It's confidential until the agent, player, selling club or buying club blab to a local member of the press or a colleague, and they pass it on. It's all rumours, but you can usually get in the right ball park if you hear it from enough sources you trust. There's an argument for forcing players to stay. Although I don't know how well that would go down when you're restricting someone like Mark Roberts from signing a £5 million contract. We should have asked Pinnock to see out his contract, that's a given, but I by all accounts Lindsay was done and Moore wanted out. In this day and age you have to frustratingly let them go, and it's who you replace them with that matters. We failed in the latter process of that.
I think you're right. I think it is a combination of signing too many youngsters in one fell swoop and also possibly signing quite a few who in my opinion are unlikely to considerably improve to the required standard. Brentford are demonstrating how to do it correctly, but as others have said the lure of London is also going to go in their favour.
Your suggestion works from a footballing perspective. However the buying lots system almost guarantees they will make their money back. The answer I would have though is perhaps somewhere in between. One or two decent signings and 7 of the potentials.
This is a very good thread,from what I understand the owner has a statistics business which looks at players around the world and employs around 90 staff processing this. Others clubs around the world pay a fee to access information. Mark Warburton left a few years ago in acrimonious circumstances as he wanted to buy players in the traditional way, rather than have them presented to him. We are developing a rival model to the Brentford owners company, namely the James Cryne statistical analysis model. It's a risk when there are already market leading models which are successful and profitable. What's the point,why not use the existing models? The new stadium will be shared with London Irish Rugby Club, I think. I like Brentford as they have a lot of competion being in London.
Yeah that's a fair point. I think everyone is singing from a similar hymnsheet- nobody wants to bankrupt the club, but we would like to see one 'experienced' player for every 3 punts
Thought I'd add my input on Brentford. My parents supported them home and away throughout the 60-80's, I've still got a soft spot for them. They used to sell the best players every year(sounds familiar) yoyoing between divisions, The last few owners have steadied the ship and things seem to be looking up. The new stadium will make a massive difference as Griffin Park, under previous owners, was reduced in size for short term profit(housing). In some ways they were worse than us, Following relegation they would shut down the 'reserve' team and only have 18-22 pros in the squad. You never know, Our owners did say that the plan for Barnsley was to become a steady team in the Championship, Think they've either under-estimated how strong this league is or they are incredibly naive? Hat's off to them for trying to have a team with no loanees but every other team in this league has Premiership loanees and the difference in quality is showing.
The big issue I have with this, is last season, when we have just had one of the most successful seasons in the clubs history, is it that the clubs main stars, who all appeared to like and respect the manager and the fans and will have had wage rises due to promotion, could not wait to get out of the door mostly to clubs who we are roughly on a par with in size and stature. At the same time making it clear they were not prepared to even discuss new contracts or terms. The question I ask myself is what is so bad about us that makes players act in this way? Sadly the only solution I can come up with is wages? If we want to be successful as a club this is area we need to address?
This is it, in a nutshell. I recall reports of Patrick Cryne speaking to a fans' gathering about our (then) financial situation and explaining that while our average salary paid to players was £1800 per week, the average for the Championship was £9K. The suspicion is that our salaries have not increased by much under this new regime. We can never achieve Championship stability while ever we decline to pay Championship level wages. Many of the clubs that do compete on salary are gambling on future success. The simple fact is that we either do the same or we remain essentially a League One club at best with an occasional one season flurry into the second tier. The question for fans is whether they are happy to accept this type of existence as opposed to more investment being made - which comes with risks, just like any other business. What you say about the players signals that once they have developed and become more attractive prospects to other clubs they know it is pointless to even begin negotiations with BFC because the disparity in our own wage levels and even middling Championship clubs is too great to bridge. It is extremely likely that they are already eyeing the exit door before they sign for us. Eventually we will be superceded as a desirable club for young players to develop. I strongly suspect that seasons in League One are by no means undesirable for our owners as borderline Championship prospects have more of a platform to hone and demonstrate their skills in that league. They are being fattened up for market. That would explain why they are seemingly happy to tolerate relegation twice in three seasons.
