The Plan

And the council.

 

1) Invest in young hungry players from non-league (e.g. Roberts, MacDonald)
2) Develop them into quality players
3) Climb the league ladder
4) Sell them on for a large profit
5a) Secure our financial future
5b) Reinvest in young hungry players with a better pedigree (e.g. Mowatt)
6) Develop them into quality players
7) Climb the league ladder even higher
8) Sell them for an even larger profit
9a) Secure our financial future
9b) Reinvest in young hungry players with an even better pedigree
Repeat...

 

I agree with 1, 2 and 5)b.

 

I agree with 1,2,3,4,5a,5b,6,7,8,9a and 9b. I'd probably agree with 10 too, but that's beer for you!

 

I do not know what player contracts have to say about playing in different divisions. That is to say, when we are promoted, do the terms of the contract between the club and the player include an automatic increase in wages. I would not be at all surprised that if there is a term in those contracts about relegation, it also has to balance the reduction in pay with a right to be transferred to another club. As you say, this is all pure speculation and I am only really airing the subject because I have already written at length about the balance that is built into contract terms.

Of course, if we are relegated, we are required to comply with SCMP regulations within the stated time frame. The problem is that nothing is automatic. In order to comply, players have to leave, often at terms that are disadvantageous to the club. SCMP forces the club to reduce its costs, but unlike parachute payments, it does not provide clubs with a mechanism or financial support to do so. Consequently, it is a shock that often needs outside funding. The last time we went down and players had to be paid off in order to comply with SCMP, it cost Mr Cryne £2.7m.

It is the cruelty of this process that led to the demise of the old club, and we would have been up **** creek again without the wealth of Mr Cryne to bail us out three years ago. It is experiences such as these that drive policy. It becomes an imperative to avoid the possibility of getting into that situation again, and I suspect that it is these experiences that are the driving force behind our caution. Of course, we can probably afford increased transfer fees. But increased transfer fees bring with them increased pay demands, and it is these that are driving our caution. If we pay £1m for a player and pay him £10K per week for 4 years, that is a total cost for the player of £3m. The player will only be interested in a new contract at the end of that term if it is on the best terms available, so there is a grave temptation to extend the initial contract term. Again, all this is not particularly a problem, just so long as the money is still there. The problems begin when the money is not there, or if we have dropped a division, want to sell the player on, but he will not go because no other team will match his wages and he decides to wait out the rest of his contract (Mike Sheron). I can see that you will say that that will not happen again, but it could if we lower our vigilance.

This running a football club is not easy, and let no-one on here tell you that it is. There are lots of difficult decisions that have to be taken at times of great stress and with the fans shouting instructions from the side. It makes a lot of sense to let policies be your guide, and our current policy seems to be working, so there is a lot of reason to stick with it.

 

For clarity, are you agreeing that these points constitute the plan or that these points are what we should be doing in your opinion. Your broad original post cannot disguise the fact that you have an agenda. You're not happy with the level of reinvestment.

For what it's worth I'd like to see two or three more permanent signings of the Mawett type (right age, good pedigree etc.) but I'd rather we didn't buy at all than buy for the sake of buying. The scouts at this club are far better informed than me, if they think a player is right for the club then that will do for me. If they think there's no one available this window then they've built up enough credit for us to give them that.

 

Stop talking sense.

 

Scout well. Recruit well. Train well. Improve. Sell. Repeat but with ' higher value' recruits. Sustain. Grow.

If we have isolated targets for the summer I would like us to accelerate our recruitment given the money that we have received that we didn't expect.

To follow the model properly we need to sell the vision and get far better at contract negotiation. Build in automatic contract extensions and automatic pay increases when certain markers are hit.

 

The thing is, when we bought 'cheap' last time around we spent around £2-300k on players (Winnall, Scowen, Hourihane etc). This time around we will spend more like the £500k mark (Moncur, Bradshaw, Mowett). We are gradually upping our spending on players in line with our progression as a club. Also remember that our wage bill will have gone up significantly with new signings, Hammill contract, Davies new contract and I'd be very surprised if the existing players didn't have promotion wage increase clauses in there.

Also, the club aren't willing to ***** their money up the wall in January when it's well known you don't tend to get value for money, although £500k for Winnall may suggest differently if true, so our main transfer activity will be in the summer once again as it usually is.

The problem with the plan is that we've progressed on the field at a rate that no one could have anticipated, to get promoted from where we were last Christmas was extraordinary and won't be repeated for a long time. This meant we missed the boat on getting our best players on longer contracts in the summer. Our performances again this season to get us so close to the play offs means that all our players our now desired by other clubs and on short contracts in a double whammy for us. If we'd come up and been 19th in the table right now a lot of our players would be desperate to sign a new deal, as it is they're not. It's fair to say the club have messed up a bit, but we've also been a victim of our success and nobody could see what's happened coming. The club should be commended for their work and I trust them to recruit well again and learn their lessons.

 

This is a key 'next step' for me.

 

I don't pay my hard earned to watch the ground. I don't pay my hard earned to give the media a comfy evening. I don't pay my hard earned for a bigger scoreboard.

 

It's not just about you though is it ?
We can be eliminated from certain divisions if ground is not up to certain criteria.

 

I think the plan would be to continue buying young players, developing them to sell on. But now we're in the Championship, doing well, building good reputations for developing players, we may be able to start to cherry pick the best (better) young players - perhaps those from the Premier League (Kent). The cycle continues and if we do really, really well (and with a bit of luck thrown in) we might even end up in the Prem.

The plan is to become a bigger and better club than we were previously or ever before (as I'm sure is every club's ambition up and down the land). So far so good I say. Shame to have to lose Conor though.

 

It's about people like me that work hard and go to be entertained and see our team be relatively successful. A seat is a seat and truth be known id rather be stood on the brewery with the atmosphere that went with it as oppose to being trapped near a team of old boo boys that tut, piss and moan at the first stray pass. The press could sit on massive rusty spikes as far as I'm concerned and if I wanted to watch a bigger screen I'd go to the odeon to watch breakdance 2 electric boogaloo and eat orange maid lollys off the serving lady.

 

With you on the boo boys.
Standing in brewery will never come back .
A good impression to press etc will go a long way to eradicate the " teams like Barnsley attitude.
I date say there was opposition to the old brewery stand being erected from traditionalists .
We move with the times as any buisness

 

I'm enjoying the teams like Barnsley attitude, they think we're crap and then we beat them. Top bananas

 

I agree that we have seen evidence of this part of the plan out into action but mainly points one and two. I don't think we've got a plan for how much we actually need, if and when we will spend and to what extent.

To sell three of your top players - including your best player of all - and not reinvest at least 1/3 of that money in the position we are in, while charging Championship prices, is letting the supporters down. In my opinion of course.