@mooneyman said:
You would have been happy to risk being another Bury then @aloysius?
It wouldn't have been a risk. We've been given £9m this season to compete in this league. I'll be interested to see how much of that we spent when the accounts are released. My expectation is there will be many millions left in the bank at the end of the campaign.
As I posted in January, that was the month to open the chequebook. We were still in the mix. We'll simply never know what might have happened if we had bought a striker (Gareth was rumoured to have inquired about Joe Piggott that month). He could have got injured straight away. Or he could have scored the goals that kept us up and delivered us another £9m this summer, allowing us to become the next Barnsley or Luton.
We'll never know, and I doubt either side of the argument will convince the other side they were wrong. But I remain very firmly of the view that the risk of spending money in Jan was minimal and the potential reward was enormous.
If you put aside gambling silly money and are talking about the owners releasing a bit more cash for one player the manager really thought could make a difference then I'd be surprised if that conversation hadn't happened tbh.
Providing funding on the same level as some of our competitors to be competitive with them for players is something entirely different.
Exactly, @StrongestTeam - those who are making the case that signing one or two players would have led to financial ruin are, I think, taking an extreme position. Gareth would never say it publicly but I'm sure he would have been prepared to have bought one striker for a fee in January if he'd been given the funds to have done so. There were rumours he'd approached Joe Piggott so I imagine he was looking for proven goalscorers from the leagues below. None of whom would have led to destitution. Any of whom might have kept us up... Or at least have contributed to getting us promoted again if we went down. It'll be harder to sign those players back in League One this summer when we can't offer them the opportunity of playing half a season in the Championship.
In the end we signed Muskwe on loan who's contributed important goals and played a part in our revival. But if Gareth was thinking of a switch to 532 in Jan and had his eye on a proven goalscorer to play alongside Ikpeazu, it's a shame we couldn't get that over the line, for whatever reason.
GA left a space in the squad to try and get a free agent in should he be able to find one. So it was clear he was looking for more, which would have cost money in wages.
The 25 man squad at end of January compared to July was very different and appears to have taken considerable budget up.
We don't know how close to the FPP 60% we were this season but Rob and Pete have regularly indicated it's maxed out or was planned to be maxed out. So could we have spent any more money without falling foul of the regulations? Perhaps player 25 was the bit of budget left over.
I've read elsewhere we did try to sign Joe Pigott but he refused as he wanted guaranteed Championship football.
Obita, Ofoborh, Muskwe were all added to the squad in January, adding considerable quality even though not considerable minutes in the 2nd half of the season except Admiral.
Our facilities were in dire need of attention, and I see the pragmatism in getting significant issues addressed here whilst we had money we weren't expecting. I believe they've got the balance spot on. Realistically, I believe one more player was not going to keep us up 19 times out of 20 given our position at Xmas.
I certainly hope there will be a good chunk of cash left in the bank from our Championship season. I am banking on that cash not only funding the Covid hole for this season but also the next five or six and fix some infrastructure issues that would have become critical shortly.
If signing one more player would have given us a materially different chance of survival, the gamble may well have been worth taking. I don't see it would have. We don't have a "sliding doors" alternative reality of course so we will never know for sure.
@aloysius said:
Exactly, @StrongestTeam - those who are making the case that signing one or two players would have led to financial ruin are, I think, taking an extreme position. Gareth would never say it publicly but I'm sure he would have been prepared to have bought one striker for a fee in January if he'd been given the funds to have done so. There were rumours he'd approached Joe Piggott so I imagine he was looking for proven goalscorers from the leagues below. None of whom would have led to destitution. Any of whom might have kept us up... Or at least have contributed to getting us promoted again if we went down. It'll be harder to sign those players back in League One this summer when we can't offer them the opportunity of playing half a season in the Championship.
In the end we signed Muskwe on loan who's contributed important goals and played a part in our revival. But if Gareth was thinking of a switch to 532 in Jan and had his eye on a proven goalscorer to play alongside Ikpeazu, it's a shame we couldn't get that over the line, for whatever reason.
