- Jun 6, 2005
- 16,254
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the facts remain that we take raw talent like Jenas who is or was the Lennon of his day and we do not improve them.
Eek :rofl: *starts to choke from laughing so much*
the facts remain that we take raw talent like Jenas who is or was the Lennon of his day and we do not improve them.
Not putting all their eggs in one basket ? If they are planning an exit strategy owning as much of the club as they possibly can is going to make the logistics of the sale easier and maximise their profit as there will be a mark up on any shares owned with any take over (it's a no lose situation as far as share price goes, so why wouldn't they want more - of course this would only apply if they are indeed planning an immediate getaway as anything longer they couldn't predict the future share price).
And what pisses me off immensely is that comments like Jol's fuel the - incorrect - theory that we are only interested in buying kids, developing them, selling them on at vast profit and buying 5 more and starting again.
The reality is our transfer policy incompasses a very wide spectrum and is fundamentaly no different to Arsenal, Chelsea, manU and Liverpool (or Ajax PSV etc). We buy promising kids of 15 and pick up Naybets and davids of 32/33 and most ages in between. Including players like Lee, Chimbonda & Murphy in the 27-31 bracket. The truth is that that zone is the hardest zone for anyone to buy into and is avoided by many. It comes with the highest risk of getting low value for money. Players in this zone will be of quality (otherwise you wouldn't be interested) that will nearly always come at biggish salary as their fee will often be smallish and they know this could be their last major contract. And a major injury says you are stuck witrh that salary for 3 years potentially.
We can all see we need a quality Goalie, CB and specialist Ball winning/play breaking midfielder desperately. Preferably all but at least one one be a true leader. We don't even have to go into the high risk zone to get one. They don't have to be 29 but if that's what it takes then so be it. t is now getting to the point where we are almost being forced to because Man City and West Ham could become mini chelsea's, and just to stay in the second tier we have to compete with them.
But the big question is: what if we do and it doesn't work for one of several reasons ?
ENIC are an investment vehicle and have the same financial constraints as any other. I sometimes think people fail to recognise there is a difference between ENIC and Joe Lewis. We don't know ENICs financial position. I'd say they own a very healthy % of the club and from a takeover point of view it really wouldn't make any difference.
Should we have a transfer policy fundamentally the same as Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal? I see very little in the way of parralles between our and their situations, so don't really think it should be seen as a positive that we have a similar transfer policy. If within that policy we could attract the same calibre of players as them then we'd be playing of a level playing field. But, reallistically we can't. We can strike gold every now and again, but really can't expect the continual flow of top quality players we see at those clubs. Therefore we maybe need to be as flexible as possible and take every opportunity to close the quality gap. At the moment, I think we are restricting ourselves. Maybe we should be competing with the likes of West Ham and Man City for the likes of Neil and Pertov, rather than Utd and Arsenal for the likes of Nani and Baptista (just examples plese don't dwell on these particular names).
If it doesn't work, so what? There is absolutely no suggesstion we fund these transfers by endangering the clubs future or future ability to compete in the transfer market. I think in the modern game alot of our fans forget what the optimum way to run a football club is (ie as a charity or not for profit co operative). I was away in Amercia when the financial results came out, so didn't comment or see the reaction here, but I get the impression from the odd comment I've seen that they were taken as a good thing and pat on the back for ENIC. I've also seen comments about how we'll have more to spend in the transfer market and how it'll go to funding the new stadium. There is a course truth to these things, but the impact those profits will have little significicance and in reality won't effect either our transfer policy or the new stadium financing. We don't win any prizes for having a big profit and our future really doesn't look any brighter because of it.
