Thetownend.com

Like many I am getting tired of thread after thread descending into an opportunity for many to state their animosity toward the board.  Sometimes (all the time) I just want to read a thread through and take on board peoples views on the matter in hand without it meandering down the same old river of shit talk.

I think we should just have one area where people can just get off their chest what they think about the board - no matter how repetitive - as the people that just do not want to read it anymore can just steer clear and let those of you who do want to go over and over and over and over it again can do so on your own terms.

We are all - I'm sure - treating things with trepidation but the constant 'doom mongering' going on in every single thread even remotely involving STFC at the moment is nauseating to the extreme. 

Can you all please just use this thread to discuss what you need to and leave the other threads to be about the subject they were intended to be.

Thanks.

  :suicide:

I have generally been relatively positive about the new board, but Kmac resigning at the time he did is a real curious one for me. Of course there have been suggestions that he wasn't happy about his lack of say in transfers which may or may not be true, but the lack of communication on this topic is a bit worrying.

In fact, the general communication overall from the board is extremely poor.

Pre-season overall appears to have been one big mess and with 2 weeks until kick off, I don't think we are anywhere close to having our first 11 and manager in place. Hopefully by the end of this week, we will at least have a new manager.

Playing devil's advocate here...but if that's the prevailing feeling, why are you trying to marginalise the viewpoint?  You could just as easily set up a thread (or threads) for the purpose of having a discussion that does not focus on criticism of the board, leaving the rest of the forum open for discussion as people see fit.  I appreciate that the criticism of the board may seem repetitive and tedious to some, but I'm not sure that is reason enough to try to sideline it.  Feels a little too much like censorship to me.

Understand the sentiment KT but like it or not, the doings in the boardroom are pivotal to pretty much every discussion of the football side at the moment. Trying to discuss transfers for example without discussing the lack of a manager, likely playing budget, whether there is/is not some kind of "special agreement" with Spurs would be impossible. And trying to discuss any of those topics without discussing the board's policy/business plan etc would be the classic 800lb gorilla discussion. Sorry, but while the current percieved instability persists it will pervade (and undermine?) everything else.

We need a thread for the people that are getting fed up with those that are getting fed up.

Can we have the classic 800lb gorilla discussion here please as I'm not familiar with it? Or is it something to do with McCrory in which case obviously not allowed?

I like everyone have concerns and cant see how it will end up.My main gripe is people are so quick to abuse and seem to know exactly how it is ending up.The spurs link is obvious,they are giving us players that we simply cant afford without that.What was an eye opener for me today was seeing that Collins Caddis Rooney Benson Jmac Navaro all being left at home,i think its safe to say they are on over a million a year

Easily £1mill between them thats over 1/3rd of the playing budget on players that are not wanted here.

It looks to me that our squad won't be anywhere near the 2.4 million mark. What do you reckon?

THat would average out about just over 3K a week, which is prob about right, when compared to a Reading fringe player like Church being on 12K.

Is that this board's fault though?  No, of course it isn't but just shows the problems that Messrs. Di Canio and Black have left - and not forgetting Wray of course!.

Nobody knows Reg, getting rid of half of those must free up wages for some permanent signings though.

Agree but thats the problem,we cant get to the 2.4 until those said players have moved on.It would be foolish to bring in players on larger wages until they have moved on.Benson the Rooneys and Caddis have all turned down moves as they get more here

Maybe I'm in the minority or being thick, but I'm not sure I see the value in leaving them at home? They might be on high wages, but we are still having to pay them whether they're playing or sitting on the sidelines.  Surely we're better off at least making them work for their wages and isn't it more likely to generate interest if they're involved?

Who has made the decision to leave them, would it be Power?

Out of interest, when does the transfer window close?

More likely to have been Sherwood...

My maths is terrible but with a stated budget of £2.4m and a presumed squad size of 22 then the average weekly wage would be around the £2k mark, correct?

My gripes about the board are pretty much all down to communication.