Point being was if he asked about Joe Piggott that suggests he was given an indication by the owners there would be funds available, or he wouldn't have bothered. I have no Idea if this even happened or if the club or player wanted more money than we were prepared to pay, or maybe he preferred Admiral on loan.
He has said a few times he's happy with the squad and he's not the type to rock the boat and ask for more than is needed. Truth is the owners, manager and staff agreed a budget this year that they all agreed was reasonable in difficult circumstances and spending more (unless massively more) wouldn't necessarily have affected the position we find ourselves in.
I would hazard a guess that a lot of the £9m has been spent on doing all the things you have to do when you get into the Championship. Of course if we get there again soon, that spend won’t be required.
The other seemingly obvious point is that our form since the transfer window closed has been more than adequate (a league table since then would have us 15th, and one since the start of this month would have us 10th, showing that we've got stronger as the season as gone on)
The damage was clearly done in the first half of the season.
Out of interest Eric, do you know where we would be in the table if we ignored the first seven weeks of the season?
In answer to your question above, not sure exactly. Not all by any extent. I have prioritised live football where available (I saw a game (through a fence) on Saturday) and in autumn for a while you could watch non league games live on a Saturday afternoon, I have had other commitments some days, a couple I realised late were early kick offs and in truth one or two just couldnt face (Iplayer with no crowds feels a bit soulless). I'm guessing about half?? You?
It was a sobering but nonetheless welcome diversion from L1 with some exciting games and performances despite the lows. We drop down with a strong, more experienced team who will (I hope) want to get back up again for themselves and the returning fans. Again Gareth has got to prove himself...which I think he relishes...and I would not be surprised and would be highly delighted if we make play-offs at least next term.
@DevC said:
Out of interest Eric, do you know where we would be in the table if we ignored the first seven weeks of the season?
In answer to your question above, not sure exactly. Not all by any extent. I have prioritised live football where available (I saw a game (through a fence) on Saturday) and in autumn for a while you could watch non league games live on a Saturday afternoon, I have had other commitments some days, a couple I realised late were early kick offs and in truth one or two just couldnt face (Iplayer with no crowds feels a bit soulless). I'm guessing about half?? You?
It would be a very close run thing indeed.
Rotherham would be bottom on 33 points, and then we would be one of 4 teams on 37 points, along with Bristol City, Huddersfield and Sheffield Wednesday. Derby would be a little bit better off on 39 points.
Having not used iFollow before this season as well as the ST and free midweek games I paid to watch all of our other away games except one. I wonder if the take-up of paid for matches substantially increased as a result of people getting into the streaming habit.
Was it you @aloysius who suggested that we should have given one player a 500k one year contract?
Sounded bonkers at the time, and like your idea of splashing the wad, it's not actually a guarantee in fairness is it.
What this season has showed was that we could very easily have stayed up with what we had, if we hadn't spent 2months basically earning zero points at the start.
We'll come back stronger with the money saved.
Rob Couhig made it clear right from the start of his stewardship that his number one aim was to make the club sustainable, and I am sure we all share that ambition. I accept that a second successive season in the Championship would have been a major boost to our finances, but even if we had signed, say, Ivan Toney it would not have guaranteed that we would have stayed up. Gambling on the vagaries of football is a very dangerous business.
@glasshalffull it's football, everything is a gamble. All I know is that Gareth was strongly linked with a proven goalscorer but didn't get him over the line. That suggests he wanted to spend some money in January. In fact, he was quoted as saying he wanted to bring in another striker after he signed Muskwe. What's the phrase people like to trot out on here? "In Gareth we trust"... So why not accept Gareth wanted to strengthen the squad further, even if it cost the club some money?
@Malone the £500k figure was always hypothetical. The argument I was making was that a £500k investment would boost the squad because it would show intent to stay up (others argued it would damage morale) and would potentially unlock another £9m if successful. @TheAndyGrahamFanClub I think it was @DevC who first calculated the £9m last summer from solidarity payments and TV revenue. We'll see how accurate it is when the accounts are published in a year.