So if the imapct of having the profits is little, lets have a look at the other side of the coin. Quick and very simplistic example (a biased example, but it raise a very solid argument). Imagine at the end of the 2005/6 season we decided "fuck it", we'll take the hit on Carrick and keep him. It's going to cost us £10 million. He may sign a new contract in the future, but it's unlikley. He knows Utd want him and Fergie has shown he's prepared to wait for targets, so he'll either go for half the fee at the end of the season or free in 2 years. But we keep himanyway (and remember its CArrick and not some sulky, unprofessional shit like Gallas) At the same time, we buy Petrov, who we conider over priced (as I assume we did and the price back then was usually quoted at £8 million). We also bring in Lucas Neil, another who we obvioulsy didn't like the price of seeing as he was free a year later. If we'd signed those three players our profits would have been more like £10 million. But on the other side of the coin, I'd say those players were easily worth the extra 8 pts we finished behind 4th spot. Would the UEFA Cup be sitting in our trophy cabinet now? Impossible to say, but even a football numpty would agree we'd have been a hell of a lot better.
With that £10 million profit would it have a great effect on our transfer budget plans or stadium development? I doubt it has any less significance than £30 million. For example, do you think we'd have any trouble competeing in the transfer market if we showed a profit of £2 million? Do you think we'd have even the slightest of problems securing finance for the stadium if were made just £1 million in profit. What if we made zero profit or even a loss? Do you think big profits are the most effective root to CL football?
Joey, as ever, an articulate response. But this is often where I take issue with you. You present hypothosis like fact.
Firstly to say that making a very healthy profit will have no impact on our team building/player aquisition is .....just wrong. This board has always demonstrated a willingness to invest in players but also have stated many times their unwillingness to put the club in serious hock - they have always talked about sustainable growth etc. Do you really think that we would be purchasing Berbatov's 11m, Bent 16m, Kaboul 8m, Bale 5-10m, if we had made a hefty loss. The base policy may stay the same but the type of purchase value would alter dramatically, which would of course change the players we are buying. It is just way to blase to say THFC profit and player aquisition are unrelated.
And as for your example, we can all hypothosise about various aspects, but to keep it simple I'll respond directly to your hypothosis. The loss incurred on taking those three players would have been far more tan 10 mil. More like 30mil. (if you want the maths I'll give them to you).
Carrick is a good footballer but most people on this forum's perspesctive of him upped dramatically just by United paying 18m for him. Not one punter on here would have valued him at more than 7-9 mil before that transfer. United don't always start him and he often doesn't finish games. Barry is preferred for England. Has Lucas Neil improved West ham ? barely noticeable if he has. Petrov I won't argue. I would have risked him all day long as actually don't have a player like him or close. But here's another hypothosis. We do as you say keep Carrick (-12m), take neil (50K pw x 3y=9.4m)and Petrov (40kpwx3y=6.2m). Carrick continues to be the reliable but fairly undynamic player he was playing out of position sitting in front of our defence. Petrov gets crocked (a la Duff) and has very little impact. Neil is slightly better defensively but offers little offensively than Chimbonda or worst case scenario spends half his time getting booked and suspended and theother half injured (as he has at WH I think). Now we are thirty mil down and are we any better off than we were last year ? And are we now having to cut our cloth a little shorter for the next season or two as well in terms of signings ?
As far as the stadium goes, I agree, I don't think it would make too much difference in terms of whether it happens or not (or what happens perhaps) but it maybe the expensive signings bought because of good fiscal management that save us from relegation which would almost certainly cause a big rethink in stadium planning. Wouldn't you agree.
Edit
Just to add. You know I agree that we desperately need two/three certain types of player and depending on the player would happily see us obtain those players if they were the right player (Petrov being a case in point) and maybe if you had come up with better hypotheticals I would have argued less about the the hypothosis section of your post but the fact is you probably couldn't because those were the realistic choices that have been made. (maybe if you read where I specifically asked you not to ake
B-C if I am not mistaken 50k pw works out at £7.8million and not 9.4 unless my maths is wrong.
Sorry that should have said 60k pw which is in fact 9,360,000. Which was actually less than the reported salary Wham offered to lure Neil.
