It is happening again

[Midlands Yellow 3,980]

Is everyone on the 09.00hrs until midnight shift on here. 

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

6 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

''Tanty definition: a childish fit of rage ; outburst of bad temper ''

Its not how I personally would've described my posts...

But yes agree with the rest of your post, I agree it could be that we are just taking a step back to take a step forwards. 

But at the same time I don't think there is anything wrong with being a tad sceptical about the way in which we conducted ourselves over the sale. You just need to look at how other clubs issue 'hands-off' warnings about their star players, and generally take note of other newly promoted sides to see that such a sale is extremely rare (as in never done by a newly promoted prem side before). 

I also don't think there is anything wrong with generally being a bit disappointed that we have lost our best in our lifetimes - as you also put it. 

I think the niggle I have is that it would've been much easier to swallow if we had visibly fought tooth and nail to keep him, as no one can begrudge him going to better things, but from the outside looking in it feels like both the club and the player were totally complicit. 

And yes I appreciate there's not conclusive evidence to go by, but what we do know is Webber's words in the press, the fee he set 'it starts with a 3...', the willingness to do business for our players, etc etc. The evidence points towards a club wanting to get a good fee for a star player at the start of a window - I think we can all see that can't we?

Did Buendia want to go? Well clearly yes. But did we do everything we could to stop the transfer happening and try to keep him at NCFC? In my opinion, no. In fact we did closer to the opposite. 

I just don't think our hands were anything like as forced as everyone seems to be making it out, certainly not at the time in the window.

I'm not throwing my toys out of the pram about it, or criticising anyone, just trying to debate how I saw the transfer compared to other posters on here. 

That's fair enough from your perspective and I probably did add too much seasoning to the soup by using the word "tanty". I take the view that if we're going to have a go at reinforcing across the squad, but doing so in the light of a pandemic that's hit our income to the tune of around £35m, a veritable litany of smaller signings in a similar vein to what we've done before - players that were really hyped but fell back, or emerging talents, is more likely where the value lies.

Also, if we had waited, and waited, and waited to the end of the window to drive the price up for Buendia, but had very little time to spend it in, what is the probability of panic-buying or indeed getting hosed in negotiations? Basically the other club can say "well, we know you got £50m in your back pocket from Buendia and there's a week to go, we'll have a big chunk o' that!"

Essentially, I'm saying the potential costs of going tooth and nail to keep him could well outweigh the benefits of business done early with better-chosen players at better prices for us.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

3 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

Is everyone on the 09.00hrs until midnight shift on here. 

Got my lunch break shortly. You okay to fill in for me for an hour or two?

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

2 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Appreciate that comparison, but I had stated about this above. 

Liverpool dug their heels in for as long as they could over Coutinho and then reluctantly agreed when they had nowhere left to go. 

Whereas we went public with our willingness to do business at the start of the window, and set a price 'it starts with a 3...' with a view to drumming up interest rather than putting clubs off. 

That's the difference here. I don't have any issue with us losing our best players, my niggle is that we actively engaged in and encouraged the transfer to get over the line as quickly as possible. 

We did, so we could  act, sharpish.  That was our plan I'm sure. Without being sarcastic , I can only respond  by saying that those who carry out our business have done pretty well the  last few years, this may be their kryptonite, it may prove to have been a masterstroke, I get you don't  like it,  I don't love it, but let's reserve judgement  for a bit eh.

[Badger 2,405]

6 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Why do you keep talking about attendances and commercial operation? I completely agree we are a very run club with a great fanbase worth of the PL? 

Again, when I say 'punching above our weight' I am talking about our financial competitiveness. Are you deliberately not trying to understand my point of view?

Yes I know but do you not understand that attendances and commercial operation are the two main sources of revenue after TV money? It means that we have more money coming in the Watford, Palace, Brentford, Burnley, + are very close (possibly higher) to a number of others. As I have said, we also don't have to pay anywhere near as much in interest on loans/ directors wages etc either.

