CosbehFox

Dunno. Wednesday take some beating too

Attendance figures say otherwise - it’s up on pre covid figures. But Stoke are an example of exactly what happens you fcuk your parachute payment and owners. Matt’s point about FOMO is bang on. Football grounds aren’t evolving in those who attend. The popularity and priority systems means you have fan base lodged with no fresh blood come in and those who’ve lost interest going out. That and the ‘second generation’ of silly marketing twats haven’t got a clue about what football fans actually care about

Heard from a lot of Cov fans about being bitter on refereeing decisions in our game against them and that Robins never has a pop at anyone. It’s as clear as a red card you could see

Exactly my thought - in the context of what’s been said. My experience of playing Rugby as a kid was that when at a good club with a decent ref and properly trained coaches, it was safe. Equally though I stopped playing around 14/15 because there was an expectation to start doing bloody weight training and the organisation of the sessions was bordering on professionalism which isn’t right for a kid of that age. When we’d play it at school, these coaches were simply not trained and parts of the game such as scrums, mauls and rucks dangerous. For example the technique to tackle is pretty important but we’d have lads going at someone chest high or scrummaging which requires constant practice would constantly collapse

Stoke might have been car crash but I think that’s took some mental balls to perform like. In the process, galvanising and uniting the fans.

Ipswich have gone. Mentally starting to look shot

Fair ****s today. Some real mental strength I think. Lovely to see. Stop listening to the noise, start seeing teams off

That assist is excellent - really intelligent

https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2024/february/mladen-sormaz-appointed/ Worked for LCFC over three years - very interesting to read the description of his role….

Well just another day in LCFC madness, didn’t think it was fair this was getting discussed in the Women’s 23/24 thread. He’s been subject to an investigation by Sheffield United after Maddy Cusack sadly took her own life. He was cleared. They have now sacked him after evidence has been revealed that he was having a secret relationship with a LCFC player during his time at the club.

Slight issue is that you can split the summer into two now with the deadline of June 30 for PSR/FFP accounts. So the relief doesn't come until July - so I'd happily predict there is a financial bridge that needs gapping in between now and June because the parachute won't be enough (in comparison to the PL TV deal).

See that's the thing - the financial parameters are based on a three year cycle. So the errors made previously bite you on the arse for a continued spell. Relegation effectively wipes £20 million of excess off you - PL losses accepted at £35m per year / Champ at £13m per year. Saying 'since relegation' doesn't really work - this year into eighteen months is literal financial black hole for the club. At the same time running contracts down on your must sellable assets in the past, so we haven't banked as much within three year period, we'd like. You could argue our tactic over the summer - signings, player retentions etc has effectively gave us a ten point lead over the other two relegated clubs. But when you ask what could the club do better? Southampton - spent £18.4m, sold £159.6 m - therefore giving themselves a whopping incoming windfall of £141.2 mil. Leeds are interesting - as they are level approximately but they have loan fees + likely permanent transfers to come in June. We've had £37.6m spent, £90.1m come back (FFP is excludes Maddison departure - but I have allowed for comparison's sake) To give an idea Saints did a pretty good deal in getting Brooks in for example to swap for Alcaraz. They've made a real effort for compliance. Good, clever player trading. Used the loan market as the ladder to the top flight.

If he thinks this is management of FFP, he's in for a shock

Yet it's something the likes of Brighton manage to pull off. Equally something Man U get very wrong

The likelihood is that its either sell KDH or another prize asset or get ready for projecting a minus five points in the PL next season around December time. Cold, harsh reality of it.

Yep, expert work on that level. His skills remind me of certain characters in Game of Thrones.

Going week to week now. Today - the weekend of the QPR game to be confirmed. @Stuntman_Mike Friday 1 March West Bromwich Albion v Coventry City 20:00 Saturday 2 March Huddersfield Town v Leeds United 12:30 Tuesday 5 March Ipswich Town v Bristol City 20:00 Tuesday 5 March Sheffield Wednesday v Plymouth Argyle* 19.45 Wednesday 6 March Queens Park Rangers v West Bromwich Albion 20:00

Btw if you want to know how good Rudkin's value radar is. Steve Walsh and Nige wanted Slimani on the provision, he was worth no more than £15m. Said don't bother if they want more than that. Rudkin goes into bat with Sporting some time later when all the professionals from that debate had departed - he signs Slimani for nearly double at £28m. Didn't have the knowledge to tell Ranieri it wasn't worth it or negotiating skills with Sporting to tell them they were off on their valuations. Of course that signing played out rather brilliantly....

Hold on, you've twisted it there. You said 'John Rudkin doesn't value the players, he's not a scout or head of recruitment.' If he doesn't have the required knowledge to be presented with suggestions and know their worth/value/status in football, then he's not good enough for the role set out. You are effectively advocating a HR manager in charge of a football based business. Probably explains why his negotiation has been so poor. Scouts get wrapped up in their own recommendations and desires. He has to be strong enough to say yes or no.

Sounds familiar.

Disagree. That's exactly what his role should be. He's the quality control filter to the ownership. He should be knowledgable to know the worth of a player. When to say to a manager or a scout, that deal isn't worth it. That's the remit of a DoF or a technical director. If he isn't doing that role, then simply he's a waste of a title, waste of a wage - because exactly what would do he do outside of that? Someone has to shape how the club is going to look in the future. You can't be the head of it and not at least make sure that everything links up.

But then we go back to why? Wages. Handed out by Teflon.

But it's under his umbrella - his role is effectively quality control. He should be the individual setting the agenda, the ideology and the personality. If it's not his failure, it should be pretty who clear who has failed. The fact his role is so fudged - which includes interests in Leuven and Horse Racing creates this void of leadership. Fundamentally alongside the errors, that's what is badly missing.

Yeah. The foolish decision we made was to loan out both Perez and Albrighton before we'd got Harrison actually signed up.

I'd argue it's not good business practice to have someone in position for such a long period of time as well.