City release accounts - Ouch!

[exAtyeoMax]

9 minutes ago, NcnsBcfc said:

Gould strikes me as a CEO who is going to be pushed to the front by a number of clubs to collectively argue on their behalf alongside City.

He is articulate, thoughtful; and comes across as a man with experience who perhaps the EFL will feel they can negotiate with?

Some of the CEO's at other clubs come across as either second hand car dealers, or nothing more than nepotistic appointments by Foreign owners.

To me, he has gravitas and will earn respect because of his calm demeanour. As you say, he's not an Ashton…

[spudski]

Regardless of the damage done by Covid, our strategy as a club is going to be constantly under pressure.

It's reliant on finding players who are under value, or from lower league's to develop, then sell on at a profit. All whilst trying to develop youngsters in the Academy to good Championship players...again to utilise and then sell if good profit can be made.

It's very much one step forward, two steps back. 

It's dependent on great recruitment, coaching, and ultimately good business acumen in the transfer market.

I can't see how we could ever get promoted, unless everything clicked in one season, in this division.

To lose money like we do yearly, regardless of covid is not sustainable unless continually bailed out.

[RedRoss]

He's right about the EFL recognising the decimation of the transfer market due to the pandemic. As trading is a huge part of clubs trying to balance the books. That being said taking responsibility for our own actions we were reckless with the fees we paid (even in hindsight) for average players. 8 million on Kalas, 3.5 on Palmer, Wells ect. With the huge increases to wages for such players also madness. I'm sort of glad for this as it means we are completely reevaluating our transfer policy. Not buying over expensive Chelsea cast offs and buying lower league up and comers for considerably less.

[And Its Smith]

We nEeD tO sIgN a sTrIkEr LaNsDoWn oUT

[Monkeh]

14 minutes ago, spudski said:

Regardless of the damage done by Covid, our strategy as a club is going to be constantly under pressure.

It's reliant on finding players who are under value, or from lower league's to develop, then sell on at a profit. All whilst trying to develop youngsters in the Academy to good Championship players...again to utilise and then sell if good profit can be made.

It's very much one step forward, two steps back. 

It's dependent on great recruitment, coaching, and ultimately good business acumen in the transfer market.

I can't see how we could ever get promoted, unless everything clicked in one season, in this division.

To lose money like we do yearly, regardless of covid is not sustainable unless continually bailed out.

It's the same strategy used by brentford

[RedRoss]

5 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

It's the same strategy used by brentford

Its not, they bought good players.

[And Its Smith]

4 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

It's the same strategy used by brentford

It’s really not. They don’t have an academy and identified a lot of rather obscure overseas players through data.  We have seemingly stopped looking overseas and are going to be trusting the academy strategy now for a lot of our players 

[spudski]

8 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

It's the same strategy used by brentford

I can understand why you think that, but when you look closer to us, it's different.

 

[Monkeh]

23 minutes ago, spudski said:

I can understand why you think that, but when you look closer to us, it's different.

 

No its the same, but poorly implemented

[spudski]

13 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

No its the same, but poorly implemented

Brentford have a system that works for them...our system is flawed imo. However...in saying that, I can't see any other way at the moment. Needs new regulations by EFL put in place. It's practically impossible to run a club profitable as it is.

[Davefevs]

56 minutes ago, spudski said:

Regardless of the damage done by Covid, our strategy as a club is going to be constantly under pressure.

It's reliant on finding players who are under value, or from lower league's to develop, then sell on at a profit. All whilst trying to develop youngsters in the Academy to good Championship players...again to utilise and then sell if good profit can be made.

It's very much one step forward, two steps back. 

It's dependent on great recruitment, coaching, and ultimately good business acumen in the transfer market.

I can't see how we could ever get promoted, unless everything clicked in one season, in this division.

To lose money like we do yearly, regardless of covid is not sustainable unless continually bailed out.

I don’t think it has to be a one season click.  You can build momentum.

42 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

It's the same strategy used by brentford

The “brilliant” recruitment part is, but…

35 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

It’s really not. They don’t have an academy and identified a lot of rather obscure overseas players through data.  We have seemingly stopped looking overseas and are going to be trusting the academy strategy now for a lot of our players 

Yep, that’s a big difference, they run a B Team model, most teams run an Academy model.

