Top 26

[Badger 2,405]

59 minutes ago, king canary said:

You're right it doesn't work long term. But you likely need it for that initial push to get yourself going.

Liik at Southampton- when they went up they complemented their group of younger...

Our lack or margin for error is not a strength no matter how many times you repeat it.

You quote Southampton, for whom it has worked... so far. (Although their owner has twice been involved in corruption cases in China and the EPL tried to block him under "fit and proper person test," but it was out-manoeuvred by his lawyers - is that what you want for City? Or don't you care?)

There are far more examples of clubs for whom it hasn't worked. The greater you margin of error, the bigger the hole you can did yourself - we have seen it time and time again. But, of course, everybody thinks that we would be like Leicester not Sunderland/ Portsmouth/ Leeds/ Ipswich etc etc etc etc 😀

[nutty nigel 7,507]

But if it doesn't work out and we end up being Ipswich or Sunderland we can still want to be whichever clubs are where Burnley and Southampton are now. 

Or maybe even hanker for the days we were successful under the cook and her cohorts..

[hogesar 9,611]

24 minutes ago, Badger said:

You quote Southampton, for whom it has worked... so far. (Although their owner has twice been involved in corruption cases in China and the EPL tried to block him under "fit and proper person test," but it was out-manoeuvred by his lawyers - is that what you want for City? Or don't you care?)

There are far more examples of clubs for whom it hasn't worked. The greater you margin of error, the bigger the hole you can did yourself - we have seen it time and time again. But, of course, everybody thinks that we would be like Leicester not Sunderland/ Portsmouth/ Leeds/ Ipswich etc etc etc etc 😀

I think this gets glossed over too easily. If it was bookmakers odds the odds would show that taking a punt on new owners would be more likely to put us in a worse situation than we are in.

[king canary 7,562]

13 hours ago, Badger said:

You quote Southampton, for whom it has worked... so far. (Although their owner has twice been involved in corruption cases in China and the EPL tried to block him under "fit and proper person test," but it was out-manoeuvred by his lawyers - is that what you want for City? Or don't you care?)

There are far more examples of clubs for whom it hasn't worked. The greater you margin of error, the bigger the hole you can did yourself - we have seen it time and time again. But, of course, everybody thinks that we would be like Leicester not Sunderland/ Portsmouth/ Leeds/ Ipswich etc etc etc etc 😀

The bigger the whole you 'can't dig for yourself. You seem so fearful of change that you're convinced it would inevitably happen.

There are plenty of clubs who have gone this route and can play claim to more success over the past 20 odd years than us.

[Badger 2,405]

39 minutes ago, king canary said:

The bigger the whole you 'can't dig for yourself. You seem so fearful of change that you're convinced it would inevitably happen.

There are plenty of clubs who have gone this route and can play claim to more success over the past 20 odd years than us.

1. Not fearful of change at all. I welcome it - what I don't want is naive gambling that has a far greater chance of failure than success - as many so clubs show. 

2. "There are plenty of clubs who have gone this route and can play claim to more success over the past 20 odd years than us." Name them - you say there are plenty, give me a dozen (or is it less than this?)

[Badger 2,405]

18 hours ago, king canary said:

By margin for error I mean being able to take a gamble on a more expensive transfer without being concerned about it doing massive long term harm to the club. So West Brom for instance dropped £13m odd on Oliver Burke who really hasn't worked out for them. Yet despite that, and the relegation it hasn't hamstrung the club financially over the longer term.

WBA are yet another example of a club "going for it" and failing. 

After years of being financially prudent and relatively successful on the pitch, they got a new owner who did the fan-pleasing thing - in an attempt to take them to the "next level" they went on a spending spree. They didn't only sign Burke as you identified, but also  Jay Rodriguez, Gareth Barry, Oli Burke, Kieran Gibbs, Kyle Jameson and Ahmed Hegazi. They spent  “more on its playing squad than in any previous season with player additions totalling £46million.” Moreover, the club’s wage bill rose by more than £13.2million to £92.2million. Result - they were relegated - hardly a good example?

After this, WBA have returned to more prudent ways. The Chief Executive, who had prudently led them to success returned and declared himself shocked by the state of the clubs finances!

WBA are fortunate that they had been so prudently run in the past and only had one year of going for it, leading to their relegation. They have, after the return of Mark Jenkins returned to sensible financial management. They have sold over 50 million pounds worth of players over the last two summers summer,  of them cheaply just to get them off the wage bill. Result - they are enjoying a much more successful season this year, with a much lower wage bill. BTW, they couldn't sell Burke, so sent him out on loan.

