The "do they mean us?" thread pt 4

[Jimmy]

2 hours ago, Craig said:

Whilst we have not gained a sporting advantage in terms of actually avoiding relegation, they will still say we have gained a sporting advantage in single matches in our attempt to avoid relegation. 

 

If we had finished bottom with zero points maybe there would be a case for it, but we didn't. I don't see how it's anything other than flimsy mitigation.

if they'd punished Everton when they should have we likely wouldn't have gone on that January splurge in an attempt to stay up

[coolhandfox]

2 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

if they'd punished Everton when they should have we likely wouldn't have gone on that January splurge in an attempt to stay up

Not sure the January splurge was the only issue.

 

We probably have broken FFP without that.

[Chelmofox]

3 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

Not sure the January splurge was the only issue.

 

We probably have broken FFP without that.

You presume the club would taken the splurge knowing full well we would breach anyway regardless if we had stayed up?

[Dahnsouff]

Perhaps the clubs desire to play a certain way, moving away from the previous approach that brought us success, contributed to a bunch of dumb signings in lieu of a formal plan.

[Koke]

6 hours ago, Happy Fox said:

Peter Risdale crying in his hovis

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68551806

We've got teams at the top of our division paying five times more in wages than we [Preston North End] are, and that's showing because they're at the top end of the Championship - and they're doing that based on parachute payments that are coming down from the Premier League.

"The top three teams are Leicester City, Leeds United and Ipswich, then Southampton are fourth. Three of those four came down last year and have got parachute payments.

 

Most of the players we have were signed in the Premier League and are on Premier League contracts. Parachute payments are necessary, no matter how much people hate it. 

[Dan LCFC]

9 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

100% we are the victims of our own success but unfortunately we are also the masters of our own downfall.

 

The irony is we achieved what we achieved by getting it right both financially and largely in recruitment and then we tried to build on that by making decisions that were perhaps a change to what we'd done previously and ultimately we didn't have the flexibility for it to go wrong.

 

I think that's the most frustrating thing. We were so close to CL football twice which may have given us the financial boost that could have kept us on track but we also were becoming blinkered in our grip on our progression. The effectiveness of Rodgers was massively sliding on a squad that were becoming disillusioned and wanted new challenges, whilst their value diminished and we seemingly had no answer to how we could refresh the squad to get them or other fringe players out and new assets in.

 

Also to think the sheer amount of transfer fees we did generate on the likes of Mahrez, Maguire, Chilwell, Fofana etc on top of the European football campaigns and major honours and we still seem to have breached PSR. 

Really is remarkable how quickly we got relegated. A bad season from those circumstances should've been about 14th. I think the club agreed and thought that's what Rodgers was going to deliver last season.

 

For all I sort of agree that you're never more than a couple of bad windows away from struggle I still think even despite this to actually go the full way was pretty unbelievable. Our absolute floor last season should've been around 14th.

[Lillehamring]

21 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

It was beyond reckless IMO because it wasn't even the drop in revenue from failing to qualify for Europe (or the different European tournaments) but the massive increases in wages that were happening at the same time. It became essential we qualify for Europe and that is pretty unrealistic to project with little flexibility if we didn't.

Vicious circle though - if you want european football you need players with european experience, you want players with european experience you pay higher salaries.

 

If we hadn't strengthened our depth fans would have been whining about not investing in the squad.  The club had to make the choice.

 

 

 

There's a fine line between recklessness and necessity. 

 

 

 

 

[Lillehamring]

21 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

I'm not so sure our club does knows

when it can and cannot spend because we are being reported by many reputable outlets that we are expected to have breached 2022/23 and on course to do so for 2023/24. 

 

As I've said, we sold £110m worth of players (less of Fofana's book value and sell on to St Etienne and Maddison to Norwich - probably more like £80-85m profit in the accounts) in the 2022/23 accounting period if Maddison counts towards it and booked only an additional £11m in transfers in in the year. If we have still breached PSR for that year then we were always going to and the forecasts must have rejected this right back to the beginning of that year and well before Top's statement. 

 

The not signing anyone in January 2024 is quite possibly because it would incredibly remiss of us to know we had breached 2022/23 (if we have and simply waiting for the maximum deadline on which we publish the accounts) and have been in a battle with the EFL about their desire to see what our plan is for 2023/24 which they think we'll breach and we've not said we won't breach it but that we don't have to tell them yet.

But all of this is really just guess work - we know vaguely the transfer figures, but we have little to no accurate info on all the other income and expenditure.  You're 'reputable outfits' may well have guessed right, but if it comes down to a million here or there, then we'll just have to wait and see as those sort of figures are hard to predict without knowing the entire accounts.

