Is this the best board we've had...ever?

[vos 155]

I agree Til. No Board has/or will surpass that record. Not sure who the Chairman was who achieved this on very limited financial resources and largely relied on his business skills and dealings in the transfer market. Begins with a err err C. Who I remember the great Robert Chase.

[Highland Canary 76]

Really were great times before the disparity brought about by successive broadcast deals made it much more difficult to compete with the ''biggest'' clubs.

[drurys testamonials V 15 0]

[quote user="ron obvious"]dtV15, both those accounts are biased, therefore worthless.[/quote]

 

I agree but they show where the rumour came from which I believe was the question. Other posters have also pointed out the Swap Shop clip as well which is mentioned in the EDP article I''ve linked.

[drurys testamonials V 15 0]

[quote user="nutty nigel"]

[quote user="ron obvious"]dtV15, both those accounts are biased, therefore worthless.[/quote]

 

Mark my words, anything from a binner site is worthless. But Delia''s own account will be the truth.

 

Trawling binner sites? [;)]

 

[/quote]

 

Last time I looked the EDP wasn''t a binner site. It also quotes Delia''s explanantion about the Swap Shop episode which is a plausable basis for the rumours and the question asked for a source for these rumours. Bl00dy hell on here you get asked for a source. Damned if you don''t produce 1 and damned if you do.

[nutty nigel 7,527]

[quote user="drurys testamonials V 15"][quote user="nutty nigel"]

[quote user="ron obvious"]dtV15, both those accounts are biased, therefore worthless.[/quote]

 

Mark my words, anything from a binner site is worthless. But Delia''s own account will be the truth.

 

Trawling binner sites? [;)]

 

[/quote]

 

Last time I looked the EDP wasn''t a binner site. It also quotes Delia''s explanantion about the Swap Shop episode which is a plausable basis for the rumours and the question asked for a source for these rumours. Bl00dy hell on here you get asked for a source. Damned if you don''t produce 1 and damned if you do.

[/quote]

 

Well there''s no need to swear! It shows a marked lack of class[;)]

 

Did you notice that there was an Eddie in the EDP article[:^)]

 

Just to muddy the waters the EDP editor has more than a hint of bin....

 

 

[Rock The Boat 1,329]

A bit too soon to make comparisons between this board and the Robert Chase board since the best is yonsidered et to come!But the signing of RVW suggests McNally is a sharp poker player.Looked at in the context of our January transfer activity it is clear the Board considered we had enough in the locker to get us over the threshold without having to make any panic purchases. Instead, they shook the tree to see if any ripe fruit might drop off and that resulted in RVW arriving in the summer at  a price far lower than if we''d done business in the winter. Very shrewd business and very coolly done when under pressure from the fans to make a key signing or two. In fact, I suggest we nickname McNally as ''cool-hand Dave'' for the way he does business.And maybe in two or three years from now we can come back and address the question about which is the best board ever. Personally, I believe that if McNally and Bowkett stick around, we will surpass the achievements of the Arthur South/Robert Chase eras.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Rock The Boat"]A bit too soon to make comparisons between this board and the Robert Chase board since the best is yonsidered et to come!
But the signing of RVW suggests McNally is a sharp poker player.

Looked at in the context of our January transfer activity it is clear the Board considered we had enough in the locker to get us over the threshold without having to make any panic purchases. Instead, they shook the tree to see if any ripe fruit might drop off and that resulted in RVW arriving in the summer at  a price far lower than if we''d done business in the winter. Very shrewd business and very coolly done when under pressure from the fans to make a key signing or two. In fact, I suggest we nickname McNally as ''cool-hand Dave'' for the way he does business.

And maybe in two or three years from now we can come back and address the question about which is the best board ever. Personally, I believe that if McNally and Bowkett stick around, we will surpass the achievements of the Arthur South/Robert Chase eras.
[/quote]

 

It is just astonishing. The  board makes available several million pounds to McNally to avoid the threat of relegation. He totally screws up the transfer window tactics and negotiations so we end up spending virtually none of the money. And he then gets praised for being some poker genius. You really could not make it up.

[Zak Van Burger 0]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]

The  board makes available several million pounds to McNally to avoid the threat of relegation. He totally screws up the transfer window tactics and negotiations so we end up spending virtually none of the money.

[/quote]Do you have a source for this allegation?

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Zak Burger"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]

The  board makes available several million pounds to McNally to avoid the threat of relegation. He totally screws up the transfer window tactics and negotiations so we end up spending virtually none of the money.