- The treatment of local media.
- The chairman running his mouth off on Twitter (the recent Caddis tweets were cringeworthy).
- Delay of nearly six months to sit down and talk openly about the direction the club is heading in.
- The lack of official comment from Power despite his role being announced yet we get a token statement from Sangita Shah.
- No official acknowledgement of or subsequent clarification of the Spurs link and what it entails.

I have no real issue with taking half a dozen Spurs youngsters on loan and believe that it gives us a bit of an advantage over the rest of the league. My concern, like many others, is whether there are clauses that mean these players will have to play x amount of games across the season and whether they will be chosen (or have been chosen) for the right reasons.

The sale of players is an inevitability and in the case of Caddis and Collins we are moving on two individuals on high wages who don't want to be here - it's the sensible and logical thing to do IMO. We've unfortunately been left with a couple of well paid ageing crocks who will prove difficult to shift, as well as a journeyman striker at the twilight of his career who will almost certainly prefer to sit out his contract rather than take a pay cut to move elsewhere. Likewise, L Rooney knows he won't get a better contract at another club and I think both could probably offer something this season yet clearly aren't fancied.

Meanwhile, we're also lumbered with long term injured TAH and Cox. TAH may recover fully from his injury but we may not be able to afford to play him - the tribunal determining we owe Exeter £20k for every 15 appearances - and 10 months after his last appearance, can we accommodate him? Cox hasn't been mentioned in the course of pre-season and I have no idea what the situation is with him aside from that he's long term injured. Last but not least, still no news on A Rooney. If we are stuck with him then the squad will have to be reduced even further, yet we have only Foderingham and Ward left as realistic options to move on.

Although many are blaming JedCo for these events, the reality is that they've been left with a small group of expensive, overpaid, underperforming and injured individuals who we are contractually obliged to and cannot shift off the wage bill. The previous model of underwriting large losses was never going to last forever yet some fans have difficulty grasping the reality we find ourselves in for now. I think we're in for a dull, average season on the pitch with a little bit of excitement - double over City, big away trip to Molineux, a little cup run.

I don't think JedCo are here to rip us off. I don't think we'll get relegated and left in the shit. I don't think they're taking this lightly and playing at running a football club, at least no more than Fitton ever did. I do think they're amateur, out of their depth, reliant on the club to become self-sustaining as they have no real money behind them and they seem to be showing a willingness, albeit reluctantly, to improve on issues such as communication.

The single biggest failure over the past 24 months? Our complacency as fans. January 2013 was probably the greatest opportunity for a fan-led takeover but after years of constant doom under Diamandis we all just wanted to focus on the football instead.

I guess it would be so that they're immediately available for contract discussions with other clubs and to save on costs of flights, accommodation etc.

I'd hope they're training with the youth team instead of sitting around at home!

You can pretty much guarentee that every player brought in by Paolo was on a massive wage probably ranging from 3k to 5k per week easily, Rooney, Benson & Cox probably at the lower end of that bracket but JMac, Navarro and Collins will all be well up there nearer the 5k bracket making their wages alone in excess of £1mill.

TAH and Williams will both be on pretty high wages too of around £4k per week and Ward is also on about £5k a week, Foders must be on about £4k a week too which probably accounts for around £900k per year in wages and thats before you take into account the young pros in both Thompsons, Nathan having just signed a much better deal than he was on, Storey, Waldron, Ferguson, Oakley, Bedwell and Francis.

Then we have the couple of players signed from Premier League clubs in Smith and Barthram who won't have signed too cheaply as probably Tijane too. Add to that Agombar and Jackson too.

Then we don't know what percentage of the Spurs loan players we are paying (if any of course) but that soon adds up to about £3mill a year, so it is easy to see where the wage budget has gone.

If we get rid of the ones that are not wanted....all those not travelling it would appear, then we will be at a much more managable level so we can get some better players in.

But a fair few of these players have turned down offers from other clubs because they cannot match the wages we are paying them so it may even come down to us loaning some of them out with the loaning club covering most of their wages then that may happen too, Rooney, Cox(when he is fit again) and Benson being the most likely with Caddis and Collins hopefully moving on this week for a fee.