Although Brentford are data-heavy, the common myth is that they uncover these obscure players through data.  In fact a large proportion of these are spotted by scouts, they have a vast scouting network.  They then feed them into the data-machine.  Thomas Frank is a big proponent of using the “eye-test” first and “data” to confirm the eye-test.

As for City, we moved away from from the lower league gem and academy model / strategy over time, and although you could see the arguments for looking at those young PL academy players (Dasilva and Palmer) the cost to get them onboard in the first place was cost-heavy, especially when you add in a 6 month loan to the costs.  That impacted future profit margins, made to look even worse through a covid hit financial climate.  Having had them on loan, they should’ve been “sure things”.  The fact that Palmer most definitely hasn’t been and Dasilva’s injuries are making him look a bad deal too.

So back to Spud’s post, we have to improve recruitment and academy, including recruitment into Academy (not necessarily poaching, just getting players in at a young enough age).

When you see Tomas Kalas is costing os £3.25m p.a. - that’s more than 10% of our best year’s revenues, it’s time to realise we carried away.

Back to Brentford (again), they built that momentum, gradually building up to a playoff season, then a promotion.  They might’ve had to bite the bullet had they failed last season, they’d started to get a bit cost-heavy too, but they still had saleable assets, even in a collapsed market, because their players were wanted by PL teams.

 

[Red Billy]

I would imagine RG stating that we may accept a points deduction is to underpin the value of our players in the transfer market. It takes away the intent of clubs to make low offers feeling we will accept them due to our situation.  It allows us the room to hold our nerve for higher offers but there is no mistake in we will sell if those high offers are made. 

[spudski]

5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I don’t think it has to be a one season click.  You can build momentum.

The “brilliant” recruitment part is, but…

Yep, that’s a big difference, they run a B Team model, most teams run an Academy model.

Although Brentford are data-heavy, the common myth is that they uncover these obscure players through data.  In fact a large proportion of these are spotted by scouts, they have a vast scouting network.  They then feed them into the data-machine.  Thomas Frank is a big proponent of using the “eye-test” first and “data” to confirm the eye-test.

As for City, we moved away from from the lower league gem and academy model / strategy over time, and although you could see the arguments for looking at those young PL academy players (Dasilva and Palmer) the cost to get them onboard in the first place was cost-heavy, especially when you add in a 6 month loan to the costs.  That impacted future profit margins, made to look even worse through a covid hit financial climate.  Having had them on loan, they should’ve been “sure things”.  The fact that Palmer most definitely hasn’t been and Dasilva’s injuries are making him look a bad deal too.

So back to Spud’s post, we have to improve recruitment and academy, including recruitment into Academy (not necessarily poaching, just getting players in at a young enough age).

When you see Tomas Kalas is costing os £3.25m p.a. - that’s more than 10% of our best year’s revenues, it’s time to realise we carried away.

Back to Brentford (again), they built that momentum, gradually building up to a playoff season, then a promotion.  They might’ve had to bite the bullet had they failed last season, they’d started to get a bit cost-heavy too, but they still had saleable assets, even in a collapsed market, because their players were wanted by PL teams.

 

I agree you build momentum, but that only works if you recruit, sell and replace with like or better.

Our policy has been a scatter gun approach. Buying players seen as undervalued, with the intent to improve them, and perhaps sell at profit eventually.

You still have to buy players that fit a system in the pitch for it to work on and off the field.

If players don't suit our ' style' they lose value both on and off the pitch.

Whilst a player maybe technically good or have other qualities, if he's underperforming in a team that doesn't suit him, his value drops. Granted ..you can had individuals that shine, and still stand out...but if you start to look bang average like DaSilva, Palmer and Wells, your value decreases, especially if on good wages. All three are good players in their own right...but not right for us, if you get my drift.

Recruitment has to be done with a plan...not just as individuals 

 

[chinapig]

Steve is still getting off lightly here imo. He adopted a strategy that was based on assuming that the transfer market would continue to inflate, or at least not deflate, in our favour. I wouldn't expect to have tell someone of his expertise that markets can go down as well as up!

In doing that he allowed the wage bill to escalate out of control and did not ensure there was some resilience in our finances.

Ashton is a shyster and deserves the stick he gets but the the fact is he was Steve's pet shyster.

