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Ferry sets sail at the end of an era
           
           


  “MAYBE they just didn’t fancy me and didn’t think I was worth the money.â€�

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/10411103.Ferry_sets_sail_at_the_end_of_an_era/?ref=rss
           
           
           

Anybody explain this.

It is says in this article that the current budget is costing £200,000 per month.

This is £2.4m annually.

I thought the budget was £4.5m and will be cut to £2.4m.

These figures being bandied about never seem to add up

Can't see that in this article? Only figure mentioned is Ferry's wages rising to £2.8k p/w

In the MacDonald interview it does say this -


which may be the source of confusion. I appreciate it's early so will let you off  ;)

I stand corrected

He days bandying figures about :-)

Gutted to see Si leave as a player and as a character. I'm sure he'll get a good contract elsewhere soon though.

Thanks for the effort Si!  :bye:

He still in League 1 or move to scotland. Don't think he's good enough to be a regular to be in the championship- too inconsistant.

Sorry to see him go put in a good shift and was a real character on and off the pitch



Oh and i found this which made me smile

Surprised that we didn't take up to the option if only in the hope we got a decent offer on him, we could at least recoup our outlay for him I'd have imagined.

My take is we didn't want to risk getting saddled with his increased wages. Adver say it would have been £2800 p/w.

I think he's worth that sort of money to be honest. £2800 ain't big money. We are going to have kids on 500 quid a week by the looks of it. False economy if they ain't good enough.

As I said in the other thread, where was this decent offer expected to come from? Have we been beating off offers for him with a shitty stick for the last few years that I've not noticed? Why didn't we sell him in January rather than Ritchie? Oh I know, because no fucker bid for him.

It doesn't really matter what I reply here because you're just going to go off on one as usual, aren't you?

As far as I can tell the decision to release Ferry was in order to keep McCormack. Ferry is more likely to attract a transfer fee than McCormack and on that basis I'd have thought that keeping Ferry over McCormack on the off chance we can sell him would fit in with the current climate of reducing the wage bill and sustainability... it's pretty much what Fitton intended.

Of course, none of us know what sort of wage McCormack is on so it could be that Ferry was released because his salary was double what McCormack earns in which case it makes perfect sense.

He's a young player who we would have been paying 3k a week basically to put him in the shop window. He's out of contract in 12 months so interested clubs wait 6 months and sign him on a Pre-contract for nowt. I can see the sense in releasing him, McCormack staying is important now I think.

Fair play to the wee man.

https://twitter.com/Wittso/status/332539945916981248/photo/1
https://twitter.com/chegz14/status/332455503961673728/photo/1

Fair point. I'm just disappointed to see him leave and am clutching at straws thinking of reasons why it makes perfect sense that he should have stayed and that JedCo don't have the foggiest.

It's not massive but it is decent and equates to nearly £150k per year. If all the senior pro's want to be on that then keeping to a playing budget of £2.4m would be nigh on impossible. We'd have 16! I know there's probably quite a few who will be on a lot less but some are likely to be on more i would surmise?!

What I don't get is why you, and a bunch of other posters, are so convinced that he's a saleable asset, when experience seems to suggest that he isn't. As far as I'm aware, in the 4(?) years he's been with the club we've not had a single offer for him.

Even when the someone at the club announced we were skint and the whole squad was up for sale I don't think anyone was interested.

If money is tight I'm not sure we want to take a punt on a salary commitment of £300k (what a 2 year contract would cost us) in the hope that we might be able to sell him on.

I'm not convinced we'll get any bids for him, it's just more likely that we'd receive a bid for him than for McCormack. The point I was trying to make is that even if we didn't release him the worst case scenario is that he'd be playing for us. I thought that it was only a one year option anyway?

I presume it is the same logic in offering Flint a new deal but releasing Devera - younger, rumours of interest have been floating around and we'd be entitled to a tribunal fee if he rejected our terms and joined another club.

