Rudkin

[Stadt]

39 minutes ago, Corky said:

We have currently been deducted no points for any breaches. We were relegated first time around because we refused to sack a manager until far too late (either through delusion or unable to get out of a contract we offered) and second time because our large net spend brought in mediocre players who were not up to the required level whilst appointing managers again on contracts we struggled to get ourselves out of.

 

We continued to employ the same DOF and CEO throughout. Even if there were no regulations we have been shockingly wasteful with money.

Exactly. PSR didn’t make us lose £200m worth of players leave on a free - in fact it might have made us sell some of them earlier.

[HarryDee8]

How much more money do we need to save / make yet, before we can bring new talent in?

[Chelmofox]

2 minutes ago, HarryDee8 said:

How much more money do we need to save / make yet, before we can bring new talent in?

There wont be anyone coming in.

[coolhandfox]

1 minute ago, Chelmofox said:

There wont be anyone coming in.

Yes there will....

[Chelmofox]

1 minute ago, coolhandfox said:

Yes there will....

I prefer not to be disappointed when there is noone through the door  I just cant see it happening this week.

[Iwebema]

It would be negligence of the highest order to not find some attacking reinforcements. Which is Rudkins speciality to be fair.

[Finn Claw II]

Rudkin doing his job - Faes next please and then a couple more by deadline day.

 

Enjoying the sales so far but then again our bomb squad is bigger than the non-bomb squad 

[Dr The Singh]

8 minutes ago, Finn Claw II said:

Rudkin doing his job - Faes next please and then a couple more by deadline day.

 

Enjoying the sales so far but then again our bomb squad is bigger than the non-bomb squad 

Ffs, this worst then some of the islamist apologist on speaker corner trying to justify muhammeds actions.

[Tielemans63]

If someone came in and shat on your kitchen floor, you wouldn't thank them if they came back the next week to collect it, would you? That's how I see the situation with Rudkin. 

 

 

Edited 25 August 2025 by Tielemans63

[filbertway]

1 hour ago, cropstonfox said:

Market forces should dictate players wages, not financial controlling rules.

Skill and excellence deserves reward not restrictions.

Vestergaard and Bertrand were on 80k a week

 

Off you're nut if you think most players are worth anything near what they're paid.

 

In my opinion of course. 

 

Begging for more money to be spunked on average players is an odd pitch, as is wishing we had power to spend more than we make as a club.

[cropstonfox]

37 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Vestergaard and Bertrand were on 80k a week

 

Off you're nut if you think most players are worth anything near what they're paid.

 

In my opinion of course. 

 

Begging for more money to be spunked on average players is an odd pitch, as is wishing we had power to spend more than we make as a club.

Rewarding excellence not spanking away on piss poor players.The skill lies with the management team

Edited 25 August 2025 by cropstonfox

[daddylonglegs]

On 25/08/2025 at 09:05, The Doctor said:

credit where credits due, he only let it burn long enough to cause serious structural damage.

Also, to further credit the Rudders - now the property has burnt down he has stated a strategic internal review will take place. 

No further comment will be made regarding this, ever. 

 

What a man.

[CrispinLA in Texas]

Maybe he's changed his ways like Scrooge did after he saw his fate with the 3rd ghost

[sylofox]

19 hours ago, Donwebbio said:

I have thought about this a lot over the weekend and these deals are just a bit too good for Rudkin to have made. There must be some 3rd party helping to negotiate the sales - maybe for an extortionate fee. 

I've heard he's just got his shotgun licence.

[Big_Nige]

15 hours ago, filbertway said:

Vestergaard and Bertrand were on 80k a week

 

Off you're nut if you think most players are worth anything near what they're paid.

 

In my opinion of course. 

 

Begging for more money to be spunked on average players is an odd pitch, as is wishing we had power to spend more than we make as a club.

