Looks like there are big problems at Charlton

[PurpleCanary 5,562]

Oops. Try again.---The point about that Preston financial report is simply this. Forget

the detail of one year or another and look at the big picture. Preston

has been held up for months as an example of a club of similar size to

Norwich that has been much better run. Perhaps it has been, perhaps it

hasn''t been.

But what the chairman makes crystal clear is that - better run or not -

the club would have gone under if it hadn''t been bankrolled by a sugar

daddy. Money poured in not once but time and again.

Chairman Derek Shaw admitted the club had been kept afloat by loans

from major shareholders, including multi-millionaire Trevor Hemmings,

for the last year.

"We have once again been heavily reliant on the assistance of our major

shareholder, Guild Ventures, for continuing financial support." Note that "once again".

And the lesson for NCFC fans? That any business plan put forward by a

potential new owner that does not include the safeguard of a

willingness to provide long-term finance is way too risky. In other

words, Smith and Jones are absolutely right to demand such a safeguard.----

[nutty nigel 7,535]

[quote user="yellow hammer"]You make some good points, Nutty, that cr@p managers will waste whatever money you put their way. But do you think the City Board were saying to themselves, we must invest our revenues in property speculation because the manager is cr@p? I really don''t see that as being the case. Who ever the manager was at the time, Worthy being a good case in point, they still came to the conclusion that it was better to divert funds to off-field funds that to back the incumbent manager. Worthy was hung out to dry without the funds to purchase his transfer targets and that led us to Fulham on the last day of the season. Since then it has been a vicious downward spiral - cr@p manager to insufficient on-field investment - to another cr@p manager. Finally, it seems the cycle has been broken with an excellent and ambitious young manager in place. That''s part of the jigsaw in place. Now the Board has to back the ambitions of this young man with sufficient funds to propel us upwards and onwards. If it doesn''t then we will lose the manger and the downward drift will start once more.[/quote]

No, I''m not saying that yellow hammer. But I think we should look at the bigger picture rather than always looking for blame. The great thing about being a fan is every year we can pick up the annual report and, based on large dollops of hindsight, point out what could have been spent where in that particular year and in isolation to anything that happened before or long term business plans that may have been in operation. I remember Mr Carrow and others being in agreement with the boards policies when we were in the Premier League. But these same people now criticise the board for what has happened since as though there is no connection. But of course there is a connection. Promotion to the Premier League brought us a three year deal and what we did in the first of those years obviously had a great bearing on what happened in the next two. The two things that I reckon the board didn''t plan for was the extent of the recession and more importantly the massive inflation of Championship footballers wages.

As for Worthy, in my opinion there were two points where he could or should have been replaced. "Thanks but we need to change it" would have been ok for me after Fulham. That would have made sense because it was at a time where so much player upheaval was always going to happen. Doing that would have been ok but if we''d have gone down the Grant, Roeder, Gunn route then League One would probably have happened 12 months earlier. The other would have been after the parachute payments ended where again big changes in personnel were always going to happen. But getting rid of Worthy when we did made no footballing sense at all and the money wasted by the subsequent managers was criminal. It was only the players these managers inherited from Worthy that kept us in the Championship for the next couple of seasons.

Insufficient on-field investment? Well maybe but every football manager would like more. Worthy told it as it is but nobody listened or cared.

 

“There is a budget there that we have got to work with,” he said. “We know how well the club is run, we have a certain amount of funds to play with, but not sufficient to go and spend big money on players because it is just not there, simple as that.  “It is a case of trying to be as shrewd as we can and trying to get the best value for the pot of money that we have got.”

 

So Worthy knew the score. He wasn''t going to get Hulse or Howard. But Worthy did find a way to be "cleverer than the rest" and he brought in Dion Dublin and still had a side good enough to compete with the best in the Championship. The managers that followed could not be cleverer than the rest. In fact they were dimmer than the rest when it came to being as shrewd as they could and trying to get the best value for the pot of money that they had available. They had sufficient budgets to compete in the Championship but wasted them.

 

[7rew 0]

Straw-man arguments?

Its not a straw man. Deciding that 1 particular comparison can diagnose every flaw with a football club - that''s a Straw based argument. And the phrase for that one is "clutching at"!

