Derby and Fulham bid for Dunk [+ Newcastle now interested]

[chaileyjem]

Because we spent far too low a proportion of player sales proceeds.

Gotcha. So in your view we in fact did loosen the purse strings and increased spending after all but you think Bloom should have loosened them even more.

 

[B.W.]

Gotcha. So in your view we in fact did loosen the purse strings and increased spending after all but you think Bloom should have loosened them even more.

Yes, see my message re false economy (with declining ticket sale revenues). There was just nothing on the pitch to excite the punters. Nothing. Largely due to poor manager and player recruitment, but also due to tightening the purse strings too much IMHO.

 

[chaileyjem]

tightening the purse strings too much IMHO.

Tighten ? Sorry confused again . Bloom didn't reduce his spending on the playing budget. He increased it (according to him). That's a loosening of the "purse strings" ? Yes ?

 

[spanish flair]

And that is the most frightening / depressing fact of this whole shambolic clusterfcuck of a season.

I nearly choked on my Cheerios when Bloom confirmed THAT little pearler.

This. To think we let go in the previous season some very high earners in people like Pig, Upson, Orlandi, Ulloa, Buckley, Lopez, Bridcutt, Barnes, Rodriguez and expensive loan players like Ward, Andrews, Lingeard, Lita and the sh*te we brought in were paid more than this group I find unbelievable.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Calm down. As you like to do, I was merely pointing out the fact that we spent a great deal less on fees than we received from player sales.

In answer to your question, I would definitely say we tightened the purse strings too much AND paid the price in declining season ticket sales by serving up utter gash on the pitch, so... a false economy.

Lets wait until the accounts for the last season before we can see if you are right, but we were spending c£20m on players and with our summer spending and reportedly higher wages being paid to our squad then in previous season, it doesn't sound like you are right, (or if you are right, it may be back in line with what Gus had to spend in the first season at the Amex)

Spending money doesn't buy you success in football, you can try to hedge your bets but players can look like they should be a great success and turn into complete flops (prolific goalscorer for Liverpool, Torres to Chelsea for £50m and flopping) and other players who look like they will only be back up players can suddenly turn out to be great. You can't say that, had we spent another £3m, £5m or whatever, then we would have gone up or made the play-offs.

Our team under Garcia was poor to watch and scraped into the play-offs, had they failed, i doubt that there would have been this resistance to the squad changes that we made (that were probably neccessary too but sadly haven't worked out (yet))

 

[Phat Baz 68]

They WILLl sell him because we are, and always have been a selling club.
But he wont go to any club in The Championship.
If he did then it would just confirm to me personally that Bloom is not the man to take our club forward.

My point with this is that Albion would sell him lets say to Arsenal for £6million but they get no one else in to replace him by spending even half of that.
This club has a record of that and a bad one.
You would think Messers Bloom and Co would now have learnt their lessons, especially after last season.
We all fully understand that, I would assume anyway , that sometimes offers are put in by big clubs, clubs like ours can't refuse,
but if you are prepared to sell.

A: Fight tooth and nail for the RIGHT price on ougoing and incoming players.

B:Spend transfer money taken for outgoing players on the best QUALITY players you can find, subject to how much you have to spend. Don't horde the cash away and buy shite players thinking the fans won't notice, coz guess what Mr Bloom ? We do !

C: Don't keep waiting until a week before the season starts to sign players, and then panic and get shitey loans in.
If a particualr targeted player isn't available until then then thats fair enough.
Unfortunately this has been done every season weve been at the Amex and looks deeply unprofessional.

D: Admit when your wrong Mr Bloom, fans would have so much more respect for you if you did.
Hyypia should have been sacked by the end of December, and you know it.
However you went on national TV and said and i quote " Hopefully Sami will be with us for years to come " WTF That may have made you No 1 Mr Loyal Chairman with Hyypia
but in the eyes of Albion fans, well all the ones I know, it made you look like a total moron , who hadn't got a clue.
Had Albion been relegated this season, (and lets face it we were a " gnats baw hair away from it " as they say in Scotland)
I'm sure there would have been a few ugly and nasty scenes down at the Amex at the last home game and no one would trust you ever again.
We all know you have the best interests of Albion at heart, but this is our club too and not to be used for little power games.


My outlook on Albion is this.....

We are not a rich club, another thing we all know.
We will probably never be any better than a bottom half Premier League side.
We will never sign players for £80 million.
We will never pay players ridiculous wages like £300,000 a week
We will never have managers like Wenger or Mourhino.

Most people I imagine are happy to accept that.

RANT OVER !

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Cant argue with that but if someone offers £5 million then we could bring in a couple of players who would make us into a good mid-table position next season.

Thats not how accounts work. If you sign a player, their transfer fee and wages are spread out over the course of their contract and not 'paid off' by a transfer fee recieved just before you sign them

You could otherwise end up tying all your capital into a few players and, should you be unable to sell any the following summer, suddenly find you have a black hole in your accounts and have to make big cuts just to rebalance the books again (and i'm sure that the fans would readily accept a cut in the squad after an average /poor season just because no one wants to spend enough on buying our players. - i.e, had we spent the full £10m from Ulloa, we'd have to make cuts because we are unlikely to recieve another £10m from player sales this summer

 

[neilbard]

But we haven't tightened the purse strings. We spent more on our playing budget in 2014/15 than in any other year in the clubs history. Why do you think we have ?

2014/15 was not about the amount of money we had to spend it was more about what we actually spent it on! They couldn't pour water out of a boot if there was instructions on the heel

 

[Guy Fawkes]

According to Mr Bloom CMS joined because Mr Poyet sold to him a style of play CMS couldn't resist.

Also according to Mr Bloom, Mr Poyet instantly reneged on his word.

I'm sure i saw something where CMS was quoted as saying that the atmosphere our fans created during our match at Peterborough that previous season was a factor in joining us (not the only reason, but it helped)

Correct. But it also shows good players go where they feel the club is going forward and the manager believes this also and sells that dream, which I believe, the early days at the Amex Poyet did. I don't think either of his two successors completely believed this due to the selling of star players and the replacements brought in, so both resigned.

Garcia and Hyypia are football managers, they know that players they have will be sold, others will be signed so it's not going to surprise them when it happens and make them quit.

They gave an imput during their spells in charge at the club when it came to recruitment. They worked with the recruitment team and asked them to find the type of player the manager wants to bring in, The recruitment team then went away and tried to find those players for the manager before returning to him and showing them what they had found and then the manager had a say in whether to try to sign that player or not. If they weren't happy with the replacements, then they would have said no before we signed them (Garcia turned someone down if i remember rightly)

Garcia's football was terrible and he was lucky to make the play-offs but most fans were bored when watching it, even with Ulloa who was still here when Garcia made his decision and quit.

Hyypia failed to get the team performing and the squad lost confidence and belief. he quit. It certainly wasn't due to who had been sold over the last few seasons (Barnes, Bridcutt, Buckley, Ulloa........)

 

[chaileyjem]

2014/15 was not about the amount of money we had to spend it was more about what we actually spent it on! They couldn't pour water out of a boot if there was instructions on the heel

Agreed but there is a view in here that we've cut corners or spent less. Bloom insists otherwise and given that the accounts are due to be published then I'm assuming we have no reason to doubt it.

That's quite a skill by the way. Pouring water out of a boot !!

 

[Man of Harveys]

2014/15 was not about the amount of money we had to spend it was more about what we actually spent it on! They couldn't pour water out of a boot if there was instructions on the heel

Sometimes the obvious is SO obvious that it needs to be stated anyway. Well said.

 

[spanish flair]

2014/15 was not about the amount of money we had to spend it was more about what we actually spent it on! They couldn't pour water out of a boot if there was instructions on the heel

Well I think it cost two of the four people involved in the process their jobs, lets hope the other two have learnt from it.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

There is an often repeated theory that the higher your wage bill, the higher you finish in the league.

Last season the albion must have truely discredited that thinking.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Expectations fueled by the chairman, who every season says we will have a team good enough to reach the play off's, a statement he makes every year.
Not one the fans ask him to make, as am I sure many would accept a statement like, a squad good enough to establish us as a good Championship side would be acceptable. But if the Chairman expects this why should'nt the fans?
,

A chairman that hopes to have a team that is good enough to reach the play-offs is very different to a team that expects the team to make the play-offs

How does our budget spend compare to the rest of the division, we were about half way in the table under Gus, i doubt we have had one of the top 6 budgets in the division for the last 2 seasons.

