Commitment - Turn the money down!

Discussion in 'Bulletin Board' started by Orsen Kaht, Jan 13, 2017.

  1. Ors

    Orsen Kaht Guest

    I don't care if Conor takes his bat home if he's not allowed to move. ON A POINT OF PRINCIPLE he should not be sold unless silly money, by which I mean £5M, is put up. If he sulks the rest of the season in the U23's I don't care. At least the club would have demonstrated a commitment to improvement to the fans. To take any less would show that we don't care about maintaining our Championship status. We have no need for £1M.

    In the current climate we have to fear that Bree and even Hecky himself may not be here by this time next week.

    If this fiasco results in our return to League One next season, I for one will not be there to witness it.
     
  2. onemickybutler

    onemickybutler Well-Known Member

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    There are 18 days left in this window. At least 2 or 3 other clubs would've offered more than a £1 million for CH. Absolutely beyond belief.
    Who next? Marley & Bree for £250k? Fill yer boots Carlos old pal....
     
  3. Tyk

    Tyketical Masterstroke Well-Known Member

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    You've changed your tune from yesterday.
     
  4. Ors

    Orsen Kaht Guest

    I freely admit that. I could live with Sam going - we have alternatives. No way do we have another Conor. He should only leave for silly money. I think it's no exaggeration to say that this could drastically alter our season. Mirror image of last year coming up? I really hope not, but I fear the worst.
     
  5. Tyk

    Tyketical Masterstroke Well-Known Member

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    I agree. As I said yesterday, my problem was not losing Sam per se as a player - we may or may not be able to cope with that with the other good strikers we have and potentially a signing, it's the nature of it, to a promotion rival, when everyone keeps telling me what a sound financial footing we're on, for a relative pittance.
     
  6. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    Can I say how disappointed I am at this turn of events, at your change of heart. I thought that I had an ally in the reasoned approach to football club management. I thought that I had a soul mate. Your post is a dagger to my heart. I might never recover and I shall certainly never communicate with you again. You have destroyed me.

    Sorry, I have obviously been reading too much BBS and may have slipped unknowingly into the jargon. As a betting man, what would you think the odds of Barnsley being promoted in May from our current position of 8th. We know that the reward for promotion would be £60m with another £60m in the following seasons, but we also know that most of that will be spent on player wages etc. Let us assume that we come out with a net £20m after costs. Given that Hourihane and Winnall will have been asked to sign new contracts and will have declined, we know they will leave for nothing in June. Let us also assume that we have a chance of receiving say £2m in January should they both be sold. The question is, is our chance of promotion better than 10 to 1, in which case we should take the risk.
     
  7. Ors

    Orsen Kaht Guest

    Red Rain - your opening sentence was brilliant!

    Will reply at greater length later - I'm off to the dentists. (More worrying than Conor's potential sale!)
     
  8. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    You have my deepest sympathy and best wishes.
     
  9. Ors

    Orsen Kaht Guest

    So - one root filling later!

    There are many ways to assess our slim chance of promotion. None of them particularly easy or accurate. However, if you looked at it in that way you can get 66/1 with the bookies so the 10/1 would not be a good bet! Incidentally, when I last looked (about a week ago) I could only see 33/1, so that tells you what the bookies think selling Sam did for our chances!

    My concern with selling Conor is that it would have more of an effect on our chances of going down. As that would cost us at least £5M, we shouldn't be prepared to part with him for less. We badly need him for this next four months. We've had many conversations about investing in the progress of the club, and what the owner should be expected to contribute. But this is only about hanging on to at least part of what we've already got. And that at a time when we (or PC) are quite cash rich in historical times.

    But what we are gambling with here is not just cash or our promotion or relegation chances, it's the good faith and the goodwill of the fans. And I didn't think we'd have to go back to discussing that again so soon. As I've said on many occasions, I'm a 'floating voter' and I'd not lightly go back to paying to watch the standard of football served up in League One. If we end up having inflicted that upon ourselves by the current goings on, then more fool us.
     
  10. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    Root Filling Eh. That sounds painful.

    No footballer is ours for ever. For one thing, they all grow old and cease to function as well. And in that last statement is the key to thinking about footballers as depreciating assets. When a player is signed, we all hope for the best. He is put to work, and he incurs running costs, be that his wages, his injury care and his training (his ongoing tuning and efficiency checks). If we look at our investment, the way any business would review its investment, we would look at total cost of ownership and would measure those costs against an alternative. And there always is an alternative. They would look at the efficiency of the asset and measure its cost/price efficiency against the efficiency of other models.

    Now Conor has done well for us, and of that there is no doubt. But I have watched models with a far better cost/efficiency ratios. Conor's engine only performs on the left side, and as well as that side performs, it is only working at 50% efficiency. As I pointed out the other day, a certain Neil Redfern performed on both right and left, and as such, must have been regarded as a better investment. All this is intended to point out that we are not yet half way through the transfer window and there are probably better investments out there should we be forced to sell.

    We could of course attempt to safeguard our original investment by increasing our running costs. The problem is that there are no guarantees either way. There are no guarantees that Connor will continue to produce his current efficiency, or even increase his efficiency in order to justify the increased running costs, just as there are no guarantees that any new model will produce the cost/price efficient performance that the seller claims. It is all somewhat of a risk. I remember getting very frustrated at the Mike Sheron model, when it failed to live up to expectations and because of his ongoing high running costs, no new owner could be found to take it off our hands. I swore that never again should the club become stuck with a long term contract for any model because the downside risk is just too onerous.

    I have never stopped looking down the league. Even as others have measured the distance to a play-off position, I have continued to measure the distance to a relegation place. And you are not wrong that there is still a danger of relegation. Keith Hill's experience showed the ever present danger of collapse. It is also true that there is more value from summer spending, when contracts are up and cash flows are down. Nevertheless, if Conor truly intends to let his contract expire, we must treat him as an asset upon which we must recoup cash in order to pay for a new model, and that is a business decision that should be unaffected by any current cash surplus. As for the fans. They will forget as soon as the next big thing arrives. Fans are awful decision-makers. They are driven by the need to win football matches, and unless their ambition is supported by someone with lots of cash, their ambition will lead to the bankruptcy court every time. And when their club is no more, there will always be someone else to blame.

    For 20 years, John Dennis ran our club as well as any. You have only to look around Oakwell to see the fruits of his endeavours in the 3 new stands and the training facilities built upon land mainly acquired during his time. And yet, he made mistakes because he tried too hard to please. He was over-ambitious and he tried to repeat his one-off success. He ran out of money and in spite of his achievements the fans have never forgiven him. It is a lesson in managing the club as a business and never ever becoming a fan. I tried to use a betting analogy so as to bring my explanation into your world, and I hope it has helped a little.

    Sorry for the sermon. I nearly had to have gas and air to get that one off my chest, never mind a filling.
     

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