The TV money is largely a block sum + some additions including performance. If we stay up we receive more obviously and we would be well above a number of teams in terms of financial power. The trick is to stay up without weakening our long term position by taking on unsustainable debt, which would damage us long term.

[Midlands Yellow 3,980]

7 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Got my lunch break shortly. You okay to fill in for me for an hour or two?

Go on then, I’m off today. 

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

1 minute ago, wcorkcanary said:

We did, so we could  act, sharpish.  That was our plan I'm sure. Without being sarcastic , I can only respond  by saying that those who carry out our business have done pretty well the  last few years, this may be their kryptonite, it may prove to have been a masterstroke, I get you don't  like it,  I don't love it, but let's reserve judgement  for a bit eh.

Absolutely. No offence taken, I have stated as much too. 

I have described it as a 'niggle' and feeling 'sceptical' about it. So I'm well aware the jury is still out how things will actually pan out this season. And even if we do go down, I won't be proven right, as we may have done worse without Emi.

But I do also reserve the right to debate with posters who seem to see the transfer more like the club having its hand forced than anything it actually willingly participated in, as I would say all the evidence in the public points towards. And you appear to agree with me on too. 

It is also somewhat concerning that we are only 2 weeks from the season starting and it remains highly debatable as to if we're even stronger than last season (in fact I'd say we most definitely are not), let along 'significantly improving' our first 11. At the minute it looks like the cash we've got from the Buendia sale has hardly been spent (if the Athletic transfer budget rumours were correct).

Obviously this is no one's fault, just how things are panning out in a difficult market, but if we go in to the season having to look way down our transfer target list to bolster the squad at the last minute then perhaps Webber will not be so pleased we got Buendia out the door as 'sharpish' as we did?

[Badger 2,405]

32 minutes ago, Badger said:

So yes Webber and Farke have had us clearly punching above our weight since 18/19! 

Again, this is simply wrong. (See below - sorry I used to be able to resize these but can't now for some reason.)

The table below is revenue excluding parachute payments for 18-19 (yes I know, I will come on to that). As you see, our revenue by this measure was higher than anyone other than Leeds and Villa, who frankly should never be in the championship and only were only really down there for any sustained period because they lacked financial discipline and got themselves in money trouble.

I will publish the including parachute in another post, because of the size.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

9 minutes ago, Badger said:

Yes I know but do you not understand that attendances and commercial operation are the two main sources of revenue after TV money? It means that we have more money coming in the Watford, Palace, Brentford, Burnley, + are very close (possibly higher) to a number of others. As I have said, we also don't have to pay anywhere near as much in interest on loans/ directors wages etc either.

The TV money is largely a block sum + some additions including performance. If we stay up we receive more obviously and we would be well above a number of teams in terms of financial power. The trick is to stay up without weakening our long term position by taking on unsustainable debt, which would damage us long term.

Yes you can put us in that bracket now. But how close that bracket were we in 18/19? 

If we stay up this season it would still be 'against the odds' to me, because we operate in nearly every transfer window with a net profit or a small net spend at best, and our wage budget is probably the lowest - or certainly in the bottom three -  in the league! 

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

1 minute ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Absolutely. No offence taken, I have stated as much too. 

I have described it as a 'niggle' and feeling 'sceptical' about it. So I'm well aware the jury is still out how things will actually pan out this season. And even if we do go down, I won't be proven right, as we may have done worse without Emi.

But I do also reserve the right to debate with posters who seem to see the transfer more like the club having its hand forced than anything it actually willingly participated in, as I would say all the evidence in the public points towards. And you appear to agree with me on too. 

It is also somewhat concerning that we are only 2 weeks from the season starting and it remains highly debatable as to if we're even stronger than last season (in fact I'd say we most definitely are not), let along 'significantly improving' our first 11. At the minute it looks like the cash we've got from the Buendia sale has hardly been spent (if the Athletic transfer budget rumours were correct).

