FFP or not prepared to spend, the actual stats?

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, WarksRobin said:

The worrying thing is we may already be in breach of FFP once the 18/19 profit falls outside the three year period, and we may need to sell some assets such as Bentley or Massengo and not be able to replace them.

Meanwhile Kalas is showing off his new Lamborghini Urus.

My forecasts show exactly that….21/22 season’s accounts (this season) will be the last set of accounts in the FFP 3 year cycle (4 yrs because of COVID) that we fall within the £39m.

However, this might depend on how much we can exclude for Covid in 20/21’s accounts.  This season and next do see significant wage and amortisation costs wiped off, and that will continue to be the trend, unless we sell some players.

Re Kalas, I wonder whether we might entertain trying to sell him next summer.  His wages and amortisation are £3m+ per year.

[WarksRobin]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

My forecasts show exactly that….21/22 season’s accounts (this season) will be the last set of accounts in the FFP 3 year cycle (4 yrs because of COVID) that we fall within the £39m.

However, this might depend on how much we can exclude for Covid in 20/21’s accounts.  This season and next do see significant wage and amortisation costs wiped off, and that will continue to be the trend, unless we sell some players.

Re Kalas, I wonder whether we might entertain trying to sell him next summer.  His wages and amortisation are £3m+ per year.

My conclusion was based on your assessment work Dave. There are definitely challenging times ahead, for the club to communicate those financial constraints and supporters to be understanding when it appears we are selling off our best players. 
 

If there are permitted covid exceptions, other clubs will also benefit from them so it doesn’t help us much by comparison. 

[Davefevs]

18 minutes ago, WarksRobin said:

My conclusion was based on your assessment work Dave. There are definitely challenging times ahead, for the club to communicate those financial constraints and supporters to be understanding when it appears we are selling off our best players. 
 

If there are permitted covid exceptions, other clubs will also benefit from them so it doesn’t help us much by comparison. 

The other tough one is extending contracts.  In many respects, Nige has worked a bit of a miracle getting Weimann and Baker to sign deals on significantly lower wages than they were on.

But they were OOC.

How do you get Tomas Kalas to extend his current deal, say it’s £25k p.w, for another 2 years.  You don’t want him going into his final year, but you can’t really afford to give him the same money either.  Ideally you want to tie him down now, but he’s not gonna take a wage drop for a contract he has 22 months left on.

Its these types of situation that are gonna be tough to accept if we have to sell him.

[Midlands Robin]

It does seem, by virtue of FFP and the effects of the last 18 months, we are back to the master plan of buy low, develop and sell high because we have no other option. 

Apart from the academy where we have day to day oversight of player development, we will have to rely on traditional scouting and talent spotting methods.

The Mark Ashton approach of buy 3 or 4 players at a time, most costing a 7 figure sum, can't cut it anymore as we don't have the flexibility to chuck money on "ones for the future".

The encouraging signs are, of George Tanner is anything to go by, that we may be able to successfully overhaul the squad for a reasonably low cost and free up cash again for further development in the future.

 

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Midlands Robin said:

It does seem, by virtue of FFP and the effects of the last 18 months, we are back to the master plan of buy low, develop and sell high because we have no other option. 

Apart from the academy where we have day to day oversight of player development, we will have to rely on traditional scouting and talent spotting methods.

The Mark Ashton approach of buy 3 or 4 players at a time, most costing a 7 figure sum, can't cut it anymore as we don't have the flexibility to chuck money on "ones for the future".

The encouraging signs are, of George Tanner is anything to go by, that we may be able to successfully overhaul the squad for a reasonably low cost and free up cash again for further development in the future.

 

I’d be more than happy with this approach if we get more of the likes of Tanner and Atkinson.

[Bristol Rob]

3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

The other tough one is extending contracts.  In many respects, Nige has worked a bit of a miracle getting Weimann and Baker to sign deals on significantly lower wages than they were on.

But they were OOC.

How do you get Tomas Kalas to extend his current deal, say it’s £25k p.w, for another 2 years.  You don’t want him going into his final year, but you can’t really afford to give him the same money either.  Ideally you want to tie him down now, but he’s not gonna take a wage drop for a contract he has 22 months left on.

Its these types of situation that are gonna be tough to accept if we have to sell him.