But your answers.

Yes it is OK, provided they are honest enough to look at some other clubs as well, and to look at the comparisons for other years of PNE compared to city to see whether or not 2008 is typical or a one off. If you are not honest enough to do this then NO I don''t think it fair.

No - I don''t think that the answers will give us the reason for our relegation or for selling our star players. Especially since I think the reasons for these have much more to do with on the field stuff like:

Poor player contracts with buy out clauses.

Agents seeing the possibility to make more money with premiership moves, so leaking same to other clubs.

Spending the money we did have on the wrong players and/or the wrong positions.

I am sure he believed those statements at the time.

BTW: Nice excluding of the middle that it is possible our off the field activities are at about the right level and shouldn''t be increased or decreased in your setting of the question. I vote for the option you deliberately missed out!

[The Butler 0]

[quote user="nutty nigel"]

[quote user="yellow hammer"]You make some good points, Nutty, that cr@p managers will waste whatever money you put their way. But do you think the City Board were saying to themselves, we must invest our revenues in property speculation because the manager is cr@p? I really don''t see that as being the case. Who ever the manager was at the time, Worthy being a good case in point, they still came to the conclusion that it was better to divert funds to off-field funds that to back the incumbent manager. Worthy was hung out to dry without the funds to purchase his transfer targets and that led us to Fulham on the last day of the season. Since then it has been a vicious downward spiral - cr@p manager to insufficient on-field investment - to another cr@p manager. Finally, it seems the cycle has been broken with an excellent and ambitious young manager in place. That''s part of the jigsaw in place. Now the Board has to back the ambitions of this young man with sufficient funds to propel us upwards and onwards. If it doesn''t then we will lose the manger and the downward drift will start once more.[/quote]

No, I''m not saying that yellow hammer. But I think we should look at the bigger picture rather than always looking for blame. The great thing about being a fan is every year we can pick up the annual report and, based on large dollops of hindsight, point out what could have been spent where in that particular year and in isolation to anything that happened before or long term business plans that may have been in operation. I remember Mr Carrow and others being in agreement with the boards policies when we were in the Premier League. But these same people now criticise the board for what has happened since as though there is no connection. But of course there is a connection. Promotion to the Premier League brought us a three year deal and what we did in the first of those years obviously had a great bearing on what happened in the next two. The two things that I reckon the board didn''t plan for was the extent of the recession and more importantly the massive inflation of Championship footballers wages.

As for Worthy, in my opinion there were two points where he could or should have been replaced. "Thanks but we need to change it" would have been ok for me after Fulham. That would have made sense because it was at a time where so much player upheaval was always going to happen. Doing that would have been ok but if we''d have gone down the Grant, Roeder, Gunn route then League One would probably have happened 12 months earlier. The other would have been after the parachute payments ended where again big changes in personnel were always going to happen. But getting rid of Worthy when we did made no footballing sense at all and the money wasted by the subsequent managers was criminal. It was only the players these managers inherited from Worthy that kept us in the Championship for the next couple of seasons.

Insufficient on-field investment? Well maybe but every football manager would like more. Worthy told it as it is but nobody listened or cared.

 

“There is a budget there that we have got to work with,” he said. “We know how well the club is run, we have a certain amount of funds to play with, but not sufficient to go and spend big money on players because it is just not there, simple as that.  “It is a case of trying to be as shrewd as we can and trying to get the best value for the pot of money that we have got.”

 

So Worthy knew the score. He wasn''t going to get Hulse or Howard. But Worthy did find a way to be "cleverer than the rest" and he brought in Dion Dublin and still had a side good enough to compete with the best in the Championship. The managers that followed could not be cleverer than the rest. In fact they were dimmer than the rest when it came to being as shrewd as they could and trying to get the best value for the pot of money that they had available. They had sufficient budgets to compete in the Championship but wasted them.

 

[/quote]

An excellent well presented post Nutty.

One small point. Was it not you who is always on about "forget what''s gone , it''s now we must look at"

Don''t look at what we were etc etc.

Every year links with the previous, so what got messed in the Walker era, has in fact a bearing on what Worthy did and so on.

Our decline starts way back and BUT for some EXCELLENT management by Worthy we would have sunk a lot sooner.