Obviously this is no one's fault, just how things are panning out in a difficult market, but if we go in to the season having to look way down our transfer target list to bolster the squad at the last minute then perhaps Webber will not be so pleased we got Buendia out the door as 'sharpish' as we did?

Can't argue with any of that,  and as you say there is no proof either way...yet,  maybe there never will. However, if we stay up, even by the skin of our teeth,  the decision will be vindicated ...in my opinion.

 

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

1 minute ago, Badger said:

Again, this is simply wrong. (See below - sorry I used to be able to resize these but can't now for some reason.)

The table below is revenue excluding parachute payments for 18-19 (yes I know, I will come on to that). As you see, our revenue by this measure was higher than anyone other than Leeds and Villa, who frankly should never be in the championship and only were only really down there for any sustained period because they lacked financial discipline and got themselves in money trouble.

I will publish the including parachute in another post, because of the size.

And how did all of our revenues leave us in terms of comparable wages and transfer spend?

It is a weird argument, because I singled out just how much praise Webber and Farke deserve for having us punch above our weight financially, but you appear to disagree. 

So were you expecting us to be promoted in 2018/19 then after the 14th place finish the season before? Were you expecting us to comfortably bounce straight back last year after relegation? Did Webber and Farke do a bad job to have us finish 20th in 2019/20? 

We accepted a promotion season as a total free hit, spending what was it - £750k? - on transfer and a little on loan fees in a half hearted attempt to stay up but with a view instead for the coming seasons. We recognised that it had came too early, so we built for the future, which we are now going to see (hopefully) come to fruition. 

We were clearly out of our depth in the premier league at that point, or else why did we make such a feeble attempt to stay in the league? So how is any of this not reflective of a club clearly punching above its weight???

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

3 minutes ago, wcorkcanary said:

Can't argue with any of that,  and as you say there is no proof either way...yet,  maybe there never will. However, if we stay up, even by the skin of our teeth,  the decision will be vindicated ...in my opinion.

 

It will certainly shut me up if we do, don't worry. Although we still could've finished in the top 10 with Emi... 😄

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

Just now, Hank shoots Skyler said:

It will certainly shut me up if we do, don't worry. Although we still could've finished in the top 10 with Emi... 😄

You know there are some who think top four in not impossible,  if you wanna be really silly.

[Badger 2,405]

55 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

So yes Webber and Farke have had us clearly punching above our weight since 18/19! 

This is the figures including parachute money. You need to bear in mind that some of the clubs above us were heavily in debt and paying big interest payments and or had bloated wage bills paying people who had lost the desire - Rodwell at Sunderland was reputedly on nearly £4 million.

So even when we didn't get parachute money this year, but were still very competitive - as we will always be for the reasons I have outlined - attendances and commercial operations + freedom from debt. I think that we should have every reason to expect us to be a the top end and looking at a playoff place at least. Farke did better than this which is great, but promotion should not be seen as "clearly above our weight" - we should have expected to be there or there abouts on financial grounds.

A couple of notes:

Hull figures would have been lower than this it is as they used the previous year as their accounts had not been published.

Sunderland were in freefall - they got relegated the same year

Villa got an extra year of parachute money than we did.

[Badger 2,405]

8 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

And how did all of our revenues leave us in terms of comparable wages and transfer spend?

Our wages bill was the third highest in the championship that year. Again, consistent with top end performance.

 

 

[Badger 2,405]

12 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

And how did all of our revenues leave us in terms of comparable wages and transfer spend?

Player amortisation (transfer costs) was 7th equal (the Hull figure is wrong and relates to the previous season). Again, given the mess that Sunderland were in a play of position should have been seen as a reasonable expectation. 

The evidence does not support your allegation that we are "clearly punching far above our weight."

[Badger 2,405]

22 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

We accepted a promotion season as a total free hit, spending what was it - £750k? - on transfer and a little on loan fees

No - we spent £18.5 million. It is covered earlier in the thread.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

12 minutes ago, Badger said:

Our wages bill was the third highest in the championship that year. Again, consistent with top end performance.