Sam suggesting that the new signings are generally on about 1/4-1/3 of what the existing players are, which is terrifying.

I think we all simply have to recalibrate our expectations and start thinking of League 1 survival as the aim for next season.

Would take that now if offered. The word "transition" could have been invented for this pre-season

see also: clusterfuck

Wonder how Paolo would get on with our current budget? I see he's bringing in a lot of new players at Sunderland, i'll be looking on with interest at how they do this season.

I was applying the benefit of the doubt!

I honestly can't imagine he'd hang around for two minutes.

120 seconds is pretty generous!

Somebody help me out here, perhaps I have missed something.

Our budget, even when slashed, will still be among the top 10 or so largest budgets in the league. Now I'm not trying to suggest that means we'll finish in the top 10 as there are other factors in play but why would our budget, and what we can now afford to pay players, mean that we are in for a relegation battle?

In the top 10 in terms of amount being spent perhaps (I don't know the numbers but what you're saying sounds reasonable) but it's clearly not going to be well allocated in that first year- we might have a much more sensible total wage bill, but there are going to be certain players who are eating up huge chunks of that and who we can't get rid of (or have to get rid of on loan) who don't contribute their value. I don't think we'll get relegated for what it's worth, but 14th-15th seems like a relatively successful season considering everything that's going on at the moment.

I believe Plymouth had a very high wage budget while they were bombing through the leagues as they were paying Damien Johnson something like 12k. It didn't help them much, it's about how you allocate the money

Agreed Flash. I think what's good is finally more supporters are seeing the cuts need to be made. It's just a few of the people on twitter who just don't seem to understand and are tweeting our chairman, calling him a c*nt!, that is baffling to me.

Happy to see all those left behind in portugal leave now and sooner the better so we can get excited about new players coming in.

Hell we might even start to make a profit. Then we can start to ask different questions.

I see where you're coming from, and it's a fair comment. But equally, in the context of that which is known (no manager, small squad once you disregard the players being left at home, potential issues with assembling a squad almost from scratch in the course of a few weeks etc. etc....), survival is surely not an unreasonable aspiration in the first instance (particularly for those with a more pessimistic outlook in general).  Obviously if we start the season well we can set out sights a little higher.

Spot on.

Oh please no, not a profit, what sort of can of worms would that open!

I think I'd answer that by referring to the scale of the re-build, and the fact that a few weeks before the start of the season we are still managerless.  Not simply a function of the playing budget.

I know that there are other factors in play here asides from the playing budget. I said so as such in my post.

I don't understand why mention of the playing budget alone, and putting aside other factors, is enough to have people thinking we are in for a relegation battle.

Try this angle, and putting other factors aside.....

Is what we can now afford to pay for new players, and we are bringing in new players, so low that we cannot complete sufficiently with other L1 teams?

No.

The new board weren't left with or lumbered with these players, they (Jed and whoever) saw the books and made the decision to take on the responsibility of owning a football club, and that includes player contracts.

What I can't fathom is how it can be 'fit and proper' for an owner to bale out without an exit strategy that takes into account contractual obligations that have financial implications, or how it can be 'fit and proper' for new owners to take on contractual obligations without having the funds to fulfil them.  

Where have they said that the will not fulfill obligations? They are trying to reduce the wage burden, which is an above board approach if yiou are trying to save money but I haven't ready anything that suggests they are not going to fulfill any obligations.

This seems to be the way matters are becoming fact on here, you may be right regarding the fit and proper persons tests, but thats a matter for the league who passed them. Its worth bearing in mind that if they did not pass the fit and proper persons test we would potentially not have a club to support now so what do we want.....

The A Rooney situation has yet to be resolved....

Actually, I don't know how much they knew about the books and the wages before they took over!  Steve Murrall admitted as much at the meeting I attended, saying their due diligence was done after the event!!  People just don't get how close we came to a total disaster, the plug had been pulled by Black and we were spiralling into a deep hole.  Admin was one option and the threat of liquidation could not have been far away.

