spent the 10th should be in and around the middle of the table etc etc. So how does that account for managers then? Shouldn't the ability of managers shine through as well? If you classed yourself as an above average manager shouldn't you be able to pitch your team several positions above what your budget dictates? If managers could only ever achieve what their budget dictated then why spend so much time, effort, and money on looking for better managers?
And once that has been taken into account should the facilities also play a part? The quality of the training ground and gym should count too shouldn’t it?
The point I'm making is that success on a football pitch is a complex picture of all sorts of variables, and pointing a finger at the budget every time we play poorly is not the black and white picture some people seem to think it is. I have my own theories as to why we struggle in areas that we shouldn’t necessarily.
And I can assure all those negative and pessimistic individuals who appear and state with such conviction that its the budget that’s wrong that it quite clearly isn't, its a healthy budget for a team and club like ours, and the documents on my desk bear that out.
We dont know what last yrs budget was so to state an extra £2m we also don't know what that is or denotes. GM was quoted as stating we were 7th budget in L2 last yr so I expect an extra £2m wouldn't have put us top of L2 last year.
Regards you knowing what is spent on and off the field, do you? You may know what the budget was for this year but do you know what has been spent? Im guessing not unless you have access to this years live accounts which is doubtful.
I have said in a previous post that we didn't go big in the transfer window so maybe from the budget there was a kitty saved for January.....let's wait and see. Here's hoping.
Ultimately L1 is much more competitive (both in terms of on the pitch and in money being spent )than I expected and probably most others. Our budget has increased £2m from L2. Other teams are spending more than that on one player. Im not saying we should but IMO if we want to compete at the top end of this table then multiple 6 figure transfers were required. I also know thats easier said than done nowadays with FFP but thats where having the right people behind the scenes and a bigger strategy as a club comes in. Plenty of smaller clubs do it and do it well.
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Oh my ghosh.
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So, here we go again, all the budget experts are out again I see.
It never ceases to amaze me that when we're doing well its because we have a great manager and when we're not its because our budget is shit.
In recent months the VSC was invited to go through the accounts for the last financial year, and at the same time we went through the budget for this year as well. So I don't speak from a position of having to guess what we spent on and off the pitch, I have it here in front of me on my desk. Those decrying the state of our budget would be very wrong as its more than a healthy budget, more than enough to keep us firmly in this division. The difference in the budget from last year (when nobody moaned about it as we finished top of the division) and this years is quite stark, with at least another £2m allocated to the playing squad.
According to the financial league tables issued by the EFL, a point I've made on numerous occasions as a part and parcel of financial fair play regulations puts us firmly in the top half of the division. The EFL issue these numbers on a fairly regular basis throughout the season so as to curb the impulses of football clubs to spend more on the playing budget for a fear of missing out. Its certainly not done to encourage clubs to spend more!
As a rule of thumb you would expect clubs that spent the 5th most money should be in and around the top 5, those who spent the 10th should be in and around the middle of the table etc etc. So how does that account for managers then? Shouldn't the ability of managers shine through as well? If you classed yourself as an above average manager shouldn't you be able to pitch your team several positions above what your budget dictates? If managers could only ever achieve what their budget dictated then why spend so much time, effort, and money on looking for better managers?
And once that has been taken into account should the facilities also play a part? The quality of the training ground and gym should count too shouldn’t it?
The point I'm making is that success on a football pitch is a complex picture of all sorts of variables, and pointing a finger at the budget every time we play poorly is not the black and white picture some people seem to think it is. I have my own theories as to why we struggle in areas that we shouldn’t necessarily.
And I can assure all those negative and pessimistic individuals who appear and state with such conviction that its the budget that’s wrong that it quite clearly isn't, its a healthy budget for a team and club like ours, and the documents on my desk bear that out.
We dont know what last yrs budget was so to state an extra £2m we also don't know what that is or denotes. GM was quoted as stating we were 7th budget in L2 last yr so I expect an extra £2m wouldn't have put us top of L2 last year.
Regards you knowing what is spent on and off the field, do you? You may know what the budget was for this year but do you know what has been spent? Im guessing not unless you have access to this years live accounts which is doubtful.
I have said in a previous post that we didn't go big in the transfer window so maybe from the budget there was a kitty saved for January.....let's wait and see. Here's hoping.
