Being competitive in the Championship

I think it has hamstrung the club. It might put off buyers not having everything. What would the Council do if new owners said," have your stadium we'll build our own." They can't sell half a stadium?

 

You can be competitive in any division.

It very often isnt about how much money spent but spending the right money.

A competent coaching and scouting structure and the majority of the work is done..

 

No there isn't.

You've peddled this for ages that us thickos on the BBS want us to spend, spend, spend. We don't. We just want the little that we do spend to be spent a hell of a lot better.

 

Agree. A coach who plays players in their correct position and consults with them about the best formation who isn't too rigid. Also a coach that accepts that the clubs policy isn't going to change anytime soon and applies for the job accordingly.

Just coach and pick your best 11.

 

Covid will not affect the top clubs in the Premier League, but we do not have any player who would interest them. There will still be some owners in the Championship who see it as an opportunity. They will think that there is yet another opportunity to outspend their rivals and gain an advantage in the chase for the Premier League. I do not think that we have the players to interest them either. The rest will be struggling financially. Some will be struggling even worse than we are because they are trapped with players on unaffordable wages that there is now a reduced market for. If they can move these players on, then they might be interested in Mowatt because his pay expectations will be lower. But you are right. The market will be hard to predict, and it is bound to be harder for everyone to move players on.

 

The sell on % we got for Stones seems to have blinded successive boards into what a good deal looks like. Even before this pandemic, any potential for sell on money was lost on Winnall and vastly reduced with Bree. Now we might get something from transfers of Pinnock and Hourihane, but nothing like enough to justify their initial transfer fee. Hopefully, if vultures come for Woodrow, we focus on getting the best transfer fee. Even instalments looks like dodgy ground given Wigan / Moore situation.

 

Look at what Sheffield Utd did,they didn’t break the bank,the majority of there current squad has played at some point in league one

 

I want us in the main to continue with our current strategy but not to have the whole squad as ‘sellable assets’ & have a few Solbauer types. Not on big money but experienced, solid players on maybe a grand or two more a week than the kids. This would be offset by not paying a substantial fee for the player.

I think we just need a bit more common sense. Having a first team squad of 30 players last August & paying a transfer fee for two thirds of them to me is just wasting money. As we’ve seen with Jackson, Isgrove, Thiam, Pinillos, Dougall, Radlinger etc you can’t play them all & will inevitably lose players you’ve paid a fee for on a free transfer.

We also have to identify specific types of players rather than what seems to be a scattergun approach of trying to sign a bunch of talented youngsters & then think how they fit in a team later. We knew Moore wanted out from the start of pre-season & I’ve no doubt even earlier. We simply had to get a striker in who could win a header & had some physicality about him.

Going forward. Aim for 2 players in every position. 4 or 5 to be experienced with the rest following the model of young players we can improve & potentially sell on with the U23’s underneath.

I’ve also not seen anyone advocating paying huge wages & competing financially with the rest of the basket case clubs at this level but if there is then they’re obviously a bit crackers themselves & ought to be ignored.

I think most people want small tweaks to our strategy like myself. I think the majority of us want the club to support itself with transfers but you’ve got to understand that there’s a lot of frustration that it feels like with only a couple of different signings last summer we could be comfortably mid-table.

 

The problem that I was trying to illustrate is that posters want to describe how the club could operate better, but they are only willing to look at one side of the argument. They are not willing to look at financial implications. Now you say that you do not want to spend, spend, spend, but you do want the limited amount that we do spend to be spent a lot better. You do not include any illustrations, so I find it hard to understand how your spending would differ, but the majority of the money spent by Barnsley is spent on player wages. Just how would you spend that money better? I do not know why I asked that because I know what you will say. You will ditch the youth policy and you will spend on fewer, more experienced players. And when those players inevitably get injured, and there is no-one to replace them, you will inevitably blame the fool that instituted that policy. And when we cannot generate revenue from player sales, because older players do not command fees, then you will blame the fool that instituted that policy too. You see there is always someone else to blame, especially when you are just making statements of intent on social media. It is a lot more difficult when you are making the real decisions, and spending the real money.

 

Like yourself presumably.

 

You have fallen into the trap of believing that there would have been a different outcome, if only the club had done what I advocate. I have given a table of the losses that owners of Championship clubs are prepared to sustain over a 3 year period, but the table could have been one that detailed total wages paid at these clubs, which would have shown us bottom by miles (I can do that if you think it would help). The fact is that the biggest factor in the Championship is player pay, and if we are not able to compete on pay, we are not able to compete on quality either.

 

Wow.

You condescending cnt.

What I would say is that their should be a mixture of youth and experience, and the squad should be streamlined from the 350 professionals we currently have on the books. We are wasting money on so many players that don't even make the match day squad. Look at the goalkeeping situation for example this season. 3 players who were competing for the one position - and the one we paid the most money per week (I'm guessing here, but you do that all the time) is the worst of the 3.

I would also suggest when a bid is made on one of our players, we absolutely ensure that we are getting the best deal for ourselves, which we can then invest to the next crop of incoming players.

I would also suggest that picking up experienced players WHO INEVITABLY GET INJURED is not as short sighted as you make out - as it helps our younger players who play with these experienced players. Like Anderson has benefited playing with Sollbauer as an example this season. It can also be the difference between staying up and going down and therefore can generate the 6m extra income from staying in this division - which pays for them that way.

I would also suggest that I'm wasting my time talking to you and I've done extremely well to call you a condescending cnt only once.

 

Let's all slash our wrists right now

 

It's so simple. Fewer players, but better players, same budget. Risky, because of injuries. Use loans, as far as possible, to cover injuries. Accumulate enough points when injury free to cover lean periods. You'll compete, but you won't win 'owt. You won't make much profit, if any, and you'll still have to sell the odd player, but not an entire defence. You'll please the fans though, because you'll be trying to win football matches.

My words, my thoughts? No!

Words of an experienced professional football manager.

 

The ones wanting us to keep Pinnock? We'd have to better the wages offered by Brentford.

 

Red Rain won't like this. He'll be smashing his keyboard to pieces now, composing a diatribe about how you're wrong and how he's better than you.

Watch your back.

 

Would it have hurt to sell Lindsay and keep Pinnock or vice versa?

 

Another way of looking at competition in the Championship is to look at pay. I am going to look at 2019, even though there will be 3 clubs missing from the comparison. The pay figure reported in club accounts is all pay, rather than just player pay, but it will do as an illustration:



Cardiff City £54m
Fulham £93m
Huddersfield Town £64m

Leeds United £46m
West Brom £47m
Derby County £?
Middlesbrough £40m
Bristol City £25m
Notts Forest £36m
Swansea City £49m
Brentford £19m
Sheffield Wed £?
Hull City £25m
Preston £19m
Blackburn Rovers £22m
Stoke City £56m
Birmingham City £32m
Wigan Athletic £19m
QPR £21m
Reading £41m
Millwall £17m

Luton Town £? (small company therefore not disclosed
Barnsley £8m
Charlton Athletic £?

So there we have it. In 2019 (as a League 1 team), our pay was less than half the next lowest in the Championship. That is our base. That is where we were coming from. That is the gap that we were trying to bridge. You can say what you like about spending money in a different way, but a gap like that is almost impossible to bridge, no matter how you may argue that the money could be spent in a different way.

 

I do not debate with people who call me names, but when you think that you can control your temper/emotions and debate ideas and opinions, rather than simply throwing about insults and abuse, I will still be here.