Bertrand was on The Business of Sport podcast the other week, and in between a lot of waffle about money and cars and all sorts of sickening things about wealth they discussed his weekly wages, 

 

When he left Chelsea he was on £50k a week

 

When he moved to Southampton he went up to £60k, or £60 something as he called it

 

But his biggest deal was, wait for it….£120k a week. He doesn’t say it was us, but it obviously is. He signed another contract 18 months in at Southampton but there’s no way they would have doubled his money at that point. 
 

It’s us, and that contract is as a big a clue as any as to why we are in the position we are in. His display in the first half against Napoli is one of the most disgusting performances I’ve ever seen from a professional footballer 

[Finnegan]

16 hours ago, Stadt said:

Exactly. PSR didn’t make us lose £200m worth of players leave on a free - in fact it might have made us sell some of them earlier.

 

I've just put a Google Sheet together on my lunch break because I'm a sad case. Figures were all what can be publicly lifted from Wikipedia, Transfermarkt or AI. Wikipedia tends to be the most generous to the club and provided the most numbers. Obviously most are educated estimates.

 

Since Jon Rudkin became Director of Football (14/12/14) I make it we've signed 53 footballers of note (I've excluded development squad signings and players who both signed and left for free.)

 

Of those 53, 37 have left the club. 

 

Of the 37 who have left the club we received a losing fee for 8, sold 10 for a profitable fee and lost 19 of them for free (retirements, agreed free transfers or contract expiry.) Of the 10 that left for profit, only Kante, Maddison, Maguire, Fofana and Hermansen left for eight figure sums. Others included Zieler and Luis Hernandez who left for nominal fees.

 

The total spent on the 53 is a combined £681m, the total spent on the 37 who have left is £460m. The total we've received in fees for those players* is £334m representing a loss of about £126m in ~9 years.

 

On the 18 players we've sold for a fee, we've actually made a profit of £128m.

 

But we get absolutely destroyed by the fact we've spent about £254m on footballers who left us for free, significantly painful being Tielemans (40m), Slimani (28m) and Perez (30m.)

 

All in all, it's just a horrific track record and is completely unsustainable. We're a football club that should carve out it's existance by buying and selling upwardly mobile players, never spending much on anyone over the age of about 23-25 and always making sure to move those players on in their prime for a significant profit. We CAN do it, we HAVE done it, it's the only reason we aren't far worse off than we are. But the fact we're making those losses is awful, the fact we lose so many players for free is awful and the fact we have to paper over these cracks by cashing ine arly on home-grown players for pure profit is just tragic.

 

He's just objectively failed as a DoF.

 

 

(*I haven't included money received for players developed by the club or signed before Rudkin became the Director of Football but then I also haven't considered losses we're highly likely to make for players still at the club who cost a **** load, ie Soumare, Daka, Vestergaard, etc.)

 

 

[Stadt]

29 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I've just put a Google Sheet together on my lunch break because I'm a sad case. Figures were all what can be publicly lifted from Wikipedia, Transfermarkt or AI. Wikipedia tends to be the most generous to the club and provided the most numbers. Obviously most are educated estimates.

 

Since Jon Rudkin became Director of Football (14/12/14) I make it we've signed 53 footballers of note (I've excluded development squad signings and players who both signed and left for free.)

 

Of those 53, 37 have left the club. 

 

Of the 37 who have left the club we received a losing fee for 8, sold 10 for a profitable fee and lost 19 of them for free (retirements, agreed free transfers or contract expiry.) Of the 10 that left for profit, only Kante, Maddison, Maguire, Fofana and Hermansen left for eight figure sums. Others included Zieler and Luis Hernandez who left for nominal fees.

 

The total spent on the 53 is a combined £681m, the total spent on the 37 who have left is £460m. The total we've received in fees for those players* is £334m representing a loss of about £126m in ~9 years.

 

On the 18 players we've sold for a fee, we've actually made a profit of £128m.

 

But we get absolutely destroyed by the fact we've spent about £254m on footballers who left us for free, significantly painful being Tielemans (40m), Slimani (28m) and Perez (30m.)

