So to sum up …

There are more ‘accounts savvy’ posters on here than I’ll ever be, and maybe they can share the last few sets. But I seem to recall the club posting losses of around £15,000,000 over the last few years. I can’t remember the wage bill, but it’s frighteningly high based on the players we have on the books who let’s be honest, maybe a couple aside, are just bang average third division players.

The salaries of footballers continue to grow and grow and I’m saddened that my club have followed that trend rather than living within its financial means and building a squad accordingly. Such as Stevenage (one place below us, two games in hand, beaten us twice) are not posting losses every year. So there’s no excuse. The ownership can change strategy.

I don’t agree with the academy criticism though. It’s not for Bobby and co to pick players for the first team. They’ve won titles and had some success in recent years at 18s level, Eaden has done a grand job. You’re not telling me we’d have been worse off picking such as Dyer or Alker or Nzondo this season over f****** Cosgrove.

 

Unfortunately, if we paid player wages within our means when other teams aren't we would:
a) Miss out on players in demand as they would go to similarly sized clubs who pay better money (or much smaller clubs who pay better money)
b) Lose our players as soon as they started playing well, because other clubs would take a punt on them and they'd leave for more money.
c) Struggle to attract any "old pros" as they tend to be looking for decent wages.

All the above would only alienate the majority of the fan base as much as red shorts, foreign investors or flatbreads being prioritised over results on the pitch.

 

This absolutely. Maybe if we weren't in or near the play-offs it might have been different?

 

Are they not alienated already?

You reference players in demand. We aren’t in that market mate. That’s not how we recruit. Our ‘best’ players - Maël, Phillips, Connell, DKD - nobody was bidding for them. Just us. Our top earner is said to be Benson. Again, there was only us in for him.

Losing players is something we should encourage. We used to. It’s how the club made money. Buy low, sell high.

We don’t often look for old pros but I’m pretty sure that was our wage bill halved for example, we could still tempt a Carl Piergianni on less than we are paying Marc Roberts.

Surely there has to be a rethink? The current situation cannot continue forever.

I don’t want the owners chucking their own cash in every year, covering enormous losses. The answer has to be to find methods that reduce that, no?

Maybe double the cost of a season ticket. Or go the other route, and halve the cost. Pack Oakwell with 16,000 season ticket holders. I don’t know. But it isn’t my job to. There are people well paid to find the answers there, else we stumble on towards a time where either the owners have enough and get out, or the club folds. You can’t lose £5,000,000 a year at this level and progress.

 

If we could start again, what are folks views on how much in percentage terms a pro footballer should be paid in comparison to a normal working person? Todays average uk salary is circa £37k. Should it be 50% more, 100% or even more?

 

Depends on the division obviously, but I'd say no more than double the average wage at our level. Yes, its a short career but so are various others. We don't pay soldiers, sailors or firemen millions a year so they can retire young.

Even at the top level, a maximum of 4x the average salary. The clubs would have to put more emphasis on education and skills for after the playing days are over. Possibly even not sign players until after University (or equivalent) like in American football.

 

I don't disagree with anything you've just said, it's just that when we were buying low, selling high the owners we had at the time were accused of letting our best talent go, the players using us as a stepping stone etc.

I'm a massive advocate of issuing all primary school kids in the district a free season ticket between the ages of 7 and 10. Let's try and get the next generation of fans dyed in the wool Reds and encourage parents/grandparents etc to get a ticket to take them. Make the money back on high mark up items such as draft soft drinks and snacks and merch.

 

I have similar views to you.
Just been talking to an old pro whilst out walking and he agrees with me. The wages at the top set the standard and they are so wrong. A Premiership player on a million £ per week and not playing. Its so wrong its almost unbelieveable. So the upper limit would be £3K per week at the highest level. Other salaries at a club are also inflated because of the pros salaries and they too would come down if a nation wide cut was imposed. We have to save around £155k per week to make the 8 million per year to break even. Paying appropriate wages would go a long way to doing that.

 

I've just looked on the club website, and it implies we have 23 first team players at the club with 7 more out on loan. That's a first team pool of 30 we're paying some or all of the wages for. That could easily be trimmed further.

You've then got players in the u21s who could be used to supplement a smaller first team squad. Dyer, Chapman, Bland, Pickard and James could be getting a bit of game time and involvement in the bench, and if we aren't trying to get first team minutes in their legs, just why are we going through the motions of the Academy to ultimately end up releasing them all over time?

 

We haven't replaced Killip with an inexperienced young lad. Gauci is 24, has played regularly in the A-League for 4 years and represented the senior Socceroos 7 times.

 

I keep mentioning the Academy needs a complete review. Surely it’s main objective is to produce players for the first team, it is nowhere near producing such players. If I wasn’t achieving my objectives year on year on at work then there would be serious questions to be answered. Maybe the folks running the Academy aren’t up the task, something is wrong because we have had nothing come through to shout about for years now. Bobby Hassell keeps saying it’s doing well, well he would do since he his in charge. I think the time has come to assess the staff running this costly concern and does it need a refresh.

 

I think you're looking at the obverse side of the coin. The only person with a disincentive to play Academy kids in the firsts is Darrell Clarke. Because his remit is to win promotion and guess what? "You never win owt wi kids"
Would you play the kids if your job depends on it? Because he has no qualms playing 4 or 5 of em at a time whenever there aren't points at stake.

 

So who has come through ranks in recent years then, if you good enough you breakthrough and if not then maybe with other another team and can’t think of any recently

 

I find this comment very interesting.

I do wonder sometimes whether we're trying to play chess with draughts pieces, i.e. be so clever with our recruitment we're finding the 'hidden gems' nobody else has identified and so there isn't competition in securing them.

Do we discount obvious signings because it doesn't seem like the potential reward is that high?

 

And I don't suppose Swindon wanted to pay Bensons wages

 

I think DKD was an obvious signing in fairness, but from what was publicly out there (from the Mansfield end), it was just us in for him.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we’ve been beaten to players many times over the years. But generally speaking, we have recruited a little under the radar. We’ve had great success doing that. But I feel like something we had the edge with years ago, the data, it’s become massively commonplace hasn’t it, so it’s harder to find those diamonds in the rough.

 

If he gets injured again then so be it. But he needs to be involved now. He’s as good as anything else we have in midfield. A player who drives on the ball, can pass and shoot, quicker than the rest too. On Saturday for example, he can come on for Russell or Phillips after an hour or whatever. The only midfield option we’ve recently had has been to swap a defensive midfielder with another.

 

Cole wanted to go in the Summer ,put himself in the shop window when we should have cashed in.
Instead he downed tools in January cos he couldnt leave ,which wasn't Collins fault as you point out.