This has always been the basis of my argument if you continue to sell the family jewels then eventually all you have left is paste!

We may just have hit lucky again with McNally and Lambert. Fingers crossed.

[nutty nigel 7,535]

I don''t ever think we should forget what''s gone Butler. I think what you''re talking about is my view that you can''t compare the present Premier League and Championship with the equivalent leagues in the 80''s and 90''s. To my mind there is no comparison.

It wasn''t me who brought up Worthy before Tilly gets on my case[:D][;)]

 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

7rew "Deciding that 1 particular comparison can diagnose every flaw with a football club" is absolutely a straw man argument because you have just made up something i haven`t said and decided to attribute it to me.  I have come up with one example which paints a very different picture to the one painted by the platitudes i listed in the earlier post.  I have also challenged people to find other clubs with a similarly low affordable budgets as ours was in `08 once non-player wage costs are taken into account.  I have made my point and the onus is now on others to come up with some examples to prove me wrong.

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]I have made my point and the onus is now on others to come up with some examples to prove me wrong.[/quote]Maybe I''m being thick, but are you asking us to find an example of a club "better run" than Preston, or "worse run" than Norwich, on the basis of your very selective criteria ?

[Mr.Carrow 376]

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]I have made my point and the onus is now on others to come up with some examples to prove me wrong.[/quote]

Maybe I''m being thick, but are you asking us to find an example of a club "better run" than Preston, or "worse run" than Norwich, on the basis of your very selective criteria ?
[/quote]

Again blah even the phrase "better run" is not attributable to me.  Read the post- i am talking about affordable player budgets after non-player wage costs are taken into account (NOT including exceptional items- investment/transfer profits).  If the platitudes i listed are correct then ours should be high compared to other clubs.  Looking at Preston very definately supports my argument in that ONE example and i think it almost certain that looking at other clubs will tell the same story.  Non-player wage costs have risen faster than revenue at NCFC squeezing the player budget, rather than adding to it- that is fact and i think it is reasonable to ask why, don`t you?

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]Non-player wage costs have risen faster than revenue at NCFC squeezing

the player budget, rather than adding to it- that is fact and i think

it is reasonable to ask why, don`t you?[/quote]If it can be proven as fact, then yes, I think it is reasonable to ask why.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]Non-player wage costs have risen faster than revenue at NCFC squeezing the player budget, rather than adding to it- that is fact and i think it is reasonable to ask why, don`t you?[/quote]

If it can be proven as fact, then yes, I think it is reasonable to ask why.
[/quote]

Unless P.9 of the 2006 annual report is using dodgy figures then it is indeed fact as it is all there in black and white.  You can get the subsequent figures by deducting the stated player wage figure from overall expenditure.  It`s not that difficult of people can be bothered.  It seems it`s much easier to stick with the good old "It`s Mr Carrow therefore he cannot be right and i must disagree with everything he says" kind of stupidity though.

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]It seems it`s much easier to stick with the good old "It`s Mr Carrow therefore he cannot be right and i must disagree with everything he says" kind of stupidity though[/quote]

I don''t think it''s that, I think it''s that no 2 accountants will come up with the same accounts for the same business at any given time.  Not to mention that "the devil is in the cash-flow", as a certain mr T might remind us.  Does this one set of figures paint a full picture of the business at the stages you refer to ?

[7rew 0]

[quote user="MrCarrow"]  I have made my point and the onus is now on others to come up with some examples to prove me wrong.[/quote]No one can do that.  Examples don''t prove anything, or haven''t you been listening all these years?I mean here are some example comparisons:Manchester United - have more debt than us.Manchester City - rely much more on money from their owners than us.Wigan - sell their key players more often than we do.Arsenal - make more profit from selling players than we do.Chelsea - spend more on off the field activities than we do.See they don''t mean shit do they.

As to your point:You do claim that "Deciding that 1 particular comparison can diagnose every flaw with a football club", if not in those words.  Your first two questions, which you clearly framed to get the answer yes:[quote]Is it ok as City fans to ask why this is, and why our non-football

costs were so much higher than theirs?  (And if not, why not?)

