Reality Check

Discussion in 'Bulletin Board' started by Red Rain, Mar 19, 2017.

  1. gooderzone

    gooderzone Active Member

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    I read that entire post in Jim Bowen's voice in my head. Was I supposed to? :D
     
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  2. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    You are right about my pessimistic views for this season. I was wrong. We have achieved far more than I thought possible. Nevertheless, the fact that I was wrong once does not mean that I am wrong every time. You have side stepped my question and an answer is important if I am to be judged on the assertion that we would spend every penny of the £100m. Which of the players that we had in January do you believe could hold their own in the Premier League.
     
  3. Dja

    Django Well-Known Member

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    It's impossible to predict.

    There's lots of players at clubs like West Brom, Burnley, Palace, Watford, Bournemouth who are holding their own at that level & virtually no one would've said they could've a few years back.

    It's not ridiculous to suggest an Angus MacDonald or Marc Roberts could continue to get better & do what Delaney, Cook or Mee have done.

    Yiadom's jumped up two levels & I've only seen him play poorly on one occasion at home to Fulham. Who's to say he couldn't go up another level?

    The main thing to remember about our team was that no one in it apart from Hammill had reached their peak.

    And it doesn't really matter which of our current team would be good enough right now for the premiership as we'd have a fortune to improve the team & wouldn't need to spend it all
     
  4. Jimmy viz

    Jimmy viz Well-Known Member

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    I'd say Hourihane and Bree are both capable of playing in the premiership. Villa have caught us since they signed them. Winnall will score goals (in streaks) at most levels.
     
  5. Con

    Conan Troutman Well-Known Member

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    Gi'oer. You've spoken at (extreme) length about how the club conducts its business. If we were to get to the promised land, do you honestly think we would a) buy a whole new first eleven, and b) spend £100m doing so? More chance of Adam Armstrong bagging 20 goals this season.
     
  6. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    So, in order to play in the Premier League, I reckon we need a squad of 23. You say that 3 of our squad are good enough. That leaves us needing 20 players and at least 3 of those will be forwards. They will cost at least £10m apiece and will cost us £1m more per year in wages. There you go. I just spent £33m on 3 players which leaves just £67m from our budget to cover the other 17 plus their wages plus the wage increases of the three that you retained.

    You will of course reply that the club would never spend that sort of money. Do you think that those on here who are moaning about missing out on a promotion that was beyond our reach anyway would let the club get away with that.

    Just in passing, did you see that Lukaku had turned down Everton's offer of £7m per year wages because he wants to keep his options open. #Just saying
     
  7. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    See my reply to Django.

    Winnall.... honestly.
     
  8. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    A pedants note - Swansea were not owned by them as they rose up the leagues, it is a new thing. Fair points on the rest but I think that what it says is that there is potentially a much richer person out there.
     
  9. dreamboy3000

    dreamboy3000 Well-Known Member

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    What a depressing thread. Red Rain I have enjoyed reading your thoughts, but can't agree with them. You come across as a businessman not a fan and like you're happy to plod along instead of pushing for better. Getting to the premiership didn't put us in admin. That happened years later when we budgeted for money we expected to receive from a brand new venture before we had been given the money. Those we sold didn't have to be sold. They would have had to carry on playing for us as they would have had no choice. Chances are only Davies and Bradshaw will be still here next season. It's a massive rebuild job that's got to be done off the back of abysmal league form with defenders that struggle to keep clean sheets and attacking players who don't know where the net is.

    Going to be fun in a few weeks when the club want people to fork out 300 notes again by the end of April.
     
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  10. man

    mansfield_red Well-Known Member

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    That's not what you do if you're prudent though is it? If you go up you don't **** away £100m on signings. As a newly promoted club any signing you make will be at least one of the following:

    not proven at premiership level
    an injury nightmare, or
    past it

    Anyone who doesn't have any of the above black marks against them signs for someone better than a newly promoted team. If you spunk £100m away signing players as soon as you go up you're mental, and I don't think that we'd do this. The ideal situation is to be promoted with a fairly young squad who are continuing to improve, a manager who can get the best out of them and then add a few astute young signings at a cost of around £20m. Sure, you might not stay up, but even if you don't you've guaranteed that at least in the medium term the team has enough cash to compete in the top 10 of the Championship.

