Business Plan

As most posters are aware, the club has a business plan. The club does not have a billionaire owner and is does not have a huge fan base, so it must supplement its earnings by buying players young, improving them and selling them on at a profit. The additional cash generated goes towards paying the ongoing running costs. It means that our owner does not have to rummage around in his pockets to find the shortfall himself.


In the last two years, the business plan has given us two visits to Wembley, a promotion, relative stability in the Championship and money in the bank. In other words, the business plan has been an outstanding success. There is no reason why that success should not continue provided we stick to the same principles and realise that we cannot compete with other teams in the Championship by using their business plans, that is, by spending money that we do not have, particularly on player wages. We can compete, and we can compete successfully, but unlike the majority of fans in this division, our trump card is patience.


And yet, all I see and read about on the BBS is complaints from the fans about how the club is poorly run, how it should go for a different type of player, how it knows nothing about player contracts. I think that the evidence of the last two years proves otherwise.

 

I don't disagree with much of that though you do seem to mistake people expressing a view that disagrees with your own as a 'complaint' but I guess that's just your personality.

Players come players go I certainly have no issue or problem with that.

In terms of a business plan again I have no problem with that. Given our size, location and ownership model it is the only way forward.

Unfortunately you seem completely blinkered to the fact that the business plan is still in its early days. Certainly the contracts signed by the players we have just sold were drawn up by the club when the plan was in its infancy and mistakes were clearly made. The club is run by cleverer people than us and I'm sure that they acknowledge these mistakes and have addressed them going forward so that they won't happen. It's common business practice to look at his you are progressing and adapt and address any mistakes. This is an area that you seem completely oblivious to. But it is just as important as having the plan in the first place. I'm not into using buzzwords so let's just calling it ' continuous development' or common sense.

In terms of playing personnel Hecky has clearly stated that mistakes have been made and they must be addressed going forward. No team that can hope to be successful in the long can cope with the turnover of players that we have to cope with this summer. Attracting 10 first team players with a small budget is a massive task and certainly wasn't ' the plan'.

Anyhoo onwards and upwards. Maybe look up constructive criticism in the dictionary...


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Good points, Mr Rain (good morning to you). And very succinctly put. But purely in the interests of discussion:

1. It took two years to get to the point in December 2015 where our fortunes turned massively. The plan was in grave danger when we looked at risk of relegation to the fourth tier a) under Danny v.2 and b) after little Lee's losing run. Those events could have (but didn't) derail us.

2. By common consent (including Hecky) we are now back at square one. We have 6-8 weeks before pre-season and are ten players light (Hecky again - today's Chronicle) and we still have no CEO to help recruit them (is Mr Mansford waiting in the wings?). That's a lot shorter than the period from when the 2015-16/2016-17 squad began to develop. Will we be able to do it in that time? Who knows?

That said, I agree with you that we have little other option than the current plan, as things stand at the moment. Let's hope for more success going forward (but not on Sunday if Brighton are held to a draw at Villa Park).

 

Spot on. My theory is that in 5 years time, for every bonkers rich club in the championship there will be a club having their last financial throw of the dice to hang in there. Wigan being a good example. We couldn't afford morsys wages after they offered daft money and so now they are relegated with another financial millstone round their necks.
Other clubs bleeding money and at the wrong end of where they should be with what they spend such as qpr, forest and Bolton are losing even more money on a weekly basis.
I'm not saying we should stand still and be thankful and I don't believe the manager wants that either, but we can hopefully grow back into this league steadily and let the chaos do its thing around us.
I do believe we should be enquiring about the lack of appearances on sky though revenue wise when Rotherham and ourselves were only on twice, both of our games very heavily policed so eating into the TV revenue

 

A lot of the criticism the club is getting certainly isn't constructive.

The ones who are constructive in their criticism are rightfully frustrated in the way we went about our business in January. I think there's a few contributing factors to that which may never see the light of day, Linton Brown's untimely departure is the obvious one.

Football fans in general have a tendency to be very impatient, and openly critical at the first sight of failure. There's talk of a struggle next season based on our form since January, there's an entire pre-season in between now and next season. It's as crazy to talk about success next season as it is failure.

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You are right about some of the criticism it is just as virulent as some of those who think everything is wonderful. Balance is the key.

We have made some wonderful progress off the pitch in determining a strategy. On the pitch this paid dividends. Unfortunately we had not perhaps thought through the strategy to its end game. As I said I'm sure we won't be caught out like that again but it's daft to think the situation we find ourselves in was the one we wanted or is ideal just as daft as the everything is ***** brigade. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

I personally think it will be a struggle to conjure up 10 first team players and 4/5 squad members. As you say early days and certainly not impossible as Hecky is a talented passionate guy but he has acknowledged we are basically starting again.

Onwards and upwards.


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The business plan hasn't given us two trips to Wembley and a promotion. One of the best managers in the country has. Under the business plan we would still have Johnno in charge and we'd be languishing in the third tier.

To my mind the business plan has hindered the manager. As shown by the post-January collapse this season.

 

If you forever go on insinuating that anyone not sharing your world view is of a lesser intellect and lacking your particular insightfulness, combined with an ingrained inability to countenance any alternate views then you'll lose the message.

