Rumour - Rob Dickie

[From Despair To Where?]

Well, we've lost 5,000 of the gate on the past 4 years, that's over a quarter of our turnstile revenue. Let's take the two other clubs who have sold their grounds to meet FFP. £5m less than Derby? Their crowds are double ours. £7m more than Sheffield Wednesday? Their crowds are also significantly bigger than ours. We also have just about the cheapest tickets in the Championship.

Get a decent fee for Swift and sell on Moore for £2m or so, which should be feasible, and the only Gourlay contracts you're left with are Meite and Aluko. Meite is worth keeping, and who knows, maybe we can flog off Aluko.

It's not as dire as you say

When you're talking of releasing all ooc players and selling our top players, it is as dire as we say. Some of these players would still need replacing.

[Vision]

Interesting thread, cheers guys.

Do we have any way of knowing where we are compared with other championship clubs with regards to our wage bill?

I agree the days if the ex premiership journey men must now be over which I think is positive.

I know Kitson, Doyle, Long were taken from lower leagues and repaid us massively with what they achieved but also appreciate it’s easier said that done to just go down he leagues and cherry pick cheap options that will success in the championship but that and some youth players seems a sound way to progress. But of course it does mean some risk and also a possible longer time frame for success, possibly,

We don't have the highest absolute wagebill but In terms of as a percentage of income, it is by someway, the highest in the league.

Anyone got any recent stats?

This is from May 2019, and says our wage bill is 35 million, and not the highest at all in the Championship - Which means our income must be quite poor for us to be the highest % of income!

https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/how-every-every-pl-and-champ-clubs-wages-compare-to-their-league-finish/

It's actually the wage bill as of season end 2018. Plenty of additions since then

[From Despair To Where?]

We've been saying "It will be better when we get Player X or Player Y off the wagebill" for the past 5 years.

I suppose the big difference now is that we have owners who actually seem to have money and the issue is the regulations rather than cash flow but it never ceases to amaze me that our wagebill is so totally out of proportion to our income. That's the price of expectation, I suppose.

Anyway, back to Dickie. Good player and would make a decent addition to the squad but realistically we'd have to sell first to afford him.

[WestYorksRoyal]

We all know it will fall. The point is we're going to have to sell good players and find buyers for shit players still under contract to get it fall to anything remotely sustainable, not just let ooc players go.

Moore probably costs us as much if not more than all the Academy players already released for example.

Get a decent fee for Swift and sell on Moore for £2m or so, which should be feasible, and the only Gourlay contracts you're left with are Meite and Aluko. Meite is worth keeping, and who knows, maybe we can flog off Aluko.

It's not as dire as you say

211% of income.

That is backwards looking and is completely irrelevant to the argument I'm making.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Well, we've lost 5,000 of the gate on the past 4 years, that's over a quarter of our turnstile revenue. Let's take the two other clubs who have sold their grounds to meet FFP. £5m less than Derby? Their crowds are double ours. £7m more than Sheffield Wednesday? Their crowds are also significantly bigger than ours. We also have just about the cheapest tickets in the Championship.

Get a decent fee for Swift and sell on Moore for £2m or so, which should be feasible, and the only Gourlay contracts you're left with are Meite and Aluko. Meite is worth keeping, and who knows, maybe we can flog off Aluko.

It's not as dire as you say

When you're talking of releasing all ooc players and selling our top players, it is as dire as we say. Some of these players would still need replacing.

It's about context. Our highest earners are not our best players. Releasing Gunter, Popa, Mannone and McCleary is not "dire". Selling Barrow is fine; we've lived without him this season and we can do next year.

Of possible departures, Swift would be a big miss, while Moore is an important player we'd need to replace (but probably could cheaply in the current environment). That's not a "dire" state of affairs. We used to sell key players regularly (Sigurdsson, Long, Hunt, Doyle). Were we in a "dire" state of affairs in those days?

To remember what "dire" looks like, go back 2 years when we had Edwards, Ilori, Bacuna, Mannone, Bodvarson, Kelly, Popa, Barrow and Aluko locked into high value, long term contracts they didn't deserve. That we're coming out the other end and can clearly foresee light at the end of the tunnel without is testament to the work done since Howe came in.

[From Despair To Where?]

It is dire when releasing these players still leaves us with one of the highest wagebills as a percentage of income and we're saying "Oh, we'll be fine if we sell Moore and Swift and replace them with cheaper players."

We sold players like Gylfi and Long because that's how the owner wanted to run the club at the time, as a largely sustainable enterprise. Doyle and Hunt left because they wanted to play at a higher level or we wouldn't match their demands. The owner chose not to run up costs to unsustainable levels. I'd suggest our current situation is more dire.


Doing it doesn't particulalry bother me but it is arguably something we have to do if the EFL are to maintain any financial sustainability regulations.

[Snowflake Royal]

Well, we've lost 5,000 of the gate on the past 4 years, that's over a quarter of our turnstile revenue. Let's take the two other clubs who have sold their grounds to meet FFP. £5m less than Derby? Their crowds are double ours. £7m more than Sheffield Wednesday? Their crowds are also significantly bigger than ours. We also have just about the cheapest tickets in the Championship.

