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Hayden

Banking on Getting Lucky

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Lets face it, as a football club BANKING ON GETTING LUCKY is what we are about..........we have a decent set up and can attract decent (ish) players. When we financially commit to something or take decisive action we can attract very good players (Huckerby Ashton and Earnshaw) but this is very rare. The board are happy for us to be a team that can survive in the Championship and if it all goes well and a bit of luck comes along then they will take the play offs and promotions and all the cash that comes with it, but thats not the business plan. The business plan is to be a consolidated championship club. The trouble is that the strategy doesn''t add up as occasionally when we do flash the cash it is not a full blown commitment so you end up with one or two outstanding players in a team of ok players instead of investment throughout the team. So what happens???? yep, those good players leave (Green & Ashton, and maybe Earnshaw?) and the team gets gradually weaker over a  few seasons until our championship status becomes questionable and the fans get p***ed off (this is whats happening now) So then we sack Worthington who has completed his cycle and we are onto Grant, who is expected to ''get lucky'' on minimial investment and then, and only then, will we open the purse strings to see it through before bottling it and turning the corner back onto the downward spiral again. Its the same plan employed by Watford, West Brom, Sheff Utd etc......only teams like Wigan who are loaded and who have invested throughout the team survive with the big boys, we didn''t and we got relegated. There is no point expecting us to bounce back into the Premiership as that isn''t the expected path.....Worthy himself said he was not given any objectives remember......

Bugger   

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I think this is fair and realistic. The only teams who have managed to sustain success in the top flight are those with incredibly rich backers - Wigan, Reading (looking likely), Fulham... Every club has a cycle, as will be proved when Chalton are relegated.

By the same token though, have we fared worse than Leicester, Ipswich, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds? Is the running of the club worse or better than other sides in similar situations? With our attendences so high, surely we should be equally high up the league. But then, attendences were 10,000 lower 6/7 years ago.

Are Wolves a well run club in people''s eyes? They''ve had 2 poor seasons and are now stripped of all the assets they had when they went up, but are now rebuilding. Do we view them as unambitious?

Just curious... [:)]

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Let''s be clear of what objectives or targets the board have set. To my knowledge they have never stated they are happy for us to be a team that can survive in The Championship. What I know them to have said is that they expect us to be challenging for promotion to the Premiership. 

mbncfc''s comparison with Wolves is fair as both clubs had just one season in the top flight and they are now in their first year without parachute payments. If we don''t "get lucky" this season it will be interesting to see if our club is indeed better run than theirs.

Southampton 9 years out of the last 10 in the Premier League, Leeds 8/10, Leicester 7/10, Derby 6/10, Sunderland 6/10, Coventry 5/10, Birmingham 4/10, Sheffield Wednesday 4/10, WBA 3/10, Piswich 2/10 and Crystal Palace 2/10. Add to them Norwich, Wolves, Cardiff, Preston and Stoke City and you get 16 clubs whose target is quite probably to be challenging for promotion to the Premier League. So, to a certain extent clubs do have to get lucky to make it. To suggest differently would be to suggest that it would be possible to buy your way out of this league. If this was the case then all the clubs would do it meaning again only two or three would get lucky but this time the unlucky ones would go into admisistration.

 

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Nutty, when did they actually say that they expect us to be "challenging for promotion to the Premiership".  Not this season, unless Worthy was lying when he said that he had not been set any objectives for this season but had set his own.  And I don''t think he was.

Instead we''ve had Mumbles giving 100,000 examples of relegated clubs that haven''t bounced back, as if that makes the current shambolic mess acceptable.

I don''t mean to have a go at you, but it just illustrates how easy it is for the board to make us think or assume that they''ve said something when they haven''t. 

 

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I feel it''s as much that we budget not to be worse than the others around us too, let''s be honest not many clubs at this level save for exterior contributions of sugar daddies spend alot of money.  This season cardiff spent some cash to add needed quality, birmigham sold a couple but on the most part retained majority of their premier squad, they are hardly running away with the league this season though.  Jump back to our promotion season, any big spenders that season?  We ourselves loaned in some quality to maintain within a budget before getting us fans by way of a share offer to pay for Huckerby transfer.  The often muted "budgeting for mid table finish" phrase by the financial bods at the club is because the difference between 12th & play offs is often no more than 5-6points, we''ve lost more points than that in goals scored in time added on.  I''d say thats "evidence" enough for Doncaster et all that medocirity coupled with patience is all that is needed as eventually your time will come periodically

Should we accept that this is actually the model we follow & unless Delia writes off the loans or is bought out by a rich russian/aran/american who will pump millions into the club for players?

 

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Agreed.

The sad thing is until we get a wealthy backer we will not have the cash to invest. No one will lend cash in a football club to buy players anymore. But they will lend you cash to buy stands, restaurants or anything else that has a guaranteed re sale value.

That also does not mean that quality players can''t be aquired on the cheap.

I think Chopra and Marney both cost under £400,000. Also Reading never spent much on anyone, except I think Lita who is not a major player.

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Mystic

At the tea party / press conference the day after Worthington was sacked. When talking about appointing a new manager and their ambitions Neil Doncaster said: "We want to be challenging for promotion, our supporters want that and it''s what we want"

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/video/06/PressConf.aspx

I never thought you were having a go at me, Wiz calls me gullible too and I don''t take that personally either.