But then all (or most) other Championship clubs are going to be in a similar position. 

High earners you want to retain and your only chance of doing that is to hope no side with parachute payments take a shine to them.

I think the great football-rest is going to be a few more years of surprise.

Clubs hoping to pick up free signings on sensible wages, and players needing to be lowering their expectations.

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, Bristol Rob said:

But then all (or most) other Championship clubs are going to be in a similar position. 

High earners you want to retain and your only chance of doing that is to hope no side with parachute payments take a shine to them.

I think the great football-rest is going to be a few more years of surprise.

Clubs hoping to pick up free signings on sensible wages, and players needing to be lowering their expectations.

I guess that’s a double edged sword….you might get a decent fee for them??.

[Mr Popodopolous]

Remember the 2019/20 and 2020/21 results/losses are averaged and halved.

Then there will be significant scope to exclude for Covid- all matchday revenue, depending on how (can't remember) we dealt with season ticket revenue ie carrying over or refunding, corporate and commercial revenue- all excludable to name a few. As it will be with all other clubs.

Still doesn't explain Reading and to an extent Stoke given that they were coming into this season with a significantly worse FFP position than us. Reading are due a deduction granted, Stoke- it's hard to know the full picture there.

[Chicken George]

9 hours ago, Davefevs said:

The other tough one is extending contracts.  In many respects, Nige has worked a bit of a miracle getting Weimann and Baker to sign deals on significantly lower wages than they were on.

But they were OOC.

How do you get Tomas Kalas to extend his current deal, say it’s £25k p.w, for another 2 years.  You don’t want him going into his final year, but you can’t really afford to give him the same money either.  Ideally you want to tie him down now, but he’s not gonna take a wage drop for a contract he has 22 months left on.

Its these types of situation that are gonna be tough to accept if we have to sell him.

This is when we will see the first signs of how strong the Pearson / Lansdown relationship is. 
All nicey nicey so far but let’s see what Pearson’s reaction is once we get a pressure situation. 
say we get a £10m bid for Scott. Lansdown says we have to accept the bid to help the finances. Pearson says, well if you want us to build for promotion we have to keep our best players. 
say Pearson wants to extend Kalas contract at the end of this season but Lansdown says we can’t afford his demands. Does Pearson say - but if you want to build for promotion I need to keep my best players. 
 

At some point there is going to be a situation where Steve says we go one way and nige says it lacks ambition. What happens then. Does nige walk? Does Steve sack? (we know he doesn’t like conflict with his managers). 
 

Johnson played ball with this. He saw his best players sold every season and was expected to rebuild and improve. Will nige be quite so complaint when that time comes. 

[Davefevs]

22 minutes ago, Enter Sandman said:

This is when we will see the first signs of how strong the Pearson / Lansdown relationship is. 
All nicey nicey so far but let’s see what Pearson’s reaction is once we get a pressure situation. 
say we get a £10m bid for Scott. Lansdown says we have to accept the bid to help the finances. Pearson says, well if you want us to build for promotion we have to keep our best players. 
say Pearson wants to extend Kalas contract at the end of this season but Lansdown says we can’t afford his demands. Does Pearson say - but if you want to build for promotion I need to keep my best players. 
 

At some point there is going to be a situation where Steve says we go one way and nige says it lacks ambition. What happens then. Does nige walk? Does Steve sack? (we know he doesn’t like conflict with his managers). 
 

Johnson played ball with this. He saw his best players sold every season and was expected to rebuild and improve. Will nige be quite so complaint when that time comes. 

We honestly don’t know.

But despite Lee having to sell players he was never stopped from buying was he?  Holden was the first manager to have to rein it in, paying a fee for one player last summer.  Lee spent £59m on transfer fees alone in 8 Windows (and one emergency loan period), let alone loan fees, agent fees, signing on fees, and wage bill increase.  He brought in really good fees for a small number of players.  In fairness he did have to build the squad up a bit as Cotts was running it on a shoestring.

The wage bill went up every season.  The lowest season spend was £9.7m!

Nige is working under a new remit, already cut costs by £10-12m.  I’d be very surprised if there aren’t tentative plans in place for how do deal with things like Massengo and Kalas contracts.  In Kalas’s case i suspect there is a scenario in place for him leaving / not wanting to extend.  With Tanner we saw the team able to bring forward the plan.