Do you think that the answer to that question may give us the reason

why we have consistantly had to sell our star players since relegation

leading to a devalued, demoralised team getting relegated?[/quote]

So asking questions about 1 figure ("non-football

costs") in comparison with 1 other club ("theirs") will tell us why we got to our current position* ("give us the reason why we have consistantly had to sell our star players since relegation

leading to a devalued, demoralised team getting relegated?" )

*or "diagnose every flaw with a football club" in more poetical language.

[blahblahblah 2]

You''re better at this than I am 7rew [:)]

[nutty nigel 7,535]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]Non-player wage costs have risen faster than revenue at NCFC squeezing the player budget, rather than adding to it- that is fact and i think it is reasonable to ask why, don`t you?[/quote]

If it can be proven as fact, then yes, I think it is reasonable to ask why.
[/quote]

Unless P.9 of the 2006 annual report is using dodgy figures then it is indeed fact as it is all there in black and white.  You can get the subsequent figures by deducting the stated player wage figure from overall expenditure.  It`s not that difficult of people can be bothered.  It seems it`s much easier to stick with the good old "It`s Mr Carrow therefore he cannot be right and i must disagree with everything he says" kind of stupidity though.

[/quote]

What''s 2006 got to do with 2008? Yet you don''t want to consider 2009? Because it''s irrelevant??

Im confused now Mr Carrow[*-)]

 

 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

Nutty, note the "Non-player wage costs have risen faster than revenue at NCFC" ie. year-on-year.  Where did i say i didn`t want to consider 2009?  The last time i looked we hadn`t had the accounts.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]You''re better at this than I am 7rew [:)][/quote]

Really?  Just looks like making stuff up because he can`t fault my argument to me.  Absolutely pointless wasting my time unless there is some substance to the argument.

[7rew 0]

Well you ignored my actual argument as to why examples don''t show anything and resorted to insults about strawman arguments.

So I give you examples to demonstrate my argument and also show you where I get my understanding of your points from.

Now I''m making stuff up and can''t fault your argument! I give up!

Clearly its your bat and your ball so why don''t you just take them home with you.

[nutty nigel 7,535]

Oh it''s just Preston''s 2009 you didn''t want to consider! I get it now[:P]

So how about Preston''s 2006[:^)]

 

[7rew 0]

Before anybody starts - I do realise the irony of using examples to show the validity of the contention that examples don''t prove anything ... an argument was given back on page 10 though.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

[quote user="7rew"]Well you ignored my actual argument as to why examples don''t show anything and resorted to insults about strawman arguments. So I give you examples to demonstrate my argument and also show you where I get my understanding of your points from. Now I''m making stuff up and can''t fault your argument! I give up! Clearly its your bat and your ball so why don''t you just take them home with you.[/quote]

Oh FFS, i accused you of making a straw-man argument because that is exactly what you did- your statement was totally different in every way from the one i made- and it`s hardly an insult.  Then you start telling me that saying "Man.U have got a bigger debt than us" is the same as an in-depth comparison between two fairly similar Championship clubs financial figures to get an idea of how both clubs are run- it isn`t, not by a mile.  Your stance seems to be that any comparison with another club is invalid because it doesn`t include every other club- utter garbage and basically just an excuse for you to dismiss any comparison you don`t like, whilst i`m sure you`d be quite happy to accept a comparison which suited your argument (if you could actually find one....).

[Mr.Carrow 376]

[quote user="nutty nigel"]

Oh it''s just Preston''s 2009 you didn''t want to consider! I get it now[:P]

So how about Preston''s 2006[:^)]

 

[/quote]

Where exactly did i say that nutty?  Or are you making things up again?

[Mr.Carrow 376]

Mind you 7rew, i`m looking forward to T coming back at me with proof from various financial reports that every other Championship club bar Preston had a lower affordable playing budget and higher non-football costs than us in `08, only to retort "Those examples mean nothing- 7rew said so".  That`ll learn him [:D]

[7rew 0]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]Mind you 7rew, i`m looking forward to T coming back at me with proof from various financial reports that every other Championship club bar Preston had a lower affordable playing budget and higher non-football costs than us in `08, only to retort "Those examples mean nothing- 7rew said so".  That`ll learn him [:D][/quote]Feel free - although its not me that says so, it''s the nature of statistics, where sample size is everything.  A sample of size 22 would prossibly be big enough to get some credibility.I doubt he''ll be able to though.  Southampton would be my bet for a club that won''t meeet those criteria [that is Southampton FC not Southampton Leisure Holdings plc.]

