OneTrueLegend
Player Valuation: £35m
Don't Worry, when we are bought out by a Asian consortium they will change our home kit to Red, and away kit to blue (like the Cardiff City Dragons)
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Don't Worry, when we are bought out by a Asian consortium they will change our home kit to Red, and away kit to blue (like the Cardiff City Dragons)
MrGrumpy
Player Valuation: £50m
I’ve had a long think about this and I’ve finally worked it out. The problem and the reason we are like this is due to chronic under investment in both the squad and stadium since the start of the 90s.
Teams like Middlesbrough and Sunderland, who haven’t been in the prem since day 1 like we have, have built themselves new stadiums as well as several other teams.
We have two fantastic examples of under investment. Joe Royal wins the fa cup asks for money to buy Ole Gunner S and someone else, Board says no, he says I’ll quit and he does.
2nd example. We get 4th...omg we are in the CL let’s spend to get in the group stages...nah we are fine. Knocked out chance gone.
Now you come to this year and we finally have money and a 3rd chance to get it right and we go mad and buy the wrong players and leave us with a completely unbalanced squad with 1 left back and no strikers.
If we had even a 10th more investment over the years we be in a far better position with a far better squad, instead of youth or well passed it players
Teams like Middlesbrough and Sunderland, who haven’t been in the prem since day 1 like we have, have built themselves new stadiums as well as several other teams.
We have two fantastic examples of under investment. Joe Royal wins the fa cup asks for money to buy Ole Gunner S and someone else, Board says no, he says I’ll quit and he does.
2nd example. We get 4th...omg we are in the CL let’s spend to get in the group stages...nah we are fine. Knocked out chance gone.
Now you come to this year and we finally have money and a 3rd chance to get it right and we go mad and buy the wrong players and leave us with a completely unbalanced squad with 1 left back and no strikers.
If we had even a 10th more investment over the years we be in a far better position with a far better squad, instead of youth or well passed it players
Nealroy
Player Valuation: £750k
Ultimately I think the common issue across the entire period is squad disharmony.
For me, the first outward embodiment of that was the mirallas/Baines penalty debacle but you can probably trace it's roots back to the permanent signing of lukaku.
In a cruel twist for us, the initial loosening of our purse strings and then subsequent investment appears to have done for us!
When Rom signed his wages broke our ceiling and if I remember rightly, Barkley got a similar contract within weeks. Not much later Stones got a hefty new contract as well. From a commercial point of view it made sense for the club to the down three young potential superstars to long lucrative contracts asap but that has got to have caused friction with others in the squad who were on deals signed before we upped our budget. For example, McCarthy had been excellent in his first season but the next year he found his young midfield partner being paid 3 or 4 times his reported wage. Can't be a coincidence he went off sick not long after. Was Distin put out that Stones was probably being paid more than him after a handful of appearances?
Since Moshiri arrived we are in the type of conundrum the likes of Newcastle have had for years. We have more money, but not as much as the top clubs and we don't have the success on the pitch to draw the elite players. We are constantly trying to show off but cant really back it up. So we end up paying too much for slightly better players than we already have and taking our eye off the ball in assessing players characters at the same time. If you have no money you have to scrutinise these things a lot harder and you don't take gambles. If you have loads of money then it doesn't matter as you can just replace/offload/loan out a player who turns out to be rotten. We still have to sell them to replace them - hence our squad is now almost entirely youngsters, past its or mercenaries only here for the pay cheque.
And sadly it shows on the pitch.
For me, the first outward embodiment of that was the mirallas/Baines penalty debacle but you can probably trace it's roots back to the permanent signing of lukaku.
In a cruel twist for us, the initial loosening of our purse strings and then subsequent investment appears to have done for us!
When Rom signed his wages broke our ceiling and if I remember rightly, Barkley got a similar contract within weeks. Not much later Stones got a hefty new contract as well. From a commercial point of view it made sense for the club to the down three young potential superstars to long lucrative contracts asap but that has got to have caused friction with others in the squad who were on deals signed before we upped our budget. For example, McCarthy had been excellent in his first season but the next year he found his young midfield partner being paid 3 or 4 times his reported wage. Can't be a coincidence he went off sick not long after. Was Distin put out that Stones was probably being paid more than him after a handful of appearances?
Since Moshiri arrived we are in the type of conundrum the likes of Newcastle have had for years. We have more money, but not as much as the top clubs and we don't have the success on the pitch to draw the elite players. We are constantly trying to show off but cant really back it up. So we end up paying too much for slightly better players than we already have and taking our eye off the ball in assessing players characters at the same time. If you have no money you have to scrutinise these things a lot harder and you don't take gambles. If you have loads of money then it doesn't matter as you can just replace/offload/loan out a player who turns out to be rotten. We still have to sell them to replace them - hence our squad is now almost entirely youngsters, past its or mercenaries only here for the pay cheque.
And sadly it shows on the pitch.
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