Owen Dale Loan Ends 10th January

[whosbrianwilson]

It would be interesting to hear your suggestions as to where this "massively increased wages and transfer budget" is going to come from. Our home fans number around 3500 and, when I last checked, there wasn't a queue of multi millionaires waiting to invest/donate theironey.

[gazan]

I think the board (only been in the job for around 2 years!) have been investing in facilities and improving the match experience. Some might say that a winning team could also 'improve' this experience. However, we have had a year's downturn compared to three decent years before so, on balance, it would be unfair to overly knock the club.
In terms of investing in the first team, it would need to be sustainable. With this in mind, we can only cut the number of players in order to boost the wages for the rest. We already have the youngest team in the league and so this might be difficult in the short term. In the longer term (i.e. in the close season) we will be able to 'ship out' some 'excess' playing staff but the question is always going to be who do you get in their place? Having people on a single year contract is useful for when you want to unload players but not if you want to keep them. Longer contracts run the risk of tying down players who turn out to be of little use. So what's the answer? We could offer higher wages for certain 'earmarked' positions/players and hope to tie them to a longer contract. But being a 'small' club we will run the risk of better players not fancying playing for us.
Our training facilities and the promise of development and possible sell-on has been the incentive for people to sign in the past. However, that seems to be breaking down now as cultural change in young players affects attitudes and a little bit of rot has set in with the Wintle/Dale/Lowery situations. There are even rumours that we're having difficulties with members of the youth team!
So, it's not simple or clear-cut how the current position is dealt with. At the same time we can be critical of management but this should be tempered with a little empathy. Once Lowery has gone, there has to be a 'new variant' of the model that deals with the changing attitudes and maintains our football club for the future.
Anyone got any (detailed) suggestions??

[Wartman]

It would be interesting to hear your suggestions as to where this "massively increased wages and transfer budget" is going to come from. Our home fans number around 3500 and, when I last checked, there wasn't a queue of multi millionaires waiting to invest/donate theironey.

Well I will make a start with downgrading the academy we can no longer support as it comes at the expense of the first team drop it to cat 3 saving us approx £250000 per season and we will still be able to produce players for the first team which must continue.

Stop the mis guided illusion that we are a local club for local people, no we are not we are a business rather than filling the board with nice local people with deep pockets and very short arms get some people in with some money that they are prepared to spend.

I am not suggesting that we turn into Man City but being in league 1 with a poor league 2 budget is a joke.

[Timmy58]

Well I will make a start with downgrading the academy we can no longer support as it comes at the expense of the first team drop it to cat 3 saving us approx £250000 per season and we will still be able to produce players for the first team which must continue.

Stop the mis guided illusion that we are a local club for local people, no we are not we are a business rather than filling the board with nice local people with deep pockets and very short arms get some people in with some money that they are prepared to spend.

I am not suggesting that we turn into Man City but being in league 1 with a poor league 2 budget is a joke.

I think it is rather a liberty to expect the board to be "putting their hands in their pockets". Being a member of the board should not come with a clause that says you throw your own money at the club ad nauseum. They should be focusing on generating income and one way we have had of doing that (as well as being able to pay lower wages to first team players progressing from the Academy) is by virtue of being able to sell players at a profit. I certainly wouldn't be downgrading the Academy. If someone chooses to invest significant money in the club, well that is a different matter. And not always a good thing particularly if the get bored with their new toy and take their money back. I don't pretend to know the answers but I do know that probably isn't one of them

[gazan]

No, not a business but a football club. A professional football is a cultural and economic fixture within a local environment.
For the majority of it's history, football has run on a shoestring, sometimes in the black but often in the red. Banks had good relationships with clubs and were, generally, positive towards them.
This all changed with the Premier League. What happened then was, along with the help of Sky, the top division received huge amounts of money and then proceeded to hoover up any other money that was available, while extending their tentacles of power everywhere. The knock on effect was the need to pay higher wages. This has made it difficult for clubs who exist on the breadline to keep going.
The Alex do pay a league 2 budget as their income equates to that level. It is the academy that allows to, often, play above that level. Without cat 2 status we probably couldn't attract enough talent through the academy and thus wouldn't have the luxury of having sufficient academy players in the first team to balance the books wage-wise.
Football clubs (even those in the PL) are not run on similar lines to the average business BUT, especially in the EFL and below, they ARE subject to certain financial constraints.

£250,000 equates to less than £5,000 a week. When you count employer national insurance, employment tax, player insurance, how much difference would this saving make overall?

[out0lunch]

Well I will make a start with downgrading the academy we can no longer support as it comes at the expense of the first team drop it to cat 3 saving us approx £250000 per season and we will still be able to produce players for the first team which must continue.

Stop the mis guided illusion that we are a local club for local people, no we are not we are a business rather than filling the board with nice local people with deep pockets and very short arms get some people in with some money that they are prepared to spend.

I am not suggesting that we turn into Man City but being in league 1 with a poor league 2 budget is a joke.

I believe one of the directors has over time put money in, nearly half a million and is still owed it. Now that's not short arms

[Wartman]

I believe one of the directors has over time put money in, nearly half a million and is still owed it. Now that's not short arms

That’s playing at it we need somebody to pump in a few million, clubs in our league and the one below spend that kind of money in 1 go.

[gazan]

I think it is difficult for individuals to pump in a few million when they don't have it. Or did
I miss the Middle-Eastern oil magnate joining the board?

[Wartman]

I think it is difficult for individuals to pump in a few million when they don't have it. Or did
I miss the Middle-Eastern oil magnate joining the board?

And the point I make is the club have an apparent lack of ambition and think small, rather than looking for people who want to invest in the club far and wide our little minded board think local only and won’t countenance anybody who is not local who wants to invest. The recent re construction of the board gave them ample opportunity to do this but they chose not to.

[whosbrianwilson]

Again, I would ask for your evidence that our directors have chosen to turn away multi millionaires? It's easy to just criticise without a shred of information to back it up.