    What I and others find frustrating is that we had the young squad with scope to improve and the manager to get the best out of them. Given that we had the Mawson money I don't think that the transfer fees for Hourihane and Winnall (I'd have let Bree go personally) were sufficient to surrender the chance to guarantee the financial security of the club for the next few years, particularly given Patrick Cryne is looking to step down at some point. We were told that we wouldn't have to sell them if we were fighting relegation, so it's not as if we urgently needed the money to keep the club afloat.

    We had already declared a willingness to gamble so why weren't we willing to gamble when we found ourselves in a situation where the upside was considerable larger than the gamble we had already committed to?
     
  11. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    We already in a mess before the new TV venture pushed us over the edge. The reason the rest of the league did not end up in the same mess was that no other club was already stretched to the limit. The collapse of the TV deal was just an excuse to give the fans a different focus for their bile.

    I'm sorry that you do not like my realistic approach, but it was advertised in the title. If people are not willing to fork out £300 then they have really short memories.
     
  12. Dja

    Django Well-Known Member

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    No I just used 3 examples, I didn't say any number were ready to play in the premier league. I said it was impossible to predict.

    You say you need to spend £10 million on 3 strikers, I'm not quite sure where you're getting your figures from but there's plenty of bargains from abroad & lower down the leagues.

    The best midfielder in the country joined Leicester for £5.6m only 20 months ago for example.

    The key would be to retain your young improving players like Davies, Bree, Roberts, MacDonald, Yiadom, Hourihane, Scowen, Watkins & Winnall & complement them with 5/6 new first teamers & several up & coming talents to round out the squad.

    Lukaku has no relevance to us, he plays for a top 7 club with 40,000 gates & could get in most teams in the world other than your top 10/15.
     
  13. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    It does not matter if enough could hold their own if we did not treat getting relegated back to the Championship as a disaster. Sensible signings, affordable over the length of the 1st season and parachute payments to make sure we were stronger still upon relegation. Let us not forget that we were not that far off survival in 97/98. Who out of that side would you have said were up to it?

    In any case, I'll answer. I think Bree, Houriane, Morsy, Roberts, Yiadom, Watkins, Scowen and Winnall could all have "held their own" in the Premier league. Then don't forget we'd be in a position to loan a better calibre of player to supplant these.

    It is all supposition anyway but I find it a wholly unreasonable assertion that none would and we'd need to spend £100 million. We wouldn't need to do anything fo the sort because we'd not treat relegation as a disaster - the aim would surely be to try and stay up but if we went down we would be stronger. A bit like Burnley have done.

    It's a moot set of points now anyway. The chance has gone. You have your faith that the players we have brought in (Moncur, Mowett, Hedges) will be ready to make a difference next season. I fear that those three plus the large number to come in will mean so much improvement is needed that there is too much to do in a short space of time.
     
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  14. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    Well he remains our top scorer....
     
  15. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    I never said that the whole £100m would go on signings. In the examples that I quoted to Django, I spent £30m on just 3 forwards, but they cost an additional £3m in wages for the first year. To get player of Premier League quality, you have to pay Premier League wages. The £100m covers everything, the increased overhead, the increased policing costs, the repairs to the ground that will give us a ground capacity of 22,000. It will soon disappear.
     
  16. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    He does indeed. But I was questioning whether he is a Premier League quality striker.
     
  17. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    To paraphrase you; "to get player of Championship League quality, you have to pay Championship League wages." Which is not true as we've done it paying L1 wages this season and hope to do so next season too. It is far from easy of course.

    Alternatively, Shut the ******* darn and have done.

    In fact, apply for the CEO job..your ability to highlight the why not and the negative knows no bounds so would fit in perfectly
     
  18. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    Who knows? it was questioned if he was a Championship level striker this preseason. He proved he was, especially with a team built to hide is weaknesses and capitalise on his strengths.

    He might have scored 20 goals for us this season having been on 11 by Jan.
     
  19. BobT

    BobT Well-Known Member

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    I have enjoyed reading this debate, but what has not been mentioned is the importance of belief and momentum. It is really important that we have a reasonably strong finish, to establish a platform for next year. Belief and momentum will count for much in any teams success.
     
  20. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    No we were not. The club planned to spend income it was contractually expecting to receive. It did not materialise. What forced us into admin was the Nat ******* West removing our overdraft and thus any short-term working capital that could have been used to tide us over until a new funding package could have been put in place.
     

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