Hard to see any progress for the forseeable future

[SLAMMED]

To be fair there have been loyal players. But there arn't many around these days.

[Stranded]

Spacey, if you had the chance to earn a lifetime's salary in 10 years, wouldn't you take it? I would.

At 14K a week? Yeah, I would.

So if another company offered you the chance to earn 4 times that to do the same job and you knew full well that if it didn't work out that other companies would be in for you, still offering more than you currently earnt - you'd stay put.

Remember you would have no emotional tie to your current employer at all - in fact it wasn't even your first employer.

[Thaumagurist*]

£14K a week is still a lot of money, enough to live a life in luxury. I'd be happy with that. Wanting any more than that is simply being greedy.

And don't forget, Reading was the only "company" offering the money to Sidwell at the time - he could not talk to anyone else.

[Stranded]

£14K a week is still a lot of money, enough to live a life in luxury. I'd be happy with that. Wanting any more than that is simply being greedy.

And don't forget, Reading was the only "company" offering the money to Sidwell at the time - he could not talk to anyone else.

Fair enough, but I'll be honest, I just don't believe you.

Yes he could, he had a clause in his contract allowing him to talk to clubs if a certain offer was made but we did not have to sanction the deal - so straight away he knew his market value elsewhere.

I don't think it's greedy to want what is the market value of a player/individual of your standing regardless of the sums involved. Whether those sums should be available is another arguement entirely.

[Ian Royal]

£14K a week is still a lot of money, enough to live a life in luxury. I'd be happy with that. Wanting any more than that is simply being greedy.

And don't forget, Reading was the only "company" offering the money to Sidwell at the time - he could not talk to anyone else.

Don't forget that you'll lose a massive amount in tax, and only have the prospect of earning it for about 10 years, if that. Add in that your lifestyle is likely to be quite expensive and you have appearances to maintain and £14k / week suddenly isn't so massive. In fact that's only £7.2m before tax. I'd expect you can see that drop to £4.5m - £5m after tax at a guess.

That then has to keep you and your family, in the lifestyle you've become acustomed to for probably upwards of 40-50 years.


If I was a footballer I wouldn't be wanting to rely on getting a normal job when my playing career is over to keep me going. Or hoping I'd get caching, pundit or management job.

[Platypuss]

Dogs and football fans are loyal.

Footballers are not.

You can argue that it should be otherwise. But only if you're happy to sound foolish.

Going by Spacey's past record I make that "blissfully".

[Archie's penalty]

£14K a week is still a lot of money, enough to live a life in luxury. I'd be happy with that. Wanting any more than that is simply being greedy.

And don't forget, Reading was the only "company" offering the money to Sidwell at the time - he could not talk to anyone else.

Don't forget that you'll lose a massive amount in tax, and only have the prospect of earning it for about 10 years, if that. Add in that your lifestyle is likely to be quite expensive and you have appearances to maintain and £14k / week suddenly isn't so massive. In fact that's only £7.2m before tax. I'd expect you can see that drop to £4.5m - £5m after tax at a guess.

That then has to keep you and your family, in the lifestyle you've become acustomed to for probably upwards of 40-50 years.


If I was a footballer I wouldn't be wanting to rely on getting a normal job when my playing career is over to keep me going. Or hoping I'd get caching, pundit or management job.

But wouldn't you get bored? I would.

[Millsy]

One has to remember these lads aren't just making decisions for themselves but for wives, kids' futures etc.. It's conceivable that if I was to stay single all my life I *might* turn down an extra several million pounds to stay loyal to my town and club, but I would never disadvantage others.

[Millsy]

If we go up only to have a pathetic wage structure, no real interest in signing decent ppl when needed etc then I will be sceptical. We have to learn form our mistakes.
.

We also know that what we've paid our top players is actually not that out of line with what established senior players at some other clubs are earning.

I may be wrong but understanding is that had one of the lowest (if not the lowest) wage budgets in the Prem and Coppell stated several times IIRC that purchasing players wasn't the problem it was giving them the deals they wanted. Having one or two big earners doesn't mean the total wage structure is adequate.

[Millsy]

If we go up only to have a pathetic wage structure,

Do you really think we can afford to have a ridiculous wage structure that we cannot sustain?

Really, what is the point in arguing the extremes?

Whoever said anything about a ridiculous wage structure. A moderately better wage structure would do the trick.

[Millsy]

I apologise for coming into this thread late - you must all be bord of it by now I'm sure.

A slightly new point by me therefore is that I honestly dont see much progress being made beyond what we achieved in the Prem so far unless there are changes of attitude made if we go up. If we go up only to have a pathetic wage structure, no real interest in signing decent ppl when needed etc then I will be sceptical. We have to learn form our mistakes.

As for Schards not apologising well that's his issue. I've no interest in defending her/him or gloating. The wrongness of the original post does its own talking but the broad concept of progression remains an issue whether s/he meant that or not.

Progress is not necessarily bettering our best ever league finish. Progress would be establishing ourself as a yoyo club, compared to what we've previously been.

In all situations there are peaks and troughs. Each time we've had a peak our trough has not been as low as the previous one. So far our peaks have pretty much all been better than the last one. That doesn't mean we're not making progress if that doesn't happen this time. If the next few seasons end up as:

2nd, 14th, 16th, 19th is progress. Equally, 2nd, 19th, 3rd (play off winners) 16th would also be progress for the club. It's building a platform where we can better 8th.

At the moment any finish like that is a lucky one off, no matter how deserved.

Good point.

I would argue that we should turn up the steam just a little because 3 goals of goal difference cost us around £50million and shattered our record breaking team. Yo-yoing is fine in the lower divisions and the slowly increasing trough levels is a good argument. But the gulf and rewards between Prem footy and the the rest is so incredibly large that I think this is one exception to the rule. i.e. in only this scenario one has to put a bit of oomph into keeping one's foot in the door. Then we can go back to brick-by-brick yo-yoing within the Premiership all we like.

[Ian Royal]

You normally need the oomph to manage to yoyo from tier 1 to tier 2 and back. We're currently managing it through good business plans. If we can do it for a while and avoid staying down long enough to lose the parachute payments we can clear a massive amount from our debts without huge investment.

that would put us in an unbelievable position at the top end of football.

I'd also dispute the record breaking team broke up when we got relegated. The record breaking team broke up when Sidders left, Kitson spent most of his time injured, Little spent most of his time injured, Convey spent most of his time injured, Doyle went briefly shit, Lita went not so briefly shit, Sonko got injured and then went shit and Ivar went rather on the pants side. All of which happened before or during the season in which we got relegated.

[SpaceCruiser]

If we go up only to have a pathetic wage structure,

Do you really think we can afford to have a ridiculous wage structure that we cannot sustain?

Really, what is the point in arguing the extremes?

Whoever said anything about a ridiculous wage structure. A moderately better wage structure would do the trick.

When we went up in 2006, you don't think we improved the wage structure?

[Rex]

Almost 2 weeks into the transfer window and no sign of the fire sale.....

Aimed possibly at next season

[Ian Royal]

Almost 2 weeks into the transfer window and no sign of the fire sale.....

Aimed possibly at next season

I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be this season from memory. Also, I believe our summer outgoings were argued as being a firesale by some.

[Sun Tzu]

Almost 2 weeks into the transfer window and no sign of the fire sale.....

Aimed possibly at next season

I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be this season from memory. Also, I believe our summer outgoings were argued as being a firesale by some.

It was a description of our transfer dealings last summer....

Which on reflection have turned out to be more like the work of venture capitalists moving in, realising the value of assets at the top of the market and then rebuilding a solid business without squandering the earnings....

[rabidbee]

Spacey, if you had the chance to earn a lifetime's salary in 10 years, wouldn't you take it? I would.

At 14K a week? Yeah, I would.

And if somebody offered you double or triple that, wouldn't you also take it?

[Thaumagurist*]

Spacey, if you had the chance to earn a lifetime's salary in 10 years, wouldn't you take it? I would.

At 14K a week? Yeah, I would.

And if somebody offered you double or triple that, wouldn't you also take it?

But what if I wasn't offered that and 14K was the offer? I'd be stupid to turn it down.

[rabidbee]

At 14K a week? Yeah, I would.

And if somebody offered you double or triple that, wouldn't you also take it?

But what if I wasn't offered that and 14K was the offer? I'd be stupid to turn it down.

Fortunately for Sidwell, he knew he was worth more than that.

[Thaumagurist*]

But what if I wasn't offered that and 14K was the offer? I'd be stupid to turn it down.

Fortunately for Sidwell, he knew he was worth more than that.

To be fair, it was a big gamble, he might not have got what he wanted when his contract expired. He was lucky that Chelsea was interested and his gamble paid off. He was still stuck on 9K when he turned down the offer and might have ended up with not a lot if something had happened - i.e. loss of form, serious injury etc etc