WBA are a good example of the benefits of financial prudence. They had one year of "taking a gamble" which saw them relegated. Fortunately, previous years of prudence meant that they had not accumulated too much debt and by selling a lot of players of quickly and cheaply they have managed to restore a financial balance. I'm sure that they have learnt their lesson about "taking a gamble" even if some fans on here still think that it is the right way forwards.

I have also noticed your response about not understanding what Hull's problems have to do with "margin of error." The link is that Hull have a rich owner and a bigger margin of error. This led to their debts and the fact that the rich owner has charged them over £20 million in interest and charges them to use their ground!

Sorry KC - it just doesn't work - you can't defy financial gravity.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/west-broms-accounts-scrutinised-backfiring-16070782

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/grim-financial-reality-facing-west-16332777

[Badger 2,405]

21 hours ago, hogesar said:

My hope is that we spend some more money on infrastructure, continue scouting other leagues for young players to sign and maybe next season sign one or two top Championship players (homegrown would be ideal). But I don't think we should sign them 'at any cost', which some people seem to disagree with.

Agreed - this has to be the way forwards. Buying success only works if you have a "donor owner" like Man City etc. If we could get one I'd love it, but I won't hold my breath. In the meantime, I just hope we avoid and "investor owner" - that really is the biggest risk to our long term future.

[markdmhoward 74]

[markdmhoward 74]

Crazy really the jumps in wealth when you see the numbers

[wcorkcanary 4,329]

20 minutes ago, markdmhoward said:

Crazy really the jumps in wealth when you see the numbers

So man citehs  owner is 1000 times wealthier than D & M. 

[king canary 7,562]

4 hours ago, Badger said:

1. Not fearful of change at all. I welcome it - what I don't want is naive gambling that has a far greater chance of failure than success - as many so clubs show. 

2. "There are plenty of clubs who have gone this route and can play claim to more success over the past 20 odd years than us." Name them - you say there are plenty, give me a dozen (or is it less than this?)

Fulham

West Brom

Leicester 

Southampton 

Wigan

Middlesbrough 

Stoke

Swansea

Watford

Wolves

Palace

Burnley

A dozen teams. Now I expect you'll push back on some of these and that's fair as people define success differently. However all of these fit at least one of these criteria over the past 20 years and most more than one...

1) More premier league seasons than us

2) A longer single spell in the premier league than us

3) Winning one of the major domestic cup competitions 

4) European football

 

[king canary 7,562]

3 hours ago, Badger said:

Sorry KC - it just doesn't work - you can't defy financial gravity.

So if you can't defy financial gravity then surely you agree we stand no chance at this level? After all our entire model is based on that.

[nutty nigel 7,507]

We have spent five of the last ten seasons in the premier league. For some reason that is deemed less successful than 5 consecutive seasons in the PL. Even though we've won a championship and a Wembley final in between.

Can anyone say with honesty that they would have enjoyed five consecutive seasons more than what we have had?

[Badger 2,405]

11 minutes ago, king canary said:

So if you can't defy financial gravity then surely you agree we stand no chance at this level? After all our entire model is based on that.

Not at all - a carefully managed financial strategy avoiding silly gambles should allow us to establish ourselves in the Premier League in time.

1. We get quite good gates, and have the capacity to expand these as population is growing and we have a wide catchment area.

2. The club also does very well in other commercial activities for a club of its size - far better than many of our competitors. 

3. Unlike other clubs we also have the benefit of not being heavily in debt and therefore on a financial knifedge every time relegation threaten, which it will do all clubs at times, outside 7 or 8.

4. We do not have investor owners seeking to take money out of the club.

The strategy is about maximising our inherent advantages rather than gambling - we don't need to.

[Badger 2,405]

30 minutes ago, king canary said:

Fulham

West Brom

Leicester 

Southampton 

Wigan

Middlesbrough 

Stoke

Swansea

Watford

Wolves

Palace

Burnley

A dozen teams. Now I expect you'll push back on some of these and that's fair as people define success differently. However all of these fit at least one of these criteria over the past 20 years and most more than one...

1) More premier league seasons than us

2) A longer single spell in the premier league than us

3) Winning one of the major domestic cup competitions 

4) European football

 

Thanks for the list KC - I hadn't expected it - most people drop out at this stage! I will look at it properly but I am going out soon.