It's a fair point about not receiving any offers for him in January but given that we sold Ritchie in double-quick time, it may be that any offers were rebuffed. I'm sure Dr Pierre Chang will know :)

Of course, I'm basing this entirely on the assumption his wages would be lower than a senior pro who dropped a league to join us in 2011.

When have we tried to sell him though? I would suggest Wes is worth money but because nobody has bid for him yet does that mean he's isn't a saleable asset?

The whole squad was up for sale for a few hours before being retracted so hardly 'in the shop window'. How do you know there wasn't enquiries??

Karl Robinson spoke highly of him in the studio of the Brentford 2nd leg which would suggest at least 1 club thinks highly of him.

The clause was one year not two.

Is he really worth £2.8k a week when the average for the league is apparently around £1.5k (see link in other thread).

In simple footballing terms I suspect that as McCormack can play across the back 4 and midfield, whilst Ferry can play in 1 position only would have held a lot of sway, especially if money is tight!

£2.4 million wage budget works out to an average of £1,800 a week per player for a squad of 25. Under Swindon's option for Ferry he would have been on £2,800 next year.

Disappointed just doesn't cover it.

I guess there has to be a balance between investment for the future and what's needed on the pitch in the here and now. MacDonald appears to have decided that McCormack is more vital to his central midfield.

I quite like the way KMac appears to have fuck all idea what's going on....a good gambit in deflecting blame from himself. I'm sure it can't be the case that he really has no idea what's going on can it?  :hmmm:

I love the idea that he really is sailing off on a barge, like Killer Kilcline!

I like the idea that we should have released Alan Mac & extended Ferry so we could sell him thus leaving us without either.

I'm sure the idea of negotiating with Alan Mac is that they want him to stay and act as a role model to the youngsters.  I'm not sure that is a job I would have said Si would have been good at.
He is also able to cover more positions, as we have seen this season.

If money were no option I would loved to have kept both, but that is not the place we are in right now, so I have to think that Alan Mac is probably the right (safe) choice.

He's worth £2800 a week. If only we could get Roberts off the book without paying him off, he could have kept both Devera and Ferry.

Franchise have been linked with him a few times and if as JJ says he's already in talks with them, it seems daft not to have invoked the clause.

We're up the creek a bit if McCormack goes, which I think is highly likely.

Prutton is coming back.

Ha ha.  But he's so brilliant he'd need to be paid at least £6k a week!!

Jesus saves!

Exactly.

Alan Mac's leadership skills and flexibility are likely to be more valuable to us than Ferry's technical ability. Also, whether or not Ferry is worth whatever he is/was being paid is irrelevant. What is relevant is that we can no longer afford to have a squad full of high earners so some sacrifices have to be made. It's tough titty, really.

And some people need to stop over-reacting about the cuts because our budget is still likely to be larger than the majority of other clubs in the division. You'd think we'll be on a shoe-string budget the way some are carrying on. At 2.4m that is simply not the case.

This exactly. It's no good comparing what the old board were prepared to fund with what the new board are prepared to fund because the old board clearly weren't prepared to fund a £4.5m playing budget or they would still be here.

Do you have a list of everyone's budget then?

You know I don't have a list, but I do have common sense. We are among the larger clubs in L1 where revenues are concerned and generate revenues that others with much smaller attendances cannot compete with.

Are you trying to suggest that 2.4 mil is a small budget for L1?

No, what I'm trying to suggest is I have no idea how or where a 2.4m budget fits into L1 because I don't have any idea what other clubs budgets are....

let's all guess - I'll start
Swindon 2.4 m

Yeovil 1m

I asked about this on FF. Some replies I got from fans about this season's budget.....

Yeovil = 800k
Walsall = 800k
L orient = 1.4M
Cheterfield are expecting little more than 1.4 M next season.
I've read that dongs had a budget of less than 2M

Of course the bigger clubs such as Sheff U, Wolves, Bristol City, Coventry & Preston will have much larger budgets than ours but still, our budget will be very competitive in comparison to the smaller clubs.

Slightly off topic......

I was doing a bit of fishing around with other club's budegts. This season and last Brentford's was 5M, running up a loss of approx 3M/season.