Ultimately L1 is much more competitive (both in terms of on the pitch and in money being spent )than I expected and probably most others. Our budget has increased £2m from L2. Other teams are spending more than that on one player. Im not saying we should but IMO if we want to compete at the top end of this table then multiple 6 figure transfers were required. I also know thats easier said than done nowadays with FFP but thats where having the right people behind the scenes and a bigger strategy as a club comes in. Plenty of smaller clubs do it and do it well.
I would also question the claim that an extra 2 million would take us from 7th in league 2, to top half in league 1.
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Revenue will be up 2-3 million?
-
So, here we go again, all the budget experts are out again I see.
It never ceases to amaze me that when we're doing well its because we have a great manager and when we're not its because our budget is shit.
In recent months the VSC was invited to go through the accounts for the last financial year, and at the same time we went through the budget for this year as well. So I don't speak from a position of having to guess what we spent on and off the pitch, I have it here in front of me on my desk. Those decrying the state of our budget would be very wrong as its more than a healthy budget, more than enough to keep us firmly in this division. The difference in the budget from last year (when nobody moaned about it as we finished top of the division) and this years is quite stark, with at least another £2m allocated to the playing squad.
According to the financial league tables issued by the EFL, a point I've made on numerous occasions as a part and parcel of financial fair play regulations puts us firmly in the top half of the division. The EFL issue these numbers on a fairly regular basis throughout the season so as to curb the impulses of football clubs to spend more on the playing budget for a fear of missing out. Its certainly not done to encourage clubs to spend more!
As a rule of thumb you would expect clubs that spent the 5th most money should be in and around the top 5, those who spent the 10th should be in and around the middle of the table etc etc. So how does that account for managers then? Shouldn't the ability of managers shine through as well? If you classed yourself as an above average manager shouldn't you be able to pitch your team several positions above what your budget dictates? If managers could only ever achieve what their budget dictated then why spend so much time, effort, and money on looking for better managers?
And once that has been taken into account should the facilities also play a part? The quality of the training ground and gym should count too shouldn’t it?
The point I'm making is that success on a football pitch is a complex picture of all sorts of variables, and pointing a finger at the budget every time we play poorly is not the black and white picture some people seem to think it is. I have my own theories as to why we struggle in areas that we shouldn’t necessarily.
And I can assure all those negative and pessimistic individuals who appear and state with such conviction that its the budget that’s wrong that it quite clearly isn't, its a healthy budget for a team and club like ours, and the documents on my desk bear that out.
We dont know what last yrs budget was so to state an extra £2m we also don't know what that is or denotes. GM was quoted as stating we were 7th budget in L2 last yr so I expect an extra £2m wouldn't have put us top of L2 last year.
Regards you knowing what is spent on and off the field, do you? You may know what the budget was for this year but do you know what has been spent? Im guessing not unless you have access to this years live accounts which is doubtful.
I have said in a previous post that we didn't go big in the transfer window so maybe from the budget there was a kitty saved for January.....let's wait and see. Here's hoping.
Ultimately L1 is much more competitive (both in terms of on the pitch and in money being spent )than I expected and probably most others. Our budget has increased £2m from L2. Other teams are spending more than that on one player. Im not saying we should but IMO if we want to compete at the top end of this table then multiple 6 figure transfers were required. I also know thats easier said than done nowadays with FFP but thats where having the right people behind the scenes and a bigger strategy as a club comes in. Plenty of smaller clubs do it and do it well.
I would also question the claim that an extra 2 million would take us from 7th in league 2, to top half in league 1.
Exactly this
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Revenue will be up 2-3 million?
It Will certainly be up, maybe SM can let us know topline movement following promotion?
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Beginning of the season it was all about how good the squad was and the depth we had people believed it bought the season tickets, it was apparent after the first month our squad is not league one standard nobody who can beat an opponent does not bode well all we want is honesty just say how it is, and personally if someone offered five hundred thousand for any of our players I would snatch their hands off. RTID
I very much doubt that any of our players had any offers . Building the ego of a player helps to let them think this , but we are not upto the standard just like the majority of clubs inL1 , even those that go up to the championship will struggle after playing inL1 as it’s not a League thot prepares you for the championship as it just grinds you down . Look at Wrexham they off loaded every season they went up and spent accordingly. Rovers can’t do this for obvious reasons … so leave to it those whose ambitions are build on sustainability of the club . Supporters not included !!!!
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You only need to look at our recruitment to suggest that the budget is not good enough to compete at this level. If we are operating with a mid table budget and players like Pearson, Hanlan, Gotts, Sharp and others are taking up a large portion of it, then we have been seriously taken advantage of by their agents. In that situation, McCann and the rest of the decision makers need to go immediately.