 

 

I stand corrected, apologies. That is really surprising, I had thought the efforts to cut down on our wage bill around the time of Webber joining the club had knocked us right down toward the bottom of the CL in terms of wages (I would've guessed around 15th / 16th), but clearly not. So perhaps our 2018/19 promotion wasn't quite the shock we all thought it was! 

But then my question would come back to, if our finances were already in tune with a premier league side, why were we so far away from being financially competitive in 19/20? I had figured our decision was more based around what I thought were our extremely limited and non-competitive finances, but seems like it was a decision based on the strength of the squad instead - perhaps we felt like we had enough going with what we had? 

And I would maintain that finishing 17th this year will undoubtedly require us to finish above clubs with a higher transfer and wage budget, i.e. punch above our weight. But clearly we are about where we should be right now. 

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

7 minutes ago, Badger said:

No - we spent £18.5 million. It is covered earlier in the thread.

On transfers?

[king canary 7,605]

9 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

On transfers?

That figure includes loan fees, agent fees, signing on fees and fees involved in giving new contracts to existing players according to the EDP.

[FatCanary 249]

9 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

I stand corrected, apologies. That is really surprising, I had thought the efforts to cut down on our wage bill around the time of Webber joining the club had knocked us right down toward the bottom of the CL in terms of wages (I would've guessed around 15th / 16th), but clearly not. So perhaps our 2018/19 promotion wasn't quite the shock we all thought it was! 

But then my question would come back to, if our finances were already in tune with a premier league side, why were we so far away from being financially competitive in 19/20? I had figured our decision was more based around what I thought were our extremely limited and non-competitive finances, but seems like it was a decision based on the strength of the squad instead - perhaps we felt like we had enough going with what we had? 

And I would maintain that finishing 17th this year will undoubtedly require us to finish above clubs with a higher transfer and wage budget, i.e. punch above our weight. But clearly we are about where we should be right now. 

In my view it's where those wages were allocated. I'd wager the wages of our primary contributors were largely outstripped by 'sins of the past' tied up in big contracts for long injured or underperforming players, but i don't remember exactly who we were still paying for then. It's also not an exact science, Premier League wages only make you Premier League competitive if you use them well.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

1 minute ago, king canary said:

That figure includes loan fees, agent fees, signing on fees and fees involved in giving new contracts to existing players according to the EDP.

I did state in my original post '£750k for transfers and a little on loan fees', i.e. not including contract extensions. But that is surprisingly high even so. Imagine Drmic probably came with a large signing on fee as well as his high wages. 

That is a bloody lot for nothing...

[Midlands Yellow 3,980]

21 minutes ago, Badger said:

No - we spent £18.5 million. It is covered earlier in the thread.

£18.5m really? Does that include wages, agent fees and anything else to make it look like we spent money.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

4 minutes ago, FatCanary said:

In my view it's where those wages were allocated. I'd wager the wages of our primary contributors were largely outstripped by 'sins of the past' tied up in big contracts for long injured or underperforming players, but i don't remember exactly who we were still paying for then. It's also not an exact science, Premier League wages only make you Premier League competitive if you use them well.

I'd wager your wager on wages to be correct.

It was just Naismith, wasn't it 😄 

[dylanisabaddog 4,920]

Sorry to sound a bit pissed off but this is a nonsense thread.  The accounts for the last few years show that we spend all our money on wages and transfers with a relatively small amount on infrastructure. We don't have any money stuffed under the mattress and our directors don't take any money out of the club. Some of you think the club is a disaster but over the last three years I have seen some of the best football I've watched in 50 years at Carrow Road and it's been played by skilled and motivated young players. 

The directors won't borrow money to spend on players because we've proved in the past it may not work. In fact one of the reasons we had so little to spend last time was the catastrophic spending of previous regimes. 

The directors won't sell the club or try to encourage others to buy shares because they would lose the control they currently enjoy. That's possibly selfish but frankly there's nothing that can be done about it. 

