The Everton Board Thread 2014/15

[Moomin]

Wages:
http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/everton-blue-sky-mining.html
Everton’s wage bill was up 10% (£6 million) to £69 million (2013 £63 million), but the wages to turnover ratio fell from 73% to a respectable 58% following the high revenue growth. The ratio would be even lower if the club had not outsourced its retail and catering business. Everton’s ability to outperform their financial resources is further emphasised by their relatively low wage bill, which was only the 10th highest in the Premier League in 2012/13, even behind QPR and Fulham. To place it into context, it is less than a third of the two Manchester clubs and less than half of Arsenal, Chelsea and (probably) Liverpool.

I would presume that us, Villa, Newcastle, Stoke, Sunderland, West Ham, Swansea and Southampton will all now be pretty much identical.

They will eventually overtake us in the next few seasons some of these clubs on wage spending. Think we will have to go through a bad few seasons until it gets better.

 

[D410]

It seems like it's pretty much everyday that you see something like this (whether it be on twitter, facebook or an everton forum)



Note that it's the replies as much as the initial comment i'm talking about.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons for Evertonian's to be disillusioned with the board but when people latch on to absolutely EVERYTHING as being a hammer to try to hit them with... it just looks... well embarrassing.

People on that particular tweet are fuming over the fact that we've spend so much less than the teams that we compete with and in another series i was looking at people whinging that championship clubs have higher net spend than us over the last 4 years..... why the hell does this matter?

Look at Liverpool's squad change between this year and last year.... have they improved by what you would consider to be ~£80m.... honestly, no they haven't. Does that ~£4m that we've spent represent the quality of Cleverley and Deulofeu? No it really doesn't. The club know they can't compete financially with the richest clubs so they've invested heavily in our you academies and training facilities... for me it looks like they're trying to build a stronger club as opposed to a stronger team and I think we're about to see the benefits of this. I look at those figures and our net spend over the last number of years and I think it's really astute business... how much the team has improved since 2004 with practically no spend.

This is the same as the fume that fans had over Arsenals merchandise tent being 3 times the size of ours in Singapore. Arsenal's fan base there is absolutely enormous! This is like complaining that Arsenal have a bigger club store in London, than Everton have in London.

Essentially, if Evertonians want to be annoyed at the board and want them out then they should stick to the reasons that actually make sense. Right now, every few days I see Evertonians actually complaining about the board not taking the TV Money and just pissing it up against the wall so that we can save face when compared to the rich clubs.

I wish people would just grow up.

Please note, this isn't directed at anyone in particular (except maybe that guy who runs SOS1878....), I'm just getting frustrated at some of the more childish reasons being used to attack the board.

So it,s been ok for EFC to employ the likes of Ian Ross and others of that ilk to control and set the local news agenda and cycle, cancel AGM,s, tell us the roof is falling down on the fans at the ground and stay silent on difficult questions over the last 20 years but you throw a hissy fit when we have spent 4m this summer?

Get real mate..it,s about time the fans had a crack at the same game the club has played for over 20 years.

 

[joey_macmo]

Ah c'mon, we weren't building a 3 bedroom house for our youth team.
And everything I saw about that photo was "small club mentality"... "not even trying to compete with the big boys" etc etc.

Anyway, that's pretty much exactly what I'm saying 4 Singaporeans selling Everton jerseys while wearing Arsenal Jersey's.... KENWRIGHT AND ELSTONE OUT!!!! People absolutely adore trolling Everton fans these days because our reactions are so out of proportion it's actually almost funny... almost

What was the solution here anyway? Send the staff of Everton One out to Singapore for a few days to sell some jerseys... sure you'd probably spend more on travel than you'd make on sales. Sure I suppose we could've refused to play our games unless the organisers made the staff wear what we wanted.

Lets just get this straight, are you honestly saying one of the reasons for our lack of funds is that we built accommodation for our youth players. Yet you're the one saying people are using ridiculous reasons for having a go at the board!?!? I dont even think the building has started anyway has it?

The whole point about the shirts and the anger is that you couldn't buy an everton shirt there, hence why the stall was small and why the staff were wearing arsenal shirts. Thats probably the main gripe people have with the whole Kitbag deal and it was illustrated perfectly by the way there where a load of people going to a game looking to buy merchandise and they couldn't even get an Everton shirt if they wanted.