They'd have to be pretty stupid, not to have known that the previous regime threw some decent money at it. Essentially the situation was go up get extra revenue and so cost cutting could have been more limited, stay down and undertake the current downsizing. Give it another couple of weeks and we should have a much clearer picture of where we're at.

They knew that we were a recently promoted club, challenging for promotion again with the highest profile manager in the bottom two divisions having been bankrolled to that position by a multi-millionaire. It can't have come as a surprise that we were paying our players a good whack.

That's not a comment on whether what they are doing now is the right or wrong approach, just an observation that it wouldn't have taken detailed due diligence to work out that by taking on STFC they'd be taking on a large ongoing wage bill.

Besides which, we were on the brink of administration. That decision wasn't taken by the old board purely on guesswork. They knew the approximate shortfall and its inconceivable to me that this information wasn't passed on.  Hence the Ritchie sale.

I can quite believe there were a fair few financial obligations that came out after the sale though (I mean believable ones, not ones dating back to when reg was in his 40's).
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I think its difficult to see if the Spurs lads are the de facto new model, or a stop gap way of doing things this season until the big wage hitters are gone - when we'll  bring in more experienced players.

But at the end of the day if it looks like you are making something worse but charging the same people will moan.

I like Jed, he's my mate

The players we bought in are an unknown quantity. Our best players from last season have been released, sold or are sat at home.

We have yet to replace those who have left. Our squad lacks numbers and vital experience.

Forget all the numbers and budgets (everyone seems to be an expert on our players wages now)the reason I think we will struggle next season is because our team isn't good enough.

....that and fuck knows who the manager will be.

I tend to agree with the original post...i have to say the same old stories being raked up time and time again is not the way to go.
I have been as guilty as others.

People know my feelings,i am very unhappy with the current scenario...but lets be honest even when we were flying under Di Canio people were still unhappy at certain things.

My main worry is that it dont matter who we bring in...they wont last long,the board are already bringing in new players without a manager even in place.
No new manager worth any salt is going to put up with that,its probably the reason K Mac left.
But as i say its all becoming a bit boring with tit for tat verbals between fans on here.

What we need is the season to kick off

Yep.  A team full of kids and no manager is the perfect recipe for success.

A beating at Posh and .......... 'THERE MAY BE TROUBLE AHEAD'

On or off the field :D

I think we can probably say that one is now 'dealt with' although an official comment would not go amiss

huh?

We are where we are.

No amount of moaning on here is going to change things a jot.

Everybody has a certain degree of trepidation about the future - the only difference is some are willing to wait until it is proven the new board are useless where others have already made their minds up.

If we do, indeed, get off to a rocky start I dread to think what it will be like on here

I must have missed that then...

spill it..

Something to do with this thread I assume?

http://thetownend.com/index.php?topic=52041.msg1211358#msg1211358

 :sherlock:

Has anyone seen A Rooney lately?  I hope he's not ended up in the foundations of a new Algarve apartment development...hence the media blackout.

OK, so the Board apologists, will say it's a wholly undestandable response to a problem not of their making, but I'm not so sure.

He played for Oldham at the weekend.

I would advocate having him put down.

You'd do it with a race horse or a greyhound, why not a footballer?

Aaaah yes. That would be it. Probably

Really...are you sure that wasn't axs?

If having to wait till there is clear evidence of the board being a complete twittering shambles makes me a moaner, so be it.  My loyalty is to STFC not the board or any holding company.

We are on the brink of a new season with perhaps only three or four (pretty inexperienced) permanent signings whom we are not trying to move on and a load of loanee kids.

... and looking for our third manager in less than 6 months

That's a ten point penalty without even having to bother to go into admin if ever I saw one.

10 point penalty isn't the end of the world and won't stop me getting right behind the squad but I hope this does turn out to be all for a good reason

If all the PdC signed players are on shitloads and we're looking to offload and they are being kept at home, why is Williams on the plane to Portugal.