First observations are that half of these clubs are currently sitting below us in the League, but I know you know this - the financial risk taken on board is has hardly proved transformative!

Secondly, I'm not sure that all of these clubs should be on the list. I know WBA are currently below us, nevertheless, I don't think that they are a good example of "borrow to invest" club. As I pointed out above, apart from one year, when they were relegated, they have been a very financially prudent club. It has been one of the cornerstones of their success. I think similar might apply to others, Burnley for example, I believe has also been very cautious financially - I will check later.

Others on the list have had fan owners subsidising their clubs - I have said on many occasions that I would not object to this. Donor owners who as fans give money to the club, are less of a risk, nor would I object to a Sheikh taking us over like Man City! I'm not sure how likely either of these options are for Norwich though - according to the Sunday Times rich list there are no billionaires living in Norfolk (and a billion is hardly enough in today's market).

Thanks again for providing the list - I will do you the courtesy of looking at it. 👍

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

So if you can't defy financial gravity then surely you agree we stand no chance at this level? After all our entire model is based on that.

This is it...you can say you are glad that Delia and Michael are our owners. That's is great. BUT there is absolutely no denying that means, we will never be able to be serious about staying in the top division. I think we are an attractive proposition for investment if Delia is true to her wish of only wanting what is best for the club

 

[Surfer 1,547]

Well watching two of the top 26 teams in England playing tonight at Forest, I don't think there is much risk of us not retaining at least equal status. It's not exactly dire, but it is light years behind the quality of football that we have been playing. 

 

[Badger 2,405]

On 08/02/2020 at 14:41, king canary said:

A dozen teams. Now I expect you'll push back on some of these and that's fair as people define success differently. However all of these fit at least one of these criteria over the past 20 years and most more than one...

Due to the horrible weather I've had time to check details on some of the clubs you identify ... 

So far, three of the clubs do not fulfil your criteria as they have managed their finances very well before and during their years of success - indeed they have been stricter in their financial management that we have been. I have already given information about Burnley and West Brom both of whom were good examples of sensible financial management. West Brom did have a silly year after they acquired new owners and "went for it." This resulted in the immediate relegation. They have subsequently restored financial prudence and cleared out a lot of players, often at bargain prices, just to get them off the wage bill. This seems to have worked and their prospects look much brighter. They were lucky - they only had one year of financial incontinence, so their recovery should be swift. 

Swansea are another example of the benefits of sound financial management. their then owner, Huw Jenkins a life-long fan remarked in an interview,

"I think in 99 per cent of the clubs that have problems, the issue is they forget the simple things. That’s probably true in life as well. If you bring in £80, then don’t spend £100. That’s not hard, is it?" 

In their first year in the Premier League, they made a profit of £14.2 million. this was followed by a profit of £15.3 million and £1.7 million the years after and then £1.1 million in 2014-15. 

So far, so good. However, then they forgot all the lessons of sound financial management that had got them so far. They started to spend more, made a loss of £14.6 million in 15-16 and sold out to US based owners to help the club "progress" (although the owners benefited financially as well - Huw Jenkins is rumoured to have made over £10 million on the sale). You may remember that the US owners appointed a US manager and Swansea struggled - they became one of only three clubs to survive having been bottom on Christmas Day - fingers crossed for us 😀! They did, however, make a profit of £13.4 million to offset the losses of the year before. the following year they were relegated, making a £3.2 million loss.

There are imo two lessons to be learnt from Swansea's experience:

1. You can do well in the PL without borrowing and that it is through maintaining a style of play and running the club cautiously - the new US owners abandoned "the Swansea way" and they were far less effective as a consequence.

2. Don't believe the promises of potential investors! Swansea fans were promised extra spending which simply has not materialised. As the Price of Football website said,

"Kaplan and Levien’s motives for running the club are mysterious... It’s probable that their aim was to generate some income from dividend payments from the club whilst it was in the Premier League or alternatively flip the club and sell it on to another ‘investor’ with the moral compass of  an alleycat for a handsome profit, but neither has materialised to date." (http://priceoffootball.com/swansea-city-soul-train/)

I promise that I am not going to be critical of all your suggestions KC 😀, but I think that it is pretty clear that Burnley, West Brom and Swansea do not fit into the category of being a club that has borrowed to maintain its PL status. The success that they have had has been achieved using sound financial principles and NOT borrowing to buy players. Indeed in the case of Swansea and west Brom, their success was during the periods of prudence and the problems emerged after they had attracted external investors!

[nutty nigel 7,507]

On 08/02/2020 at 17:53, Kenny Foggo said:

This is it...you can say you are glad that Delia and Michael are our owners. That's is great. BUT there is absolutely no denying that means, we will never be able to be serious about staying in the top division. I think we are an attractive proposition for investment if Delia is true to her wish of only wanting what is best for the club

 

There may well be a difference between what's best for our club and what you or I think is best for our club. 

Afterall this thread shows massive differences between what posters think is best for our club.

Why would any of us know better than the owners as to what's best for our club?

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

6 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

There may well be a difference between what's best for our club and what you or I think is best for our club. 

Afterall this thread shows massive differences between what posters think is best for our club.

Why would any of us know better than the owners as to what's best for our club?

They had money to buy the club, I see no evidence to suggest they could achieve us being a settled premiership club and that has to be the goal in my opinion. I think there are probably others far better qualified in achieving that for our club.

[Badger 2,405]

7 hours ago, Kenny Foggo said:

I think there are probably others far better qualified in achieving that for our club.

Who?

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

Who?

That is the job of those running the club, not being in the industry it's silly to suggest those outside of it would know names but other smaller clubs in locations further a field have done it.. if the owners are as good as we have been told on here... It should not be an issue.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Kenny Foggo

[wcorkcanary 4,329]

7 minutes ago, Kenny Foggo said:

That is the job of those running the club, not being in the industry it's silly to suggest those outside of it would know names but other smaller clubs in locations further a field have done it.. if the owners are as good as we have been told on here... It should not be an issue.

Aaaaaah, the old ' they're out there, for sure, i know it, but have not a clue who' get out Clause, so the owners are doing it wrong, someone somewhere knows how to do it better....the owners must be able to source them, despite not having a clue . makes a lot of sense........to you maybe but to me it stinks of lack of knowledge.

please refer to my earlier referencing of the 'Hurler on the ditch '.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hurler_on_the_ditch

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

I may be different to many but I think the owners have done brilliantly on the pitch but I think the club is not the beat at running itself financially. Yes there have been wilderness years but we have had lots of excitement since the turn of the millenium. Relegation hurts but doesn't diminish the promotion years.

But off the pitch, I think we have made some serious errors in signings, player's contracts, compensation payments and Carrow Road and Colney.

[king canary 7,562]

16 hours ago, Badger said:

Due to the horrible weather I've had time to check details on some of the clubs you identify ... 

So far, three of the clubs do not fulfil your criteria as they have managed their finances very well before and during their years of success - indeed they have been stricter in their financial management that we have been. I have already given information about Burnley and West Brom both of whom were good examples of sensible financial management. West Brom did have a silly year after they acquired new owners and "went for it." This resulted in the immediate relegation. They have subsequently restored financial prudence and cleared out a lot of players, often at bargain prices, just to get them off the wage bill. This seems to have worked and their prospects look much brighter. They were lucky - they only had one year of financial incontinence, so their recovery should be swift. 

Swansea are another example of the benefits of sound financial management. their then owner, Huw Jenkins a life-long fan remarked in an interview,

"I think in 99 per cent of the clubs that have problems, the issue is they forget the simple things. That’s probably true in life as well. If you bring in £80, then don’t spend £100. That’s not hard, is it?" 

In their first year in the Premier League, they made a profit of £14.2 million. this was followed by a profit of £15.3 million and £1.7 million the years after and then £1.1 million in 2014-15. 

So far, so good. However, then they forgot all the lessons of sound financial management that had got them so far. They started to spend more, made a loss of £14.6 million in 15-16 and sold out to US based owners to help the club "progress" (although the owners benefited financially as well - Huw Jenkins is rumoured to have made over £10 million on the sale). You may remember that the US owners appointed a US manager and Swansea struggled - they became one of only three clubs to survive having been bottom on Christmas Day - fingers crossed for us 😀! They did, however, make a profit of £13.4 million to offset the losses of the year before. the following year they were relegated, making a £3.2 million loss.

There are imo two lessons to be learnt from Swansea's experience:

1. You can do well in the PL without borrowing and that it is through maintaining a style of play and running the club cautiously - the new US owners abandoned "the Swansea way" and they were far less effective as a consequence.

2. Don't believe the promises of potential investors! Swansea fans were promised extra spending which simply has not materialised. As the Price of Football website said,

"Kaplan and Levien’s motives for running the club are mysterious... It’s probable that their aim was to generate some income from dividend payments from the club whilst it was in the Premier League or alternatively flip the club and sell it on to another ‘investor’ with the moral compass of  an alleycat for a handsome profit, but neither has materialised to date." (http://priceoffootball.com/swansea-city-soul-train/)

I promise that I am not going to be critical of all your suggestions KC 😀, but I think that it is pretty clear that Burnley, West Brom and Swansea do not fit into the category of being a club that has borrowed to maintain its PL status. The success that they have had has been achieved using sound financial principles and NOT borrowing to buy players. Indeed in the case of Swansea and west Brom, their success was during the periods of prudence and the problems emerged after they had attracted external investors!

To save you going through the finances of 12 different teams Badger, I just want to clarify my general view and points here.

1) Our spend this summer was historically low and I'd imagine our wage bill is going to be very low too. This is prohibitive to staying in the Premier League and a direct reflection of our inability to take a calculated risk. No other team in my memory has had to attempt to stay up on a similar budget- heck we spent less this summer on permanent transfers than we did under Worthington for his one season in the top division!

2) Why have no other team had to attempt a similarly small budget? I'm not a finance expert but looking at this we can see pretty much every comparable team listed here has some kind of debt apart from Burnley. 

3) We are hamstrung by our inability to sustain even small amounts of debt. Our wage budget last season was about £25m and yet we were still on course to make losses of over £10m. So we're reliant on having a wage budget that we can slash to that sort of figure before parachute payments run out and even then we're still reliant on player sales. So even a wage budget like Burnley's will be risky, especially in our first season up due to the shorter parachute payments if we get relegated.

This is what I mean when I talk about our margin for error being non existent. If you're budget is that small you have to hit on every signing to have a chance of success- we also can't afford a miss that could hamstring us.

I'm not advocating for wild spending or risking what we can't afford- I'm advocating that at some point we're likely to need a change in ownership that at least allows us the ability to take on some debt and some risks or seasons like this one will be the likely outcome every time we go up.

Where I disagree with you is on two pretty key points-

1) 'Donor owners.' You insist this sort of ownership is rare to non-existent. I disagree and a fair few other clubs seem to find them.

2) Investors who want to make a profit- you seem to believe this is inherently a bad thing and again I disagree. For a club such as us the best way to make money from us would be to get us into the Premier League and keep us there, so we bring in enough revenue that they can realistically charge interest on any loans or pay themselves some sort of dividend. Leicesters owners, for instance, charged a management fee of £3.4m. That seems fair considering the success they've achieved.

Generally most sensible people looking to make money from a club like us will probably need to act a bit like a donor owner in order to establish the club- at that point if you're managed and run well from the footballing side (as we are right now) you can generally make profits.

[wcorkcanary 4,329]

3 minutes ago, king canary said:

To save you going through the finances of 12 different teams Badger, I just want to clarify my general view and points here.

1) Our spend this summer was historically low and I'd imagine our wage bill is going to be very low too. This is prohibitive to staying in the Premier League and a direct reflection of our inability to take a calculated risk. No other team in my memory has had to attempt to stay up on a similar budget- heck we spent less this summer on permanent transfers than we did under Worthington for his one season in the top division!

2) Why have no other team had to attempt a similarly small budget? I'm not a finance expert but looking at this we can see pretty much every comparable team listed here has some kind of debt apart from Burnley. 

3) We are hamstrung by our inability to sustain even small amounts of debt. Our wage budget last season was about £25m and yet we were still on course to make losses of over £10m. So we're reliant on having a wage budget that we can slash to that sort of figure before parachute payments run out and even then we're still reliant on player sales. So even a wage budget like Burnley's will be risky, especially in our first season up due to the shorter parachute payments if we get relegated.

This is what I mean when I talk about our margin for error being non existent. If you're budget is that small you have to hit on every signing to have a chance of success- we also can't afford a miss that could hamstring us.

I'm not advocating for wild spending or risking what we can't afford- I'm advocating that at some point we're likely to need a change in ownership that at least allows us the ability to take on some debt and some risks or seasons like this one will be the likely outcome every time we go up.

Where I disagree with you is on two pretty key points-

1) 'Donor owners.' You insist this sort of ownership is rare to non-existent. I disagree and a fair few other clubs seem to find them.

2) Investors who want to make a profit- you seem to believe this is inherently a bad thing and again I disagree. For a club such as us the best way to make money from us would be to get us into the Premier League and keep us there, so we bring in enough revenue that they can realistically charge interest on any loans or pay themselves some sort of dividend. Leicesters owners, for instance, charged a management fee of £3.4m. That seems fair considering the success they've achieved.

Generally most sensible people looking to make money from a club like us will probably need to act a bit like a donor owner in order to establish the club- at that point if you're managed and run well from the footballing side (as we are right now) you can generally make profits.

Looks like you've got the Job Kaceyo!!! now all you have to do is make it work!!!

[Badger 2,405]

I have replied within your original post. I have edited for reasons of space, but have tried to take the overall point into account.

1 hour ago, king canary said:

To save you going through the finances of 12 different teams Badger, I just want to clarify my general view and points here.

I appreciate your point but it really is necessary sometimes to get into the detail to eliminate myths and misunderstandings.

1) Our spend this summer was historically low and I'd imagine our wage bill is going to be very low too. This is prohibitive to staying in the Premier League and a direct reflection of our inability to take a calculated risk.

No - this assumption is wrong. Others have done it - I have already provided examples of Burnley, West Brom and Swansea. There are other examples - Watford 15-16, for example, newly promoted achieved 13th place on a wages bill of £57 million about £10 million less than us. (https://www.watfordfc.com/sites/default/files/2017-02/2016 Financial Report.pdf) Bournemouth stayed up the same year, spending 60 million on wages. We spent 10% more on wages than both of the clubs promoted with us - they stayed up, we didn't.

No other team in my memory has had to attempt to stay up on a similar budget- heck we spent less this summer on permanent transfers than we did under Worthington for his one season in the top division!

We don't know what the budget was and I don't understand why players have to be permanent signings to be effective. We are more likely to attract players on loan than through purchase as it gives the player PL exposure without the risk of being relegated with the club.

2) Why have no other team had to attempt a similarly small budget? I'm not a finance expert but looking at this we can see pretty much every comparable team listed here has some kind of debt apart from Burnley. 

Our self-funding model allows for debt. This is seen by both the Colney development and by the fact that we finished the season in debt. It is not sensible to continue to borrow to spend on player wages and purchases as it is unsustainable unless you have a donor owner with bottomless pockets.

3) We are hamstrung by our inability to sustain even small amounts of debt. Our wage budget last season was about £25m and yet we were still on course to make losses of over £10m. So we're reliant on having a wage budget that we can slash to that sort of figure before parachute payments run out and even then we're still reliant on player sales. So even a wage budget like Burnley's will be risky, especially in our first season up due to the shorter parachute payments if we get relegated.

This applies to all clubs. It is a quite usual pattern to expand the wage budget after one successful year in the PL - most similar clubs do it.

More significant is the tacit admission of a greater concern of mine. The "what if" question - what if our excess spending doesn't work (like 2015-16) and we are relegated. You are in effect identifying that we will have a debt for the season of "going for it", which is then compounded by a "hangover effect" if we were to take the choice that you advocate. Not only would we carry forward a year one loss but this would carry forwards for the remainder of the contracts.

I'm not advocating for wild spending or risking what we can't afford- I'm advocating that at some point we're likely to need a change in ownership that at least allows us the ability to take on some debt and some risks or seasons like this one will be the likely outcome every time we go up.

This is the crux - what does this mean? How much is risk we can't afford? This is especially the case with purchases which are ongoing costs.

Where I disagree with you is on two pretty key points-

1) 'Donor owners.' You insist this sort of ownership is rare to non-existent. I disagree and a fair few other clubs seem to find them.

I don't think that they are that rare. Indeed up until recently it was perhaps the most common form of football club ownership. However, I think that this is an outdated model and advocates of it are really clinging to the past. We are not talking of the days even a decade ago when someone shipped in to pay Huckerby's wages - we are talking about deals for promising championship players amounting to £30-40 million in fee + wages. 

What I think is increasingly difficult to find is a donor owner who has the money that is necessary to fund a football club without worrying about the financial implications of it and the fact that even spending tens and hundreds of millions is no guarantee of success. We would be very lucky to get a donor owner; it is far more likely that we would get someone that promises big but fails to deliver. Most donor owners fail.

2) Investors who want to make a profit- you seem to believe this is inherently a bad thing and again I disagree. For a club such as us the best way to make money from us would be to get us into the Premier League and keep us there, so we bring in enough revenue that they can realistically charge interest on any loans or pay themselves some sort of dividend. Leicesters owners, for instance, charged a management fee of £3.4m. That seems fair considering the success they've achieved.

I'm not opposed to this per se, but keen that it is seen for what it is - an attempt to take money out the club. Having established the motivation of the owners, we are then able to consider the repercussions of failure of the initial investment. Do they continue to invest and pour increasing amounts into the club? More likely, and what we are seeing increasingly is clubs living in a sort of half life, where owners are unable to sell the club and take the loss but unprepared to sink more money in. You then get the attempts to recover the money invested - player sales/ ground and training ground sales/ interest charges etc. This is far more likely with an investor owner than a donor owner. I have looked at the funding of Middlesborough, Stoke and Wigan from your list and will say more on the matter - but I'd better do some work now! 😀

Generally most sensible people looking to make money from a club like us will probably need to act a bit like a donor owner in order to establish the club- at that point if you're managed and run well from the footballing side (as we are right now) you can generally make profits.

[king canary 7,562]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

Our self-funding model allows for debt. This is seen by both the Colney development and by the fact that we finished the season in debt. It is not sensible to continue to borrow to spend on player wages and purchases as it is unsustainable unless you have a donor owner with bottomless pockets.

 

Does it? The only reason we could be OK with the debt was the fact we knew we had a windfall coming in over the next season. Otherwise that debt would need to have been paid off by player sales- which points to another key issue with our lack of margin for error- what happens if we don't have a player we can sell for £10-20m? 

1 hour ago, Badger said:

This is the crux - what does this mean? How much is risk we can't afford? This is especially the case with purchases which are ongoing costs.

Yes I agree- the issue is right now I feel like any risk is a risk we can't afford, backed up by our extreme reluctance to spend anything this summer.

1 hour ago, Badger said:

No - this assumption is wrong. Others have done it - I have already provided examples of Burnley, West Brom and Swansea. There are other examples - Watford 15-16, for example, newly promoted achieved 13th place on a wages bill of £57 million about £10 million less than us. (https://www.watfordfc.com/sites/default/files/2017-02/2016 Financial Report.pdf) Bournemouth stayed up the same year, spending 60 million on wages. We spent 10% more on wages than both of the clubs promoted with us - they stayed up, we didn't.

But have they done it while spending only £6m on new players as we did? Surely what these clubs show is that actually you can find decent players without blowing up the wage structure- but you do have to pay for them. That season Watford spend about £40m on new signings according to Transfermarkt.  

[Badger 2,405]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

3 hours ago, Badger said:

No - this assumption is wrong. Others have done it - I have already provided examples of Burnley, West Brom and Swansea. There are other examples - Watford 15-16, for example, newly promoted achieved 13th place on a wages bill of £57 million about £10 million less than us. (https://www.watfordfc.com/sites/default/files/2017-02/2016 Financial Report.pdf) Bournemouth stayed up the same year, spending 60 million on wages. We spent 10% more on wages than both of the clubs promoted with us - they stayed up, we didn't.

But have they done it while spending only £6m on new players as we did? Surely what these clubs show is that actually you can find decent players without blowing up the wage structure- but you do have to pay for them. That season Watford spend about £40m on new signings according to Transfermarkt.  

You seem to have abandoned the case for higher wages? The facts that I am aware of don't show that this means survival, nor that it enhances chances of it even.

Re transfer fees - you have drawn a generalisation from one example. From the same season and from the same source (Transfermarket) it shows that we spent 23 million (net) that year and went down. Newcastle spent 92 million and went down! on the other hand, Palace spent 21 million and stayed up and West Brom stayed up with a spend of 26 million. Swansea stayed up with a net spend of £4 million. 

It is even more striking in our previous relegation season. Cardiff's net spend was £38 million; ours was 23 million (again) and Fulham also spent 23 million - these were the three teams that went down. Above us - West Brom spent 4 million; Hull 27 million, Villa 11 million, Sunderland 11 million and West Ham 21 million.  Of the 5 teams that stayed up, only one spent more than us and their average net spend was about half our ours.

All of this information is checkable on Transfermarket. But it seems on the basis of the evidence that have seen that there is no case to suggest that spending more money is likely to guarantee us staying up - either in wages or net transfer spend. What it does guarantee, however, is that are financially far more exposed if we do not make a quick return to the PL. This is even more the case, if we ask the owners to continue the subsidy when we are relegated.