[nutty nigel 7,535]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"][quote user="nutty nigel"]

Oh it''s just Preston''s 2009 you didn''t want to consider! I get it now[:P]

So how about Preston''s 2006[:^)]

 

[/quote]

Where exactly did i say that nutty?  Or are you making things up again?

[/quote]

Earlier on this thread Mr Carrow. You see you keep skitting about taking a bit from this report and some thing else from another. P.9 in 2006 to back up a claim you make in 2008 agaisnt Preston''s 2008 although according to you Preston''s 2009 is irrelevant. Surely Preston''s 2009 is relevant if you are going to laud their 2008. Their 2009 is the consequence of their 2008. In truth 2008 was probably the only season you could use Preston as an example. It''ll be someone else whenour accounts are finally published[;)]

 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

If i could use an analogy 7rew, what you appear to be saying is that if i am looking for a certain type of new car and after some research find the going rate is above £13k, that if i then meet someone who bought that car for £10k i should dismiss that example as "meaningless" because it is an isolated example not backed up by dozens of others?  So i have to tell the chap that statistically his £10k car doesn`t exist?!  If i`ve got you right, it`s certainly an "interesting" theory.....

[Mr.Carrow 376]

Sorry nutty but you are totally misunderstanding my posts. 

[Mello Yello 2,293]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]Sorry nutty but you are totally misunderstanding my posts. [/quote]

Posts hold fences up....

[7rew 0]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]If i could use an analogy 7rew, what you appear to be saying is that if i am looking for a certain type of new car and after some research find the going rate is above £13k, that if i then meet someone who bought that car for £10k i should dismiss that example as "meaningless" because it is an isolated example not backed up by dozens of others?  So i have to tell the chap that statistically his £10k car doesn`t exist?!  If i`ve got you right, it`s certainly an "interesting" theory.....[/quote]If I could correct your analogy:Its not meaningless.  Does it mean you should expect to be able to get the car £10k?  Yes.However; The question does not match up to the discussion we have been having, in that the question is a discrete one: "Is it possible to buy the car for less than 13k?"Your assertion, which I believe (and correct me if i''m wrong) to be that we are spending too much on off the field stuff and that this is the cause or our relegation and need to sell players etc.- is different in nature. It is continuous and causal rather than discrete and factual.  That means that it does NOT have a Yes or No answer that can be solved by finding an example where less was spent off the field and relegation didn''t happen.  The reason for this is that there are other possible causes of the observed outcome - poor spending on players and the like, many others have been suggested over various threads.  Alternatively there may be an example where high off the field spending hasn''t resulted in poor on field results.Thus it needs to be addressed over a larger sample size, simply because any single example can be affected by singular events (a particularly good or bad manager for example) where as a large sample isn''t affected as much.The assertion in question here is more akin to whether smoking causes lung cancer.  It does and has been proved to, but that doesn''t mean no smoker will live to 95 or that no non-smoker will get lung cancer at 25.  It also doesn''t become more or less true based on the outcome for any individual smoker.

[7rew 0]

How you could convince me of your point?

Easy- Quit with it using Preston alone

Choose a sample of 11 clubs and 1 year.  Use some criteria to choose

these clubs - Crowd Size, League Position, History, Availability of

Data - just nothing to do with their finances to avoid a biased sample.

Work out their affordable player budgets and turnover (or some other

statistic of your choice that you feel demonstrates your assertion).

Then compare their statistic to their league position and to our

figures for the same thing (and don''t use Neil Doncaster''s figures, no

one trusts him!).

If there is an obvious trend that links some trend in the statistic and

low league position AND we are in the bottom 25% (the bottom 4) for the statistic then

you will have convinced me.

If you do this, and meet the criteria at the bottom, I will believe you and support you ardently.

[YankeeCanary 0]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]Sorry nutty but you are totally misunderstanding my posts. [/quote]

Mr. Carrow, I don''t think anyone misunderstands your posts. You are a repetitive, single-minded, self-branded cherry picker of the highest order.