The second part of your post is exactly the problem for me.
We have the wrong people in the wrong roles clearly. We don't appear to have any scouting set up or any way of recruiting other than players McCann's fancied for a few years or just on vibes. And then when we do sign a player who has something to offer i.e. Hanlan he gets two starts then he's out of the squad for weeks and months.
The downfall of our season and, possibly immediate future, is that McCann doesn't seem to have a plan/idea of how to work for the long term.
100% this we can’t rely on managers to act in the long term interest of DRFC (Darren Moore anyone). Reduce their power to coaching the 1st team to win games and let others follow a consistent logical approach to off the pitch.
It might tile out a few managers who want total control and their ego tickling but anyone wanting a future in the game will get with the programme. Almost all bigger clubs operate this way so if they want to be a dinosaur and run the show they can do it in L2 with another club.
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Revenue will be up 2-3 million?
It Will certainly be up, maybe SM can let us know topline movement following promotion?
I'm sure when we got relegated the detriment of this was around this much. Crowds are up and also because of away attendance, plus higher STs. TV money and being in league 1 gets you more too.
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So, here we go again, all the budget experts are out again I see.
It never ceases to amaze me that when we're doing well its because we have a great manager and when we're not its because our budget is shit.
In recent months the VSC was invited to go through the accounts for the last financial year, and at the same time we went through the budget for this year as well. So I don't speak from a position of having to guess what we spent on and off the pitch, I have it here in front of me on my desk. Those decrying the state of our budget would be very wrong as its more than a healthy budget, more than enough to keep us firmly in this division. The difference in the budget from last year (when nobody moaned about it as we finished top of the division) and this years is quite stark, with at least another £2m allocated to the playing squad.
According to the financial league tables issued by the EFL, a point I've made on numerous occasions as a part and parcel of financial fair play regulations puts us firmly in the top half of the division. The EFL issue these numbers on a fairly regular basis throughout the season so as to curb the impulses of football clubs to spend more on the playing budget for a fear of missing out. Its certainly not done to encourage clubs to spend more!
As a rule of thumb you would expect clubs that spent the 5th most money should be in and around the top 5, those who spent the 10th should be in and around the middle of the table etc etc. So how does that account for managers then? Shouldn't the ability of managers shine through as well? If you classed yourself as an above average manager shouldn't you be able to pitch your team several positions above what your budget dictates? If managers could only ever achieve what their budget dictated then why spend so much time, effort, and money on looking for better managers?
And once that has been taken into account should the facilities also play a part? The quality of the training ground and gym should count too shouldn’t it?
The point I'm making is that success on a football pitch is a complex picture of all sorts of variables, and pointing a finger at the budget every time we play poorly is not the black and white picture some people seem to think it is. I have my own theories as to why we struggle in areas that we shouldn’t necessarily.
And I can assure all those negative and pessimistic individuals who appear and state with such conviction that its the budget that’s wrong that it quite clearly isn't, its a healthy budget for a team and club like ours, and the documents on my desk bear that out.
I assume your talking about wages and not transfer fees.
Because the club refusing to pay any transfer fees clearly limit the quality we can sign, having to sign other league 1 clubs cast offs, or signing league 2 players.
Transfer fees and loan fees come out of the budget don't they?
Once again, it comes down to how the budget is utilised, whether in certain cases, we're prepared to pay a transfer fee for a player in contract. We can debate whether there should have been more focus on quality rather than quantity but even then, once we acquire the players, all the other factors come into play to gell a squad together to get results.
The vast majority of transfers are free transfer but that doesn't mean those players are ones nobody wants does it.
We never know whether we tried to sign contracted players for fees as maybe those targets didn't agree to come for whatever reason.
Apart from that one exceptional period, we've never been a club who flashed the cash but there have been the odd exceptions for very good players. I can't see this changing anytime soon paricularly with our limited fanbase.
I'm sure we'd all love us to go out and cherry pick a player or two but there's plenty of other things we can question about why our players and management aren't currently performaning as well as a number of them can.
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So, here we go again, all the budget experts are out again I see.
It never ceases to amaze me that when we're doing well its because we have a great manager and when we're not its because our budget is shit.
In recent months the VSC was invited to go through the accounts for the last financial year, and at the same time we went through the budget for this year as well. So I don't speak from a position of having to guess what we spent on and off the pitch, I have it here in front of me on my desk. Those decrying the state of our budget would be very wrong as its more than a healthy budget, more than enough to keep us firmly in this division. The difference in the budget from last year (when nobody moaned about it as we finished top of the division) and this years is quite stark, with at least another £2m allocated to the playing squad.