Get a decent fee for Swift and sell on Moore for £2m or so, which should be feasible, and the only Gourlay contracts you're left with are Meite and Aluko. Meite is worth keeping, and who knows, maybe we can flog off Aluko.

It's not as dire as you say

When you're talking of releasing all ooc players and selling our top players, it is as dire as we say. Some of these players would still need replacing.

It's about context. Our highest earners are not our best players. Releasing Gunter, Popa, Mannone and McCleary is not "dire". Selling Barrow is fine; we've lived without him this season and we can do next year.

Of possible departures, Swift would be a big miss, while Moore is an important player we'd need to replace (but probably could cheaply in the current environment). That's not a "dire" state of affairs. We used to sell key players regularly (Sigurdsson, Long, Hunt, Doyle). Were we in a "dire" state of affairs in those days?

To remember what "dire" looks like, go back 2 years when we had Edwards, Ilori, Bacuna, Mannone, Bodvarson, Kelly, Popa, Barrow and Aluko locked into high value, long term contracts they didn't deserve. That we're coming out the other end and can clearly foresee light at the end of the tunnel without is testament to the work done since Howe came in.

Er... yeah you know our wage to income ratio has gone up since we lost Bacuna, Edward's, Ilori, Bod, Kelly etc.

Losing ooc players will not get us there.

[Millsy]

but it will obviously help

[WoodleyRoyal]

hopefully we put sell-on clause in his contract and that would make him cheaper...

[WoodleyRoyal]

Signed for qpr, been reported there is a sell on fee coming to us too.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Bad day/good day....I guess

Would’ve liked to have seen him return, but the money might help etc etc

[WestYorksRoyal]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

[Wycombe Royal]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

To be fair, they have all had a lot of football, mostly at a lower level to get where they are now. There comes a point when they don't want to go out on loan to get that experience and want a permanent move, and they probably wouldn't be where they are now without those moves. At the point we sold them they were not going to get first team football here (possibly with the exception of Cooper, but he kept making mistakes) so selling them was our best option to get some decent money and potential sell-on clauses.

[South Coast Royal]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

Fine with hindsight but weren't those the heady days (remember them?) when we had aspirations of being a Premier League club?
None of them have yet IMHO shown themselves good enough for the top level with Stacey not having exactlylived up to his transfer value at relegated Bournemouth.

Of the 4 my own disappointment is that we didn't keep Cooper as I think with more work he could have been ok for us.

[Hendo]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

To be fair, they have all had a lot of football, mostly at a lower level to get where they are now. There comes a point when they don't want to go out on loan to get that experience and want a permanent move, and they probably wouldn't be where they are now without those moves. At the point we sold them they were not going to get first team football here (possibly with the exception of Cooper, but he kept making mistakes) so selling them was our best option to get some decent money and potential sell-on clauses.

This, really.

With ex-players hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[Esteban]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

I think a mixture of Clarke and Gomes? Not sure when Dickie left permanently.

Steve Clarke ripped the heart out of the club one summer. Not blaming him entirely, I'm sure others were involved, but it was definitely during his tenure.

[Hound]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

I think a mixture of Clarke and Gomes? Not sure when Dickie left permanently.

Steve Clarke ripped the heart out of the club one summer. Not blaming him entirely, I'm sure others were involved, but it was definitely during his tenure.

think all of those were Stam weren't they?

[Basildon]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

I think a mixture of Clarke and Gomes? Not sure when Dickie left permanently.

Steve Clarke ripped the heart out of the club one summer. Not blaming him entirely, I'm sure others were involved, but it was definitely during his tenure.

think all of those were Stam weren't they?

Yep pretty sure they were all Stam, potentially Clement for Dickie.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

Fine with hindsight but weren't those the heady days (remember them?) when we had aspirations of being a Premier League club?
None of them have yet IMHO shown themselves good enough for the top level with Stacey not having exactlylived up to his transfer value at relegated Bournemouth.

Of the 4 my own disappointment is that we didn't keep Cooper as I think with more work he could have been ok for us.

Fosu too. He made some exciting cameos and excelled in pre-season. But we signed Callum Harriot instead of giving him a proper chance.

[Hendo]

Cooper, Stacey, Dickie, Fosu....we really dropped the ball. It was clear at the time they were not far off the required standard (they are not another Antonio who was sold at the right time).

What is their collective value now? Was it Stam and Tevreden who shipped them out?

Fine with hindsight but weren't those the heady days (remember them?) when we had aspirations of being a Premier League club?
None of them have yet IMHO shown themselves good enough for the top level with Stacey not having exactlylived up to his transfer value at relegated Bournemouth.

Of the 4 my own disappointment is that we didn't keep Cooper as I think with more work he could have been ok for us.

Fosu too. He made some exciting cameos and excelled in pre-season. But we signed Callum Harriot instead of giving him a proper chance.

I feel a bit for Harriott, as I think without the injury he got, he would've been a cracking player for us. That goal on Boxing Day against Norwich was brilliant.