Minority Report 2019-20 - Talking Finance (2)

W

I'm sorry but that's just so much nonsense. It's drivel it really is. People are concerned the manager has been sacked. They're concerned that there has been no explanation for this. They are concerned that young players are being overwhelmed by being put up against experienced professionals. Nobody but nobody is claiming we should spend £30 million. You're challenging a point that hasn't been raised.

 

Like patience in a manager? That almost to a man Barnsley fans were more than willing to display.

 

Silly and drivel in one day. I am lucky aren't I.

The BBS certainly began by expressing concern about a well loved Coach, but after a while, it became a more widespread criticism of the owners. I could understand it when people were expressing sympathy with and support for Stendel, but less so when it became a witch hunt.

It has been raised that we should have signed more experience. It has been suggested that just 3 players would have been enough. I looked at the wages bills of the rest of the Championship, and I thought, that would still put us miles behind the rest. Then I thought, I wonder how much we need to spend in order to give us a reasonable chance of competing with the rest of the league, and I came up with an arbitrary £30m, not because I thought that this amount of money would keep us up, or even that it would allow us to be competitive. I just thought I would look at what that kind of money would do to our financial plans. If you want to substitute my £30m with your own figure, I will of course have no objection. Furthermore, it would give me an opportunity to ridicule your figures.

There will be another Minority Report next week and that will flesh out my thinking on these matters a lot more, and I look forward to reading your ridicule of my suggestions in that as well.

 

I'll substitute your £30 million for zero. Nothing. Three free transfers of experienced players the likes of Foster or Hassell, whose wages would be within budget, who aren't signed because we hope to win promotion, who aren't signed because they're amazing, but are signed to give an experienced head out on the field to help nurture our younger crop. That's zero in transfer fees, but like I said wages within budget. Rubbish them if you like but it will be without any sort of credit.

And you've deviated. People are concerned we sacked a good manager and that the communication from the club is non existent. They are not talking about what you are claiming. It's an entire falsehood. To use the phrase of the moment it's fake news.

 

But the bit you are missing is that it was the club (in the person of Mr Conway) who said that our first aim was to achieve stability in the Championship. So before you get on to what 'stability' might cost, you might reasonably anticipate that we did not sanction the departure of still-contracted players before suitable replacements were identified. I acknowledge the financial landscape that yourself and Mr Rain are highlighting, but if we are to swallow the actions of this Board as against their stated aims, then we are really being taken for mugs. And you can count me out.

 

I wrote a piece about 3 days before Stendel was sacked in which I accused him of being a one trick (pressing) pony. I said that if he had not come up with a different strategy after the international break, my next Minority Report would be a blood bath. JLWBL quite rightly chastised me for my imprudent language, and I had to accept his point. Nevertheless, the press has to have players that are better than the opposition if it is going to work, and that was never going the case this season. Our player pay is just so far behind the average for that ever to be the case. In those circumstances, the coach has to organise his team differently, and the fact that Stendel did not do so indicates to me that he either does not know how to do that, or he is confident with just one way of playing. Personally, I was absolutely sick of watching our players caught out of position because they were caught too far up field by a quick counter attack. I know that I am the odd one out here, but as you are probably aware, I am not one to unthinkingly follow the herd. That is not getting at you by the way, you may be following the herd having thought about it.

 

I too had concerns about our style of play. But I was prepared to show patience. Your accusations of impatience are directed at entirely the wrong set of people. We, the fans, were willing to be patient. The board were not. You have it as diametrically wrong as it's possible to be.

Two or more people expressing the same viewpoint are not following one another, it's simply consensus opinion, you'd do well to educate yourself of that point.

 

I was one of the first to criticise the club about its 21 word statement. It was very clumsy. Nevertheless, I am not surprised that there has been no follow up.

If you had signed a Hassell or Foster type then you would have been ignoring our principle problem, which in my opinion, is the lack of a target man. The defensive problems are occurring mainly because the central midfield barrier is often caught out by the quick break, and often too far ahead of the back line. The full backs are often being caught too far up field as well, and again the central defenders are being drawn out in coverage. All of these things could have been rectified by playing a different system, one that did not rely for its effectiveness upon players chasing the ball.

That brings me to my second point about the press. It is far too tiring upon the players. We have been conceding goals late in games because the players are tired, and when we have to play two games in a week, the tiredness is still in their legs for the second game. The coach must work with what he has got. He must devise ways of playing that take advantage of our strengths and cover our weaknesses. Stendel did not even attempt to do that.

