Knight -reason for few signings?

[cjd]

Do you know , this argument REALLY ANNOYS ME.

Every single signing in the history of football/Rugby/Cricket has been a gamble.....be it Beckham to Real Madrid or Ronaldo to ManU, Mushy to Sussex or Wilkinson To Newcastle falcons

You see a player and you make a decision to buy him. If he falls down a manhole on his way to the ground or if he plays 500 games on the trot, you will never know.

All this bollox about....Oh we mustn't spend any money on this or that player as he may be a Jason Peake or a mark farrington......what about Zamora then. He cost 100k and we sold him for a million odd with him scoring goals all over the shop.

To get people who have fallen out of love with the Albion we MUST get players in ....the current crop with all due respect to them are NOT ATTRACTIVE to watch and people are voting with their feet and not renewing ( my Brother in Law is a perfect example of this)

I agree entirely with your post..............the overwhelming majority of money transfers are successsful to some degree. If we,re going to be fearful of every possible failure, we might as well not get out of bed in the morning.

 

[Seagull73]

Do you know , this argument REALLY ANNOYS ME.

Every single signing in the history of football/Rugby/Cricket has been a gamble.....be it Beckham to Real Madrid or Ronaldo to ManU, Mushy to Sussex or Wilkinson To Newcastle falcons

You see a player and you make a decision to buy him. If he falls down a manhole on his way to the ground or if he plays 500 games on the trot, you will never know.

All this bollox about....Oh we mustn't spend any money on this or that player as he may be a Jason Peake or a mark farrington......what about Zamora then. He cost 100k and we sold him for a million odd with him scoring goals all over the shop.

To get people who have fallen out of love with the Albion we MUST get players in ....the current crop with all due respect to them are NOT ATTRACTIVE to watch and people are voting with their feet and not renewing ( my Brother in Law is a perfect example of this)

And how many times does a Bobby Zamora turn up? Not very often, let's be frank. We are talking about spending £100k on a 33 year-old striker now, where is that going to take us? Not with the £1M that you would hope to recoup later.

I haven't renewed for the reasons that you state, but I'm also not suggesting that the club needs to blindly spend money it hasn't got. I understand the predicament the club faces itself with right now, and I don't think it should gamble away money we don't have right now.

 

[Dave the OAP]

And how many times does a Bobby Zamora turn up? Not very often, let's be frank. We are talking about spending £100k on a 33 year-old striker now, where is that going to take us? Not with the £1M that you would hope to recoup later.

I haven't renewed for the reasons that you state, but I'm also not suggesting that the club needs to blindly spend money it hasn't got. I understand the predicament the club faces itself with right now, and I don't think it should gamble away money we don't have right now.

I understand your point, however it is blatently obvious that this current squad is not good enough and we are supposedly trying to bring in new players. If we offered 150k to Port vale for Constantine, something for whing, Knight ays we are chasing players who will all expect paying and possible fees...we have got rid of some players from the wages budget ( as well as staff and a goalkeeping coach) then I EXPECT to have better players on the first game at Crewe than we had last year.

If the starting line up is not that much difference than the last game( without Bertin) last year, then like many other people, I would be very f***ed off ( although i will be away in teh Med so not giving a stuff anyway)

we will have to wait and see i suppose

 

[B.W.]

Money on players is a gamble not an investment as Leeds and Forest have found to their cost. Players who cost a lot don't necessarily do well at a different club. There are no guarantees.

There is a guarantee that if you don't invest in the playing side, then your attendances WILL fall... take a look at our attendance figures since we failed to invest to stay in the CCC... I was right then, I am right now...

 

[B.W.]

That's just not true. Yorkie was absolutely right. the purchase of any player is a gamble not an investment: football is littered with players who have cost big money and flopped at clubs: look at Shevshenko, you couldn't get a better pedigree than him, yet he's not hacked it. Even great managers have failed - Brian Clough used to say ruefully that he was a terrible judge of a striker.

If there was a magic formula to know whether a player would succeed or not, then of course we should pay for success. But there's not: we could buy a player for £200k, find he's complete failure and find that our 'asset' is worth next to nothing: footballers aren't like houses; their value doesn't automatically rise. Would you say that plumping £100k of the club's money on the 4.30 at Kempton is an investment too?

Our club's failure to invest in the playing side has led to fewer and fewer attnding Withdean... the falling attendances WILL continue if the board continue to neglect the playing side... that much is certain... as an example, we could have invested in Sidwell... we were too late... we could have made a lot of money on him... of course, you are correct in saying he could have been a flop / got injured / etc. but the fact is that zero investment means less bums on seats, which means less revenue...

 

[B.W.]

Thankyou for your input on this discussion, ( I,m sorry you had to resort to a churlish question at the end). As I stated ,it was a personal opinion.You, of course are quite right in saying that football is "littered" with players who have cost big money, and have failed.On the other side of the coin, I know of NO club that has succeeded recently without a substantial investment/gamble on players. I see from your profile, that you are like me, a long standing supporter. Many years ago, an astute manager could pick up players for nothing, mould them into his way of thinking, and be successful. Those days, sadly, are long gone.
Although I thought I had made my stance on investment/gamble clear earlier on, I was arguing the case for buying better players to enable the club to generate more enthusasm and interest in the club, thereby, INCREASING attendances,(we seem to be heading for about 3500 empty seats each game) and not solely for the purpose of striding through the leagues.
I dearly wish the Albion to be able to carry on as a viable club, in the football league.The hardcore attendance figures over the last few years are continuing to fall.Without filling up those empty seats our club has a limited lfe span.
Our opnions may differ on the route taken, with regards to investment/gambling, but I have long believed that football at the Withdean in an athletics stadium with poor facilties and no roof, is unsustainable, unless it is reflected in good results, performances and players on the pitch. To enable this, I believe more investment was needed.(not the madness of Leeds United a few years ago, but simply, enough investment to help put "bums on seats").
With regards to El Presidente,s statement about Sheffield Wednesday,did they not, the season before last, invest minimally on a couple of forwards to avoid relegation (which they succeeded in doing ).
With regards to Notts Forest (Yorkie), I remember them selling Reid and Dawson for large fees, and then failing to invest much of that money.To be fair to them though, they did miss Tyson for much of the season.
To a degree of course, if the answer to falmer is a "YES", then much of the boards policy will be vindicated. But I worry, how many of the new generation of supporters are already lost to the big clubs,partly because of their saturation coverage in the media.....but partly because the lack of investment/gambling by the present board has left them with little alternative. There,s not much street cred with supporting an ailing club.
I have enjoyed the discussion on this subject and accept others point of view.
Thankyou.

Spot on... you are 100% correct... what worries me is the board, perhaps spurred on by the clique of fans around them who seem to agree with their every decsion seem to think they can go on failing to invest in the playing side, and fans will continue to buy tickets... they are very, very wrong...

 

[Caveman]

I agree entirely with your post..............the overwhelming majority of money transfers are successsful to some degree. If we,re going to be fearful of every possible failure, we might as well not get out of bed in the morning.

I wish I had taken that advice this morning, i've had a shocking day.