@Malone and @eric_plant you've both argued that the uptick in our form without signing an expensive striker shows that one wasn't necessary. I'd argue the opposite. We've come so close to staying up. If we'd scored four more goals against Millwall, Coventry, Swansea and Birmingham we'd have up to eight more points. Who knows how many a proven goalscorer would have netted. Maybe none, maybe tonnes. We'll never know.
I’m not on your side of the argument @aloysius but accept it is a reasonable viewpoint.
You do however seem to have concluded that because we didn’t sign an expensive striker in January it is because the money wasn’t given to GA to do so.
That may indeed have been the case but it is possible (and some evidence to suggest likely) that the money was available but for whatever reason the right expensive striker wasn’t
The only thing we can know with even a degree of certainty is what did happen. What might have happened if we'd taken a different path is always going to be open for debate and everyone will try and spin the possible outcomes to fit their own arguement.
Personally I'm comfortable with the season we've just had, although obviously it could have been very much better with only a few more goals in the right games.
Would an expensive signing in January have scored those few extra goals or destroyed team morale and led to more defeats?
We'll never know ...
Assuming Covid hasnt changed the plan, Prem Solidarity payments and EFL TV deal money for a Championship club are £4.5m and £3.8m respectively making £8.3m in total. There is additional money for being home clubs in live games.
Incidentally Joe Pigott appear as to have been proven correct to turn down a relegation threatened championship club in January and hold out for something better in summer. Reportedly about to join Premier league bound Watford increasing his salary sixfold.
Erm...Forest signed ‘proven goalscorer’ Lyle Taylor, free agent from Charlton at the beginning of this season. Following his ‘life changing move’ (Lee Bowyer) he has scored precisely four league goals for Forest this season, including two in one match v Wycombe. He hasn’t scored since November. Signing goal scorers is not an exact science.
I think a better use of the funds would have been paying for optometrist appointments for all second tier refs and linesmen before the start of the season.
@HolmerBlue said:
And a fair chunk of that has gone on updating the stadium, floodlights etc
Did the Frank Adams stand roof get repaired?
Not sure tbh, I know someone who has been working down there for the last few years, and he said a lot of work has gone on in and around the stadium, updating and renovating, I know those new floodlights weren't cheap !
Comments
It wouldn't have been a risk. We've been given £9m this season to compete in this league. I'll be interested to see how much of that we spent when the accounts are released. My expectation is there will be many millions left in the bank at the end of the campaign.
As I posted in January, that was the month to open the chequebook. We were still in the mix. We'll simply never know what might have happened if we had bought a striker (Gareth was rumoured to have inquired about Joe Piggott that month). He could have got injured straight away. Or he could have scored the goals that kept us up and delivered us another £9m this summer, allowing us to become the next Barnsley or Luton.
We'll never know, and I doubt either side of the argument will convince the other side they were wrong. But I remain very firmly of the view that the risk of spending money in Jan was minimal and the potential reward was enormous.
We could have a gasroom poll...
Our long-term future as a football club is far more important than whether we stayed up this year.
I stopped reading Piers Morgan's deliberately baiting 'what if' columns a long time ago.
If you put aside gambling silly money and are talking about the owners releasing a bit more cash for one player the manager really thought could make a difference then I'd be surprised if that conversation hadn't happened tbh.
Providing funding on the same level as some of our competitors to be competitive with them for players is something entirely different.
Exactly, @StrongestTeam - those who are making the case that signing one or two players would have led to financial ruin are, I think, taking an extreme position. Gareth would never say it publicly but I'm sure he would have been prepared to have bought one striker for a fee in January if he'd been given the funds to have done so. There were rumours he'd approached Joe Piggott so I imagine he was looking for proven goalscorers from the leagues below. None of whom would have led to destitution. Any of whom might have kept us up... Or at least have contributed to getting us promoted again if we went down. It'll be harder to sign those players back in League One this summer when we can't offer them the opportunity of playing half a season in the Championship.
