Well well well I hope King Keith is pi55ing his sen tonight

Someone talking sense, where did you come from?

 

A manager's budget is not just the wages.

If Keith Hill has a budget of £6 million and he spends £1.5 million on transfer fees and agents fees he doesn't still have £6 million to spend on wages. He has £4.5 million.

We're comparing Hill's wage budget with Robins' and saying his total budget has reduced by 17%. That is not the case. His total budget includes transfer fees, agents fees, signing on fees etc. You need to compare everything to know how the two budgets compared.

I'm not saying one way or another which would be higher after all that is taken in to account. I'm saying I don't know. I'm also saying that no one else knows either because they haven't taken it into account, they've just used the wages, which is not the whole story by any means.

It's also interesting to note that Keith Hill spent more on wages in terms of percentage of turnover than Robins did.

 

But its true to say that Hill's wage budget compared to Robin's dropped by £1.3m?

We did have the lowest agent fees in the league of £124,998

http://barnsleynewsandsport.com/201...t-season-while-hammers-splashed-out-millions/

Thats a fair point, but turnover dropped significantly and imagine more than predicted in setting Hill's budget. Which i accept can certainly be blamed in part due to results on the pitch, but is primarily the role of the Directors.

Sorry, I know I'm coming over as a Hill apologist, but I can't help but think the club muddied the water in relation to the respective budgets of Hill and Robins because it suited their purpose. They were happy for everyone to (unfairly) portray Robins as Mister Money Bags who sacked us off because we wouldn't give him the earth to justify the appalling way it handled his departure, yet when they were under pressure (and possibley already considering Hill's position) they started to suggest the wage budgets were the same which doesn't appear to be correct.

I don't think that's fair or reflects strong leadership. The board get a lot of unwarranted stick but unless I'm completely wrong on the above they deserve it on this occasion IMO.

 

That was over twelve months ago and instead of getting quality in the summer he went for dross.

 

The wage budget dropped by that much but that isn't Keith Hill's budget. His budget includes other things.

For example:

Mark Robins spends £700,000 on transfer fees, agents fees and signing on fees and £5.3 million on wages.

Keith Hill spends £2 million on transfer fees agents fees and singing on fees and £4 million on wages.

Does that mean Keith's budget was £1.3 million less than Mark's budget? Because that's what everyone is saying. The reality is they had exactly the same budget of £6 million but they chose to spend it on different things. This is just an example. I'm not saying this is how it is.

Don Rowing never once said that Keith Hill and Mark Robins had the same wage budget. He said they had roughly the same budget (not wage budget) as one another. Wage budget is not budget. Other things have have got to be taken in to account and no one is doing that.

Don also said that Mark had extra on top of the budget for the signings of O'Connor and Harewood, so we already knew Robins' would be higher.

 

All good points (although I doubt Hill spent more on transfer fees than Robins - Shackell being the case in point or agent fees). But I accept that is all conjecture.

I still can't help but feel Don was at best needlessly vague in relation to budgets. Certainly the interpretation amongst most was that Hill had the same money to spend as Robins, which given we made a loss at £11m + turnover under Robins and a profit at £8.9m turnover under Hill can't be the case.

Anyway cheers, you've helped me understand it better and you were at the meeting and I wasn't, and if I'm being unfair on Don I apologise

 

It's possible we spent more on ground maintenance during Robins' tenure. Put a new astroturf in or summat. That would account for a similar manager's budget but more spent overall. When you're working with a budget as small as ours even painting the ground one year and not the next makes a difference.

It may be that when you add up the entire budget of each manager then Mark Robins spent even more than Keith. More than the £1.3 million. I don't know. What I do know is that it is unfair to simply look at the wage budget of each manager and come to the conclusion that Don was telling porkies. Wage budget is not budget. You've got to look at everything the two managers spent their money on and no one is doing that.

 

Now theres a shock!

 

Or even a new scoreboard...

 

How was his team ripped apart? He sold one player in January.