[/quote]

Do you have a source for this allegation?

[/quote]

 

Zak, there was an element of provocation there, but only an element. It is mainly in the public domain, with a few intelligent (?) assumptions.

1) Bowkett and McNally spent the autumn saying they would do everything to try to ensure we stayed up this season. That has to translate as making as much money as possible available. And bear in mind, to back this up, that the directors warned in the accounts that we would be likely to run out of money for a while this summer. Why? Almost certainly because the board had earmarked a considerable amount to be spent in January.

2) How much? Almost certainly several million. We made multiple - and presumably ascending - bids for Hooper, including one on transfer deadline day. Since the quoted asking price was £8m it is fair to assume we ended up getting quite close to that. In addition there were authoritative reports that we bid £2m for Curtis Davies when the asking price was quoted at £3m. So a guesstimate would be at least £7m, and possibly as much as £10m.

3) No board of directors gives a manager way more than he asks for. So it is also fair to assume that Hughton''s ideal shopping list came to several million. Not necessarily that he expected to get everyone on his list, of course. But given the obvious gaps in the squad, at centre-back, in central midfield, and up front, that he hoped to fill some of them, and quite expensively. Possibly just one expensive capture, in Hooper.

4) Yet all the spent was however much we gave Leeds for Becchio in the Morison swap. Various figures reported, from £200,00 to £1m. Let''s call it £500,000. As to Hooper it is a fact that we made multiple bids. Either four or five, depending on reports. And that we made one on January 31. Did we treat Celtic like idiots, making absurdly low bids and so p*ssing them off? I don''t know, although we history here, in the Colchester compensation case, and that ended very badly, and hangs over us still. But we were still bidding on January 31 for the player who was plainly our main target. That in itself is not unusual, but if you end up not sealing the deal then it allows very little time for anything else. And we did no business thereafter. To be clear, I am not saying we should have paid over the odds for Hooper, whom I have never seen play. And as for van Wolfswinket that was a non-starter as soon as Sporting quoted €20m or whatever it was. That was plainly a January price that would be reduced this summer. I don''t think even the dumbest football CEO would have fallen for that. To praise McNally as a genius poker player on that basis is nonsense. At a tangent I wonder if our "interest" in RVW was purely aimed at putting pressure on Celtic.

It is fair to describe all that as McNally screwing up the transfer window? An element, as admitted, of provocation. But I would stand by the idea that it was not well handled. It is a fact that several million pounds were made available and we spent virtually none of that. If we had realised earlier on that Hooper was always going to be out of our price range we could have switched our attention elsewhere, and not necessarily for a striker. It flies in the face of logic that we never really intended to spend any of those several million. Becuase it now looks as if we are going to stay up the lack of spending is being heralded as wise and far-sighted. But at the time we were in our awful run, and that carried on until the referee decided to give us 18 extra seconds against Everton.

[Bill 1,788]

"The board makes available several million pounds to McNally to avoid the threat of relegation. He totally screws up the transfer window tactics and negotiations so we end up spending virtually none of the money. And he then gets praised for being some poker genius. You really could not make it up."

 

though you have

 

or as you would try to weasel out of it with -

 

An element, as admitted, of provocation.

 

 

 

 

[Bws Cat 0]

All the numbers are all very good purple, but the league table and players say otherwise.

"Look at me! I''m the only one who doesn''t like McNally!"

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,748]

Tin hat on here but when Robert Chase resigned in 1996 his parting shot was the sentence...........

"If in the next 10 years this club finishes 3rd,4th and 5th in the top division, gets to 2 FA Cup semi finals and plays in Europe...then come back to me"

and to be fair to him we were nowhere close.

Whilst those acheivements of course weren''t solely down to him he must at the same time be attributed to having some hand in the most succesful decade in our history whilst he was Chairman..........and before anyone asks ,I was no fan of his, I did my time during the "Chase out" protests and was trampled on by police horses and chased around the river end car park by police dogs. History however should still recognise a good period for the club whilst here was here.

[ron obvious 1,502]

PC wrote:

".....until the referee decided to give us 18 extra seconds against Everton."

There was a MINIMUM of 3 minutes added time. I would suggest this means somewhere between 3 & 4 minutes - otherwise there would be a minimum of 4 minutes (& less than 5).