In the end we signed Muskwe on loan who's contributed important goals and played a part in our revival. But if Gareth was thinking of a switch to 532 in Jan and had his eye on a proven goalscorer to play alongside Ikpeazu, it's a shame we couldn't get that over the line, for whatever reason.
A few things here for me.
GA left a space in the squad to try and get a free agent in should he be able to find one. So it was clear he was looking for more, which would have cost money in wages.
The 25 man squad at end of January compared to July was very different and appears to have taken considerable budget up.
We don't know how close to the FPP 60% we were this season but Rob and Pete have regularly indicated it's maxed out or was planned to be maxed out. So could we have spent any more money without falling foul of the regulations? Perhaps player 25 was the bit of budget left over.
I've read elsewhere we did try to sign Joe Pigott but he refused as he wanted guaranteed Championship football.
Obita, Ofoborh, Muskwe were all added to the squad in January, adding considerable quality even though not considerable minutes in the 2nd half of the season except Admiral.
Our facilities were in dire need of attention, and I see the pragmatism in getting significant issues addressed here whilst we had money we weren't expecting. I believe they've got the balance spot on. Realistically, I believe one more player was not going to keep us up 19 times out of 20 given our position at Xmas.
I certainly hope there will be a good chunk of cash left in the bank from our Championship season. I am banking on that cash not only funding the Covid hole for this season but also the next five or six and fix some infrastructure issues that would have become critical shortly.
If signing one more player would have given us a materially different chance of survival, the gamble may well have been worth taking. I don't see it would have. We don't have a "sliding doors" alternative reality of course so we will never know for sure.
How many Wycombe games have you watched this season Dev, just out of interest?
Point being was if he asked about Joe Piggott that suggests he was given an indication by the owners there would be funds available, or he wouldn't have bothered. I have no Idea if this even happened or if the club or player wanted more money than we were prepared to pay, or maybe he preferred Admiral on loan.
He has said a few times he's happy with the squad and he's not the type to rock the boat and ask for more than is needed. Truth is the owners, manager and staff agreed a budget this year that they all agreed was reasonable in difficult circumstances and spending more (unless massively more) wouldn't necessarily have affected the position we find ourselves in.
I would hazard a guess that a lot of the £9m has been spent on doing all the things you have to do when you get into the Championship. Of course if we get there again soon, that spend won’t be required.
The other seemingly obvious point is that our form since the transfer window closed has been more than adequate (a league table since then would have us 15th, and one since the start of this month would have us 10th, showing that we've got stronger as the season as gone on)
The damage was clearly done in the first half of the season.
Out of interest Eric, do you know where we would be in the table if we ignored the first seven weeks of the season?
In answer to your question above, not sure exactly. Not all by any extent. I have prioritised live football where available (I saw a game (through a fence) on Saturday) and in autumn for a while you could watch non league games live on a Saturday afternoon, I have had other commitments some days, a couple I realised late were early kick offs and in truth one or two just couldnt face (Iplayer with no crowds feels a bit soulless). I'm guessing about half?? You?
It was a sobering but nonetheless welcome diversion from L1 with some exciting games and performances despite the lows. We drop down with a strong, more experienced team who will (I hope) want to get back up again for themselves and the returning fans. Again Gareth has got to prove himself...which I think he relishes...and I would not be surprised and would be highly delighted if we make play-offs at least next term.
It would be a very close run thing indeed.
Rotherham would be bottom on 33 points, and then we would be one of 4 teams on 37 points, along with Bristol City, Huddersfield and Sheffield Wednesday. Derby would be a little bit better off on 39 points.
Having not used iFollow before this season as well as the ST and free midweek games I paid to watch all of our other away games except one. I wonder if the take-up of paid for matches substantially increased as a result of people getting into the streaming habit.
