Oh, What A Lovely Defecit!

[brendywendy]

I can understand people might have reservations about our ability to replace any outgoing stars when you look at recent history.

the recent history that has been the most exciting, and highest achieving in our history?


yeah, this is terrible. JM out.

[DOYLERSAROYALER]

Its fair to say that in recent seasons the club have over-achieved and thats been down to the efforts of the manager and the players... that cant go on forever , so it will be interesting to see what peoples' views are, if say next season, we are 2/3rds down the table and end up there season-end.....would it be classed as a good season for the club considering .....

[rhroyal]

Did the club speak of a deficit from the start of the summer? It's just that last week we were willing to offer Mills up to 20k a week to keep him. To move from that to having a use the entire £5m to fill a "black hole" and run a business simply doesn't add up to me, whatever financial records you choose to look at.

[Svlad Cjelli]

Did the club speak of a deficit from the start of the summer? It's just that last week we were willing to offer Mills up to 20k a week to keep him. To move from that to having a use the entire £5m to fill a "black hole" and run a business simply doesn't add up to me, whatever financial records you choose to look at.

That all assumed you believe what you read in the press .... I certainly don't.

[dogzbollox]

Did the club speak of a deficit from the start of the summer? It's just that last week we were willing to offer Mills up to 20k a week to keep him. To move from that to having a use the entire £5m to fill a "black hole" and run a business simply doesn't add up to me, whatever financial records you choose to look at.

I don't think they spoke of a deficit immediately but you make a very salient point...

[Tony Le Mesmer]

So how will we fill next seasons black hole when we get knocked out of the cup in the 3rd Round and finish 12th? Pearce to Arsenal for £8m?

[Man Friday]

I think you'll find that promotion from the Championship is worth around £90 million - that is based on one year in the Prem, followed by four years parachute payments (we only got two).

Let's face it, the club runs at a trading loss, income from ticket sales, merchandising, TV money etc, is lower than what it costs to run the club; capital costs, maintaining the facilities, transfers in etc, with the bulk of the costs in players wages.

So we have three options:

1) Reduce the costs so that the club is cost-neutral.

2) Increase income.

3) Trade at a loss., but find something else to fill the shortfall. Now there are a number of ways we could do this:

- borrow from the Banks; not easy in the current climate and given that we were required to pay off our overdraft a couple of years ago, this doesn't look like an option.
- find a rich new owner to bankroll us (as per Leicester); we know no new cash will come from SJM, but he has stated that he won't just up and leave without a "suitable" new owner - for this I think we should thank him.
Before I get flamed, I don't consider myself an RTG, just a realist. In todays climate, you cannot just magic money from thin air, it's right that the books should balance somehow and I for one don't believe that racking up huge debts is the way to go

Nor do I but what's wrong with having a benefactor who's prepared to pump in their own money without repayment (more fool them but each to their own) i.e. not a loan - ala the bloke at Blackburn in the 90s. Why would they be "unsuitable"? Mind you, such a person is a rarity. Most pump money in as a loan. I'm still not convinced that SJM's investment over the last 20 years aren't loans in reality. This in itself would scare off many potential new owners.

[Svlad Cjelli]

So how will we fill next seasons black hole when we get knocked out of the cup in the 3rd Round and finish 12th? Pearce to Arsenal for £8m?

A damn sight easier than we would if we carry over *this* year's deficit into next year.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

So how will we fill next seasons black hole when we get knocked out of the cup in the 3rd Round and finish 12th? Pearce to Arsenal for £8m?

A damn sight easier than we would if we carry over *this* year's deficit into next year.

Tongue in cheek obv. But "Well Run" clubs who "Cut their cloth accordingly" should not have to sell anyone.

[ZacNaloen]

The clubs who cut their cloth such that they don't need to sell anyone have shit players.

[Svlad Cjelli]

So how will we fill next seasons black hole when we get knocked out of the cup in the 3rd Round and finish 12th? Pearce to Arsenal for £8m?

A damn sight easier than we would if we carry over *this* year's deficit into next year.

Tongue in cheek obv. But "Well Run" clubs who "Cut their cloth accordingly" should not have to sell anyone.

That doesn't necessarily follow. Well run means that they're able to stay in business, to know when they need to make financial changes and to have the flexibility to do that.

Knowing that you're going to make a deficit in a year is "well-run" - suddenly and unexpectedly running out of money in March (as so many other clubs tend to do) is not "well-run."

But well-run does not necessarily equal "profitable" or "breaking even" when the financial constraints you're operating under don't make that possible.

[Hoop Blah]

in effect its one bad season in the last 10 though, regardless of what mistakes were made.

hardluyy indicative of a club in crisis

I wasn't aware anyone had really said it was a club in crisis, just that there was a potential that we didn't replace outgoing quality as smoothly as you seem to be making out.

[Hoop Blah]

I can understand people might have reservations about our ability to replace any outgoing stars when you look at recent history.

the recent history that has been the most exciting, and highest achieving in our history?


yeah, this is terrible. JM out.

No doubting it's been a wonderful 5-10 years to be supporting the club.

On the flip side though, you can't argue with the fact that we went from the 8th best side in the country to having to to sack our manager through fear of a second relegation within 4 years.

It's been exciting but by no means flawless.

[Svlad Cjelli]

But being the 8th best club in the country was surely a blip? We were never, ever going to consolidate that sort of position.

The overall trend is upwards, with variations above and below the trend line.

[Hoop Blah]

A blip yes, but one that we could've made more of had we not refused to move forwards and instead found ourselves nearly two leagues behind in 2.5 half years time.

It's not easy to kick on from there, I'm not saying it is, just that I can perfectly understand some peoples concern that the club won't successfully kick on from here or replace existing players with the kind of success brendy seems convinced we will.

If anything history says that we won't, and after a period of high achievement (which McDermotts tenure should be looked at considering the resources available to him) most clubs in our situation experience similar issues.

We've had a good run, our high achieving key players will be cherry picked by the bigger fish and we'll have to start to rebuild....again. It's similar to '95, '07 and the end of the Coppell period that was spread over the two summers following relegation.

Each time we've come back weaker.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

We've had a good run, our high achieving key players will be cherry picked by the bigger fish and we'll have to start to rebuild....again. It's similar to '95, '07 and the end of the Coppell period that was spread over the two summers following relegation.

Each time we've come back weaker.

Surely any club that rebuilds will be weaker than before they had to sell their players.

The difference is that by not gambling our future on going back up, we can rebuild from a more stable platform. Selling one or two players a year is more manageable than having to sell seven or eight.

[Hoop Blah]

Depends on the quality of the rebuilding job I guess.

I'm not saying we should expect miracles, just pointing out that where brendy seems to think we won't fail we haven't really succeeded (understandably) in the past.

[brendywendy]

Did the club speak of a deficit from the start of the summer? It's just that last week we were willing to offer Mills up to 20k a week to keep him. To move from that to having a use the entire £5m to fill a "black hole" and run a business simply doesn't add up to me, whatever financial records you choose to look at.

i think it was assumed that people would just remember that we make less money than we spend, so will always have a yearly deficit until that is sorted
obviously they were wrong

[brendywendy]

in effect its one bad season in the last 10 though, regardless of what mistakes were made.

hardluyy indicative of a club in crisis

I wasn't aware anyone had really said it was a club in crisis, just that there was a potential that we didn't replace outgoing quality as smoothly as you seem to be making out.

so to you 1 bad season in 10 doesnt indicate many smooth transitions between playing staff ?
i think it is.
you are obviously much more demanding of your football club.

[brendywendy]

But being the 8th best club in the country was surely a blip? We were never, ever going to consolidate that sort of position.

The overall trend is upwards, with variations above and below the trend line.

no dirk, i think thats what all these people wanted. for us to consolidate in the top ten, and push towards regular european football.