 

[banno]

What have we won with Kenwright in charge? What did we win with Johnstone in charge? What did we win with Carter? What did we win with Moores. Get my drift. Kenwright is a lightweight and cannot make us competitive but plodding along seems acceptable and excuseable. He might be an Evertonian but so what.....we are getting smaller and smaller. He tries his best but his best is not good enough its that simple. This is not a pop at him for the fun of it...its fact and if anyone can justify him doing this to our once great club then we are in serious trouble.

 

[bobafro]

So it,s been ok for EFC to employ the likes of Ian Ross and others of that ilk to control and set the local news agenda and cycle, cancel AGM,s, tell us the roof is falling down on the fans at the ground and stay silent on difficult questions over the last 20 years but you throw a hissy fit when we have spent 4m this summer?

Get real mate..it,s about time the fans had a crack at the same game the club has played for over 20 years.

Mate, I'm doing the exact opposite of this.

 

[GwladysBlue]

It seems like it's pretty much everyday that you see something like this (whether it be on twitter, facebook or an everton forum)



Note that it's the replies as much as the initial comment i'm talking about.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons for Evertonian's to be disillusioned with the board but when people latch on to absolutely EVERYTHING as being a hammer to try to hit them with... it just looks... well embarrassing.

People on that particular tweet are fuming over the fact that we've spend so much less than the teams that we compete with and in another series i was looking at people whinging that championship clubs have higher net spend than us over the last 4 years..... why the hell does this matter?

Look at Liverpool's squad change between this year and last year.... have they improved by what you would consider to be ~£80m.... honestly, no they haven't. Does that ~£4m that we've spent represent the quality of Cleverley and Deulofeu? No it really doesn't. The club know they can't compete financially with the richest clubs so they've invested heavily in our you academies and training facilities... for me it looks like they're trying to build a stronger club as opposed to a stronger team and I think we're about to see the benefits of this. I look at those figures and our net spend over the last number of years and I think it's really astute business... how much the team has improved since 2004 with practically no spend.

This is the same as the fume that fans had over Arsenals merchandise tent being 3 times the size of ours in Singapore. Arsenal's fan base there is absolutely enormous! This is like complaining that Arsenal have a bigger club store in London, than Everton have in London.

Essentially, if Evertonians want to be annoyed at the board and want them out then they should stick to the reasons that actually make sense. Right now, every few days I see Evertonians actually complaining about the board not taking the TV Money and just pissing it up against the wall so that we can save face when compared to the rich clubs.

I wish people would just grow up.

Please note, this isn't directed at anyone in particular (except maybe that guy who runs SOS1878....), I'm just getting frustrated at some of the more childish reasons being used to attack the board.

This might just be the most delusional post I have ever read.

You refer to the 'rich clubs' quite a lot in this post, how do we judge a rich club exactly? Would you consider the Delottie Top 20 to be the 'rich clubs'? In that case, we are apart of that group.

In a time when every other football club seems to have the money to go out and invest in their squads, we seem to be even poorer. If we had something we could physically see the money going into I.e. A new stadium/redevelopment, then fair enough but alas we can't.


This board have had more than enough time at this club, I don't know about you but I am completely tired of their false dawns now.

We're onto our third failed stadium move and look to be losing our most talented player yet again. What exactly has changed under his leadership?

He has sat on the Sky money and invested none of his own, he expects a massive pay out on them shares for doing absolutely nothing proactive to improve this club.

Also, why do you think Arsenal have a big fan base in the Far East? It is because hey work at it. I remember some years ago Everton were the most watched team in China due to Li Ti, we didn't exactly cash in on that, did we?

 

[Dithering Dougie]

So it,s been ok for EFC to employ the likes of Ian Ross and others of that ilk to control and set the local news agenda and cycle, cancel AGM,s, tell us the roof is falling down on the fans at the ground and stay silent on difficult questions over the last 20 years but you throw a hissy fit when we have spent 4m this summer?

Get real mate..it,s about time the fans had a crack at the same game the club has played for over 20 years.

I don't think you've actually read his post and if you did it certainly went way way over your head.

 

[bobafro]

Lets just get this straight, are you honestly saying one of the reasons for our lack of funds is that we built accommodation for our youth players. Yet you're the one saying people are using ridiculous reasons for having a go at the board!?!? I dont even think the building has started anyway has it?

The whole point about the shirts and the anger is that you couldn't buy an everton shirt there, hence why the stall was small and why the staff were wearing arsenal shirts. Thats probably the main gripe people have with the whole Kitbag deal and it was illustrated perfectly by the way there where a load of people going to a game looking to buy merchandise and they couldn't even get an Everton shirt if they wanted.

I'm not even saying we have a lack of fundsl! I was pointing out one piece of sensible spending that we used a portion of the TV money from last year on.

The overarching point is that there is literally nothing the board can do that will make people happy apart from stepping down. They could go out and spend 50m on players in the next week and if they flopped like so many of the big signing at big clubs have... it'd be the boards fault despite it being exactly what the fans are calling for now.

From my very first post i stated that I'm not defending the board at all, i'm just saying that I think there are other things people should be focused on as opposed to 'Net Spends'.

Honestly, answer this; Has our squad improved dramatically over the last 10 years with very little spending? Has Liverpool's squad gone backwards with absolutely enormous spending over the last 10 years?

If yes and yes.... then how is a 'low net spend on transfer' as an isolated statistic a good measure of anything?


edited a typo: missed the word 'not' in the first sentence

 

[MickA]

The overarching point is that there is literally nothing the board can do that will make people happy apart from stepping down. They could go out and spend 50m on players in the next week and if they flopped like so many of the big signing at big clubs have... it'd be the boards fault despite it being exactly what the fans are calling for now.

People are tired of their lies, fed-up of broken promises and aghast that they still don't have any semblance of a viable business plan to grow the business.

Quite frankly their time is up.

 

[bobafro]

This might just be the most delusional post I have ever read.

You refer to the 'rich clubs' quite a lot in this post, how do we judge a rich club exactly? Would you consider the Delottie Top 20 to be the 'rich clubs'? In that case, we are apart of that group.

In a time when every other football club seems to have the money to go out and invest in their squads, we seem to be even poorer. If we had something we could physically see the money going into I.e. A new stadium/redevelopment, then fair enough but alas we can't.


This board have had more than enough time at this club, I don't know about you but I am completely tired of their false dawns now.

We're onto our third failed stadium move and look to be losing our most talented player yet again. What exactly has changed under his leadership?

He has sat on the Sky money and invested none of his own, he expects a massive pay out on them shares for doing absolutely nothing proactive to improve this club.

Also, why do you think Arsenal have a big fan base in the Far East? It is because hey work at it. I remember some years ago Everton were the most watched team in China due to Li Ti, we didn't exactly cash in on that, did we?

I will never understand how people can't actually talk about something on the internet without getting agro, but then again I'm just delusional.

When I say rich club, I'm talking about clubs that have either the backing of a sugar daddy owner or have a merchandising mechanism at the scale of United/Madrid. Teams that can essentially afford to take the risk of spending inordinate sums of money on a player knowing that if it doesn't work out that they aren't going to end up financially crippling themselves.

The stadium arguments are ALL completely relevant and a completely valid gripe to have with the board... this is exactly what I meant about being pissed off for the right reasons.

Arsenal have a large fan base in the Far East because they have been marketing there for a lot longer than us and at a time when they we're an incredibly successful team. Our support in those markets has been growing over the last number of years but we're still playing catch up and we will be for many years to come, there isn't a switch that one can flick to immediately increase their market share.

 

[bobafro]

People are tired of their lies, fed-up of broken promises and aghast that they still don't have any semblance of a viable business plan to grow the business.

Quite frankly their time is up.

Yes, but the lies and broken promises that people are mainly concerned with are with regards stadium moves and the failure to bring in new investment/sell the club.

My original point was, yes, people are completely entitled to be angry at this but can we stop latching on to the silly [Poor language removed] like 'net spend league tables'. Surely the quality of the squad matters more than how much it cost... and if we have made bigger strides with the squad by spending less money than other teams then that's surely one of the only positive points about the board. I mean... we sing about Coleman costing 60k and then hammer the board because we're not spending enough... we actually are proud that we've acquired great players for a relatively low cost but still want to use that fact to hit the board with... it just doesn't make sense to me.

I've probably explained myself terribly and for that I apologise.

 

[D410]

Bobafro - I know what you said but the fact of the matter is that the board have lost the right to be measured on the metric that they feel they should be measured on vs there peers. The club have lost the right because the board have failed in some many areas of 20 years to move this club forward therefore they are out of time and out of goodwill from the fans.

If the board had just started out then yes most would have not have the reaction to the fact they spent £4m this summer but they have been at this for 20 years and nothing has changed therefore they deserve the kitchen sink and the taxi.

Dougie - whooooossshhhhh

 

[MickA]

Yes, but the lies and broken promises that people are mainly concerned with are with regards stadium moves and the failure to bring in new investment/sell the club.

My original point was, yes, people are completely entitled to be angry at this but can we stop latching on to the silly [Poor language removed] like 'net spend league tables'. Surely the quality of the squad matters more than how much it cost... and if we have made bigger strides with the squad by spending less money than other teams then that's surely one of the only positive points about the board. I mean... we sing about Coleman costing 60k and then hammer the board because we're not spending enough... we actually are proud that we've acquired great players for a relatively low cost but still want to use that fact to hit the board with... it just doesn't make sense to me.

I've probably explained myself terribly and for that I apologise.

The thing is though that net spend whinges are not 'silly'. It's true they should be analysed in context and not taken as a measure on their own but our 'model' is frankly one bad manager away from the whole pack of cards tumbling down. Every club needs the release valve of expenditure on players, it's a dodgy game relying purely on trading close to zero net spend which is what we've been doing.

The relative stability (I won't use the word success) has been largely brought about due to exceptional player trading by Moyes. But let's be honest we've won nothing and achieved nothing since the 1995 FA Cup win in real terms.

 

[riddick]

I will never understand how people can't actually talk about something on the internet without getting agro, but then again I'm just delusional.

When I say rich club, I'm talking about clubs that have either the backing of a sugar daddy owner or have a merchandising mechanism at the scale of United/Madrid. Teams that can essentially afford to take the risk of spending inordinate sums of money on a player knowing that if it doesn't work out that they aren't going to end up financially crippling themselves.

The stadium arguments are ALL completely relevant and a completely valid gripe to have with the board... this is exactly what I meant about being pissed off for the right reasons.

Arsenal have a large fan base in the Far East because they have been marketing there for a lot longer than us and at a time when they we're an incredibly successful team. Our support in those markets has been growing over the last number of years but we're still playing catch up and we will be for many years to come, there isn't a switch that one can flick to immediately increase their market share.

Couldnt/wouldnt you say that the two are inexorably linked? If we arent spending the money on transfers and we arent doing anything to get a new stadium then...wheres the money and thats what people are livid about?

I think people are generally level-headed once they get past their knee-jerk stage. Seeing us near the bottom of the spend table yet again in an era of unprecedented wealth being literally thrown into the game is making people beyond despair. If it were another club it would almost be comical.

But its not another club, its OUR club.

 

[Steve Wigan]

Yes, but the lies and broken promises that people are mainly concerned with are with regards stadium moves and the failure to bring in new investment/sell the club.

My original point was, yes, people are completely entitled to be angry at this but can we stop latching on to the silly [Poor language removed] like 'net spend league tables'. Surely the quality of the squad matters more than how much it cost... and if we have made bigger strides with the squad by spending less money than other teams then that's surely one of the only positive points about the board. I mean... we sing about Coleman costing 60k and then hammer the board because we're not spending enough... we actually are proud that we've acquired great players for a relatively low cost but still want to use that fact to hit the board with... it just doesn't make sense to me.

I've probably explained myself terribly and for that I apologise.

I fully understand your point about the over emphasis on 'net spend'...the important factor is the value/productivity of the team on the field. We field a better team skill and ability wise than the majority of clubs in the Premier League. Howard is a good Premier League keeper despite the criticism...that happens to most keepers on a regular basis. Baines and Coleman would get into most Prem teams with ease.Mccarthy, Cleverley, Stones, Jagielka, Barkley(on form and realising his potential)and Mirallas would get in most Prem teams, and Naismith,Besic,Barry,Kone, Osman even now,and Peinnar would certainly get plenty of game time with teams in the lower reaches of the Prem, Naismith possibly higher. He would certainly be a star at the top end of the SPL. There are many players getting regular starts for Prem clubs without justification or what one would think would be the minimum requirement of ability. Burnley, Sunderland, Watford, Leicester, West Brom, and many more have regulars who would never get as far as the bench at Everton.