Why pick out that particular decision anyway? Looks like there''s a bit of a WUM thing going on with Purple today. Probably the weather.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="ron obvious"]PC wrote: ".....until the referee decided to give us 18 extra seconds against Everton." There was a MINIMUM of 3 minutes added time. I would suggest this means somewhere between 3 & 4 minutes - otherwise there would be a minimum of 4 minutes (& less than 5). Why pick out that particular decision anyway? Looks like there''s a bit of a WUM thing going on with Purple today. Probably the weather.[/quote]

 

I had to Google WUM!

No, ron, not at all. Well, a teeny bit of provocation, as I said. But only a teeny bit. And the weather is fine here on this tax-exile island...

[Zak Van Burger 0]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]

 

Zak, there was an element of provocation there, but only an element. It is mainly in the public domain, with a few intelligent (?) assumptions.1) Bowkett and McNally spent the autumn saying they would do everything to try to ensure we stayed up this season. That has to translate as making as much money as possible available. And bear in mind, to back this up, that the directors warned in the accounts that we would be likely to run out of money for a while this summer. Why? Almost certainly because the board had earmarked a considerable amount to be spent in January.2) How much? Almost certainly several million. We made multiple - and presumably ascending - bids for Hooper, including one on transfer deadline day. Since the quoted asking price was £8m it is fair to assume we ended up getting quite close to that. In addition there were authoritative reports that we bid £2m for Curtis Davies when the asking price was quoted at £3m. So a guesstimate would be at least £7m, and possibly as much as £10m.3) No board of directors gives a manager way more than he asks for. So it is also fair to assume that Hughton''s ideal shopping list came to several million. Not necessarily that he expected to get everyone on his list, of course. But given the obvious gaps in the squad, at centre-back, in central midfield, and up front, that he hoped to fill some of them, and quite expensively. Possibly just one expensive capture, in Hooper.4) Yet all the spent was however much we gave Leeds for Becchio in the Morison swap. Various figures reported, from £200,00 to £1m. Let''s call it £500,000. As to Hooper it is a fact that we made multiple bids. Either four or five, depending on reports. And that we made one on January 31. Did we treat Celtic like idiots, making absurdly low bids and so p*ssing them off? I don''t know, although we history here, in the Colchester compensation case, and that ended very badly, and hangs over us still. But we were still bidding on January 31 for the player who was plainly our main target. That in itself is not unusual, but if you end up not sealing the deal then it allows very little time for anything else. And we did no business thereafter. To be clear, I am not saying we should have paid over the odds for Hooper, whom I have never seen play. And as for van Wolfswinket that was a non-starter as soon as Sporting quoted €20m or whatever it was. That was plainly a January price that would be reduced this summer. I don''t think even the dumbest football CEO would have fallen for that. To praise McNally as a genius poker player on that basis is nonsense. At a tangent I wonder if our "interest" in RVW was purely aimed at putting pressure on Celtic.It is fair to describe all that as McNally screwing up the transfer window? An element, as admitted, of provocation. But I would stand by the idea that it was not well handled. It is a fact that several million pounds were made available and we spent virtually none of that. If we had realised earlier on that Hooper was always going to be out of our price range we could have switched our attention elsewhere, and not necessarily for a striker. It flies in the face of logic that we never really intended to spend any of those several million. Becuase it now looks as if we are going to stay up the lack of spending is being heralded as wise and far-sighted. But at the time we were in our awful run, and that carried on until the referee decided to give us 18 extra seconds against Everton.

[/quote]Is it not just simply possible that the club had put a value, our own valuation on each of our targets and refused to be held to ransom?

[Rock The Boat 1,329]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]

[quote user="ron obvious"]PC wrote: ".....until the referee decided to give us 18 extra seconds against Everton." There was a MINIMUM of 3 minutes added time. I would suggest this means somewhere between 3 & 4 minutes - otherwise there would be a minimum of 4 minutes (& less than 5). Why pick out that particular decision anyway? Looks like there''s a bit of a WUM thing going on with Purple today. Probably the weather.[/quote]

 

I had to Google WUM!No, ron, not at all. Well, a teeny bit of provocation, as I said. But only a teeny bit. And the weather is fine here on this tax-exile island...