I've seen the thread. There is always the chance those fans have plucked those numbers out of thin air. Lets be honest a lot of our fans pull most of their information out their arses....

With Roberts, Navarro, McEveley, Williams etc. still contracted for another year and drawing a higher wage than equivalent players at other clubs, the reality is next season Kmac will have less to work with financially than the manager of another club who on paper appears to be operating on an identical budget.

That's an important distinction to make when talking about competing with other teams who are superficially on the same budget as us.

Not to say that we can't compete on a lower budget, as Yeovil, Walsall and Leyton Orient have already shown. Just to point out making a direct comparison using a figure of £2.4 million compared to the budgets of other clubs isn't necessarily accurate or fair for showing what Kmac will actually have to work with when building his team for next season.

I saw a tweet from a Yeovil journo that said there's was 1M.

I know those figures won't be exact but even when you give or take a little it indicates that there's much smaller budgets around than ours.

Going by attendances also, and I know that this is not an exact science either and that there are other variables, but we still ranked 5th in the league so it's entirely reasonable that we can pay more than the majority and still break even.

How much are these 3 on then?

Now, is that 1m (and our 2.4m for that matter)

All of our football related budget - wages, transfer fees, bonuses, agent fees, backroom staff wages or are those figures just players wages?

Can someone who has looked at previous accounts in some detail give any indication on what playing budget actually means.

Those players you mention will still be playing for us so it;s not as though those wages have gone into a black hole somewhere. Plus, they may restrict KMAC's flexibility in the market yet I bet he'll still have a lot more flexibility than other managers in the league.

It's all relative. We are simply just a relatively large club in a league where many teams see attendances of 4-5k.

It's the fact that they'll still be playing for us that's part of my concern!

If they were twice as good as an equivalent player being paid half as much in another team, it obviously wouldn't be an issue, as we'd be paying a relative premium on a player twice as good. The reality is we're paying a lot more for players who aren't offering anything close to that relative return in quality.

Another club might be able to budget for three fairly decent players for the price we'll be paying next season for one fairly poor Gary Roberts. In that situation, our manager isn't competing on quite such an even keel to another manager overseeing an ostensibly similar budget.

You appear to be suggesting that our former manager has left us with a squad of overpaid ropey old shite. I've been abused fucking rotten for suggesting that this might be the case in the past.

You're acting as though the remaining players are awful and a complete waste of money. They are not and would probably walk into half of the teams in the division. I expect those challenging for the top wouldn't say not to an on-form Gary Roberts either.

If they stay then KMAC already has players at his disposal that are better than what a lot of other managers could hope for PLUS the flexibility to do some dabbling of his own. If they go then that frees up more money for KMAC to play with. No matter how you may try to dress it up, KMAC has more at his disposal, whether it be funds or playing staff, than most other L1 managers.

If it's guaranteed that Williams will be a goal-shy shirker who lacks the bottle and desire, or that Navarro will be a fat, slow, injury-prone donkey with the mobility of STFC_Gazzza, or that Roberts will be a wasteful luxury player with no final ball or positional sense, we'll be better off with 6 cheaper alternatives.

Or we could have Williams frightening L1 cloggers to death causing havoc and banging in screamers, a rejuvenated Navarro bossing a midfield, breaking things up and linking defense with attack, and an on form Roberts beating his man, creating plenty and chipping in with some wonder-goals - which would probably all be worth the money.

Or in short, we'll have to wait and see what MacDonald can eek out of them to decide whether their perceived expense is justified.

Absolutely.

Some common sense at last.

Remember when we announced the triple signing of Williams, Collins and Roberts? They were hailed as our best signings for years and the players who would win us the league.

Even the likes of McEvely and Navarro were welcomed and seen as good signings. Troy seemed promising but has not been helped by the tribunal fee adding to expectation around him.

dalumpimunki - your anti PdC shite really is tedious.