Profits come after player purchases. Hence I think we made an average of around £3 million a year in profit for Enics first 4 years, despite hefty spending. Why do you think dividends are so very unusual in football, especially for a club our size. Purchases etc are made on financial projections and based on a % of turnover. So the size of the profit, unless something very odd happens, is, in effect, reasonably predictable. So why are we making £30 million? Let's make a profit, but let's make that profit a form of contingency. Ideally we should be looking to break even, but to do that would be dangerous as unforseen costs can always crop up. So lets target, say, a £10 million profit and set spending budgets accordingly. Yet we've just made £30 million and paid out dividends! Surely that can't be explained away by a UEFA cup run. In effect all these profits are, is money that hasn't been spent. You are getting an increase in revenue and profit confused (and this is they key reason what you've said above is all nonsense). Had i said an increase in revenue will not have a significant impact then I'd be wrong, but I didn't as these are two very different things. You have to be realistic about what we can spend in the transfer market and when you do this, it's clear these profits won't significantly change our tansfer policy.
Joey this is rubbish. To say that making a 30 mil profit won't alter the type of purchase we could make as opposed to making a 1mil profit is ridiculous. And this is the first time we have ever recorded this level of profit so it is absoloutely gueswork on your part to say they won't alter their level or type of purchase.
Btw, amongst other errors you've forgotten to subtract the salary and fees of the players we purchased instead, from your calculations. Also, you wiped the cost of the players entire contract off, instead of one year.
No I didn't because the only player you were talking about offloading (or not) that we already were commited to wgaes were Carrick's very low 15K per week at 2 years which I worked out as 1.5m which I subtracted from the 13.5 mil profit on his sale.
Oh and what you said about the players I mentioned, I completely disgaree but don't want to go into it hence a specifically wrote: "just examples please don't dwell on these particular names." I wrote that for a reason, as I knew you'd probably disagree. For any names you see listed, just replace them with anyone you like ie Anelka or Dyer. The point isn't the merits of those particular players.
But that is why I put in the edit. Petrov, Anelka and VanBommel say i wouldn't have argued as the risk/reward ratio decreases considerably. At the end of the day that is a crucial question. Chimbonda is the borderline purchase that proves the board would have bought Petrov if it wasn't for perceived high injury risk- and I am fucking sure the reason manCity got him was that the accepted a no injury clause in his contract and we didn't. And I did also say that I agreed with you on this one as he was of the right quality, experience etc.
But I don't regard Lucas Neil as top drawer by any stretch. But that is just my opinion, hence the "edit"
But most importantly you seem to have ingored the fact that the recent accounts were for a single years trading and you are substracting 3 years salary from the profits. Why? The real calculation is transfer fee + 1 year salary - the same for the player he replaces or we buy instead.
Don't let the £10 million I mentioned influence your maths, it was just a completely meaningless number used simply to illustrate a point.
The trouble with these reported salaries is that many of them are guesstimates from the press. I seem to remember that Sometime Spammer visitor Moore6 claimed Neil was on £40k pw, and my brother-in-law, who would make no claim to be ITK but is pretty clued up about City, reckons Petrov is actually on £30k-£35k. According to comedy Bulgarian poster Doctor Who sources over there claim Levy offered him a derisory £11.5k a week.
It will be interesting to see who comes in in January, although very little does seem to happen in practice. Or, more to the point, whether Ramos will have more luck than Jol and Comolli in getting Levy to bend his principles for a player he really, really wants.
Profits come after player purchases. Hence I think we made an average of around £3 million a year in profit for Enics first 4 years, despite hefty spending. Why do you think dividends are so very unusual in football, especially for a club our size. Purchases etc are made on financial projections and based on a % of turnover. So the size of the profit, unless something very odd happens, is, in effect, reasonably predictable. So why are we making £30 million? Let's make a profit, but let's make that profit a form of contingency. Ideally we should be looking to break even, but to do that would be dangerous as unforseen costs can always crop up. So lets target, say, a £10 million profit and set spending budgets accordingly. Yet we've just made £30 million and paid out dividends! Surely that can't be explained away by a UEFA cup run. In effect all these profits are, is money that hasn't been spent. You are getting an increase in revenue and profit confused (and this is they key reason what you've said above is all nonsense). Had i said an increase in revenue will not have a significant impact then I'd be wrong, but I didn't as these are two very different things. You have to be realistic about what we can spend in the transfer market and when you do this, it's clear these profits won't significantly change our tansfer policy.
Joey this is rubbish. To say that making a 30 mil profit won't alter the type of purchase we could make as opposed to making a 1mil profit is ridiculous. And this is the first time we have ever recorded this level of profit so it is absoloutely gueswork on your part to say they won't alter their level or type of purchase.
Btw, amongst other errors you've forgotten to subtract the salary and fees of the players we purchased instead, from your calculations. Also, you wiped the cost of the players entire contract off, instead of one year.
No I didn't because the only player you were talking about offloading (or not) that we already were commited to wgaes were Carrick's very low 15K per week at 2 years which I worked out as 1.5m which I subtracted from the 13.5 mil profit on his sale.
Oh and what you said about the players I mentioned, I completely disgaree but don't want to go into it hence a specifically wrote: "just examples please don't dwell on these particular names." I wrote that for a reason, as I knew you'd probably disagree. For any names you see listed, just replace them with anyone you like ie Anelka or Dyer. The point isn't the merits of those particular players.
But that is why I put in the edit. Petrov, Anelka and VanBommel say i wouldn't have argued as the risk/reward ratio decreases considerably. At the end of the day that is a crucial question. Chimbonda is the borderline purchase that proves the board would have bought Petrov if it wasn't for perceived high injury risk- and I am fucking sure the reason manCity got him was that the accepted a no injury clause in his contract and we didn't. And I did also say that I agreed with you on this one as he was of the right quality, experience etc.
But I don't regard Lucas Neil as top drawer by any stretch. But that is just my opinion, hence the "edit"
I really can't be bothered to keep arguing with you. You simply haven't got a clue what you are talking about. I don't want to be unnecesrty rude but you are just arguing for arguments sake.
I made an edit to my post before as the terminology I used is slighlty confusing. I think we also made a profit from player trading, but excluded that by saying "after purchases", which could be confused with meaning that was profit including what we made or lost from player trading. I doesn't appear that this has confused your argument at all, but i thought I should point that out.
I think you've missunderstood something I've said. When I say subtracting the cost of the player we replace them with, it means, for example, those profits will include the salary of say Malbranque. But why would we buy Malbranque and pay him wages if we've bought Petrov?
As for what i said being rubbish? Do you understand what profit is? In simple terms it's just revenue - costs. If we can spend what we have been in the transfer market and still show both a player trading and operating profit, how exaclty is £30 million going to significantly change our transfer policy? Surely our budgets are a % of turnover. Levy himself spoke of how a further investment into the club of £30 or £50 million would make little difference and this is exaclty why. You are talking as is a business our size wont spend accordingly with turnover/revenue projections. You are arguing as if this is a game of monopoly, when you earn a profit and buy a new hotel.
It is not important necesarily that it is deducted from one years or two or 3. It is still a big hit. 10m per year over three years. Which is more than double the average profit for the previous 3 yars as you pointed out.
I agree, but even if you tweek the salaries it is far closer to the reality of the situation than Joey's eloborate hypotheticals. If the queen had a set of nuts she'd be the king and all that.
I agree, it will be bloody interesting to see who comes in January and next summer. But I think the board have, as I said, proved with Chimbonda that if the a truely (perceived in Chimbonda's case - and you may remember me questioning the purchase of Chimbonda before we signed him) quality player is available in that age bracket we would sign him providing he met reasonable criteria. Do you really think that Chimbonda slotted into the "inherent value biased" strategy. Because I don't. There was no way spurs knew or bargained for Chelsea offering bigger money for Chimbonda (otherwise Chelsea would have just paid Wigans 5 mil).