 

Sounds like the impatience is yours to be fair.

 

And there is a certain amount of arrogance that the tactics you believe to be superior will do better. Chances are, with the players we have, they won't, we'll lose just the same just not score any goals.

As for the lack of a centre forward, I stated we shouldn't have sold Moore. You rubbished that.

 

For the owners plan to work we need to stay up, the young players in their long contracts gain experience and improve for the following season and so on up to a potential premier league spot in a number of years time. On the way we will sell a few players to balance the books and replace them with talented younger players but with good coaching we will keep improving until we achieve our main goal.

There will be ups and downs along the way but the main priority is steady progression.

Its a plan, its a good plan that keeps our club financially secure, sponsorship and crowds will progressively increase giving us a bigger income and a team to follow which can get better year on year.

To start the plan off we just need to stay up.

 

Hang on a minute. The pressing game is what the board have insisted on since the Summer of 2018. It's also why they brought in Daniel Stendel as the Head Coach as his style suited their demands. If the players they insisted on bringing in during the close season are not capable of playing that style, then it's hardly the fault of the Head Coach. Nor is it any use blaming him when he's not changing our style to suit these players, as it's what the board have insisted on. Daniel couldn't win either way.

 

We had no alternative.

 

Yes we did

 

It was certainly what GG said. I have not seen any further comment since GG departed. If that is what they still believe, then your comment has merit, and clearly Stendel was doing what they asked for.

 

Unless and until they say otherwise, the status quo remains.

 

You needed to show a little more patience.

 

We have been bought by a Private investment group fund .
Paul Conway is the fund manager that's why hes still here managing it.
it will have been advertised and sold to potential investors .
the only reason any of those people have invested in it is to make money that's the only endgame

They will have been told how this is going to happen , what possible profits and size of them the range could be and what theoretically could happen i.e reach premiership a player turns out to be huge star very valuable asset before investing there money

they have no interest in the club Billy Beane is interviewed on TV radio etc multiple times a day/ week.
has never uttered the word Barnsley as far as i can see.
the others turning up with there scarfs is just asset protection
after they have sold the club does anyone thing they are still going to be turning up with there scarfs
they probably don't or didn't know each other and may live thousands of miles from each other

The investors will have to pay a yearly management fee usually around 1.5 percent of there investment amount
this has to be paid if Barnsley make money or lose money.
if barnsley make money depending if they getting a yearly dividend or wage ala Glaziers who pay themselves 50 % of Utds profit every year or a cash out there will be performance fees to be paid there are other fees to be taken into consideration as well
As you can see money has to be made or there is going to be some very unhappy bunnies.

The holy grail max timescale of a investment group fund is 5 years.
you will have built and maxed that asset to its highest potential growth peak by then.
any longer and your'e just wasting time and money that could be utilised elsewhere or its turned out not to be a good investment and its time to bail cut your losses before you waste any more money on it.

 

Arrogance too. I am lucky today aren't I.

As you will see if you read back through this thread, I am convinced that we would be relegated this season whatever we had done. The gap between League 1 (SCMP) and the Championship (FFP) is simply too great to be bridged. We were not discussing whether it was possible to stay up. We were discussing the tactics of Daniel Stendel and I believe that those tactics were not appropriate to the circumstances or abilities of the players, and surely that is the main aim of tactics. Enabling the players to compete on the best terms possible. Whether those terms will be enough for them to win enough games to stay up is another question.

I have also said elsewhere that it is not the worst thing in the world if we are relegated. My logic is that the Championship is too much like the Wild West at the moment, and perhaps it will be better to go back down and wait for sense to prevail.

 

You lost me when you got to “it’s a good plan” it’s a terrible plan. It would be a good plan if the young players were 23-24 years old, if we had a 3-4 experienced heads, and we had cover in all the correct positions. this was similar to what we had when we got promoted under Hecky.

The current version where the average age is 21 is absolute madness. Our team would all be eligible to play for the 23’s. We could probably put an u21 team out of first team players. There is no way in a million years you can expect them to compete with grow men

Speak to ex pros, they’ll tell you how they learnt and developed - from learning from experienced pros. Ask John stones - he’ll tell you he learnt from playing with bobby hassell.

You don’t improve by getting battered every week.