I have read through this thread very carefully, a thread that criticises our owners because they have not invested more of their own money, and contrasting their investment, and relative success with that of Brentford, whose owner has so far invested over £100m. I have written thousands of words which ridicule the amounts invested by Championship football club owners, which praise our owners for refusing to join that particular band wagon, and which long for a time when FFP can be applied by the EFL more effectively. Yet, our failure to establish ourselves in that league has once more attracted a legion of supporters who claim that it is all the fault of our owners, who have failed the fans because they have not invested more. It must be said, that if those same fans were told by strangers how to invest their spare cash, that request would be greeted by a very blunt and equally rude reply, but that does not stop them doing it. It has been suggested that the current owners pack their bags, and get out of town. After all, there are plenty of multi-millionaires queueing up just to invest in Barnsley Football Club, aren’t there. Well, no, there aren’t actually. If you have that sort of money, and you are searching for a vanity project, you are much more likely to invest in a higher profile club than ours, a small club that represents a town that is down on its luck. No, what we need is a fan with that sort of money. Someone who has been a supporter all his life, who has made lots of money and is looking for a community project that will immortalise his name after his death. Someone who will be sole owner, who has no responsibility to other shareholders to deliver a profit. Someone who can afford to lose huge sums of money without consequences (ignoring FFP). Another Patrick Cryne. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of any such person. I have racked my brains, but I can’t come up with any names, so who can we turn to? And then I had a bright idea. Why don’t the fans set up a company? There are at least 5,000 of us out there, adults with cash to spare. Why don’t the fans set up a company to buy the shares in the football club from the present owners? Why don’t they invest enough in that company to properly fund it in the way that many on the BBS describe? After all, the project would only cost £100m, and if we are all in it together, it will not cost too much each will it, and we will all know that as well as being fans, and contributing our £400 each season for our season tickets, we will also be owners who can pass our shares on to the next generation when we die. How, great will that be? Now let’s see, £100,000,000 divided by 5,000. That’s just £20,000 each. Well, surely that isn’t too much of a stretch for serious fans who only have the good of the club at heart, and who would willingly invest somebody else’s money in the project. Well that’s very rude! After all, it was only a suggestion based upon the evidence collected from the BBS.
Your clear view that your opinion is more important than others on here is starting to grate a bit now. Writing thousands of words about things when you don't have access to the full facts is a bit like building house foundations with guestimates. You are entitled to your opinions and many people value them but can you pare back the constant "may I refer you to Minority Report X- Talking ********" comments as it is massively arrogant and implies we are so stupid to not listen to you.
Was it last year when an ad was posted for someone to join the coaching staff. There was many a number of job requirements and qualifications needed to meet their criteria. The hours were quite unscocial and the salary was about the same as an Aldi shop worker. If the backroom staff are paid this then are we doing similar for our better players even in the second pyramid of English football? It is a fine balance.
It's alright, people who make out they know wages etc also pluck them from thin air. Bottom line of your post is quality over quantity and I fully agree with that.
Runnin' over the same old ground What have we found? The same old fears Wish you were here Good Morning, Mr Rain! Just to be clear (as you quote my post up there) I don't criticise the Board for how much money they spend/invest. It's absolutely their choice. It's more a debate as to whether I want to continue to invest my hard-earned (well, it was once) in their project that increasingly seems to designed to fail (although possibly not in the owners' eyes, given they may have different objectives). There are - it is increasingly appearing to me - better entertainment deals. A reminder also that I and many others have said many times that we do not seek the type of huge investment the Brentford owner has made in his labour of love. I'd just like to see us have a sporting chance of survival in this division - not be constantly fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. That would take considerably less than £100M.
Presumably they look for mugs like Barnsley Football Club who will sell their best players for a relative pittance.
How difficult is it to understand Mr Rain? We are NOT asking the owners to put the club in jeopardy. We are asking for them to SLIGHTLY DEVIATE from the pathetic Plan in place and use a bit of common sense - which they surely must have as they are all very successful people.
Laughable isn't it. Writes so much that he dresses up as fact but at the end of the day its just an opinion.
There has been a very good debate about the belated attribution of Salvator Mundi to Leonardo in the last two editions of the London Review of Books.
Im sure a large amount of what he writes is accurate and i totally get that people value it, that isn't my gripe. It is the self-importance and referring to previous posts that is arrogant IMO.