When we see 20/21’s accounts, how much we’ve lost, how much we can offset due to Covid, etc, we will have a better picture as to the constraints.

I do think Nige has fully bought into the finances.  He knows the first period is getting the cost base down so that he isn’t under pressure to sell in phase 2.

I think Lansdown will support him as long as we don’t bust FFP.  I don’t think any tensions will be seen in the next 12 months.  We will know a lot more next summer when the futures of the likes of the two mentioned above are known.

[Davefevs]

33 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

These are the players we always should have been targeting. Paying a big fee and wages for a Chelsea reserve like Palmer was bonkers stuff. Wells even more ridiculous. We really went off the plan . Kalas too was a huge investment (at least he does contribute a lot) 

£2m for Dasilva at the time was a good deal….loan with an agreed price.  But they (Chelsea) made sure they got extra-value on Palmer (especially) and Kalas to make up for it.

[Davefevs]

4 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

I wonder why Kalas has not had his chance in the Prem . I've seen a lot worse in the bottom 6/8 clubs. He would surely improve Norwich for example 

I know.  When Fulham went up he was a bit unfortunate imho….Chelsea wanted £10m, but he lost his starting place to Odoi towards the end of the season, so I think they were reticent to pay a fee that high for a player not guaranteed to start.  But in Odoi’s case, playing a RB as CB in the Champ is a different kettle of fish.  They also signed Mawson and Le Marchand.

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

On 17/10/2021 at 12:43, BigTone said:

I've got £16.26 in my wallet if that helps

Capitalist running dog!

[Mr Popodopolous]

Thought I'd dip into this thread briefly.

Don't have much to add, think most has already been covered by @Davefevs and others but if we can spend relatively freely at this level before Summer 2023, well I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Clearly this is heavily caveated but all things being equal etc.

[054123]

On 18/10/2021 at 23:15, Davefevs said:

We honestly don’t know.

But despite Lee having to sell players he was never stopped from buying was he?  Holden was the first manager to have to rein it in, paying a fee for one player last summer.  Lee spent £59m on transfer fees alone in 8 Windows (and one emergency loan period), let alone loan fees, agent fees, signing on fees, and wage bill increase.  He brought in really good fees for a small number of players.  In fairness he did have to build the squad up a bit as Cotts was running it on a shoestring.

The wage bill went up every season.  The lowest season spend was £9.7m!

Nige is working under a new remit, already cut costs by £10-12m.  I’d be very surprised if there aren’t tentative plans in place for how do deal with things like Massengo and Kalas contracts.  In Kalas’s case i suspect there is a scenario in place for him leaving / not wanting to extend.  With Tanner we saw the team able to bring forward the plan.

When we see 20/21’s accounts, how much we’ve lost, how much we can offset due to Covid, etc, we will have a better picture as to the constraints.

I do think Nige has fully bought into the finances.  He knows the first period is getting the cost base down so that he isn’t under pressure to sell in phase 2.

I think Lansdown will support him as long as we don’t bust FFP.  I don’t think any tensions will be seen in the next 12 months.  We will know a lot more next summer when the futures of the likes of the two mentioned above are known.

What a great post.

I fully accept the criticism of Pearson for match day decisions recently but when look at the remit overall and put the current situation into perspective, my god what a task.

Oh to be Lee Johnson!

[Mr Popodopolous]

One bit that I forgot to add on my earlier post was that if in Jan the situation wasn't irretrievable we would have room to go all-in on promotion, probably via the playoffs this season- with serious consequences if the gamble failed.

I don't think SL or NP would approve of such a strategy though but an all or nothing gamble would be theoretically possible...the League is quite open so far below the top 3. However I'm not in favour of it and it's purely theoretical.

[fgrsimon]

9 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

One bit that I forgot to add on my earlier post was that if in Jan the situation wasn't irretrievable we would have room to go all-in on promotion, probably via the playoffs this season- with serious consequences if the gamble failed.

 

I don't think that's a scenario we have to worry about!

[Mr Popodopolous]

9 minutes ago, fgrsimon said:

I don't think that's a scenario we have to worry about!

Yes agree...plus am I right in thinking we have never been successfully promoted via the playoffs!

It is theoretically possible that we could do that but no chance and rightly so tbh.