I really can't be bothered to keep arguing with you. You simply haven't got a clue what you are talking about. I don't want to be unnecesrty rude but you are just arguing for arguments sake.
Yes, obviously what i should have said was "yes Joey you are right posting 10 times our previous 3 year average profit will have no bearing on our near future purchases and keeping Carrick and buying Petrov and Lucas neil would have guaranteed us CL football and the UEFA cup" of course stupid of me. Far be it from anyone to challenge your "FACTS".
I made an edit to my post before as the terminology I used is slighlty confusing. I think we also made a profit from player trading, but excluded that by saying "after purchases", which could be confused with meaning that was profit including what we made or lost from player trading. I doesn't appear that this has confused your argument at all, but i thought I should point that out.
I think you've missunderstood something I've said. When I say subtracting the cost of the player we replace them with, it means, for example, those profits will include the salary of say Malbranque. But why would we buy Malbranque and pay him wages if we've bought Petrov?
I didn't misunderstand this. You did not state that we buy anyone instead of someone else. For example None of the players you suggest play in malbranques (proper) position so why woul I assume otherwise ?
As for what i said being rubbish? Do you understand what profit is? In simple terms it's just revenue - costs. If we can spend what we have been in the transfer market and still show both a player trading and operating profit, how exaclty is £30 million going to significantly change our transfer policy? Surely our budgets are a % of turnover. Levy himself spoke of how a further investment into the club of £30 or £50 million would make little difference and this is exaclty why. You are talking as is a business our size wont spend accordingly with turnover/revenue projections. You are arguing as if this is a game of monopoly, when you earn a profit and buy a new hotel.
Do you understand the concept of profit & loss Joey. Why would you assume the budget would be assessed solely on turnover. Why limit yourself in such a volatile industry to letting one financial factor influence your budgetary considerations. Newcastle United have a greater turnover than us but did they spend as much as us last transfer window ? Joey do you really think any corporate board worth a wank would not look at a profit/loss sheet as well as the balance sheet ?
When any business increases his profit or for that matter his losses ten fold it is bound to effect decisions made regarding future investment and development and in a football business a huge part of that is player trading. FFS to suggest otherwise is just daft or arguing for the sake of it.
And yes I know that 30 mil over one year is worse than over three, as I already said. But 10mil loss per year is still significant to a company that even with the latest profits is still averaging less that that per year over the last 5 years.
You simply do not understand how our tranfer policy works. This is why I specifically suggested we stop reffering to it as "inherent value" as it clearly has confused you. It is about the club having more control over the rate at which assets depreciate. You have totally failed to grasp this and consistently make the same point which I've pulled you up on numerous times. It isn't a simple case of us buying players in the hope they will go up in value. The term "inherent value" hadn't even been mentioned at SC until i took if from a Levy quote and used it in a thread title. I just wish i'd never done that, as since you've continually used this phrase and often in a completely inappropriate manner.
I agree, but even if you tweek the salaries it is far closer to the reality of the situation than Joey's eloborate hypotheticals. If the queen had a set of nuts she'd be the king and all that.
I agree, it will be bloody interesting to see who comes in January and next summer. But I think the board have, as I said, proved with Chimbonda that if the a truely (perceived in Chimbonda's case - and you may remember me questioning the purchase of Chimbonda before we signed him) quality player is available in that age bracket we would sign him providing he met reasonable criteria. Do you really think that Chimbonda slotted into the "inherent value biased" strategy. Because I don't. There was no way spurs knew or bargained for Chelsea offering bigger money for Chimbonda (otherwise Chelsea would have just paid Wigans 5 mil).
No Joey it is me that has argued that it shouldn't be called that because that is not what it soley is. What I have said is that that is the best name to described what it is perceived as. And Chimbonda proves that point. Chimbonda was very much a footballing biased purchase if you like. The kind of purchase that Petrov would have been.