We have lost around £35m because of Covid. 

So there we have it in a nutshell. As things stand, this is as good as it gets. 

I think most here would be very happy if a very rich person persuaded Smith and Jones to sell to them and let them try 'a Leicester' but that person probably doesn't exist and even if they did Smith and Jones probably wouldn't sell. 

If that makes you miserable think back to the days of Grant and Roeder or cast your eye down the list of clubs in a worse position than us. 

Edited July 29, 2021 by dylanisabaddog

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

Just now, dylanisabaddog said:

Sorry to sound a bit pissed off but this is a nonsense thread.  The accounts for the last few years show that we spend all our money on wages and transfers with a relatively small amount on infrastructure. We don't have any money stuffed under the mattress and our directors don't take any money out of the club. 

Who is this aimed at?

[Badger 2,405]

11 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Sorry to sound a bit pissed off but this is a nonsense thread.

I agree with most of what you have said and I join you in saying that I would welcome a multi-billionaire who is happy to just give us tens of millions on a repeated basis.

However, what I find a bit annoying is that we have no chance without such  person or that we would definitely be better off with an investor, seeking to profit from us. We have many things going for us and with a bit of luck we can become established(ish) in the EPL. (No club outside the top 8 to 10 is immune to relegation.) It might, hopefully be this year, but so long as we don't pile ourselves up with debt, we will remain competitive in the championship with every chance of future chances and promotions.

A debt swamp is the biggest risk to our short and medium term futures. I just hate all the negativity.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Badger
Added last sentence

[dylanisabaddog 4,920]

2 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Who is this aimed at?

People who seem to think that we - 

Should be doing better than we are

Don't compete to our full capability 

Have a poor transfer record recently and completely ignore a world pandemic 

People who don't understand basic accountancy so decide to make up figures to support their ridiculous arguments. And the list goes on. 

The things that annoy me about football are agent's fees and the big 6 grabbing an ever bigger share of the cake. 

I had a lot of time on my hands during lockdown and looked at lots of forums for other clubs. You would think that the others would be just like ours but they're not. Only Ipswich and Bournemouth fans seem to have a worse understanding of football finance and only Manchester United fans moan more. 

 

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

1 minute ago, dylanisabaddog said:

People who seem to think that we - 

Should be doing better than we are

Don't compete to our full capability 

Have a poor transfer record recently and completely ignore a world pandemic 

People who don't understand basic accountancy so decide to make up figures to support their ridiculous arguments. And the list goes on. 

The things that annoy me about football are agent's fees and the big 6 grabbing an ever bigger share of the cake. 

I had a lot of time on my hands during lockdown and looked at lots of forums for other clubs. You would think that the others would be just like ours but they're not. Only Ipswich and Bournemouth fans seem to have a worse understanding of football finance and only Manchester United fans moan more. 

 

I see. I don't personally agree with any of those statements, and don't think there are many posters who do. Best practice is to ignore anyone sharing views to that kind of extreme. 

Although I did underestimate our finances to say we were 'punching above our weight', but that was a compliment to Webber and Farke not a complaint about our ownership...

[dylanisabaddog 4,920]

3 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

People who seem to think that we - 

Should be doing better than we are

Don't compete to our full capability 

Have a poor transfer record recently and completely ignore a world pandemic 

People who don't understand basic accountancy so decide to make up figures to support their ridiculous arguments. And the list goes on. 

The things that annoy me about football are agent's fees and the big 6 grabbing an ever bigger share of the cake. 

I had a lot of time on my hands during lockdown and looked at lots of forums for other clubs. You would think that the others would be just like ours but they're not. Only Ipswich and Bournemouth fans seem to have a worse understanding of football finance and only Manchester United fans moan more. 

 

One more thing. Over the last 3 years I have read with astonishment consistent comments doubting Emi's ability and slating my view that he is the most gifted player ever to play for Norwich City. Those same people have subsequently moaned about the £33m we got for him in a Covid affected market. FFS make your minds up.