A little optimism in our achievements and goals isn't neccessarily a bad thing (and as some posters have said something similar to you should aim for the stars, even if you come up a little short like this season - which we all hope is a blip rather than the norm)

 

[spanish flair]

I'm sure i saw something where CMS was quoted as saying that the atmosphere our fans created during our match at Peterborough that previous season was a factor in joining us (not the only reason, but it helped)



Garcia and Hyypia are football managers, they know that players they have will be sold, others will be signed so it's not going to surprise them when it happens and make them quit.

They gave an imput during their spells in charge at the club when it came to recruitment. They worked with the recruitment team and asked them to find the type of player the manager wants to bring in, The recruitment team then went away and tried to find those players for the manager before returning to him and showing them what they had found and then the manager had a say in whether to try to sign that player or not. If they weren't happy with the replacements, then they would have said no before we signed them (Garcia turned someone down if i remember rightly)

Garcia's football was terrible and he was lucky to make the play-offs but most fans were bored when watching it, even with Ulloa who was still here when Garcia made his decision and quit.

Hyypia failed to get the team performing and the squad lost confidence and belief. he quit. It certainly wasn't due to who had been sold over the last few seasons (Barnes, Bridcutt, Buckley, Ulloa........)

If these two managers were so bad, with what they were provided, why did the chairman not sack either of them? Which he stated in both cases that he did not want them to go.

 

[neilbard]

Agreed but there is a view in here that we've cut corners or spent less. Bloom insists otherwise and given that the accounts are due to be published then I'm assuming we have no reason to doubt it.

That's quite a skill by the way. Pouring water out of a boot !!

The problem you have is that the accounts are always a year behind I have a copy of the accounts which are up to 30th June 2014 the next accounts due: 31/03/2016 which would be up to 30th June 2015.

Pouring water out of a boot is a skill which has been passed down from generation to generation!

 

[Guy Fawkes]

And, as time went by, ''they'' were proved to have a point, and had to put up for weeks with fatuous suggestions that they suffered from nocturnal incontinence - which, weak though it was, was probably the best their detractors (the ones who went very quiet around October) could come up with.

Negativity breeds negativity, the gloom never lifted from the play-off defeat and the fans hardly made the new players feel wanted or welcome (telling some of them to f off before they had even kicked a ball because they 'weren't good enough for the club')

I think that was one of the worst seasons for getting behind the team i can remember, and the only time i can remember where the only person getting sung about was the chairman rather than any of the players or the manager - I bet they felt really appriciated for their effort and wanted to perform for the fans to repay the faith and support they had been shown and so gave it their all, with the confidence to play with freedom of expression and belief.

It seemed more like the world was against them at times so became very insular and taking criticism to heart. Stockdale, after the team were booed off for drawing a match sounded like he was about to burst into tears - they must be loving life here and glad they joined us and can't wait to recommend to other players they know to sign for us.

 

[chaileyjem]

How does our budget spend compare to the rest of the division, we were about half way in the table under Gus, i doubt we have had one of the top 6 budgets in the division for the last 2 seasons.

)

In 12/13 we were 8th according to the guardian. Not halfway according to Gus (ie:12th)

According to Bloom our budget has gone up since then .the accounts showed an increase for 13/14 and the accounts for 14/15 are published early in 2016.

It's a myth to think we are outspent in this division.

 

[Icy Gull]

This. To think we let go in the previous season some very high earners in people like Pig, Upson, Orlandi, Ulloa, Buckley, Lopez, Bridcutt, Barnes, Rodriguez and expensive loan players like Ward, Andrews, Lingeard, Lita and the sh*te we brought in were paid more than this group I find unbelievable.

It does make me do a Roger Moore eyebrow raise

 

[spanish flair]

It does make me do a Roger Moore eyebrow raise

I would love to know which players brought in were/are being paid higher than people like Upson, Ulloa, Barnes, Bridcutt and Buckley (all premiership) were being paid, to increase our wages spend.