Personally I'm glad that Jed is cutting back on the footballing budget so he can buy us more pints in the Legends Lounge before the game.

A word that had Jed used a few times he may have got a bit more support.

Like many on the forum, I put my money where my mouth was and renewed my season ticket relatively happily based upon what was happening compared to what might have been.

Until the last few weeks it all seemed to be trundling along without too many problems and now again it has all become a mish mash of rumour, guesswork and innuendo and basically people being at a loss to see where the hell we are going.

Players being left behind a "team bonding" trip, players obviously not wanting to play for us any more, managerless and a media f**kup all leaves me totally bemused. I want to look on the positive side but it is getting more and more difficult.

It'll be good for Barthrum, Mason, Byrne, Luongo, Hall and Pritchard to get to know each other.

:D :D

I don't think they have said that they will not fulfill obligations. However, the fact that contracted players are being allowed to leave and options on extending contracts suggests the don't have or never intended to have the funds to maintain the contracts. The decision to reduce the budget supports this too.

My point is that football in general does not seem to be able to cope very well with transitions between one owner and the next. In Town's case it has been a shift of quite significant proportions. So much so that if I was a player, or any other member of staff, I would feel very unsure about my future. The tone of some comments towards some players who are still under contract but who seem to be surplus to requirements is unfair. Now that their contracts seem to be a burdon on the new budget and therefore playing a factor in whether new players can be brought in or forcing the sale of current players is making them a target for blame, especially if they happen to be injured. My point about 'fit and proper' applies to both the old owners and the new and the way in which transition is allowed to happen, so I'm not solely having a dig at Jed and co, and I'm supportive of a club living within its means.

I know there was a real threat to the club's existence. If Jed and co did not acquire the club then Town may well have ceased to exist. Or, A N Other buyer may have come in and whow knows what might have resulted... . Is anyone trying to deny this? The transition from Black to Jed just highlights to me how fragile football clubs can be without adequate future planning. On the one hand, Black was allowed to bale out without taking responsibility for the financial situation he allowed to develop; on the other, Jed was allowed to become the new owner without guaranteeing existing contracts before being allowed to create a more self-financing football club. I think 'fit and proper' needs to take this situation into account.

Can't disagree with any of Leftside's post.

Well I do a bit, in that I do think had Jed not taken us over Black would have put us into administration and that would have lead to a much quicker squad breakup and cost us an almost great day at Brentford.

Would someone have come in and picked us up after admin? Well possibly, we could have ended up better off or worse off. Who knows.

As you know I'm not too impressed with them so far. And it has nothing to do with the necessity of having to reduce wages in itself.

and they might bump into a few not so old friends

I agree with quite  bit of leftsides post.

What is a bit of a puzzle is just how Wray managed to get it into such a mess in what must have been a pretty short space of time.  As much as PDC's first season will not have been cheap, it seems the financial wheels fell off within one season.  Prior  to PDC coming in we'd actually had a season or two of profit or near break even.  I think this is the bit Jed's gang were less sure of

The Football Leagues role in this is worth debate.  As I understand it the new owners of a club just had to show they could fulfil the season - hence the £1m being deposited.  You'd like to think that they then had to submit plans for the next season, and if so, it should have been forced into the public arena a little sooner.  Once they failed to get any further significant funds beyond Power, the plan for this season was clear.  Get as much off the wage bill as possible and find a way of getting a new squad in at the same time.

I suppose if they had come out before we got to the play offs and advised us of this we'd probably just have kicked off then about a lack of ambition, messing with our chances etc.  They could however have come out the week after and make it clear what the new plan was, even if plenty could make good guesses.

What are the odds of that happening :)

And this is the key. We all accept the need to balance the books. However, financial prudence does not preclude the lack of professionalism and nonsense we have now become accustomed to. There is a range of issues unconnected to budget reduction that should be dealt better with by a professional football club.

Wouldn't know, my names not down and I am not coming in!  :cry: