What has gone wrong then?

[Hiney]

People are entitled to their opinions. Shouting them down does not make your opinion FACT.

Nor does your hysterical over-reaction to two near-misses in the play-offs.

You don't buy a 50" TV for every room in the house before buying the actual house.

 

[Stumpy Tim]

You are entitled to an opinion, but you have hardly backed it up. All you have done is bemoan the fact that we haven't gone out and spent £Xmillion on players, which seems ton e your definition of ambition.

Does someone who walks in to a bookies and puts his house on the favourite on the 2.15 at Ascot show ambition or are they being really irresponsible and stupid? Getting Tony to chuck £10million here, £7m there etc all while we are sustaining losses is pretty much the same thing. The person may get a big win, but on the flip side they could easily lose their house.

We will get players in that we can afford and will hopefully be a good fit for the club. As long we are competitive (which I may remind you we HAVE been), people will still come, if we end up facing relegation maybe less so, but hey that's football.

Well summed up. Great to see there are people with intelligence on NSC

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Thanks. That makes my day much better

Fair enough. If having it pointed out that you're a drama queen, behaving like a small spoilt child, cheers you up, then I'm glad to have helped.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Fair enough. If having it pointed out that you're a drama queen, behaving like a small spoilt child, cheers you up, then I'm glad to have helped.

 

[Screaming J]

Crowds will soon drop and have already start to tail off. 2000 down this season already.

I am genuinely struggling to understand this figure, when we are talking on 8 July and the 1st home league game of the season is still the best part of a month away.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

The general opinion on the street is " Brighton spend no money on the team " Now I know this attracts the usual snide comments from the clique but this is the perception.

Based upon an uninformed opinion?

How much have other teams spent in our division in recent years in comparison to us? (we spend money on players like Ulloa, CMS and others plus brought in high quality Championship players like Upson, Bridge, PIG)

How many of those that did spend a bit were recieving parachute payments?

What did people expect? did they think we would be able to spend money like we were a Premier League team or newly relegated one just because we have a larger ground and good crowds?

- People spreading the myth that we haven't invested in the playing squad are wrong, and it's exactly that type of scaremongering thats more likely to stop the more casual of potential visitor from attending a game or 2 that the truth.

- Also why is the drop in ST sales all down to the spend level as you think? - It could be a combination of a lot of factors such as personal circumstances, all the way through to they found the way we played under Garcia boring? (and if the latter, then hopefully we can be more entertaining this season under a more attack minded manager and lure them back)

 

[Murray 17]

I think most people would have been happy with a mid-table finish in our first season at the Amex, but we did better than that.

When we reached the play-offs we became more ambitious and looked to push on. I guess a lot of people believe that the days of signing players for 2 or 3 million, realistically what we need to do to push on, are probably over with the club regularly mentioning FFP. Time will tell, but I understand the negativity because people want to continue the progress, not go backwards or stagnate. Burnley may be the exception to the rule, but generally speaking most teams who get promoted spend a lot of money to get there.

 

[Notters]

Apologies if a totally ignorant question.

We have a first team squad of 22 and rising, a development squad of 20ish (?wild stab in the dark) a ladies squad c 35 and then the youth teams. But do we really need ALL those pitches? What the heck do they use them all for? There's 20 outdoor pitches of varying sizes and then you've got the indoor facilities.
Someone help me out with this one as it does seem a little excessive?

I think there are under 21s, under 18s, under 16s, 15s, 14s, 13s, 12s, 11s, etc. Quite a lot of teams!

 

[Notters]

Also why is the drop in ST sales all down to the spend level as you think?

I haven't actually seen it confirmed anywhere that there has been a drop in season ticket sales. Can anyone point to this? They said that 20,000 had renewed in April (i.e. 2 or 3 thousand had not) and people assumed that numbers had dropped without taking into account new season ticket holders. Is that not the case?

 

[Weststander]

After being a hero in his League One 18 months, Poyet and Poyet alone (given too much autonomy by TB them, and quite rightly later reined in), got things off to a poor Amex start with the monumental mistakes of not rating Murray so letting him go and blowing £3.25m on overrated CMS with wages to match. Out of our much improved, but still limited budget, that had a major effect; with a material effect even years later on our accounts and FFP in terms of amortisation and wage hits to the Profit & Loss Account. There's also been bad luck with chronic injuries to several key players in the 3 years, or was that Poyet in not fully researching the injury record of players being recruited eg Vicente, Orlandi, Bruno?

Overall though, we achieved what our financial place would suggest:

In those 3 years we've competed with clubs with PL quality squads such QPR, West Ham, Wigan, Reading, other clubs who are flagrantly breaching FFP in a massive and deliberate way such as Leicester, Cardiff, Southampton, Hull, Watford ...... giving all those clubs far better squads than us and the likes of Derby. The fact that CP got promoted might make it seem to some like we've failed, but they had an established and renowned youth system, gained from Poyet's Murray blunder, and some luck in getting promoted through the play-offs where it is a bit of a lottery.