 

Much as I dislike Johnson, that isn't entirely true, is it? We reached Wembley the first time entirely under his stewardship, and we were already on a cracking run in the league when he left us. The business plan has generally worked well, but as Jimmy rightly points out, has unravelled at a key point. That doesn't mean it isn't a fundamentally sound plan. It's clear to me that a few tweaks would see us avoid the current problems in the future. Some of the more hysterical posters on here seem to be suggesting that the plan is fatally flawed and needs binning. I genuinely don't see that to be the case.

 

What's entirely true is that under the business plan there was no allowances for sacking the manager so Johnno would still be here. This is only my opinion, but I am absolutely convinced that once we had been assured of safety, he would have gone back to the tip-tap "technical" ***** football that fed his ego, and we would not have been promoted. I am 100% certain of that.

Hecky was a perfect fit for a number of reasons but the main one (in my opinion) was the fact he was already at the club. It has been fortunate that he is a brilliant manager. I think the plan has held him back throughout the year and he has prospered in spite of it, not because of it.

 

Agree with you about Hecky. Just not sure how the plan has held him back. There is the obvious disappointment in January, but that is fixable by tweaking the way contracts are dealt with. Without the plan, we would never have had such a talented playing squad in the first place! The only way other teams wanting to buy our players can be completely avoided is by having a duff squad.

 

Problem with any business plan is that you normally make allowances for adversity, but ours has gone the other way, and clearly isn't success proof.




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If we agree the plan is to identify lower league players, develop them and sell them on for a profit, to my mind this has worked three times, and may work with a further two players in the current squad. The problem for the manager is that the plan (in theory) doesn't allow him to benefit fully from the development of the player if we are looking to cash in once a player reaches peak value i.e Mawson. The second problem is that we are not investing enough of the transfer fees back into the squad - i.e sold Mawson - used a £50k player from Torquay as his replacement - who has performed admirably by the way.

The plan has been a success in terms of turnover as this season will be our record, but for me, it does not work in terms of any investment back into the squad or infrastructure - which has been zero.

Once we have sold Roberts and Yiadom - where is the next transfer fee coming from?

 

You mistake my writing style for my true persona. When I worked, I had to write long reports on a regular basis. Unfortunately, the style that I developed over the years has morphed into the style that I use on here. It is second nature to me and I cannot do things any other way. It does not mean that I am blind to other views, that I do not read these other views and think about the effects that these other views have upon the future of my club. I apologise if my writing style gets on your nerves.

I find you to be an interesting poster with plenty to say, and even if I do disagree with some of it, that does not mean that I do not value your input. Unlike many though, if I have nothing to add on a subject, I see no point in posting. So, if I do not respond to you, I either agree with you, or I think that you know more about a particular subject than I do and I am liable to look foolish if I respond. Sadly, this means that I tend to respond if I think that I know a bit about a subject, if it interests me and if I disagree with the poster. I think that this habit makes me look negative, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I am not blinkered to other views. As I say, I always think about what is being said. Your point is that original player contracts should be worded in such a way as to give an advantage to the club, a right to add years to the contract term should the club wish it, with no corresponding balancing term in favour of the player, and that if the contract was weighted in favour of the club, the player would sign anyway because he is more desperate than we are at that moment. This is where we differ, and you give a clue as to why we differ when you hint at the problems we will have in replacing 10 first team players this summer. You see, I believe that the market for players is very efficient and that players' agents make it so. Agents are aware of the value of their player on the open market, it is their job. They know who is looking for players and where their player fits. But the player and the agent have criteria other than just pay, especially the young player. The young player wants to move to a club with a good reputation for improving players, he wants to be playing first team football because he wants to be in the shop window, and he wants a short contract because he will want to move on as soon as he can secure good money at another club. He is willing to put up with a wage that is low for the league that he will be playing in, but only for so long. He is confident in his own ability, and willing to defer access to the top money for a couple of years. I just do not see why he could be tempted to sign a one sided contract in these circumstances. Furthermore, the club will limit its choice of player severely if it attempts to sign only players willing to sign a one sided contract with built in option of an extension. You see, your confidence comes from looking at the problem only from the point of view of the club. You have to be much more balanced in your assessment, in my opinion.

 

Danny Wilson was brought into the club in December 2013. He wasted a large amount of money trying to keep us in the Championship, and failed. It can be argued that the new strategy only began after May 2014 when we were relegated. Danny left in February 2015 after a largely unsuccessful period. There was much still to do when Lee Johnson took over. It takes a while to rebuild and It takes even longer for the rebuilt team to gel. I hope that posters will remember the lessons that Lee Johnson learned if our rebuilt team is not immediately successful next season, stick with Hecky and try not to blame the board. The board were brave enough to stick with Johnson, and I think that they should be praised for their actions.

 

Genuine question - is this true (the large amount of money bit). I'm saying this purely from memory, but I didn't think that Wilson had been given a significant amount of money (the last manager, from memory, that I thought had what you would call significant spending power was Davey).

Happy to be corrected like.

 

I probably should not have said that because I have no real knowledge. I was just going on the players who he signed, and there were some real names, who were presumably on top money.

 

The one main thing this does is it messes with the fans' heads. You think all is wonderful one moment, viz last season, then it's always back to square one, start again in the hope that previous success can be repeated. We as fans are up one moment and down the next, continuity is not part of the business plan.

 

It's not true. In the slightest.

 

Iain Turner and Martin Woods. The first and last time they will ever be described as real names.