I and others better qualified have said this many times before but I'm not holding my breath waiting for anyone to challenge Steve on it.

[pongo88]

26 minutes ago, chinapig said:

Steve is still getting off lightly here imo. He adopted a strategy that was based on assuming that the transfer market would continue to inflate, or at least not deflate, in our favour. I wouldn't expect to have tell someone of his expertise that markets can go down as well as up!

In doing that he allowed the wage bill to escalate out of control and did not ensure there was some resilience in our finances.

Ashton is a shyster and deserves the stick he gets but the the fact is he was Steve's pet shyster.

I and others better qualified have said this many times before but I'm not holding my breath waiting for anyone to challenge Steve on it.

Your second sentence is absolutely correct but crazy. Steve L came from a financial investment background and the phrase quoted with any investment is "Past performance is no guarantee of future results".  For some reason he seemed to leave all common and business sense behind him when he took over at BCFC 

[DirtySanchez]

22 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

And finally we have a set up and manager willing to play youth and academy products. We need to get behind that, for better and for worse, because that is our future as a non PP club. 

 

I agree - youth is the way forward, gone are the spending days. Let's get behind this. NP obviously knew about the situation when he agreed to be manager. The three year plan may turn into a 5-10 year plan. It's great to see the youth team players coming through and taking their chance. As NP says, mistakes on the way but let's get behind the team.

[Banjo Red]

With all this in mind surely some of our players will be sold if values are met to help balance the books. It just shows and I know it's opening old wounds Lansdown Sr took his eye off the prize and here we are it isn't just a squad rebuild its the ethos of the club too.

[Mr Popodopolous]

Just to seen the headline quote by Gould. Dunno the context or if there was a wider range but that's a big shift and actually it usually comes with embargoes, soft embargoes, business plans etc

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, spudski said:

I agree you build momentum, but that only works if you recruit, sell and replace with like or better.

Our policy has been a scatter gun approach. Buying players seen as undervalued, with the intent to improve them, and perhaps sell at profit eventually.

You still have to buy players that fit a system in the pitch for it to work on and off the field.

If players don't suit our ' style' they lose value both on and off the pitch.

Whilst a player maybe technically good or have other qualities, if he's underperforming in a team that doesn't suit him, his value drops. Granted ..you can had individuals that shine, and still stand out...but if you start to look bang average like DaSilva, Palmer and Wells, your value decreases, especially if on good wages. All three are good players in their own right...but not right for us, if you get my drift.

Recruitment has to be done with a plan...not just as individuals 

 

Yep, as per my earlier post, you’ve got to have great recruitment….and that’s more than data!

53 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

I cannot think many will have sympathy with us. We never followed a true policy of developing youth or signing players to develop. Yes we hit a few strong ones, but the signings in the last year or so of Ashton and LJ was a motley crew of OAP's . We made idiotic signings and paid idiotic wages, even in the context of pre Covid. 

But that is the past, and we look to the future. And finally we have a set up and manager willing to play youth and academy products. We need to get behind that, for better and for worse, because that is our future as a non PP club. 

 

Time to dig out this again!  How we deviated!!!  7 1/2 years ago.

 

Nige has said similar things to Keith.

[Mr Popodopolous]

4 hours ago, NcnsBcfc said:

I don't see us as being alone in the FFP  situation of course.

We are the only club in the Championship to have released 2021 accounts, and I reckon a number of clubs results will be worse than ours.

With the 2019 results keeping us within guidelines for this season, there will be Championship clubs that don't have that luxury, and will fail the FFP for this season, and will of course be of more immediate concern for the EFL.

Moving forward the situation has to change of course. How can the Championship, L1 & L2 have different systems? And of course, how competitive can the Championship be under FFP with the PPs that a number of clubs are getting for 3 years. It's all getting a bit farcical now.

I can see a situation where the EFL when confronted by the 20/21 figures, just concede that the clubs shouldn't be penalised due to "Act of God"; and are given a free pass. The system then has to change to some form of Salary cap for all three leagues that is consistent across the board. They then have to figure out how to strip out these PP's out of the Salary Cap situation, to allow the Championship once again to be a competitive division. 

Not going to be an easy one for them to manage, that's for sure.