 

As for january, it seems apparent that we could buy if we sold, and conceivably that we could afford the sensei deal if it had been how we wanted it, even without selling - - to me this suggests that we're right up to the limit.

 

The idea that the club is ignorant of it's financial position seems implausible - there's too much riding on it, and the organisation has too many people involved to get into a situation where the accountants and CFO are ALL like 

 

It's not unbelievable to think that they know exactly what the situation is and they're disregarding it (which would be a real worry), but the idea of some great wave of corporate economic ignorance just doesn't seem possible.

Edited 13 March by Lillehamring

[Lillehamring]

21 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

I agree! 

 

I think it was an over reaction to playing it far to safe in the two winter windows which cost us CL football.

 

Sometimes when you under play a hand you over play the next.

 

 

I don't think the mistake was spending the money - the mistake was not spending it well.  

 

Coupled with the waves of injuries that effectively had us playing with a reserves side for a season or two.

 

[Lillehamring]

6 hours ago, ClaphamFox said:

If/when it becomes clear that we breached in the period ending June 2023, presumably our defence will be twofold: 1) That we didn't gain a sporting advantage because we were relegated at the end of the period, unlike Everton and Forest, who survived; and 2) That we made more of an effort in 2022/23 to comply by significantly restricting our transfer spending while Everton and Forest spent more than us. Therefore it could be argued that we effectively relegated ourselves by imposing strict spending limits on ourselves in the summer of 2022 while our rivals were splashing the cash. Receiving the same punishment as Everton under those circumstances may strike some as perverse - what's the point of trying to comply if your actions lead to relegation and you then get clobbered with the same punishment as a club that survived anyway?

 

When Rob Tanner was on the podcast the other week, he said the club is 'quietly confident' that we have a strong case to make. I'm less optimistic, but we shall see...

Maybe we can argue that 3) we intend to sue everton and that should cover any shortfall!

[Lillehamring]

4 hours ago, Stadt said:

When we splurged in 21/22 with our highest net spend - we spunked it on players who weren't likely to first choices. Daka, Vestergaard and Soumare weren't what we needed at the time particularly. If we'd have just loaned in a CB instead of spending circa 17m on an obvious back up we'd have been far better off. It was gamble signing those three and we didn't have to make a bet like that.

 

A proper RW should have been the priority.

Well that is because we had a pretty much nailed on first XI - the players we were buying at that time we're bought to increase our squad depth and/or to form part of the flow of players when members of that first XI were sold and/or retired.

 

None of those first three were intended to go into the first team; but we needed better back ups for the positions they played.  It was a good squad building philosophy, but you can't always guarantee the players you buy will be a success.

[coolhandfox]

39 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

I don't think the mistake was spending the money - the mistake was not spending it well.  

 

Coupled with the waves of injuries that effectively had us playing with a reserves side for a season or two.

 

Putting ourselves in a position were our amortisation per season was 70m + is a mistake, especially when you combine that with a wage bill of 192m.

 

That's expenditure of just 262m against a revenue of 226m, a loss 34m before you add all the other expenses.

 

I personally don't think we should have taken that risk, without a plan to migrate it.

Edited 13 March by coolhandfox

[st albans fox]

26 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

Maybe we can argue that 3) we intend to sue everton and that should cover any shortfall!

And opening ourselves up to being sued by the team finishing third for even more than we take Everton for …..

[MattFox]

3 hours ago, Dan LCFC said:

Really is remarkable how quickly we got relegated. A bad season from those circumstances should've been about 14th. I think the club agreed and thought that's what Rodgers was going to deliver last season.

 

For all I sort of agree that you're never more than a couple of bad windows away from struggle I still think even despite this to actually go the full way was pretty unbelievable. Our absolute floor last season should've been around 14th.

21/22 was a really bad season and we still finished 8th

 

Honestly think our relegation will be one of those WTF moments people look back on in 30 years time

 

Everton have been much worse for a decade now and still haven’t gone down

Edited 13 March by MattFox

[weller54]

18 minutes ago, MattFox said:

21/22 was a really bad season and we still finished 8th

 

Honestly think our relegation will be one of those WTF moments people look back on in 30 years time

 

Everton have been much worse for a decade now and still haven’t gone down

That's because they have never been managed by a poison dwarf.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, Lillehamring said:

Vicious circle though - if you want european football you need players with european experience, you want players with european experience you pay higher salaries.

 

If we hadn't strengthened our depth fans would have been whining about not investing in the squad.  The club had to make the choice.

 

 

 

There's a fine line between recklessness and necessity. 

 

 

 

 

The wage structure was completely unsustainable, it's not even the wages that were paid to our successful players, that to a degree made sense but the wages offered to new signings that were often double or triple what they were on was the mistake. Players you refer to as having European experience were still getting monumental pay rises to come here.