I wonder if the likes of Roberts, Caddis, Williams and Navarro will be put up for sale by the club? Let's be honest their wages are something we could do without especially the most the first and last of those mentioned. Would anyone take Roberts? Probably but I doubt they would for the wages he's probably on now.

I expect Caddis will go, as he would have done regardless of the fincancial situation, and there would surely be interest in the likes of Williams, Roberts and Navarro.

Williams was superb first half of the season and you would have to say he is the only one of the 3 we would get a fee for.

Aside from him, it's only Foderingham and Collins who I could see fetching a fee.

Have they not told you they are staying yet

Alan McCormack is a leader of men, absolutely imperative we keep him. Ferry less so.

£2.8k per week for a creative midfielder who can't score?? I've always thought ferry is too lightweight for league one anyway, still do. I know he's a funny guy and a favourite with the twitter retards, but this aint a big loss. Move on and build for the future.

Alan Mac is a fucking shining example of everything you want from your players, as a supporter of a lower league team. Hope we get to keep Wes though, but can't see it myself.

Some of those players were awful for large parts of the season and have been a complete waste of money. I don't know how you can form a judgement to the contrary based on what we've been seeing week in, week out over the course of the regular season.

The suggestion that other teams wouldn't say no to an in-form Gary Roberts is irrelevant. WE wouldn't say no to an in-form Gary Roberts either. The reality is we are yet to see an in-form Gary Roberts. The pertinent question is not would those challenging for the top say yes to an in-form Gary Roberts, it's would they say yes to an OUT-of-form Gary Roberts getting three times the wages of another player offering a similar level of performance?

How can being stuck with someone like that for next year translate to Kmac having more flexibility in the market than a manager operating on the same budget without such a player stuck on his wage bill?

Edit: (I'm talking about being stuck with under-performing, overpriced players like Roberts, Navarro, Mcevely next year. Obviously having good players like Foderingham, Ward, Thompson (hopefully) next year will be an advantage over some other teams, balancing it out somewhat, which may well have been what you were getting at in original post).

Releasing our best outfield player is no big loss and a move to build for the future?

I'd take him over Alan McComack every day of the week, he's a better player.

You seem to be missing the point that we will have a LARGER budget than most other teams in L1. In some cases, considerably so.

You are very quick to point out when you believe others are posting rumours or made up facts, so what makes you think we will have a (considerably) larger budget than most other teams in L1?

Guess work.

If you read back through this thread you'll see this discussion has already been had.

And yeah it is guesswork pretty much, guesswork based on facts, figures and a little bit of prying. If you have a counter argument that suggests I'm wrong, then show me where I'm wrong..........

Oh, and don't try to put words in my mouth. I didn't say we have a (considerably) larger budget than most. I reckon we have a larger budget than most and it is considerably larger in (some) cases.

Patently wrong! McCormack is a better asset to our club than Ferry can ever be I'm afraid.

But he doesn't have a funny haircut and swear on facebook, granted.

Yes, because that's what I judge him on, his haircut and Facebook.

Nothing to do with his passing, movement and ball retention. Nope give me a player with funny haircut and I'm sorted.

How hoofy have we been without him the middle? How many passes did we string together against Brentford for the first 70 odd minutes, how we'll did we keep possession.

...or are required and important skills like that too subtle for you to notice? Yeah I can do patronising dickhead as well.

Ferry looks decent with a decent team around him.

McCormack drives a team, he's a leader on and off the pitch. Exactly what the club needs especially since Don Paolo moved on.

No contest for me, all about opinions though innit, chill with the personal insults please.

I was never talking about how our budget compared to other teams on a scale from biggest to smallest though.

As this thread has already shown, that's clearly a futile task.

I was pointing out that the figure of £2.4 million might be a misleading number to bandy about too much as representative of what Kmac is working with in the transfer market, accounting for the fact we are stuck with contracted players who are on higher wages than other managers working on that sort of budget would traditionally have to account for.

As a whole, Alan McCormack in my opinion, simply offers more than Ferry could and/or did and that is in no way suggesting that Ferry was a below average or a poor performer for Swindon Town.

McCormack was forced to play all over the pitch and only in one role did he look a liability. Stick Ferry on the right and fans were kicking up a right stink (1. because he wasn't in the middle and 2. because he wasn't that good at it).

If the club are operating with a view of having a smaller squad then Town need players who can play in various positions?

Until told otherwise, me thinks that we all need to get real about this.

How much impact do you think the players you mentioned are having on the budget?

Under the circumstances I reckon McCormack may be our most valuable asset (even if he does have no sale value). It's not just about versatility, we also need a leader.

Except maybe for wes cos good keepers are hard to replace.

I agree. I forgot to include the leadership aspect in my point.

I'll be honest, I though McCormack  was player of the year last year, but has not been great this year. More than adequate, but not great.

But I totally get that him being more versatile and a better role model would be a clincher.

Yes and I know it's not your point but you could argue that Ferry was more-or-less in the same category this season too.

Yeah I guess so, but I think most of the time he played in the middle it was improved with him playing there - not always . I'd say he wasn't adequate on the right though!

Saw a poster on the underground today that said "Ferry to France, £29". Was going to take a picture and post it up on here under the headline "Ferry heading to France on the cheap" but we've already released him.

All estimation based on unknown wages is going to involve some speculation.

But enough to be the difference between being able to keep Ferry, Devera and De Vita for next year, supposing Navarro, McEveley and Roberts were the players we could have released instead (all inferior players in their respective positions to those named in my opinion).

The day people stop speculating on the internet is the day the internet falls silent.

McEveley seems to get a lot of bashing despite being a bloody good defender. Defensively he is very solid, he just happens to not be too great going forward, but we're in League One, the majority of full backs at this level are hopeless in the final third.

yeah, ropey old shit heading for the automatics

Navarro, McEveley and Roberts have achieved more than Ferry, Devera and De Vita.

Navarro fits KMac's system. No coincidence that Navarro had his best games in more recent times. Yeah yeah, it's not hard hehehehehe.

Hey! It's not me that's filled this thread with complaints about the club releasing decent players that were signed pre-PDC because we can't afford them due to the allegedly inflated wages of supposedly inferior PDC signed players.

All I did was point out the implications of those complaints. Obviously you disagree and think that Roberts and Navarro are worth every penny we're paying them, but if so you need to take that argument up with the rest of the thread not me.

Peterbrough,Scunthorpe,Hibs and MK.

+ Motherwell, Carlisle, Barnsley and Bradford.

+ Isle of Sark, Lindisfarne, Blyth Spartans and Fort William Kiltwearers

+ Kjelsås, Skeid, Frigg og Manglerud Star.

The fact that Lindisfarne have played at the CG might sway it for the Wee Bhoi.

I don't know about which player can play in more positions but Ferry's a better central midfielder than McCormack, anyone who says otherwise is talking absolute shite.

I don't think anybody's saying ferry isn't the better player (technically). It's just that sometimes certain attributes are needed more than others.

It's largely irrelevant anyways as I can't see McCormack staying.

liability, not that bothered if he decides he wants more than we can afford and buggers off. If he stays he would be hopefully a good influence on the kids but has a tendancy to get  pissed off easily and booked.

I simply questioned the soundness of your idea that PDC left us with a squad of ropey old shite.  Unsurprisingly that squad comprised PDC's own signings, PDC introduced youths, PDC loans and Danny Wilson signings he retained.

You now switch "Squad" to mean the PDC signings part of the squad only and imply for good measure that I have an opinion on whether two PDC-signed squad members, Roberts and Navarro, are worth their wages.

Your own advice in this thread that it is wrong to compare what the old board was prepared to fund with what the new board is prepared to fund seems to be ignored in PDC's case.  Was it his job to build a squad that would see an about turn mid-season on the playing budget?

We are where we are, so the interesting points raised (Bruce Chatwin etc) about whether overpaying some players may weaken KMac's hand with an "average budget"  is the one that needs to be a concern to us now - not whether we owe our present position, league and financial to PDC