Is the 9 million figure true? I’ve seen figures quoted as half of that
Was it you @aloysius who suggested that we should have given one player a 500k one year contract?
Sounded bonkers at the time, and like your idea of splashing the wad, it's not actually a guarantee in fairness is it.
What this season has showed was that we could very easily have stayed up with what we had, if we hadn't spent 2months basically earning zero points at the start.
We'll come back stronger with the money saved.
Rob Couhig made it clear right from the start of his stewardship that his number one aim was to make the club sustainable, and I am sure we all share that ambition. I accept that a second successive season in the Championship would have been a major boost to our finances, but even if we had signed, say, Ivan Toney it would not have guaranteed that we would have stayed up. Gambling on the vagaries of football is a very dangerous business.
@glasshalffull it's football, everything is a gamble. All I know is that Gareth was strongly linked with a proven goalscorer but didn't get him over the line. That suggests he wanted to spend some money in January. In fact, he was quoted as saying he wanted to bring in another striker after he signed Muskwe. What's the phrase people like to trot out on here? "In Gareth we trust"... So why not accept Gareth wanted to strengthen the squad further, even if it cost the club some money?
@Malone the £500k figure was always hypothetical. The argument I was making was that a £500k investment would boost the squad because it would show intent to stay up (others argued it would damage morale) and would potentially unlock another £9m if successful. @TheAndyGrahamFanClub I think it was @DevC who first calculated the £9m last summer from solidarity payments and TV revenue. We'll see how accurate it is when the accounts are published in a year.
@Malone and @eric_plant you've both argued that the uptick in our form without signing an expensive striker shows that one wasn't necessary. I'd argue the opposite. We've come so close to staying up. If we'd scored four more goals against Millwall, Coventry, Swansea and Birmingham we'd have up to eight more points. Who knows how many a proven goalscorer would have netted. Maybe none, maybe tonnes. We'll never know.
I’m not on your side of the argument @aloysius but accept it is a reasonable viewpoint.
You do however seem to have concluded that because we didn’t sign an expensive striker in January it is because the money wasn’t given to GA to do so.
That may indeed have been the case but it is possible (and some evidence to suggest likely) that the money was available but for whatever reason the right expensive striker wasn’t
The only thing we can know with even a degree of certainty is what did happen. What might have happened if we'd taken a different path is always going to be open for debate and everyone will try and spin the possible outcomes to fit their own arguement.
Personally I'm comfortable with the season we've just had, although obviously it could have been very much better with only a few more goals in the right games.
Would an expensive signing in January have scored those few extra goals or destroyed team morale and led to more defeats?
We'll never know ...
I thought it was 5 million, not 9
And a fair chunk of that has gone on updating the stadium, floodlights etc
Doesn’t get much more definitive than that.
Did the Frank Adams stand roof get repaired?
Assuming Covid hasnt changed the plan, Prem Solidarity payments and EFL TV deal money for a Championship club are £4.5m and £3.8m respectively making £8.3m in total. There is additional money for being home clubs in live games.
To be fair, Lg1 clubs get £1.3m combined, so additional income as a championship club is c £7m. https://theesk.org/2020/10/29/a-simple-but-fair-redistribution-of-football-revenues/
Incidentally Joe Pigott appear as to have been proven correct to turn down a relegation threatened championship club in January and hold out for something better in summer. Reportedly about to join Premier league bound Watford increasing his salary sixfold.
Erm...Forest signed ‘proven goalscorer’ Lyle Taylor, free agent from Charlton at the beginning of this season. Following his ‘life changing move’ (Lee Bowyer) he has scored precisely four league goals for Forest this season, including two in one match v Wycombe. He hasn’t scored since November. Signing goal scorers is not an exact science.
I think a better use of the funds would have been paying for optometrist appointments for all second tier refs and linesmen before the start of the season.
Not sure tbh, I know someone who has been working down there for the last few years, and he said a lot of work has gone on in and around the stadium, updating and renovating, I know those new floodlights weren't cheap !