I want to go through your other points KC and will when time permits, but I feel that we simply have to acknowledge that in any given year, whether we in the PL or not, you can pick those most likely to flirt with relegation from a list of 10 or 12. This suggests that the bottom 10 to 12 (depending where you cut off) each have a 25% to 30% chance of being relegated. Over two years, the chances are between 50 to 60% (e.g 25% + 25 %) and so on.

It's probably worse than this. At the top end of this, say West Ham, the chances are probably smaller than 25% and therefore the newly chances of the newly promoted or this promoted the season before are worse. Relegation is a reality and has to be planned for - sorry if this sounds defeatist but if you disagree with my maths please say why.

[king canary 7,562]

24 minutes ago, Badger said:

You seem to have abandoned the case for higher wages? The facts that I am aware of don't show that this means survival, nor that it enhances chances of it even.

Re transfer fees - you have drawn a generalisation from one example. From the same season and from the same source (Transfermarket) it shows that we spent 23 million (net) that year and went down. Newcastle spent 92 million and went down! on the other hand, Palace spent 21 million and stayed up and West Brom stayed up with a spend of 26 million. Swansea stayed up with a net spend of £4 million. 

It is even more striking in our previous relegation season. Cardiff's net spend was £38 million; ours was 23 million (again) and Fulham also spent 23 million - these were the three teams that went down. Above us - West Brom spent 4 million; Hull 27 million, Villa 11 million, Sunderland 11 million and West Ham 21 million.  Of the 5 teams that stayed up, only one spent more than us and their average net spend was about half our ours.

All of this information is checkable on Transfermarket. But it seems on the basis of the evidence that have seen that there is no case to suggest that spending more money is likely to guarantee us staying up - either in wages or net transfer spend. What it does guarantee, however, is that are financially far more exposed if we do not make a quick return to the PL. This is even more the case, if we ask the owners to continue the subsidy when we are relegated.

I want to go through your other points KC and will when time permits, but I feel that we simply have to acknowledge that in any given year, whether we in the PL or not, you can pick those most likely to flirt with relegation from a list of 10 or 12. This suggests that the bottom 10 to 12 (depending where you cut off) each have a 25% to 30% chance of being relegated. Over two years, the chances are between 50 to 60% (e.g 25% + 25 %) and so on.

It's probably worse than this. At the top end of this, say West Ham, the chances are probably smaller than 25% and therefore the newly chances of the newly promoted or this promoted the season before are worse. Relegation is a reality and has to be planned for - sorry if this sounds defeatist but if you disagree with my maths please say why.

Eeesh lots to get into here.

'Higher wages does not increase the chance of staying up.'

As far as I'm aware this is wrong- generally the table and wage spend marry up pretty well. Sure you may get the team spending the 16th most finisihing 18th, or the team spending the 19th most finishing 16th but I bet if you looked across time the team with the lowest wage bill will more often than not be going down.

Secondly, it is pretty unreasonable to say I've drawn a generalisation when I was actually putting some context to your generalisation about Watfords wage bill. I didn't mention that, you did.

Your points on net spend again totally miss my point. The point I've been making about gambles, calculated risk etc is that a team in their first season up will likely need a bit of 'pump priming' (to use an economic term we had to learn in A Level history). So comparing the net spend of a newly promoted team (who usually don't make major player sales after promotion) and a team that is established isn't apples and apples. So in order to stay up and make a go of establishing ourselves for an extended period of time, we'll probably need to be able to take those calculated risks and spend a decent amount. Most seasons you'll see the newly promoted teams sitting a fair way up the 'net spend' table because they don't usually make player sales and they understand their squad will likely need some Premier League quality adding to it. 

Last season Wolves and Fulham had two of the biggest net spends in the league. The season before Brighton had the 4th biggest net spend and even Huddersfield had the 8th.

This season the only teams with lower net spends than us are...

Palace (sold a player for £50m)

Liverpool (basically didn't sign anyone)

Burnley (not big spenders as previously pointed out)

Chelsea (under a transfer embargo)

You talk about the prudence of teams likes West Brom and Swansea- do you honestly believe that if they go back up this season that they'll be doing what we did this season? Or will they more likely follow the route of Sheffield United or Brighton or even Burnley on their most recent promotion and actually invest in improving their squad? The issue I have is our model seems to leave us pissing ourselves in fear at the thought of paying even a modest transfer fee/wage by Premier League standard because it might not work. No other team seems to operate under such constraints at this level.

I completely understand the need to plan for relegation- my point is that our owners financial limitations means that planning is more restrictive than it is for other teams in similar situations.