According to the financial league tables issued by the EFL, a point I've made on numerous occasions as a part and parcel of financial fair play regulations puts us firmly in the top half of the division. The EFL issue these numbers on a fairly regular basis throughout the season so as to curb the impulses of football clubs to spend more on the playing budget for a fear of missing out. Its certainly not done to encourage clubs to spend more!
As a rule of thumb you would expect clubs that spent the 5th most money should be in and around the top 5, those who spent the 10th should be in and around the middle of the table etc etc. So how does that account for managers then? Shouldn't the ability of managers shine through as well? If you classed yourself as an above average manager shouldn't you be able to pitch your team several positions above what your budget dictates? If managers could only ever achieve what their budget dictated then why spend so much time, effort, and money on looking for better managers?
And once that has been taken into account should the facilities also play a part? The quality of the training ground and gym should count too shouldn’t it?
The point I'm making is that success on a football pitch is a complex picture of all sorts of variables, and pointing a finger at the budget every time we play poorly is not the black and white picture some people seem to think it is. I have my own theories as to why we struggle in areas that we shouldn’t necessarily.
And I can assure all those negative and pessimistic individuals who appear and state with such conviction that its the budget that’s wrong that it quite clearly isn't, its a healthy budget for a team and club like ours, and the documents on my desk bear that out.
I assume your talking about wages and not transfer fees.
Because the club refusing to pay any transfer fees clearly limit the quality we can sign, having to sign other league 1 clubs cast offs, or signing league 2 players.
Transfer fees and loan fees come out of the budget don't they?
Once again, it comes down to how the budget is utilised, whether in certain cases, we're prepared to pay a transfer fee for a player in contract. We can debate whether there should have been more focus on quality rather than quantity but even then, once we acquire the players, all the other factors come into play to gell a squad together to get results.
The vast majority of transfers are free transfer but that doesn't mean those players are ones nobody wants does it.
We never know whether we tried to sign contracted players for fees as maybe those targets didn't agree to come for whatever reason.
Apart from that one exceptional period, we've never been a club who flashed the cash but there have been the odd exceptions for very good players. I can't see this changing anytime soon paricularly with our limited fanbase.
I'm sure we'd all love us to go out and cherry pick a player or two but there's plenty of other things we can question about why our players and management aren't currently performaning as well as a number of them can.
That's the point I try to make to people when they go on about free agents being the runts of the litter and panning the club for not paying transfer fees. The majority of transfers at our level are out of contract players and frees. That doesn't automatically mean players are unwanted. It's probably more likely to be the opposite. Players refusing to sign new deals because they know other clubs want them.
Wasn't it Sol Campbell who never left clubs for transfer fees because he knew he could get higher wages if clubs didn't pay transfer fees?
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It isn't the summer though, it's January, so the only free agents available are ones that no club has wanted to touch for 6 months, or where their season has just ended like Ireland. After that loans are the most likely option. We could spend a fee, but in January that'll likely be inflated and it just isn't something we do. So it'll be either young lad on loan, a free agent or older player on loan who can't get a game at his current team.
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I won't argue about things I know nothing about like the budget and how it compares to other clubs in this league, but what I don't understand is that after seven games we had won 5, drawn 1, lost 1 and were 2nd in the table.
We had a terrific start and this is the same manager, squad and budget so how we ended up in 23rd now? What happened to us after the Bradford game that we can put our finger on?
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There has been an awful lot of rubbish written on here recently about budgets and transfers - mostly by people with a long-term agenda (under all their user names) rather than any real knowledge. Very, very few players are transfered for a fee these days, and not many clubs buy players. This is a list of all the transfer dealings other League One clubs did prior to the start of this season:
Barnsley - 9 players £0 fee
Blackpool - 12 players £1.5 mill (2 players)
Bolton - 14 players £1.9 mill (3 players)
Bradford - 11 players £0 fee
Burton - 11 players £0 fee
Cardiff - 3 players £1 mill (1 player)
Exeter - 8 players £0 fee
Huddersfield - 14 players £1.7 mill (2 players)
Orient - 15 players £0 fee
Lincoln - 10 players £1.3 mill (2 players)
Luton - 14 players £2.6 mill (3 players)
Mansfield - 11 players £0 fee
Northampton 17 players £0 fee
Peterborough - 16 players £1.6 mill (2 players)
Plymouth - 16 players £2.4 mill (5 players)
Port Vale - 13 players £250k (1 player)
Reading - 14 players £288k (1 player)
Rotherham - 12 players £0 fee
Stevenage - 11 players £0 fee
Stockport - 12 players £2.5 mill (2 players)
Wigan - 11 players £400k (1 player)
Wimbledon - 10 players £0 fee
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It seems that despite posting actual and factual information on here that's not enough for the naysayers on the forum. Look I understand your frustration, most of it is born out of wanting the club to do well, but your constant bickering over the budget and its shortcomings are not the answer. Challenging what I've posted only makes you look more naive, and I won't be challenging you on a post by post basis in order to justify what I know to be the case. But here goes;
The budget we had last season was really good by LG2 standards, it was meant to give us a fighting chance of promotion, which it did. But to make sure we got there an extra £0.5m was pumped into the playing squad, and that was the gamble the club made which proved successful.
