ChezGiven Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Current league position is dependent on spend over the previous 2 years? Even if the league table continues to reflect those positions at the end of the season, the myriad of interconnecting factors that determine league position are far more complex than just something as simplistic as that. We should have spent more money in January, you dont need a statistical fallacy to persaude anyone of that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRon Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Why aren't we 5th in the table then seeing as we are the fifth biggest spenders on footballer salaries? Even without any handy facts and figures at hand, I know before Ashley came here we weren't getting anything like the results our spending warranted. Please, no one mention X number of seasons in Europe, this isn't a pissing contest, let's just debate with some honesty about whether we were performing well considering money outlaid. Then we can compare it with what's happening now. Same reason Leeds went down. Spending guarantees nothing. Just improves your chances dramatically. ....and we were never in the bottom five, one point off relegation.... If we had Owen, Barton, Martins and Viduka fit for most of the season I doubt we'd be in this position either, the squad itself is not that bad if looked at objectively. As Chez has said, not many here would argue that Ashley has handled the transfer windows very well, and the decision to stick with Joe Kinnear as a long term manager says a lot more about the clueless football knowledge at this club than anything else. Financially though, the club needs to be put in order and there are a lot of mistakes made in the last few seasons which have to be put right, and Ashley does deserve some credit for that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Current league position is dependent on spend over the previous 2 years? Even if the league table continues to reflect those positions at the end of the season, the myriad of interconnecting factors that determine league position are far more complex than just something as simplistic as that. We should have spent more money in January, you dont need a statistical fallacy to persaude anyone of that. Yeah, I've not done a thesis on it, found the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or owt. Interesting trend though, no? And I did 2 years, because that's how long Wor Mike has been here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Current league position is dependent on spend over the previous 2 years? Even if the league table continues to reflect those positions at the end of the season, the myriad of interconnecting factors that determine league position are far more complex than just something as simplistic as that. We should have spent more money in January, you dont need a statistical fallacy to persaude anyone of that. Yeah, I've not done a thesis on it, found the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or owt. Interesting trend though, no? And I did 2 years, because that's how long Wor Mike has been here. In that it tells us we needed to spend more money in January? We didnt really need it to know that. Eating carrots also prevent cancer apparently, if we're going to the association rather than cause root. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ_NUFC Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 Loving the link in your sig, HF. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
juniatmoko Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Why aren't we 5th in the table then seeing as we are the fifth biggest spenders on footballer salaries? Even without any handy facts and figures at hand, I know before Ashley came here we weren't getting anything like the results our spending warranted. Please, no one mention X number of seasons in Europe, this isn't a pissing contest, let's just debate with some honesty about whether we were performing well considering money outlaid. Then we can compare it with what's happening now. Same reason Leeds went down. Spending guarantees nothing. Just improves your chances dramatically. ....and we were never in the bottom five, one point off relegation.... If we had Owen, Barton, Martins and Viduka fit for most of the season I doubt we'd be in this position either, the squad itself is not that bad if looked at objectively. As Chez has said, not many here would argue that Ashley has handled the transfer windows very well, and the decision to stick with Joe Kinnear as a long term manager says a lot more about the clueless football knowledge at this club than anything else. Financially though, the club needs to be put in order and there are a lot of mistakes made in the last few seasons which have to be put right, and Ashley does deserve some credit for that. is there any super duper free injury players?? how can that be said handled transfer windows well? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Current league position is dependent on spend over the previous 2 years? Even if the league table continues to reflect those positions at the end of the season, the myriad of interconnecting factors that determine league position are far more complex than just something as simplistic as that. We should have spent more money in January, you dont need a statistical fallacy to persaude anyone of that. Yeah, I've not done a thesis on it, found the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or owt. Interesting trend though, no? And I did 2 years, because that's how long Wor Mike has been here. In that it tells us we needed to spend more money in January? We didnt really need it to know that. bobyule did. He said we could easily do a Leeds if we spent more. I was just pointing out Leeds are the exception. Not the rule. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 Loving the link in your sig, HF. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OzzieMandias Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Current league position is dependent on spend over the previous 2 years? Even if the league table continues to reflect those positions at the end of the season, the myriad of interconnecting factors that determine league position are far more complex than just something as simplistic as that. We should have spent more money in January, you dont need a statistical fallacy to persaude anyone of that. Yeah, I've not done a thesis on it, found the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or owt. Interesting trend though, no? And I did 2 years, because that's how long Wor Mike has been here. In that it tells us we needed to spend more money in January? We didnt really need it to know that. bobyule did. He said we could easily do a Leeds if we spent more. I was just pointing out Leeds are the exception. Not the rule. I'm sure there's another club that spent a load of money on players, had a brief flirtation with the Champions League some time ago, and is now struggling as a result of overstretching themselves in the attempt to "speculate to accumulate". What are they called again? It's on the tip of my tongue. Begins with an "N"... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Current league position is dependent on spend over the previous 2 years? Even if the league table continues to reflect those positions at the end of the season, the myriad of interconnecting factors that determine league position are far more complex than just something as simplistic as that. We should have spent more money in January, you dont need a statistical fallacy to persaude anyone of that. Yeah, I've not done a thesis on it, found the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or owt. Interesting trend though, no? And I did 2 years, because that's how long Wor Mike has been here. In that it tells us we needed to spend more money in January? We didnt really need it to know that. bobyule did. He said we could easily do a Leeds if we spent more. I was just pointing out Leeds are the exception. Not the rule. I'm sure there's another club that spent a load of money on players, had a brief flirtation with the Champions League some time ago, and is now struggling as a result of overstretching themselves in the attempt to "speculate to accumulate". What are they called again? It's on the tip of my tongue. Begins with an "N"... Not that brief. We were in Europe 8 years out of ten before Big Mike arrived. They managed a couple of years. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Current league position is dependent on spend over the previous 2 years? Even if the league table continues to reflect those positions at the end of the season, the myriad of interconnecting factors that determine league position are far more complex than just something as simplistic as that. We should have spent more money in January, you dont need a statistical fallacy to persaude anyone of that. Yeah, I've not done a thesis on it, found the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or owt. Interesting trend though, no? And I did 2 years, because that's how long Wor Mike has been here. In that it tells us we needed to spend more money in January? We didnt really need it to know that. bobyule did. He said we could easily do a Leeds if we spent more. I was just pointing out Leeds are the exception. Not the rule. Agreed. The idea that a club earning 100m a year, no debt repayment concerns and a parachute payment would face the same issues as Leeds did when they went down is a bit far-fetched. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OzzieMandias Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Current league position is dependent on spend over the previous 2 years? Even if the league table continues to reflect those positions at the end of the season, the myriad of interconnecting factors that determine league position are far more complex than just something as simplistic as that. We should have spent more money in January, you dont need a statistical fallacy to persaude anyone of that. Yeah, I've not done a thesis on it, found the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or owt. Interesting trend though, no? And I did 2 years, because that's how long Wor Mike has been here. In that it tells us we needed to spend more money in January? We didnt really need it to know that. bobyule did. He said we could easily do a Leeds if we spent more. I was just pointing out Leeds are the exception. Not the rule. I'm sure there's another club that spent a load of money on players, had a brief flirtation with the Champions League some time ago, and is now struggling as a result of overstretching themselves in the attempt to "speculate to accumulate". What are they called again? It's on the tip of my tongue. Begins with an "N"... Not that brief. We were in Europe 8 years out of ten before Big Mike arrived. They managed a couple of years. I spoke of the Champions League. We were in that once about eight years ago, and one other time about 12 years ago. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cronky Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. The kind of situation that I was talking about, and which Leeds exemplifies, is where a club is funding players by going into debt to levels which can only be sustained if the expenditure leads to success on the pitch and therefore greater income. I don’t think the clubs that you’ve cited there have done that. You mention Villa, but their new owner has only been able to spend because the previous owner avoided saddling the club with large amounts of debt. The problem for Ashley is that he’s inherited a club whose previous business strategy was more on the Leeds line (although not as bad, of course) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRon Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Why aren't we 5th in the table then seeing as we are the fifth biggest spenders on footballer salaries? Even without any handy facts and figures at hand, I know before Ashley came here we weren't getting anything like the results our spending warranted. Please, no one mention X number of seasons in Europe, this isn't a pissing contest, let's just debate with some honesty about whether we were performing well considering money outlaid. Then we can compare it with what's happening now. Same reason Leeds went down. Spending guarantees nothing. Just improves your chances dramatically. ....and we were never in the bottom five, one point off relegation.... If we had Owen, Barton, Martins and Viduka fit for most of the season I doubt we'd be in this position either, the squad itself is not that bad if looked at objectively. As Chez has said, not many here would argue that Ashley has handled the transfer windows very well, and the decision to stick with Joe Kinnear as a long term manager says a lot more about the clueless football knowledge at this club than anything else. Financially though, the club needs to be put in order and there are a lot of mistakes made in the last few seasons which have to be put right, and Ashley does deserve some credit for that. is there any super duper free injury players?? how can that be said handled transfer windows well? I don't think you understood, I am agreeing that Ashley has NOT handled the transfer windows well, obviously the strict budgeting has affected our attempts to sign players negatively. No there aren't any super duper injury free players, but we aren't Man U or Arsenal, we only have 5-6 players you could call top quality and we need those players fit. Viduka, Owen, Martins, Barton and Beye are all players who would walk into our first team and we would win far more matches with them starting regularly. Even Super Kev needed them in his side to win matches last season. We can afford injuries to lesser players like Ameobi, Carroll, Duff, Smith, Cacapa etc, but the ones missing above are very big misses. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dilligaf Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 We can afford injuries to lesser players like Ameobi, Carroll, Duff, Smith, Cacapa etc, Interesting fact is that the talent in the first team actually increases when these are injured Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikri Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 We can afford injuries to lesser players like Ameobi, Carroll, Duff, Smith, Cacapa etc, Interesting fact is that the talent in the first team actually increases when these are injured Not a new phenomena either, remember how we'd mysteriously play better under Roeder when the "first choice" players were unavailable & we'd be back to garbage again when they were back in the side? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teasy Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 What a ridiculous ridiculous thread. The wages are too high with people at the club being paid excessively while underperforming badly. Who does Ashley sell? Milner, Nzogbia and Given with rumours it's Bassong next. Some of the best value players at the club in terms of wages vs appearances vs performances. He's also got a hospitalised has-been manager on £1M a year who's performed worse than any manager in the history of the club bar Ozzie Ardiles. He's also got a chief scout on a £1.5M a season contract. He's made one massive payout to get rid of a far better manager than we currently have. He's due to make an even bigger payout to get rid of another even better manager than we currently have. He's got us one point from being relegated and losing millions of TV money. How can people say he's running things well? I cannot fathom the warped mindset of an Ashley fan. He's killing our club, and people are gladly watching him do it because he can afford to take the loss on his gamble and keep paying for the ever diminishing returns.......until he says "Fuck it", cuts his losses puts the club into administration and gets first dabs on the £120M of loans he's due as the clubs only creditor. There's so much wrong with that post it's hard to know where to start but the bolded bit...I disagree that JK is a worse manager than Allardyce, and if you are saying that it was wrong to pay out so much money to get rid of the fat faker, then obviously that negates your point about paying Keegan off as he would never have been here, we'd still have Allardyce, heading to Hull with a ten man defence and hoofing the ball 50 yards for Owen to scrap for. We wouldn't even be in the Premiership now had we kept Allardyce on. Oh and HappyFace, ask yourself what do the three players you mention all have in common? Answer is they all asked to leave. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teasy Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 Agreed. The idea that a club earning 100m a year, no debt repayment concerns and a parachute payment would face the same issues as Leeds did when they went down is a bit far-fetched. We certainly wouldn't do a Leeds in our current state. But if we'd spent more who knows, I suppose that depends on the actual amount people are talking about spending. Also I wonder how much we'd be earning in the Championship. Undoubtedly less then we currently spend on wages. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 What a ridiculous ridiculous thread. The wages are too high with people at the club being paid excessively while underperforming badly. Who does Ashley sell? Milner, Nzogbia and Given with rumours it's Bassong next. Some of the best value players at the club in terms of wages vs appearances vs performances. He's also got a hospitalised has-been manager on £1M a year who's performed worse than any manager in the history of the club bar Ozzie Ardiles. He's also got a chief scout on a £1.5M a season contract. He's made one massive payout to get rid of a far better manager than we currently have. He's due to make an even bigger payout to get rid of another even better manager than we currently have. He's got us one point from being relegated and losing millions of TV money. How can people say he's running things well? I cannot fathom the warped mindset of an Ashley fan. He's killing our club, and people are gladly watching him do it because he can afford to take the loss on his gamble and keep paying for the ever diminishing returns.......until he says "Fuck it", cuts his losses puts the club into administration and gets first dabs on the £120M of loans he's due as the clubs only creditor. There's so much wrong with that post it's hard to know where to start but the bolded bit...I disagree that JK is a worse manager than Allardyce, and if you are saying that it was wrong to pay out so much money to get rid of the fat faker, then obviously that negates your point about paying Keegan off as he would never have been here, we'd still have Allardyce, heading to Hull with a ten man defence and hoofing the ball 50 yards for Owen to scrap for. We wouldn't even be in the Premiership now had we kept Allardyce on. Oh and HappyFace, ask yourself what do the three players you mention all have in common? Answer is they all asked to leave. You have to sell contracted players now? That'll be news to Gareth Barry, Christiano Ronaldo, Stewart Downing etc. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frazzle Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 What a ridiculous ridiculous thread. The wages are too high with people at the club being paid excessively while underperforming badly. Who does Ashley sell? Milner, Nzogbia and Given with rumours it's Bassong next. Some of the best value players at the club in terms of wages vs appearances vs performances. He's also got a hospitalised has-been manager on £1M a year who's performed worse than any manager in the history of the club bar Ozzie Ardiles. He's also got a chief scout on a £1.5M a season contract. He's made one massive payout to get rid of a far better manager than we currently have. He's due to make an even bigger payout to get rid of another even better manager than we currently have. He's got us one point from being relegated and losing millions of TV money. How can people say he's running things well? I cannot fathom the warped mindset of an Ashley fan. He's killing our club, and people are gladly watching him do it because he can afford to take the loss on his gamble and keep paying for the ever diminishing returns.......until he says "f*** it", cuts his losses puts the club into administration and gets first dabs on the £120M of loans he's due as the clubs only creditor. There's so much wrong with that post it's hard to know where to start but the bolded bit...I disagree that JK is a worse manager than Allardyce, and if you are saying that it was wrong to pay out so much money to get rid of the fat faker, then obviously that negates your point about paying Keegan off as he would never have been here, we'd still have Allardyce, heading to Hull with a ten man defence and hoofing the ball 50 yards for Owen to scrap for. We wouldn't even be in the Premiership now had we kept Allardyce on. Oh and HappyFace, ask yourself what do the three players you mention all have in common? Answer is they all asked to leave. You have to sell contracted players now? That'll be news to Gareth Barry, Christiano Ronaldo, Stewart Downing etc. They are exceptions to the rule really. Although I dunno if Real even submitted a formal bid for Ronaldo. As for Downing, it hasn't done Boro much good keeping him. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest float one in Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 Dunno if you can use the fact that Given, Milner and Zogs asked to leave to defend Ashley et al's transfer policy to be honest. Certainly Given asked to leave because he couldn't see the club challenging for anything but relegation in the near future - if we were investing in top players and perhaps more importantly had a good manager in charge I would have thought he'd have been more than happy to stay. On the other hand, the fact that we sold Milner probably isnt a stick to beat Ashley with, either: 13 million for a slow winger who can't cross would probably have been too good to turn down for just about any club, but I've a feeling that is an opinion thats been debated on here alot already... The fact that we ain't going to see that 13 million til the end of the season (if I remember right) is another matter! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parky Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 The Leeds thing is a red herring in these debates for a number of reasons, some of which Chex touched on earlier. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
madras Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. interesting list there with portsmouth,boro,blackburn,west ham,fulham and sunderland all recently stating that they had to sell to buy because ot earlier spending sprees which didn't pay off. (man city speak for themselves and i know little about the debts of wigan,hull or stoke). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
juniatmoko Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw. This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Why aren't we 5th in the table then seeing as we are the fifth biggest spenders on footballer salaries? Even without any handy facts and figures at hand, I know before Ashley came here we weren't getting anything like the results our spending warranted. Please, no one mention X number of seasons in Europe, this isn't a pissing contest, let's just debate with some honesty about whether we were performing well considering money outlaid. Then we can compare it with what's happening now. Same reason Leeds went down. Spending guarantees nothing. Just improves your chances dramatically. ....and we were never in the bottom five, one point off relegation.... If we had Owen, Barton, Martins and Viduka fit for most of the season I doubt we'd be in this position either, the squad itself is not that bad if looked at objectively. As Chez has said, not many here would argue that Ashley has handled the transfer windows very well, and the decision to stick with Joe Kinnear as a long term manager says a lot more about the clueless football knowledge at this club than anything else. Financially though, the club needs to be put in order and there are a lot of mistakes made in the last few seasons which have to be put right, and Ashley does deserve some credit for that. is there any super duper free injury players?? how can that be said handled transfer windows well? I don't think you understood, I am agreeing that Ashley has NOT handled the transfer windows well, obviously the strict budgeting has affected our attempts to sign players negatively. No there aren't any super duper injury free players, but we aren't Man U or Arsenal, we only have 5-6 players you could call top quality and we need those players fit. Viduka, Owen, Martins, Barton and Beye are all players who would walk into our first team and we would win far more matches with them starting regularly. Even Super Kev needed them in his side to win matches last season. We can afford injuries to lesser players like Ameobi, Carroll, Duff, Smith, Cacapa etc, but the ones missing above are very big misses. i don't think ashley deserve any credit at all... what he do is wrong all the way. we clearly lack of squad depth from the beginning he comes in. if he hesitate in investing (doing strict budgeting) at any reason at first place is clearly how clueless he is in football business. buying EPL club was always need heavy investment. if he cant give that to the club it show he got no ambition no willing to success no vision at all. investing at anywhere place in every sector is always like gambling. you could get success or failed miserably but u cannot hesitate either. because hesitation was always a failure. i know we are not manyoo or arsenal. but even fool at football clearly understand that we lack of centre midfield and until now it still not fixed at all even worse one is butt get another contract... i mean wtf is that? my conclusion is NUFC is not supporter club anymore but already Mike "i do what i like to my toys" Ashley club. 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David Icke - Son of God Posted March 12, 2009 Share Posted March 12, 2009 We may well be thanking Laura Ashley in 12 to 18 months time but from what i've seen both at the club and in football in general there is much more chance of effigies being burned of the fat cunt before this year is out. The fact Scudamore has managed to negotiate a new TV deal for more money during a time of recession tells me that the arse isn't about to drop out of this sport just yet. The only clubs who are going to be in real danger are ones in the Fizzy Pop leagues, the leagues we'll be playing in over the next few years. Seems to me that Ashley wanted to sell the club on for a profit, hence the ridiculous instance on clearing up even the managable chunks of debt but the global financial clusterfuck hit hard and all of a sudden he didn't have a hope in hells chance of getting rid of us. Thusly the club is suffering now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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