Now having taken the time to find this for you maybe you could reciprocate by pointing me in the direction of where the Board have said they are happy for us to be a team that can survive in the Championship.

 

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OK Nutty.

 

Nigel Worthington said - "There were NO TARGETS"

Joe Ferrari pre season said the board  "Hoped to be challenging."

 

I think the first comment sums it all up really - NO TARGETS.  We are a buisiness with no targets, therefore at the moment we arent failing in their eyes.

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

Mystic

At the tea party / press conference the day after Worthington was sacked. When talking about appointing a new manager and their ambitions Neil Doncaster said: "We want to be challenging for promotion, our supporters want that and it''s what we want"

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/video/06/PressConf.aspx

I never thought you were having a go at me, Wiz calls me gullible too and I don''t take that personally either.

Now having taken the time to find this for you maybe you could reciprocate by pointing me in the direction of where the Board have said they are happy for us to be a team that can survive in the Championship.

[/quote]

Cheers nutty.  Just to complete ND''s sentence and put it in context: "it''s what we want . . . and we hope our new manager will want it too".  I didn''t realise you were talking about AFTER Worthy was sacked.  A bit late in the day imo.  Now let''s hold them to it, and see if they put their money where their mouth is. Otherwise it''s a bit like motherhood and apple pie - does anyone NOT want to be challenging for promotion?  They can start by coughing up for another year on Hucks'' contract.

Of course they''re not going to say they''re happy to survive in the Championship, even if that''s what they think.  They''re not that stupid.  In any case, what they  want most of all is to balance the books.  It''s become an end in itself.  After the season we''ve just had, being one of the few (if any) Championship clubs to make a profit, and donating £600,000 of it to the tax man, may be acceptable to you but it certainly isn''t to me.

 

 

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Mystic, I don''t disagree its what the board want, in fact I am sure they would be absolutely bloody delighted!

Fact is the season we got promoted we were going along nicely and the team were perfomring out of their skin (everything was clicking and although investment was minimal we were right up there........there''s the banking on getting lucky bit coming into play) then Hucks and Crouch came in (on loan) and only when it seemed that promotion was very realistic and  that not investing in making Hucks permanet would have made a huge fan backlash did we go for it. Not complainign about it because obviously we got promoted...hurrahh and all that.

 I am not even that annoyed anymore, I have just become very realistic. Granty will build his own squad and if he builds a quality team on a shoe string (which is what he will have) then brilliant. But we ''don''t deserve to be a Premierhsip Club'', you have to earn it, and some clubs quite simply want it more than us.

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Mystic

You asked me where they had said it and I showed you. ND said it in the presence of DS and MWJ. I remember it and have quoted it on these boards before and it was denied then too. At the time I was surprised it wasn''t reported because to my knowledge it was the first time the Board had said anything like it. Trying to make out I am quoting out of context is unfair. I am not an apologist for this board and neither do I agree with everything they do. However I don''t criticise their every turn either.

No, of course they are not going to say they are happy for us to just be a club that survives in the Championship but there is no evidence to suggest that is the case either.

 It''s a cheap shot to suggest that I am happy with the current situation when I have been very loud recently criticising the Board for not backing Worthy when he wanted to bring in a targetman last summer or when he wanted to sign Dean Ashton in the August transfer window.

CJF - Mystic asked me where the Board said about challenging for promotion and I replied. What Joe Ferrari or Worthy have said is irrelevent to the question I was asked. You are just sniping for the sake of it.

 

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[quote user="Hayden"]

But we ''don''t deserve to be a Premierhsip Club'', you have to earn it, and some clubs quite simply want it more than us.

[/quote]

I think this is a fantastic point, and sums up the current situation to a significant degree.

I''m sure most of the Championship feels that it deserves its place in the promised land. Like any match between two parties the one that wants it most, be it the players, manager, board, will end up there - and only then deservedly so.

Every season is a trial of who wants it most - a mix of quality and desire. A team of all stars will not win this league unless every element of that club desires it - and that stretches further than Peter Grant''s mandate alone...

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[quote user="mystic megson"]

No offence intended Nutty.

 

[/quote]

I didn''t take any offence mystic.

I just watched said tea party (why is it necessary to have coffee when talking to the media?) again to see if I had remembered it correctly. MWJ also said words to the affect that a month previously we had been 2nd in the Championship when they wouldn''t have been having that conversation. What I don''t remember them saying was that we didn''t challenge for promotion at any point during the previous season. To "challenge for promotion" is quite a vague target but surely it must mean being in the top six at some point during the season. The fact that we never were points to the fact the board and Worthy should have parted company in the summer. However he did challenge for promotion in every other full season he managed us in this league which is probably why they gave him one more chance. It''s all water under the bridge now though.

I stand by what I said about 16 other clubs all wanting to be challenging for promotion and I agree to a certain extent that those clubs that want it most will be closest. But it also should be remembered that under this board we did want it most in 2003/4. Or does this work every season except that one?

In my view twice now the board have been found wanting when the manager needed backing in the summer transfer window. They have a better record in the January window bringing in both Ashton and Earnshaw. Lets hope they back the manager this time.

 

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