 

I'm sure Kieran Maguire said from the 2021/22 accounts our average wage was £94k a week, astonishing.

 

We needed to be stricter and more dynamic, but truth be told we lost a lot of highly talented analysts and staff and I think we took our eye off the ball and believed we'd cracked it.

[HitchinFox]

Can we just all agree that our relegation from the Prem (and all the financial stuff)  is Rudkin's fault and move on?

 

This thread was much more fun when it focused on some has-been-players-now-pundits moaning about us , or inbred rival fans getting stuff wrong about us on social media. 😂😂

[davieG]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68561513

Bournemouth 'knew' they could mount comeback - Andoni Iraola
On a night when all eyes were on the Champions League, the Premier League witnessed its biggest comeback win in more than 20 years.

Away from the television cameras and the drama in Madrid and Dortmund, Bournemouth and Luton played out one of the most extraordinary Premier League matches of this or any recent season.

Bournemouth won 4-3, having been three goals down at the break.

Dominic Solanke's exquisite turn and finish started the comeback five minutes after half-time, and after Illia Zabarnyi bundled in a header for 2-3, Antoine Semenyo completed the comeback with a pair of powerful finishes - the second with only six minutes remaining.

"It's unreal," Semenyo told BBC Match of the Day. "It is an achievement of mine just playing in the Premier League so to get a winning goal for the team, I'm buzzing."

It meant Bournemouth became only the fifth team in Premier League history to win a match in which they trailed by three goals, and just the third to do so in a game where they were 3-0 down at half-time.

The others to achieve this feat were Manchester United in beating Spurs 5-3 in September 2001 and Wolves v Leicester in October 2003.

 

 

Remember this disintegration. Some events good and bad are just embedded in your brain never to leave. 

 

[CosbehFox]

14 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

 

The idea that the club is ignorant of it's financial position seems implausible - there's too much riding on it, and the organisation has too many people involved to get into a situation where the accountants and CFO are ALL like 

 

It's not unbelievable to think that they know exactly what the situation is and they're disregarding it (which would be a real worry), but the idea of some great wave of corporate economic ignorance just doesn't seem possible.

Can think of two examples under this current ownership where that's occurred. 

[Nalis]

The 'do they mean Top?' thread

[Babylon]

12 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

The wage structure was completely unsustainable, it's not even the wages that were paid to our successful players, that to a degree made sense but the wages offered to new signings that were often double or triple what they were on was the mistake. Players you refer to as having European experience were still getting monumental pay rises to come here.

 

I'm sure Kieran Maguire said from the 2021/22 accounts our average wage was £94k a week, astonishing.

 

We needed to be stricter and more dynamic, but truth be told we lost a lot of highly talented analysts and staff and I think we took our eye off the ball and believed we'd cracked it.

The wages on the books include all staff at this club (I think there were 400+ people, bonuses, benefits in kind). Anyone saying what our average is just guessing. The "average wage" was going to be inflated during the 20/21 and 21/22 seasons, due to league finish, FA Cup wins, European competitions etc. 

[Fox92]

17 hours ago, Koke said:

 

Most of the players we have were signed in the Premier League and are on Premier League contracts. Parachute payments are necessary, no matter how much people hate it. 

Ridsdale should realise this more than anyone!

[Mike Oxlong]

9 hours ago, HitchinFox said:

Can we just all agree that our relegation from the Prem (and all the financial stuff)  is Rudkin's fault and move on?

 

This thread was much more fun when it focused on some has-been-players-now-pundits moaning about us , or inbred rival fans getting stuff wrong about us on social media. 😂😂

I’m no Rudkin fan but I just prefer to blame Rodgers entirely 

[Ric Flair]

43 minutes ago, Babylon said:

The wages on the books include all staff at this club (I think there were 400+ people, bonuses, benefits in kind). Anyone saying what our average is just guessing. The "average wage" was going to be inflated during the 20/21 and 21/22 seasons, due to league finish, FA Cup wins, European competitions etc. 

Well there is the elephant in the room as well - Seagrave. The sheer number of staff required to not make it look an absolute ghost town is also a factor.

 

However the overwhelming % of wages is on the playing side and manager and coaches.

 

If 400 staff averaged £50k a year its £20m. 

[Daggers]

16 hours ago, Dan LCFC said:

Really is remarkable how quickly we got relegated. A bad season from those circumstances should've been about 14th. I think the club agreed and thought that's what Rodgers was going to deliver last season.

We didn’t start getting relegated last season. Some of us were pointing out that he was benefiting from a few players over-performing in individual matches. We began relegation three seasons ago and spent two of them placing far higher than we deserved. Last season was just where all the luck ran out. It was obvious and predictable.