Let's hope the board...

Probably a poor April & May an all..

Get ready if you think this thread is hilarious.

 

So you expect sam winnall who has no connection to bfc honour his 4k a week contract with us? Instead of moving down the road for 18k a week? In a month he has earned 56k more than he would have done staying at bfc in the 6 months he had left on his contract here he will have earned £336k more than he would have done staying here. How many people would turn that down? Sam could have got injured or his form could have dipped from January till the summer then he wouldn't have got those wages.
I've done the maths for you that's what we are up against.

 

How does lack of ambition tie in with last season's promotion, or any of the previous promotions?

Reason I ask, is because it's something I've heard over and again since I've been going to watch the reds, which is coming up to 40yrs.



Sent from my SM-G850F using Tapatalk

 

Problem is people mistake "lack of ambition" with "financial prudence".

Despite the fact barnsleys accounts for last few seasons are open to view by anyone, showing how much we've been losing each year, or just about balancing the books with PC's investment, some fans still think we could have turned down £10m on the hope Winnall and Hourihane wouldn't have got the monk on and dragged out form down anyway. Guarantee that if we hadn't sold them, and if we had dropped away anyway, come the summer and they disappear for free, and we don't have any money to invest, the same fans would have bombed the club for not "showing ambition" by spending money we wouldn't have had.

same people who said we wouldn't get any points in February, now bemoaning how few points we got in February despite it being more than most of us expected - with or without Winnall and Hourihane. It's like that little spell earlier in the season, with both those players in the team, where we really struggled for form never happened in some people's eyes. It's like promotion would have been nailed on and we would have beaten Fulham, Brighton, Derby and Norwich if we had forced sam Winnall and Conor to stay, against their wishes.

 

The books show the legal minimum. No one knows WHERE we lose money or even if it is a PLANNED loss e.g. a loss because we are subsidising the Academy each year because it might produce another John Stones. If we really wanted to break even we would close it down or downgrade it to save money.

 

Academy costs £1m to run a year. Which PC funds personally. If you do the maths you can probably work out whether it is financially viable or not. We have sold Holgate, Stones, Bree and Butterfield from the academy.

And a number of other players have made appearances for the first team. Templeton, Digby, RNL, Rose etc.

It isn't just about producing a John Stones. It's about the link to the community and if done correctly we will improve the talent we bring into it from surroinding areas. We are now only seeing the benefits of decisions taken 6 or 7 years ago.

Is the academy now the latest tool to bash the club with? Wouldn't surprise me if some did to be honest!!

 

The amount we got for Winnall and Hourihane keeps going up. £10M? The true amount is probably somewhere between 25% and 33% of that figure.

 

Ok. Well I thought it was £3m Bree £3m Hourihane and £1m Winnall upfront. And then further add ons based on appearances, goals and international call ups that increased it to £4m, £4m and £2m.

£7m/£10m. Either way don't think we could turn that money down. If we had missed the playoffs anyway then we would have lost.... Bree, Hourihane and Winnall for nothing. And had no money to replace them with.

So far we've invested in Mowett and Hedges. Let's hope this 6 months helps them get ready for next season.

 

I've not bashed the club with it at all but what i am saying is that we cannot have it both ways - we want to keep it so we lose money - that is then a CHOICE to do so and a PLANNED loss.

Presumably, PC funds the losses that the club incurs DUE TO maintaining a Grade 2 Academy. On that basis it has just about broken even I think, maybe?

 

Agree. It is why they need to be playing ahead of loan players or even players who won't be here.

 

Yep. Fully agree with that. Unless we are signing any of the loans the only one I would play is Matty James. We still want to win games and he can bring on the players around him too.

 

Understand and agree, but it is a running cost not a loss. It costs us £1m to run. That will always be a defecit on the books, but the reality is since we implemented the revised scouting and coaching set up through the whole academy we are seeing better players coming through. Even if it doesn't make us money, which clearly in the last few isolated seasons it has, then provided it breaks even or PC continues to invest in it as his own passion project to help develop more local talent, then can't see how it is anything but a great thing for the club.

 

But it is a running cost that the club cannot afford without Patrick's support! Ergo...

I truly hope we have a new batch of talent coming through as you say. Not one is close to the first team at the moment which is slightly worrying.

 

Jacob brown? Josh kay? Surely they aren't a million miles away both have featured for the 1st team this season

 

Josh Kay did not come through the academy and has gone back to AFC Fylde.

 

He will have still come through our development squad. And I'm pretty sure he has only gone back on loan until the end of the season and signed a new deal here not long back

 

He didn't. He was signed from AFC Fylde for the development squad. Not sure on new contract front.

 

http://mobile.barnsleyfc.co.uk//new...contract-extension-with-the-reds-3459712.aspx

 

I don't disagree with that but at the end of the day we are accepting annualised losses based on projected future earnings. We lose money annually because we choose to do so. An academy like ours is a luxury that we cannot really afford annually and causes us losses. I would imagine it has only broken even in 3 of the seasons since its inception but if you take the longer view which Patrick does then the academy since its inception would break even. At the same it is difficult to deny that it is an area we overspend on deliberately that could quite easily be cut back on. I'm glad it hasn't been myself but it clearly impacts other areas such as ground maintenance / improvement and our ability to compete on transfers and wages.

 

If we sold out the ground every week maybe we wouldn't need to sell our players. We might sell out every week if people didn't just go to the 'odd game' and then just play billy big ******** on the internet.

I'm not particularly happy with the way the season has drifted this last few weeks (and particularly during and after the transfer window) but I definitely wouldn't come on here spouting **** about owners spending money, and the main, and what some might argue, their own money, when I am only willing to invest in the 'odd game'.

We've all had this argument; infinitum. The club felt it best to take the money, they were pretty much held to ransom. Some on here thought it best not to take the money, but at that point, and I understand that point (Although not necessarily agree with it), but it's not their money they're playing risk with.

I'm willing to give the board a bit more time, maybe another transfer window in the summer to see what the true replacements are going to be. We were always one injury or drop in form away from mid table mediocrity anyway. Keeping them here wasn't a guaranteed stab at the play offs, we might have lost the same amount of games anyway. On the flip of that I think we would have had a better chance at it than without but I still think we would have been well short of 6th place.

Lets see what the summer brings, we all know its a better time to get the proper replacements in we need. Our stock is high, players will want to come and play for us, they see what Hecky and his team are doing and will want to be a part of it, but alas we are still a small fry team in this league and spunking 20m on players isnt the right way to go about it, neither is hammering the club from every angle when you can't be arsed to even turn up and invest yourself.