The revenue from Central Distribution (the EFL money) last season was estimated at £1.3m but ended up being about £1.7m. The estimate for this season is £2.7m, giving us an extra £1m thereabouts but the playing budget has an extra £2m or more. This has to come from somewhere. Most of that will come from ticket revenue, and for this season we should see another £0.6m, the rest will hopefully come from commercial and other areas, but at the end of the day we are a club that runs at a loss, a smaller one than quite a number of clubs but that shouldn't decry from the efforts of the staff to make ends meet, but also the underwriting of all debts falls to one man.
That man underwrote the extra monies needed for what have been expensive, and much needed improvements throughout the club, especially at Cantley Park. He has been more generous than any single individual has done in all my years of supporting this club, and I go back a long way! He doesn’t lack ambition as some people say, he just displays it in a different way.
And finally, its the EFL who tell you where you are when it comes to your position in the budget league table. They’re the ones who have all that information to hand, so when the club tell you they have a top half playing budget, or a top six budget that is again a fact that is unarguable. That information comes from the EFL. Its not debatable, its a fact. These are the details that any club has to submit to the EFL to make sure they comply with FFP, and at the end of the day any club that fails to meet these requirements ends up on the EFL naughty step, just look at SWFC for confirmation!
More people should be thankful for the VSC and the work we do on your behalf, when it goes wrong we're the first to see it. We're not here to protect the club at any cost, and believe me you don't see half of what goes on behind the scenes to try and keep the club as honest as we can, but there's no point in flipping our lid over something that doesn’t exist. As I said in my previous post I have my thoughts on where things are going wrong, but all this focus on the playing budget is just wrong.
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The ones paying fees for players are likely putting themselves in trouble by doing so. We pick up good players without paying fees. Which is commendable, if we can do that and still be competitive.
Why would we pay fees. Some of our fans are quick to slip the dagger in when we face some adversity.
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The ones paying fees for players are likely putting themselves in trouble by doing so. We pick up good players without paying fees. Which is commendable, if we can do that and still be competitive.
Why would we pay fees. Some of our fans are quick to slip the dagger in when we face some adversity.
Would also note that Lincoln and Peterborough put themselves in the position to spend fees because of the money they generate through player sales.
There’s a few players who were free agents and wouldn’t have been out of our reach who are currently performing well in League One.
Jake Beesley and Reyes Cleary are doing well and both looked like McCann type players when I saw them against us for Burton and Barnsley this season for example.
Playing catch up this January is different to the last two seasons as we aren’t as desirable a proposition to the available players in the league. Relying on winter windows is unsustainable, it’s the summer where you build your squad with the long term in mind. And the pattern of January’s being fruitful is due some bad luck.
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The ones paying fees for players are likely putting themselves in trouble by doing so. We pick up good players without paying fees. Which is commendable, if we can do that and still be competitive.
Why would we pay fees. Some of our fans are quick to slip the dagger in when we face some adversity.
Would also note that Lincoln and Peterborough put themselves in the position to spend fees because of the money they generate through player sales.
There’s a few players who were free agents and wouldn’t have been out of our reach who are currently performing well in League One.
Jake Beesley and Reyes Cleary are doing well and both looked like McCann type players when I saw them against us for Burton and Barnsley this season for example.
Playing catch up this January is different to the last two seasons as we aren’t as desirable a proposition to the available players in the league. Relying on winter windows is unsustainable, it’s the summer where you build your squad with the long term in mind. And the pattern of January’s being fruitful is due some bad luck.
We wear not selling players like a badge of honour. It should be the other way round.