[/quote]I  know Purple, I got under your skin because you called wrong on the January transfer saga and you haven''t got over it yet. So McNally screwed up in January, did he? I think not. I believe he was not prepared to panic-buy and pay over the odds. For RVW there were figures of over 18 million floating around on this message board. Now I have no idea whether those figures were accurate or not, just as you have no idea of how much we bid for Hooper, but I''m pretty sure we would not have smashed our record signing fee to such an extent when it has been clear for most of the season that we have little risk of being relegated.So explain why McNally would want to pay over the odds in January for a player that he can sign up in March for a great deal less?I said at the time we wouldn''t sign Hooper in January. However, we may go back in for him because we''ll have more leverage now that Celtic are out of CL and the market is usually awash with players at seasons end. Who knows, maybe a deal is but already sealed, with one of our current strikers heading north? In January I was told, well wait until the end of the month because that''s when all the deals are done. As the signing of RVW in March shows, that''s not true either. Some come on PC, man up and admit you''re wrong. McNally hasn''t screwed up at all, in fact he plays his cards so well, you don''t even see his moves. That''s the sign of a real poker player.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Zak Burger"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]

 

Zak, there was an element of provocation there, but only an element. It is mainly in the public domain, with a few intelligent (?) assumptions.

1) Bowkett and McNally spent the autumn saying they would do everything to try to ensure we stayed up this season. That has to translate as making as much money as possible available. And bear in mind, to back this up, that the directors warned in the accounts that we would be likely to run out of money for a while this summer. Why? Almost certainly because the board had earmarked a considerable amount to be spent in January.

2) How much? Almost certainly several million. We made multiple - and presumably ascending - bids for Hooper, including one on transfer deadline day. Since the quoted asking price was £8m it is fair to assume we ended up getting quite close to that. In addition there were authoritative reports that we bid £2m for Curtis Davies when the asking price was quoted at £3m. So a guesstimate would be at least £7m, and possibly as much as £10m.

3) No board of directors gives a manager way more than he asks for. So it is also fair to assume that Hughton''s ideal shopping list came to several million. Not necessarily that he expected to get everyone on his list, of course. But given the obvious gaps in the squad, at centre-back, in central midfield, and up front, that he hoped to fill some of them, and quite expensively. Possibly just one expensive capture, in Hooper.

4) Yet all the spent was however much we gave Leeds for Becchio in the Morison swap. Various figures reported, from £200,00 to £1m. Let''s call it £500,000. As to Hooper it is a fact that we made multiple bids. Either four or five, depending on reports. And that we made one on January 31. Did we treat Celtic like idiots, making absurdly low bids and so p*ssing them off? I don''t know, although we history here, in the Colchester compensation case, and that ended very badly, and hangs over us still. But we were still bidding on January 31 for the player who was plainly our main target. That in itself is not unusual, but if you end up not sealing the deal then it allows very little time for anything else. And we did no business thereafter. To be clear, I am not saying we should have paid over the odds for Hooper, whom I have never seen play. And as for van Wolfswinket that was a non-starter as soon as Sporting quoted €20m or whatever it was. That was plainly a January price that would be reduced this summer. I don''t think even the dumbest football CEO would have fallen for that. To praise McNally as a genius poker player on that basis is nonsense. At a tangent I wonder if our "interest" in RVW was purely aimed at putting pressure on Celtic.

It is fair to describe all that as McNally screwing up the transfer window? An element, as admitted, of provocation. But I would stand by the idea that it was not well handled. It is a fact that several million pounds were made available and we spent virtually none of that. If we had realised earlier on that Hooper was always going to be out of our price range we could have switched our attention elsewhere, and not necessarily for a striker. It flies in the face of logic that we never really intended to spend any of those several million. Becuase it now looks as if we are going to stay up the lack of spending is being heralded as wise and far-sighted. But at the time we were in our awful run, and that carried on until the referee decided to give us 18 extra seconds against Everton.

[/quote]

Is it not just simply possible that the club had put a value, our own valuation on each of our targets and refused to be held to ransom?


[/quote]

 

Zak, it is certainly possible that happened with Hooper and Curtis Davies, although in the latter case it looks as if we offered £2m and Birmingham wanted £3m. So not that far apart, especially given that we ended up spending nothing. It is not as if coughing up an extra - say - £500,000 for Davies on January 31 (to provide back-up for Bassong and Turner) would have stopped us buying anyone else, because we didn''t buy anyone else!