 

All in all, it's just a horrific track record and is completely unsustainable. We're a football club that should carve out it's existance by buying and selling upwardly mobile players, never spending much on anyone over the age of about 23-25 and always making sure to move those players on in their prime for a significant profit. We CAN do it, we HAVE done it, it's the only reason we aren't far worse off than we are. But the fact we're making those losses is awful, the fact we lose so many players for free is awful and the fact we have to paper over these cracks by cashing ine arly on home-grown players for pure profit is just tragic.

 

He's just objectively failed as a DoF.

 

 

(*I haven't included money received for players developed by the club or signed before Rudkin became the Director of Football but then I also haven't considered losses we're highly likely to make for players still at the club who cost a **** load, ie Soumare, Daka, Vestergaard, etc.)

 

 

All set against the backdrop of years of FFP trouble too, at no point has he been introspective enough to sort out any of this mess until now. I'm so excited for the day we do hear about the inner workings at the club - I'm certain the media embargo is in place because there just aren't systems or processes, it's all on the hoof, we run like it's 2007. 

 

What's especially funny, galling or whatever you want to call it, Pearson came along and showed him exactly how to build a club successfully and he... just learned nothing from that.

 

We still have the "you don't know that" brigade occasionally defending him but multiple players have confirmed Rudkin handles the negotiations for contracts, other clubs have named him in player signing announcements. It couldn't be clearer but these fans are just reflexively fine with failure and the idea of accountability upsets them?

[deep blue]

37 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I've just put a Google Sheet together on my lunch break because I'm a sad case. Figures were all what can be publicly lifted from Wikipedia, Transfermarkt or AI. Wikipedia tends to be the most generous to the club and provided the most numbers. Obviously most are educated estimates.

 

Since Jon Rudkin became Director of Football (14/12/14) I make it we've signed 53 footballers of note (I've excluded development squad signings and players who both signed and left for free.)

 

Of those 53, 37 have left the club. 

 

Of the 37 who have left the club we received a losing fee for 8, sold 10 for a profitable fee and lost 19 of them for free (retirements, agreed free transfers or contract expiry.) Of the 10 that left for profit, only Kante, Maddison, Maguire, Fofana and Hermansen left for eight figure sums. Others included Zieler and Luis Hernandez who left for nominal fees.

 

The total spent on the 53 is a combined £681m, the total spent on the 37 who have left is £460m. The total we've received in fees for those players* is £334m representing a loss of about £126m in ~9 years.

 

On the 18 players we've sold for a fee, we've actually made a profit of £128m.

 

But we get absolutely destroyed by the fact we've spent about £254m on footballers who left us for free, significantly painful being Tielemans (40m), Slimani (28m) and Perez (30m.)

 

All in all, it's just a horrific track record and is completely unsustainable. We're a football club that should carve out it's existance by buying and selling upwardly mobile players, never spending much on anyone over the age of about 23-25 and always making sure to move those players on in their prime for a significant profit. We CAN do it, we HAVE done it, it's the only reason we aren't far worse off than we are. But the fact we're making those losses is awful, the fact we lose so many players for free is awful and the fact we have to paper over these cracks by cashing ine arly on home-grown players for pure profit is just tragic.

 

He's just objectively failed as a DoF.

 

 

(*I haven't included money received for players developed by the club or signed before Rudkin became the Director of Football but then I also haven't considered losses we're highly likely to make for players still at the club who cost a **** load, ie Soumare, Daka, Vestergaard, etc.)

 

 

I'm just so amazed you could put all that together in a lunchtime.  Hugely impressive post.

[kenny]

3 minutes ago, deep blue said:

I'm just so amazed you could put all that together in a lunchtime.  Hugely impressive post.

I love the idea that Rudkin himself fills in higher valuations on Wikipedia to make it look like he has done a better job.

 

 

[surrifox]

2 hours ago, Big_Nige said:

Bertrand was on The Business of Sport podcast the other week, and in between a lot of waffle about money and cars and all sorts of sickening things about wealth they discussed his weekly wages, 

 

When he left Chelsea he was on £50k a week

 

When he moved to Southampton he went up to £60k, or £60 something as he called it

 

But his biggest deal was, wait for it….£120k a week. He doesn’t say it was us, but it obviously is. He signed another contract 18 months in at Southampton but there’s no way they would have doubled his money at that point. 
 

It’s us, and that contract is as a big a clue as any as to why we are in the position we are in. His display in the first half against Napoli is one of the most disgusting performances I’ve ever seen from a professional footballer 

Rodgers' son was his agent- the kid's a genius 

[AjcW]

3 hours ago, CrispinLA in Texas said:

Maybe he's changed his ways like Scrooge did after he saw his fate with the 3rd ghost

Was the 3rd ghost Oliver Skipp? 

[kingston_fox]

Yet we know he isn't allowed to negotiate higher end sales (e.g. Maguire) so he can't really claim those either

[Finnegan]

28 minutes ago, Stadt said:

What's especially funny, galling or whatever you want to call it, Pearson came along and showed him exactly how to build a club successfully and he... just learned nothing from that.

 

 

I think this is actually, in a weird way, where the problems start. 

 

Nigel Pearson built an absolutely fantastic club here. He got recruitment bang on, modernised stuff like nutrition, sports science, data analytics, sports psychology, etc. Brought us in to the 21st century. 

 

But he did it from the manager's office. The fact that a manager has so much control over all of that in the first place is wild, piecing most of that together should have been done by the club at an executive level. 

 

But we've had success letting the manager do it so we think that's what works. 

 

Hence why Ranieri was then allowed to disassemble it all. Because it's ultimately the manager that chooses how the club is run, whether they're qualified to or whether their ideas are poor or not. 

 

Edited 26 August 2025 by Finnegan

[Lesta Legend]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

I've just put a Google Sheet together on my lunch break because I'm a sad case. Figures were all what can be publicly lifted from Wikipedia, Transfermarkt or AI. Wikipedia tends to be the most generous to the club and provided the most numbers. Obviously most are educated estimates.

 

Since Jon Rudkin became Director of Football (14/12/14) I make it we've signed 53 footballers of note (I've excluded development squad signings and players who both signed and left for free.)

 

Of those 53, 37 have left the club. 

 

Of the 37 who have left the club we received a losing fee for 8, sold 10 for a profitable fee and lost 19 of them for free (retirements, agreed free transfers or contract expiry.) Of the 10 that left for profit, only Kante, Maddison, Maguire, Fofana and Hermansen left for eight figure sums. Others included Zieler and Luis Hernandez who left for nominal fees.

 

The total spent on the 53 is a combined £681m, the total spent on the 37 who have left is £460m. The total we've received in fees for those players* is £334m representing a loss of about £126m in ~9 years.

 

On the 18 players we've sold for a fee, we've actually made a profit of £128m.

 

But we get absolutely destroyed by the fact we've spent about £254m on footballers who left us for free, significantly painful being Tielemans (40m), Slimani (28m) and Perez (30m.)

 

All in all, it's just a horrific track record and is completely unsustainable. We're a football club that should carve out it's existance by buying and selling upwardly mobile players, never spending much on anyone over the age of about 23-25 and always making sure to move those players on in their prime for a significant profit. We CAN do it, we HAVE done it, it's the only reason we aren't far worse off than we are. But the fact we're making those losses is awful, the fact we lose so many players for free is awful and the fact we have to paper over these cracks by cashing ine arly on home-grown players for pure profit is just tragic.

 

He's just objectively failed as a DoF.

 

 

(*I haven't included money received for players developed by the club or signed before Rudkin became the Director of Football but then I also haven't considered losses we're highly likely to make for players still at the club who cost a **** load, ie Soumare, Daka, Vestergaard, etc.)

 

 

While you mention your a sad case, its posts like this that puts it into perspective as to where we now find ourselves all self inflicted and largely preventable. Superb post.

[TheStig]

19 hours ago, Chelmofox said:

There wont be anyone coming in.

Surely Rudkin will manage to find a 43 year old has been to run our midfield