This!

I can't wait till it backfires like it did do for Derby, Bolton, Portsmouth, Wigan etc.

 

And their fans believe they're gonna blow everyone away and win every game without breaking sweat.

 

They usually do, these 'sleeping giants' lot mate. Leeds, Sunderland, Sheffield United, Wednesday, Bolton, Forest... It's all been said by their fans at some point.

 

The ghost of Harry Rednapp returns!

 

I don't get the jealousy towards ambitious people/clubs, good luck to em and like we all know nothings guaranteed in life but fair play to those that take the risk.

 

Is it only clubs what spend vast amounts (usually money they don't have) that have ambition?

 

No Idea, but they seem to be the ones that get some folks knickers in a twist, good luck to em and let us thrive on the rivalry.

 

Like I said in the other thread, to be fair they've already bought the land for a much bigger stadium and huge complex around it. Few improvements to St Andrews in the meantime as well, which the fans seem to like. Including the dreaded fan zone. They've even managed to source a new scoreboard!

I think this level of spending on transfers in league one is a bit silly, but from what I've seen I'd put them a good few notches above the other teams mentioned in this thread in terms of ambition.

 

As long as the owner is prepared to fund the club should they not get promoted, then good luck to them.

I am jealous. I'm jealous that they have an owner willing to push the boat out to give the Club what they perceive to be the best chance of going straight back up, not a constant drone about having no money or cutting out cloth and all that cr*p.

Ours aren't. Ours sign "potential" in the hopes some of them come good. It's essentially like rummaging around a bargain bin in a charity shop hoping to find something expensive. It's getting embarrassing, and the defence of it is becoming just as cringe-worthy.

Where's everyone's fire gone? This acceptance of mediocrity is so disheartening. Crowds are down, atmosphere is nonexistent, players don't want to sign for us (I wonder why).

For God's sake Board, just have a fuc*ing go!!

 

This is all very simplistic, as is always the case when it’s someone else’s money.

 

Derby and Portsmouth who are in the league above us? Birmingham have been proactive in bringing in new money to the club through their partnership with the likes of Tom Brady. I wish our own board had that much clout.

 

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Look at how much money Everton have spaffed up the wall. Hundreds of millions. The fans now hate their owner because it's gone to pot.

 

Sorry, but they're here for a return on their investment, nothing more nothing less. You'd have thought they'd have realised by now that their approach is not working.

This isn't baseball, moneyball approach doesn't work. They need to fund the first team appropriately or leave as far as I'm concerned. What we're witnessing, and a lot of people seem to be happily accepting, is a managed decline of our Club. They came in and talked about year-on-year improvement, where's that? The league standing? No, we're a league lower. Squad quality? Nope, we're bare bones. Stadium improvements? Nope. Match day experience? Worse than it was before they got here.

I'm honestly not looking to argue, but come on, what's improved since they took over other than the bas*ard food!

 

Clearly, as you often do, you've taken something out of context. I can only imagine the fall out on this board had we spent time in league 2 like Bolton & Portsmouth, 3 years in the case of Portsmouth.

 

Very true and id never want us to spend money that we can't afford but going back to the original thread I don't see any reason to be jealous of clubs that do speculate as it only generates interest for the rest of the league.

 

I don’t want to argue either. But our recruitment, which I agree has been rubbish at times, is nothing to do with ‘moneyball’.

It gets brought up on here all the time. It’s a completely seperate thing to ‘player trading’. Infact, bringing in Hourihane and Roberts is more moneyball than signing a load of children in the hope a couple of them fetch a few quid.

 

I put moneyball as a previous model, I should have made that more clear. We don't, you're right, do anything like that now (afaik).

The player trading model seems doomed to fail to me. You can never have enough turnover of players (sold at profit) to make that worthwhile. Players need time at a club to grow and become better players. You can't sign a player for £100K and sell him 12 months later for £1 million and do it over and over again. It's just not how football works.

 

Is the Moneyball thing even still in operation? Roberts and Hourihanes signings certainly don’t fall into that category? Isn’t it more a fact that we do what most smaller clubs do in trying to make a profit on players to improve turnover?

You say gates are down. Compared to when? I’d say they’re up, and by some margin compared to when we were comfortable second tier prior to the premier league, and we’re now playing in a lower league.

When you first watched the reds, what was your expectation? If you wanted to watch a club that gambled money, then BFC were never the club to do that, so why expect them to start now?

I think it’s about time clubs were treated as businesses in the real world. Let the feckers go bust, flatten the grounds, build houses and let someone else take their place - loads of clubs in the pyramid. See how jealous we all feel when they’ve ceased to exist because of their frivolity, and just as importantly, see how much their ‘fans’ like it compared to when they were giving it the ‘big un’.

 

Rubbish. Stop pandering to people that don't give a f*** about this football club. Open your eyes. This bunch of idiots are taking us nowt but backwards

 

Doesn't interest me in the slightest. I support Barnsley. I believe we'll win every game until circumstances prove otherwise. I find this sort of envy unnecessary, negative and extremely counter productive.

"We can't beat Birmingham because they've spent five million".

"We can't beat Derby because they won the league in 72 and 75".

"We can't beat Forest because if we do Brian Clough will come back n' ******' haunt us".