In the paper this morning that Birmingham are taking Sam Gallagher on loan for the season and going to be paying him £30 k a week plus 1 Million to Southampton for one season loan. If we averaged 13K last year and they averaged around 17K why are we so far behind on finances ???
They are spending way beyond FFP. Harry Redknap has form. Look where Pompey are. I sincerely hope they go bust.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bi.../birmingham-city-paul-suen-worth-12502554.amp Owner worth £440m. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bi...ational-holdings-accounts-reveal-12667331.amp Trillion Dollar holdings put in a £26m loan, secured against St. Andrews, and is charging his own club interest of 8% on that loan? Redknapp will be burning through that in fees, wages and agents cost (plus his own salary). really really hope they struggle for a few years. Going to be wonderful watching them implode.
So 'we' (aka our Chinese investors) offer players £20k a week instead of £8k a week and they'll still go elsewhere for £40k a week?
You could look at it that way, or you could look at the higher quality of player we could attract in the first place. Can't have it both ways. Some people seem to have a big downer on this potential takeover because "it would make us into the type of club we hate" or "its no longer a local shop for local people", and now it's "if we're too sensible we will lose our best players" I'm hoping for someone to come in and improve our status without chucking silly money about. What's wrong with that? We will always sell our players. That's not going to ever change, but surely the plan is not to be thrown into such turmoil by a single transfer window.
But there were plenty of teams spending lots of money on 'higher quality players' who weren't as good as us. That was a massive part of the thrill last year, I seem to recall. In fact our 'lower quality players' ended up transferred to other teams for lots of money, in some cases pushing said 'high quality players' out of the team. So how does that work? The situation we found ourselves is was pretty unique in that window because the squad was very good but thin in terms of depth. This meant when we performed so well and our players wanted to leave, that we had no replacements. The plan was fine, the problem was that we hadn't had time to build up the squad for such an event, because let's face it you dont need that kind of depth in Division 1, and there was no guarantee that if you got promoted that those players would make the step up. As money goes up, so do expectations. Let's say they come in and spend £10m on players and push up the wage bill by signing players on (a still pretty meagre) £10k a week. If we aren't pushing for promotion (which is presumably our aim in said circumstances) and struggle, then what? Will the fans suddenly decide they want £20m spent? What is the plan then? The problem isn't buying or finding quality players for less money as the market prices are artificially inflated and their talent is not reflected by their transfer fee (eh. Alan Shearer sold in 1992 an English record £3.6m fee?) Additionally the gap in wages between what we can afford now and what we would have to pay is massive, so massive that we're potentially forking out extra money to lure players at a higher wage, only to lose them because we still can't pay £40k a week. Still, it's not our money and it's how everyone else does it - so if you can't beat them, join them?
Not everyone else does it. But it's noticeable that the majority of them that don't are in the lower leagues, which is probably where we'll end up again. I hear what you're saying about tradition, but we're not traditionally a league one club are we? Well not for the majority of my 39 seasons as a red. If we keep bouncing down to league one because we can't compete, how is that even holding our own, let alone progress? If we didn't do things "because everyone else does it" we wouldn't have developed the stadium, or even made our players professional. As I said in my original post, I'm not advocating financial silliness. Just making the club a solid championship club. If others feel we should be aiming for the premier league, or at least the playoffs, that's completely up to them, but don't tar me with that brush just because it doesn't fit in with your ideology.
