Future

[Donald_Valley]

I do really wonder where we are heading...

Spend 20 million plus on a stadium but fail to invest appropriately in the team.

Spend 300k on a left back that doesn't play but spend nothing up front.

Look closely at the signings made by the investing clubs yesterday in league one. We are way off the pace.

Remember Mr Stewart, the fans are paying to watch your offering. It's an entertainment business.

Once upon a time it was very different to this.

Sad times

[KerrAvon]

It depends how you define sadness, Donald.

Just about every Football League club loses money and given that banks are now rarely willing to throw it away by lending to clubs, they are kept afloat by their owners putting in cash, usually with very little prospect of getting it back.

Take a look at the last set of accounts, Donald and you'll see that the amount of money that you are paying to watch Rotherham is dwarfed by the amount that Tony Stewart is paying. He is paying more for your entertainment than you are, I know that is not a popular reality with football supporters, but it is the reality nonetheless.

The owners of the 'investing clubs' are people with deeper pockets, less sense or a willingness to take bigger gambles with the future. Or, more probably, a combination of all three.

[Donald_Valley]

Let me put it another way. If you built Meadowhall now, spending say 900million on the build and subsequently. filled it with charity shops and buttyshops instead of branded retailers or quality restaurants would you expect people to turn up? I know football is differently and there is a core of fans who will turn up day in, day out but.....

The strategy we are seeing at the moment doesn't add up. He may have run out of money but if he doesn't open up to new investment then we can't move on.

[miller172]

All this talk of new investment, just who else do you think is going to come and invest in little old Rotherham. Have a look round within a a 50 mile radius there are a lot more attractive investment opportunities eg. Leeds, Derby, two Sheffield clubs, Forest, Barnsley

[KerrAvon]

Let me put it another way. If you built Meadowhall now, spending say 900million on the build and subsequently. filled it with charity shops and buttyshops instead of branded retailers or quality restaurants would you expect people to turn up? I know football is differently and there is a core of fans who will turn up day in, day out but.....

The strategy we are seeing at the moment doesn't add up. He may have run out of money but if he doesn't open up to new investment then we can't move on.

If the strategy is to build a sustainable club rather than one which lurches from one financial crisis to another then the strategy makes perfect sense.

Back to back promotions and three seasonss in the Championship doesn't seem like a charity shop approach to me.

[gwru]

TS is running the club as a business but the wage bill for our 1st team squad will be at the top end of the league 1 clubs. The season starts now. Up to Warney now to get the best out of the squad.

[PeteWaller]

Agree with DV.

Is anyone even looking forward to a home match against thingy mi giggy club?

Miss the Championship and struggling to watch the L1 level of football.

Anyone else feel the same?

[mellowmiller]

Agree with DV.

Is anyone even looking forward to a home match against thingy mi giggy club?

Miss the Championship and struggling to watch the L1 level of football.

Anyone else feel the same?

I sort of feel like that Pete but if I'm being honest then I think League 1 is probably our natural level.
However, I want us to show some ambition to compete at the top end of the division and build a squad that would at least be able to hold their own if they were fortunate enough to get promoted.
I don't think we're in that position at the moment but I'm trying to cling on to my pre-season optimism 😊

[Silly-miller]

Hmm hold on a min back when Meadowhall was built it didn't have many branded retailers like it has now.

Most of the shops that was opened with Meadowhall have gone and have been replaced. In fact if you don't count places to eat a lot of them are phone shops or banks.

Surely this is like our current squad the ones that make it stay and the ones who don't get replaced by someone else.

Gonna be hard on the fans but I think we need to find a core of players who won't bugger off for the bench in another club and have strong and stable leadership, not weak and wobbly

[Cybermak]

I don't think it helped when TS talked about challenging for the Premier League!

TS has spent a fortune on a club going nowhere fast. He brought the good times back. It was never going to be sustainable in the Championship. Didn't we have the smallest budget and the smallest av attendance? 3 years in the championship was more than punching above our weight. To sustain Championship status would have cost more than TS probably could afford. Like M172 says, there are much more attractive clubs in the region to invest in, so TS's money and what other revenue the Millers can generate is all there is. Now attendances have dropped so there's another deficit.

It's easy to be there for the good times and there's been plenty. Now it's time to ride the choppy waters. There's no reason why Warney won't get the club going again. Surely they won't be as bad as they were against Charlton for the rest of the season?!

I'm a negative person by nature but I'm trying to remain positive. Football results can changed very quickly. A point at Pompey will be a good start.

Warnock warned that without a training facility like Fleetwood have Rotherham would struggle. What's been done at Roundwood is nice but done on the cheap. For a bright future the club need a first class training facility which I thought was going to be built on Bawtry Road? Warney was the cheap option too. So it all points to the fact that there is no money at all for the basics never mind a really good striker.

It's a competitive league and will be far more entertaining when the team dig in, battle and find their confidence.