Reading have already been penalised on results to 2021 albeit an agreed decision, Derby were penalised for 3 periods, the last of which included a 3 years to 2021 albeit with the principles of reset seemingly after breach 1.

EFL can't just then turn around and throw it out of window although I do see your point. About 4 or 5 clubs us included have released accounts.

Three who surprise me, Nottingham Forest seem to be always on the cusp- some big value in Brennan Johnson of course. Middlesbrough had the 2019 profit, lower than us but they could be taking one hell of a gamble if they don't go up, albeit selling Djed Spence for £10m as has been mooted helps.

Stoke I have to wonder. £30m they put through as 'Covid Player Impairment' surely you can't just wave that through! They also seem to be in no hurry to release their 2021 accounts (see also Everton in PL, also close to their limits).

[Mr Popodopolous]

Surely like all clubs will benefit from Covid allowances such as a) Ticketing b) Verifiable events we have had to cancel or refund c) More day to day corporate revenue.

Plus the averaging out of 2019/20 and 2020/21 ie addition and halve.

[ExiledAjax]

This is from the recent Fan Led Review: The Chart below shows for 2019/20 the wages of Championship clubs as a percentage of turnover. The axis is set at UEFA’s recommended maximum ratio of 70%. Only one club was below that level, and it was in receipt of parachute payments. Sixteen were spending more just on wages than they received in revenue. Seven were above 150%.

The accounts coming in the next few weeks, with drastically reduced income set against the kind of expenditure shown above...it's going to be ugly.

Edited January 12, 2022 by ExiledAjax

[Mr Popodopolous]

How ironic would it be if we were the first club in a years time say to actually get hit with an in season breach deduction??

Rules have allowed for this since, unsure if 2016/17 or 2018/19 but a number of years.

There have been some big money sales during Covid. Armstrong, Benrahma, Bellingham, Eze, Watkins spring to mind.

Collins at Stoke was 8 figures IIRC? Swift if he goes might be for reasonable cash.

[Mr Popodopolous]

I don't see how corporate revenue can be excluded from the excluded calculations. The transfer market claims are of course much sketchier but if any club loses out as a concert has to be cancelled due to Covid well. Didn't Swiss Ramble estimate a revenue hit of up to £18m for us in total?

It said that the wage bill only fell by £6m in the article? That's a step forward but it changes the dial a bit??

Simpson, Cundy, King, O'Dowda, Martin ooc next summer. How many should we hope to retain?

Edited January 12, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Merrick's Marvels]

The sooner someone makes a mega offer for Lloyd Kelly the better. That sell-on clause might buy us some time.

Any other straws we can clutch at?

Can't imagine anyone paying Brighton more for Webster than they paid us, so that's a dead end, not that they're looking to sell.

If Burnley get relegated, someone might make an offer for Brownhill - but, in the current market, more than they paid us?

Ayling went to Leeds for a pittance, so there might be potential there, assuming we have a clause. Would probably require Leeds relegation to prompt offers though, so unlikely. 

Perhaps Magnússon has turned into a world-beater at Moscow or Eliasson at Nimes? We're getting desperate now, aren't we. The cupboard is bare. 

Which surely means a fire sale of what we currently have. Personally, I'd try to keep the talented young ones we're paying peanuts (if at all possible but seems doubtful) and tell anyone who's earning £20K per week, give or take, they're surplus to requirements - some good players will leave but that doesn't mean other good ones, ooc or free signings, won't be available for much less wage. In any event, there's some short term pain on the way, hopefully for long term gain.

What a mess - poor decisions at executive level are the bane of BCFC's life. It's what we do.   

Good luck, Nige. At least we have a steady hand on the tiller.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Merrick's Marvels

[Harry]

I think there are a number of angles that are being portrayed in Gould’s message. 
 

1) A message to the fans. Putting our fanbase into the realistic position of not expecting much activity incoming. 
2) A wider message to the governors re FFP and it’s ridiculously skewed parachute payment system. 
3) A message to other clubs that we won’t be robbed of our best players and intend to hold firm. 
4) And this is the one which I’ve been mentioning for a while now. The internal battle at the club between finance vs success.
As I’ve alluded to before, once a big offer comes in for one of our players, do the club say “sell, we need to balance the books” or does Pearson say “if you want success, you can’t keep selling my best players”. 
This is the battle that will rage currently. Pearson is a ‘big league’ manager and he will want to keep his ‘big league’ players. He wants to rebuild this club and he will want success. He will tell SL in no uncertain terms that he needs to keep his best players in order to achieve. The comment from Gould is perhaps the first inkling that Pearson is currently winning that battle. 