But what is undeniable is that we did provide several millions to Hughton - presumably based on his assessment of what strengthening was needed - and spent virtually none of it. That cannot have been what was planned. And we do have a history of repeated low bidding that annoys the other side.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Rock The Boat"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]

[quote user="ron obvious"]PC wrote: ".....until the referee decided to give us 18 extra seconds against Everton." There was a MINIMUM of 3 minutes added time. I would suggest this means somewhere between 3 & 4 minutes - otherwise there would be a minimum of 4 minutes (& less than 5). Why pick out that particular decision anyway? Looks like there''s a bit of a WUM thing going on with Purple today. Probably the weather.[/quote]

 

I had to Google WUM!

No, ron, not at all. Well, a teeny bit of provocation, as I said. But only a teeny bit. And the weather is fine here on this tax-exile island...

[/quote]

I  know Purple, I got under your skin because you called wrong on the January transfer saga and you haven''t got over it yet. So McNally screwed up in January, did he? I think not. I believe he was not prepared to panic-buy and pay over the odds. For RVW there were figures of over 18 million floating around on this message board. Now I have no idea whether those figures were accurate or not, just as you have no idea of how much we bid for Hooper, but I''m pretty sure we would not have smashed our record signing fee to such an extent when it has been clear for most of the season that we have little risk of being relegated.

So explain why McNally would want to pay over the odds in January for a player that he can sign up in March for a great deal less?

I said at the time we wouldn''t sign Hooper in January. However, we may go back in for him because we''ll have more leverage now that Celtic are out of CL and the market is usually awash with players at seasons end. Who knows, maybe a deal is but already sealed, with one of our current strikers heading north? In January I was told, well wait until the end of the month because that''s when all the deals are done. As the signing of RVW in March shows, that''s not true either. Some come on PC, man up and admit you''re wrong. McNally hasn''t screwed up at all, in fact he plays his cards so well, you don''t even see his moves. That''s the sign of a real poker player.
[/quote]

 

Rock The Boat, if you are going to reply you need to address the points made in my long post, which explains how the transfer window didn''t go as the club planned, with the intended strengthening - aimed at improving our chances of staying up - not happening. If the board wasn''t worried about relegation how come so much money was made available? How come we were prepared to break our transfer record for Hooper?

The post also deals deals with my views on Hooper and RVW. I have never suggested we should have paid over the odds for either of them. Indeed I stress that there were other areas of the squad where money could be spent. Areas where we have been very thinly stretched.

But I will make one point, which is that we obviously wanted to sign a striker in January to help us through the rest of the season. Would you care to explain how the RVW deal does that? I was under the impression he was still going to be playing for Sporting until the end of the season?

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

[quote user="Rock The Boat"]

I  know Purple, I got under your skin because you called wrong on the January transfer saga and you haven''t got over it yet. So McNally screwed up in January, did he? I think not. I believe he was not prepared to panic-buy and pay over the odds. For RVW there were figures of over 18 million floating around on this message board. Now I have no idea whether those figures were accurate or not,

just as you have no idea of how much we bid for Hooper, but I''m pretty sure we would not have smashed our record signing fee to such an extent when it has been clear for most of the season that we have little risk of being relegated.

[/quote]

 

 

Actually I DO know how much we bid for Hooper, and for RVW. We bid somewhere between £6m and £7m. Probably the higher figure. Evidence for this?

McNally on February 1: "Our offers for players would have broken club transfer record x2 if accepted."

Offers plural for players plural. And since our record fee is generally thought to be the £3m-£3.5m we paid for Earnshaw (or possibly even what we paid for Bassong) that means we bid double that for Hooper AND for RVW. I am assuming it was those two players, and that it WAS only two players. It could have been three or four. But let''s just settle for two. And of course it doesn;''t matter which two - it is the offers that matter.

What the above shows is that whatever you may now say about the unlikelihood of relegation, back in the winter Hughton and the directors took the threat very seriously. And that gives the lie to your whole argument. It doesn''t matter what you now claim, with the season close to the end, was always obvious. What matters was what those people at Carrow Road who have the responsibility thought at the time. It does''t matter if you or I get it wrong. It matters very much if they do.

Which is why you being "pretty sure" is you being totally wrong. We were so worried about relegation that we were prepared to obliterate our transfer record. Whether if one offer had been accepted we would have carried on with the other - ie we were prepared to shell out £14m - is a moot point. Frankly I doubt it. It was probably one or the other. But that we wanted to do it for just one destroys your argument and validates what I have said.

 

[Highland Canary 76]

I''m minded to agree with one of Purple''s central points - the January window did not go as planned in that we didn''t significantly increase our striking options. The implication of that failure is/was an increased risk of relegation than might otherwise have been the case.