 

[brighton bluenose]

It sounds like you would benefit from some cognitive behaviour therapy.

I suggest you:
1) take a look at the players we have actually signed over the last 3 years.

2) write down a list of the players that we managed to attract over the last 20 years.

3) give them a score out of 100 for ability to play in the Championship / International level

Aside for 1 or 2 gems, I recall some pretty dismal unexceptional signings as the norm. I recall going for years without buying anybody. We are now competing to sign the best players around and players will actually consider joining us.

Anyone who truly doesn't think right now is not still the most exciting time to support the Albion needs therapy.

'Competing to sign the best players around'?! What, a Spanish striker who has scored once in three seasons ffs?! The point is that we are NOT trying to sign the 'best players' but players on the cheap who we hope will do a job!!

 

[Icy Gull]

I think the quality of players that TB was willing to invest in for the first couple of seasons at the Amex have raised expectations. I don't care what anyone at the club said last season about the budget, we were not signing anywhere near the quality Poyet was allowed to sign. I can't help thinking that this close season is going to be another damp squib, just like last season. Nothing's gone wrong we've just gone backwards from the first two seasons at the Amex, where we topped the table early season. Shame but our peak was under Poyet , I feel it may be a while before we reach those heights again, mainly due to budget restrictions. Hey Ho we need to stand back and accept that we still have it good just not as good as we had it not long ago.

 

[Weststander]

I think the quality of players that TB was willing to invest in for the first couple of seasons at the Amex have raised expectations. I don't care what anyone at the club said last season about the budget, we were not signing anywhere near the quality Poyet was allowed to sign. I can't help thinking that this close season is going to be another damp squib, just like last season. Nothing's gone wrong we've just gone backwards from the first two seasons at the Amex, where we topped the table early season. Shame but our peak was under Poyet , I feel it may be a while before we reach those heights again, mainly due to budget restrictions. Hey Ho we need to stand back and accept that we still have it good just not as good as we had it not long ago.

Your first point is indisputable. Buckley, Vicente, Orlandi, Bruno, Hammond, Upson, Bridge, Kuzschak, Lopez - the wages demanded (or our contribution, where loanees) helped cause the vast accounting losses, not outlawed under FFP and it was clearly unfair to TB to keep picking up the tab of the losses, as well as paying for the stadium and training facility. The squad quality has fallen away since.

 

[chaileyjem]

Crowds will soon drop and have already start to tail off. 2000 down this season already.

This is an unfounded rumour with no source. The club had 23,175 season ticket holders last season via http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/AttendanceStats/0,,10794~3934822,00.html
So far in 2014 Paul Barber has only confirmed season ticket numbers once back in March when they were "20,000 plus"
http://www1.skysports.com/football/...ason-ticket-renewals-for-brighton-hove-albion

There's been no public update since. Last year we reached the 23K+ figure by about mid July. We've no way of knowing if we've sold a similar number of tickets between March and July as we did in 2013 I'd be astonished if its not there or thereabouts.

 

[chaileyjem]

' we are NOT trying to sign the 'best players' but players on the cheap who we hope will do a job!!

Stephen Ward ?
(Rep of Ireland international, part of best defence in Champ 2013/14)
Adam Clayton ?
(Huddersfield Town player of 2013/14, valued £2m+ )
Jack Butland ?
(England International)

 

[portslade seagull]

The general opinion on the street is " Brighton spend no money on the team " Now I know this attracts the usual snide comments from the clique but this is the perception.

Well that's the impression from all the non supporting BHA co-workers I deal with who take great delight in stating nice ground, rip off prices ...no money ... I just laugh as they are all chelski, manure, Arseoles etc etc and they never ever watch there supposed teams

 

[Codner pharmaceuticals]

'Competing to sign the best players around'?! What, a Spanish striker who has scored once in three seasons ffs?! The point is that we are NOT trying to sign the 'best players' but players on the cheap who we hope will do a job!!

You are right - that is the only player we have attempted to sign / signed in the last 3 seasons. I stand corrected. I also always believe everything in the Daily Mail.

 

[bhafc1972]

This is right up there with the utter crap peddled by the likes of Ernest and Kev the Rev. the difference is, they are trolls, who think their tedious drivel is funny. You actually BELIEVE what you just typed. I'm embarrassed for you.

 

[bhafc1972]

After reading all the comments think we can all agree Uncle S is a total cock.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

What has surprised me the most is Tony Bloom's lack of ambition. He seems quite content with spending season after season in the Championship with no great desire or ambition to get into the Premier league and I find that very surprising and disappointing. Hyppia has no target just a " get in the top 6 if you can but if you can't never mind " Crowds will soon drop and have already start to tail off. 2000 down this season already. That is fine but why build the best stadium and training facilities around with a seemingly total lack of ambition on the field ?

"Tony Bloom's lack of ambition"

Exactly how much of his money do you want him to spend?