[Davefevs]

20 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

The sooner someone makes a mega offer for Lloyd Kelly the better. That sell-on clause might buy us some time.

Any other straws we can clutch at?

Can't imagine anyone paying Brighton more for Webster than they paid us, so that's a dead end, not that they're looking to sell.

If Burnley get relegated, someone might make an offer for Brownhill - but, in the current market, more than they paid us?

Ayling went to Leeds for a pittance, so there might be potential there, assuming we have a clause. Would probably require Leeds relegation to prompt offers though, so unlikely. 

Perhaps Magnússon has turned into a world-beater at Moscow or Eliasson at Nimes? We're getting desperate now, aren't we. The cupboard is bare. 

Which surely means a fire sale of what we currently have. Personally, I'd try to keep the talented young ones we're paying peanuts and tell anyone who's earning £20K per week, give or take, they're surplus to requirements - some good players will leave but that doesn't mean other good ones, ooc or free signings, won't be available for much less wage. In any event, there's some short term pain on the way, hopefully for long term gain.

What a mess - poor decisions at executive level are the bane of BCFC's life. It's what we do.   

Good luck, Nige. At least we have a steady hand on the tiller.

I think it’s way too soon to be worrying about fire sales.

There are other avenues to explore first.

As @Mr Popodopolousstates, we have several players OOC in the summer.

31 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Simpson, Cundy, King, O'Dowda, Martin ooc next summer. How many should we hope to retain?

That’s probably £35-40k p.w.  That’s £1.75-£2.0m p.a. saved by not renewing them.

Also, you either extend Kalas and Massengo, and smooth out their amortisation (and decrease Kalas’s wage)…or if they don’t sign, you flog.

By my calculations, a combination of either of these two methods brings us back within FFP…we aren’t much over end of next season as it stands anyway.

[BTRFTG]

5 hours ago, NcnsBcfc said:

Slightly taken out of context on a hypothetical situation there Gregor.

But heh ho, lets get those clickbait headlines going.

As a freelance he has to 'create' stories to sell, though with his track record God only knows who'd buy them?

[chinapig]

1 hour ago, pongo88 said:

Your second sentence is absolutely correct but crazy. Steve L came from a financial investment background and the phrase quoted with any investment is "Past performance is no guarantee of future results".  For some reason he seemed to leave all common and business sense behind him when he took over at BCFC 

It is crazy but it's of a kind with the mindset that led to the 2008 crash. Part of which is the belief that asset values will always increase. Even if that is true in the long term, as Keynes replied "In the long term we are all dead".

It's essentially a hubris that leads rich and successful people to believe they must always be right because they are rich and successful. Masters of the Universe and all that.

That's in part why Steve is so prickly about criticism from fans imo: "How dare you paupers criticise me, look how much money I have"

He needs somebody to whisper memento mori in his ear. I'm up for the job.

[Mr Popodopolous]

A Kelly sell on clause would be really handy right now. My gut feeling is that Bournemouth would leave it to the summer or next season in the event of staying down, they of course cheated FFP under the old regs but since coming down they've been quite willing to sell and cut back thusfar. Their Post Balance Sheet Events in 2020 accounts suggested a £51m profit on player disposal last season so they will trade!

Think @Davefevs mentioned it a while back.

Had we sold Kelly in 2019/20 as opposed to 2018/19, it was literally a couple of weeks from the end of our Reporting Period then we wouldn't have made a profit in 2018/19 but it would have pushed the Kelly profit on disposal into 2019/20. Same deal, same club just 2-3 weeks on- big difference! Probably would have moved £10-15m into this new starting point albeit averaged across 2019/20, 2020/21 due to the effect of Covid as with losses.

Would Moore be of interest to Hearts on a more long term basis? Maybe- they look likely to lose Souttar after all.

Palmer there has been speculation about.

I think DaSilva is still a good player with time of time on his side but if he needed to go due to finances so be it.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous