The Office (UK): Ipswich Town edition

[Davefevs]

7 hours ago, Marcus Aurelius said:

People try to protect their knowledge by basically saying, “Well, I understand this term and that term and what this term means.” But the reality is, most people don’t actually know what these things mean underneath. I find this very common in accounting. A lot of business people don’t know accounting, and even a lot of accountants will have fancy words for things. But when you dig underneath, they don’t really understand the principle of what’s going on below it. And if you just understand the principles, and even if you don’t understand the words, you will have an advantage in, for example, negotiating deals, because you will understand underneath how the pieces are actually moving on the board, as opposed to what they’re called.

And I think the Feynman example is, his dad would take him for walks and they would see birds. And his dad would say, “This bird is such and such a warbler,” but that doesn’t tell you anything about the bird; that tells you about humans.

And humans gave that bird that name. Really the bird, it likes to stand on one leg at this point and it likes to pick lice in its feathers, doing this, and it likes to eat these kinds of things. And it flies this way for that reason and that these are its predators and these are its prey. So, I mean, those are the kinds of things that really give you understanding. Who cares what the bird is called? The name of the bird is irrelevant. In professional life, this happens a lot, which is jargon.

So you always want to strive for understanding, not for memorization. You should be able to re-articulate it five different ways in every language that you know. Otherwise, you don’t really understand it.

I think you could’ve used a parrot in your analogy, because I hear stuff repeated (parrot-fashion) and the person saying it hasn’t got a clue what it means.  When you ask them to explain you get the classic “can we take it offline” response!!  If I’m in a mean mood I’ll say “no, we’ve got time for you to explain to everyone now”!!!

[italian dave]

21 hours ago, Olé said:

Great post and great question. As should now be obvious, Mark can be highly convincing to all those around him. It's too easy to call him a BS salesman because he's more measured than that and took in our VERY successful owner and kept him close and made him feel involved and can clearly articulate a narrative to explain the increasing levels of expenditure and trading. He's somewhat convincing as a businessman. 

One of the oddities of Mark Ashton is there's a frustrated failed footballer in there somewhere more so than actual proven businessman. He was a reserve goalkeeper who never really played. (No slight, he's done more than I can even dream of), but it means he's been playing out his career vicariously through an administrator/leadership role instead. Highly visible, highly audible, literally seeking the clichéd fame and fortune.

The trouble is his only style of "play" is to go direct. Spend a lot of money, drive a change agenda, ratchet up the club. There's nothing wrong with most of this except for one crucial thing. He's not very good at it. It's a volume not value gig for him, throw enough shit at the wall. It occurred to me this is where his attempt to be the football hero he wished he was diverges. Footballers can't hide. But Mark the CEO does and will.

There is no doubt he pushes clubs "forward" and that is a positive thing and owners appreciate it. But he does not do so sustainably and ultimately it's about maximising his own income and exposure (compared to say a company founder or owner who takes on risk and puts success before personal income). His own reward is his only constant. All the PR is a vehicle for that which is why he quickly goes missing when it's going badly. 

And great response Ole! 

I think I’d add/suggest one thing though, in an attempt to be entirely objective and fair. And that’s that - for a while and in one respect - he was quite good at it. The one thing he did well was to extract maximum value from our assets. That was something that SL had always been clear was an objective for him, and it was something we’d been pretty poor at. We had a long history of turning down generous bids for players at what turned out to be the peak of their career - we’d expect them to take us to the next level and usually they’d end up the following season getting injured and/or losing form. Or allowing players to wind down their contracts. There’s no doubt that - in purely financial terms - we couldn’t have done much better than we did with the likes of Kelly, Kodjia, Webster, Brownhill. I think that impressed SL. 

I think you’re dead right about him being a wannabe footballer who actually had no idea about the football side. @Davefevs talks about SL leaving him to run the football side: my view is that SL left him to run the financial side and LJ the football side, but failed to manage the balance between the two when those objectives came into conflict. Either way, a mistake. 

And, ultimately, I agree - I for him it’s all about him, his income, his status, his objectives, and LJ wasn’t strong enough to stand up to that (and possibly also had a more balanced view and did actually recognise the financial drivers). And the way he stitched us up with the Americans was unforgivable, and surely must have made SL see the light? Even if too late.

Finally, and again trying to be completely objective, I can understand why our friends from Ipswich might be a little baffled: we must seem oddly obsessed to the outsider. Right now, the top two threads on our Bristol City football forum are about MA/Ipswich and LJ/Leeds - three years, a whole pandemic, two managers, a whole squad after both men left us! 

Edited June 19, 2023 by italian dave

[chinapig]

7 minutes ago, italian dave said:

My view is that SL left him to run the financial side and LJ the football side, but failed to manage the balance between the two when those objectives came into conflict. Either way, a mistake. 

The club explicitly said that Ashton had day to day control over all football activities.

If you have an owner who thinks he's a football expert who appoints a CEO who also thinks he is an expert there will be consequences.

We now have experienced professionals in the key roles and things are getting better. What a surprise eh?

[italian dave]

1 minute ago, chinapig said:

The club explicitly said that Ashton had day to day control over all football activities.

If you have an owner who thinks he's a football expert who appoints a CEO who also thinks he is an expert there will be consequences.

We now have experienced professionals in the key roles and things are getting better. What a surprise eh?

Yeah, I don’t argue with that. I think it’s just semantics. Clearly LJ had control over what happened on the pitch - selection, tactics and so on.

But my point is that MAs financial objectives were allowed to take precedence over the ‘on the pitch’ objectives. And he is a financial man, not a football man (whatever he may wish!). 

[chinapig]

4 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Yeah, I don’t argue with that. I think it’s just semantics. Clearly LJ had control over what happened on the pitch - selection, tactics and so on.

But my point is that MAs financial objectives were allowed to take precedence over the ‘on the pitch’ objectives. And he is a financial man, not a football man (whatever he may wish!). 

The purpose of the strategy was to sell players to fund an ever increasing wage wage bill. There appeared to be no discernible football strategy hence the scatter gun recruitment. Nigel rightly described this approach as bonkers.

Ironically it was reported that SL wasn't keen on the Brentford model because he thought their wages were too high. How's that for self awareness?

[Unan]

37 minutes ago, italian dave said:

And great response Ole! 

I think I’d add/suggest one thing though, in an attempt to be entirely objective and fair. And that’s that - for a while and in one respect - he was quite good at it. The one thing he did well was to extract maximum value from our assets. That was something that SL had always been clear was an objective for him, and it was something we’d been pretty poor at. We had a long history of turning down generous bids for players at what turned out to be the peak of their career - we’d expect them to take us to the next level and usually they’d end up the following season getting injured and/or losing form. Or allowing players to wind down their contracts. There’s no doubt that - in purely financial terms - we couldn’t have done much better than we did with the likes of Kelly, Kodjia, Webster, Brownhill. I think that impressed SL. 

I think you’re dead right about him being a wannabe footballer who actually had no idea about the football side. @Davefevs talks about SL leaving him to run the football side: my view is that SL left him to run the financial side and LJ the football side, but failed to manage the balance between the two when those objectives came into conflict. Either way, a mistake. 

And, ultimately, I agree - I for him it’s all about him, his income, his status, his objectives, and LJ wasn’t strong enough to stand up to that (and possibly also had a more balanced view and did actually recognise the financial drivers). And the way he stitched us up with the Americans was unforgivable, and surely must have made SL see the light? Even if too late.

Finally, and again trying to be completely objective, I can understand why our friends from Ipswich might be a little baffled: we must seem oddly obsessed to the outsider. Right now, the top two threads on our Bristol City football forum are about MA/Ipswich and LJ/Leeds - three years, a whole pandemic, two managers, a whole squad after both men left us! 

I disagree, we got good money for great players, Webster, Brownhill, Reid etc.

Nagy - Essentially a free transfer out

Famara - Record signing / free transfer out 

Walsh - Essentially a free transfer out

Paterson - Essentially a free transfer out  

Wright, Adeluken, Eliasson, Smith, Szmodics, Watkins, Pack, Eisa.. all wakes for free or a nominal fee, and that’s just the last couple years of his time with us. 
 

I’m sure @Davefevs has a spreadsheet with profit/loss on player sells, we made a loss on about 90% of ‘his’ signings. He only got good money for the players that actually commanded it, and the majority of those players were here before he even joined!

Edited June 19, 2023 by Marcus Aurelius

[italian dave]

4 minutes ago, chinapig said:

The purpose of the strategy was to sell players to fund an ever increasing wage wage bill. There appeared to be no discernible football strategy hence the scatter gun recruitment. Nigel rightly described this approach as bonkers.

Ironically it was reported that SL wasn't keen on the Brentford model because he thought their wages were too high. How's that for self awareness?

Yep, agree. The strategy of buy cheap, sell high isn’t bad. It just has to be balanced with a football strategy. We had an objective - top 6. I’ve no doubt LJ had a strategy but I suspect that he felt it was repeatedly sabotaged by the financial strategy. 

[italian dave]

2 minutes ago, Marcus Aurelius said:

I disagree, we got good money for great players, Webster, Brownhill, Reid etc.

Nagy - Essentially a free transfer out

Famara - Record signing / free transfer out 

Walsh - Essentially a free transfer out

Paterson - Essentially a free transfer out  

Wright, Adeluken, Eliasson, Smith, Szmodics, Watkins, Pack, Eisa.. and that’s just the last couple years of his time with us. 
 

I’m sure @Davefevs has a spreadsheet with profit/loss on player sells, we made a loss on about 90% of ‘his’ signings. He only got good money for the players that actually commanded it, and the majority of those players were here before he even joined!

Yes, but the point is that in the past we had good players and we failed to capitalise on them. 

And yes, it came unstuck towards the end (Nagy, Fam, Paterson etc). That’s why I was very careful to explicitly say “in one respect and for a while”. 

 

[Davefevs]

27 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Yep, agree. The strategy of buy cheap, sell high isn’t bad. It just has to be balanced with a football strategy. We had an objective - top 6. I’ve no doubt LJ had a strategy but I suspect that he felt it was repeatedly sabotaged by the financial strategy. 

A financial strategy where you can bet that “transfer profit” objective / KPI was linked to MA’s bonus.  I don’t see that as bad per se, but it can conflict with other objectives.  And that is bad!

It’s not a lot of difference to Barry Fry and his 10% of transfers (if true, no reason to doubt it).  If that’s your pay method, then you’re gonna wanna trade! It’s why they have their “one year transfer list” because Fry doesn’t want anyone leaving for £0, 10% of £0 is £0!!!

In City’s case I think it just shows poor alignment of objectives top to bottom.  I don’t quite subscribe to MA signings and LJ signings, but how are you supposed to increase values of the likes of Eisa and Szmodics if the manager doesn’t play them.

[NcnsBcfc]

43 minutes ago, Marcus Aurelius said:

I disagree, we got good money for great players, Webster, Brownhill, Reid etc.

Nagy - Essentially a free transfer out

Famara - Record signing / free transfer out 

Walsh - Essentially a free transfer out

Paterson - Essentially a free transfer out  

Wright, Adeluken, Eliasson, Smith, Szmodics, Watkins, Pack, Eisa.. all wakes for free or a nominal fee, and that’s just the last couple years of his time with us. 
 

I’m sure @Davefevs has a spreadsheet with profit/loss on player sells, we made a loss on about 90% of ‘his’ signings. He only got good money for the players that actually commanded it, and the majority of those players were here before he even joined!

Thanks @Marcus Aurelius some really interesting posts today.

I think the thing for me is that for all of the mantra around MA's philosophy of buy cheap and sell high, from memory it was only really Webster and Brownhill that fitted this strategy.

Of the others Reid, Bryan, Flint, Pack, Kelly and others of course were all here, or part the academy. Yes, he got good prices for the players at a time when our profile was high as a club from playing well against the Manchester clubs.

But really the players that we bought to replace these players (90% of whom, left for either free, or minimal amounts) showed the fallacy of his and our lack of guile and foresight. Engvals, Watkins, Duric, Adelakun,  Fammy, Palmer, Nagy, ; christ I could go on and on. Having 2-3 clubs in the bag for every position (Why .....)

[chinapig]

26 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

A financial strategy where you can bet that “transfer profit” objective / KPI was linked to MA’s bonus.  I don’t see that as bad per se, but it can conflict with other objectives.  And that is bad!

It’s not a lot of difference to Barry Fry and his 10% of transfers (if true, no reason to doubt it).  If that’s your pay method, then you’re gonna wanna trade! It’s why they have their “one year transfer list” because Fry doesn’t want anyone leaving for £0, 10% of £0 is £0!!!

In City’s case I think it just shows poor alignment of objectives top to bottom.  I don’t quite subscribe to MA signings and LJ signings, but how are you supposed to increase values of the likes of Eisa and Szmodics if the manager doesn’t play them.

It shows how targets can have perverse incentives. There's a saying that what gets measured gets done, what gets measured and rewarded gets done first.

As to MA signings you can generally tell which were his precisely because LJ didn't play them I think.

[petehinton]

I think @Olé made the brilliant point too that all the players we sold for huge profit, were probably due to clubs naturally inflating the fee rather than Ashton’s brilliance. 
 

Kelly - sold for a huge fee, because of his quality for England, not really us

Kodjia - bidding war across a few clubs that naturally brings the cost us

Webster - wanted to move home, arguably the worst scenario for us in that we accepted an offer the day before the season started 

Flint & Reid - probably the one two he could get kudos for

Bryan - I mean we all know what happened there 

Browhill - release clause, no real brilliance there, also a move closer to home

That’s before you get into the outgoings for pittance/F all. And Webster was the only one he joined under his stewardship, and wasn’t even his signing!

Edited June 19, 2023 by petehinton

[italian dave]

6 minutes ago, petehinton said:

I think @Olé made the brilliant point too that all the players we sold for huge profit, were probably due to clubs naturally inflating the fee rather than Ashton’s brilliance. 
 

Kelly - sold for a huge fee, because of his quality for England, not really us

Kodjia - bidding war across a few clubs that naturally brings the cost us

Webster - wanted to move home, arguably the worst scenario for us in that we accepted an offer the day before the season started 

Flint & Reid - probably the one two he could get kudos for

Bryan - I mean we all know what happened there 

Browhill - release clause, no real brilliance there, also a move closer to home

That’s before you get into the outgoings for pittance/F all. And Webster was the only one he joined under his stewardship, and wasn’t even his signing!

But, nevertheless, and for whatever reason, we DID sell them for a huge profit. In contrast to previous regimes where, from Goater, through Marvin Elliott to Maynard, we didn't do so at the right time or in a canny enough way.

I find myself saying all this through gritted teeth because I can't stand the guy, but back at the time we thought we were doing well to get the money we did for all of them.

[italian dave]

44 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

A financial strategy where you can bet that “transfer profit” objective / KPI was linked to MA’s bonus.  I don’t see that as bad per se, but it can conflict with other objectives.  And that is bad!

It’s not a lot of difference to Barry Fry and his 10% of transfers (if true, no reason to doubt it).  If that’s your pay method, then you’re gonna wanna trade! It’s why they have their “one year transfer list” because Fry doesn’t want anyone leaving for £0, 10% of £0 is £0!!!

In City’s case I think it just shows poor alignment of objectives top to bottom.  I don’t quite subscribe to MA signings and LJ signings, but how are you supposed to increase values of the likes of Eisa and Szmodics if the manager doesn’t play them.

 

21 minutes ago, NcnsBcfc said:

Thanks @Marcus Aurelius some really interesting posts today.

I think the thing for me is that for all of the mantra around MA's philosophy of buy cheap and sell high, from memory it was only really Webster and Brownhill that fitted this strategy.

Of the others Reid, Bryan, Flint, Pack, Kelly and others of course were all here, or part the academy. Yes, he got good prices for the players at a time when our profile was high as a club from playing well against the Manchester clubs.

But really the players that we bought to replace these players (90% of whom, left for either free, or minimal amounts) showed the fallacy of his and our lack of guile and foresight. Engvals, Watkins, Duric, Adelakun,  Fammy, Palmer, Nagy, ; christ I could go on and on. Having 2-3 clubs in the bag for every position (Why .....)

It almost seemed like it was done on a kind of percentage basis.

We've bought from lower league/France and made money before. 

Therefore, buy 5 from lower league/France, and if 4 fail, but one makes a 6x more than he cost then we're in profit. And it didn't go much beyond that!

[NcnsBcfc]

Just now, italian dave said:

 

It almost seemed like it was done on a kind of percentage basis.

We've bought from lower league/France and made money before. 

Therefore, buy 5 from lower league/France, and if 4 fail, but one makes a 6x more than he cost then we're in profit. And it didn't go much beyond that!

I've heard that MA only used 1 agent to cover France/Italy, so all the signings in essence came through the same source. It all seems a bit of a cosy arrangement to say the least.

I think @Davefevs or someone else shared MA's remuneration package with City before. Like Barry Fry's supposed situation at Peterborough it was quite obviously in his own self interest to continue the recycling of players in order to allegedly boost his own salary (amount of transfers consistent with his large increase in salary during the busiest two seasons). That's never a healthy place to be as a club where change is actively promoted over continuity and stability.

[chinapig]

4 minutes ago, italian dave said:

But, nevertheless, and for whatever reason, we DID sell them for a huge profit. In contrast to previous regimes where, from Goater, through Marvin Elliott to Maynard, we didn't do so at the right time or in a canny enough way.

I find myself saying all this through gritted teeth because I can't stand the guy, but back at the time we thought we were doing well to get the money we did for all of them.

Fair enough up to a point but there's no point in making a profit on transfers if you squander it and end up with a bloated, unbalanced squad and a wage bill that has doubled.

Which is also why net spend is not a good measure.

[petehinton]

7 minutes ago, italian dave said:

But, nevertheless, and for whatever reason, we DID sell them for a huge profit. In contrast to previous regimes where, from Goater, through Marvin Elliott to Maynard, we didn't do so at the right time or in a canny enough way.

I find myself saying all this through gritted teeth because I can't stand the guy, but back at the time we thought we were doing well to get the money we did for all of them.

Very different times though, which will impact it massively. If we had Elliott or Maynard now, they’d go for £10m + after a season or two. Champ/PL clubs spending on champ players didnt have that money. £22m for Webster or whatever it was would’ve been a top prem/European CB back in 2010. 
 

Remember we did accept £7m for Maynard which would’ve been out of this world, but he didnt want to go. Fontaine had two huge bids accepted but failed medicals. 
 

Do understand your point though 

[italian dave]

9 minutes ago, chinapig said:

Fair enough up to a point but there's no point in making a profit on transfers if you squander it and end up with a bloated, unbalanced squad and a wage bill that has doubled.

Which is also why net spend is not a good measure.

Completely...and an unsettled squad with the risk that potential stars don't flourish. 

Which is why it fell apart (and why my praise through gritted teeth is very qualified!)

Edited June 19, 2023 by italian dave

[italian dave]

9 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Very different times though, which will impact it massively. If we had Elliott or Maynard now, they’d go for £10m + after a season or two. Champ/PL clubs spending on champ players didnt have that money. £22m for Webster or whatever it was would’ve been a top prem/European CB back in 2010. 
 

Remember we did accept £7m for Maynard which would’ve been out of this world, but he didnt want to go. Fontaine had two huge bids accepted but failed medicals. 
 

Do understand your point though 

Very different - and for much of the time in a lower league too. But relatively. We just hadn't been good at it! And even with Maynard, part of the skill is negotiating something that will satisfy the outgoing player too.

But - as I've said above, I'm not trying to defend MA - just to suggest that there were reasons, early days, why SL might have though he'd made a good call.

[Unan]

Another point, it takes a good two or three years for a CEO to really stamp their mark on a club.

For example, there’s been one set of accounts since Ashton has joined. To suggest he’s done amazing blabla, is not backed with any evidence. As has been said recently on this thread, the only objective information we have so far, shows a massive loss, and on who?

Their squad has some good players I’ll give them that, no great ones are there(?) and a lot of nothing players (in regards to Championship standards), Wes Burns being one of their better players says a lot. Chaplin is an alright Championship striker, better than what the bottom 5 probably have, but pretty average otherwise. Broadhead was distinctly average at Wigan, Luongo the same (and several years older).

For the incredibly large % increase in every area of the club (and that’s not including the undoubtedly additional increases when their new accounts are released), they haven’t built a Championship squad.

I do like their manager though, that probably was an Ashton signing to be fair, he likes these ‘trendy’ signings, as we all know, that’s the 1 in 10 bits of shit that sticks to the wall.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Marcus Aurelius

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, NcnsBcfc said:

Thanks @Marcus Aurelius some really interesting posts today.

I think the thing for me is that for all of the mantra around MA's philosophy of buy cheap and sell high, from memory it was only really Webster and Brownhill that fitted this strategy.

Of the others Reid, Bryan, Flint, Pack, Kelly and others of course were all here, or part the academy. Yes, he got good prices for the players at a time when our profile was high as a club from playing well against the Manchester clubs.

But really the players that we bought to replace these players (90% of whom, left for either free, or minimal amounts) showed the fallacy of his and our lack of guile and foresight. Engvals, Watkins, Duric, Adelakun,  Fammy, Palmer, Nagy, ; christ I could go on and on. Having 2-3 clubs in the bag for every position (Why .....)

here’s a summary of all of the loans and transfer under MA.  Transfer fees only (pretty reliable), no loan fees / signing on fees / agent fees included.

 

Just 4 players signed remain:

Weimann, Kalas, Wells and Williams.

Webster £20m, Brownhill £7m, show that £27m out of £37m received was on just two players.

Thats not world-class recruiting, whoever is responsible…

Edited June 19, 2023 by Davefevs

[CyderInACan]

7 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Thats not world-class recruiting, whoever is responsible…

TBF he was undoubtedly world class at spouting bullshit though 

[NcnsBcfc]

39 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

here’s a summary of all of the loans and transfer under MA.  Transfer fees only (pretty reliable), no loan fees / signing on fees / agent fees included.

 

Just 4 players signed remain:

Weimann, Kalas, Wells and Williams.

Webster £20m, Brownhill £7m, show that £27m out of £37m received was on just two players.

Thats not world-class recruiting, whoever is responsible…

Those figures for received seem a bit low though aren't they?

Reid, Bryan, Flint, Kelly, Pack - that's another £35m+ combined isn't it. All gone during this period.

[Unan]

Just now, NcnsBcfc said:

Those figures for received seem a bit low though aren't they?

Reid, Bryan, Flint, Kelly, Pack - that's another £35m+ combined isn't it. All gone during this period.

Loans and transfers under Ashton, as in players he signed himself, excluding players already here.

[NcnsBcfc]

2 minutes ago, Marcus Aurelius said:

Loans and transfers under Ashton, as in players he signed himself, excluding players already here.

Got ya.

Many thanks @Marcus Aurelius

Apologies @Davefevs

[NcnsBcfc]

23 minutes ago, NcnsBcfc said:

Got ya.

Many thanks @Marcus Aurelius

Apologies @Davefevs

So basically his wheeler dealings bought £37 million from transfer sales of players not at the club when he got there, and over the same amount again from players that were already here/bought by SOD, Cotts, GJ etc.

A classic case of selling the family silver rather than astute transfer trading then.

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, NcnsBcfc said:

A classic case of selling the family silver rather than astute transfer trading then.

The hit rate is abysmal.

[Sleepy1968]

Just been listening to The Price of Football podcast. They mentioned that they have an interview with the Ipswich Town CEO coming up (presumably this will be Thursday's pod, although it was difficult to work out whether they'd interviewed him yet.) I'll post again when it's released. Prepare to be triggered.

[Davefevs]

The TWTD posse will be reading!!

Gassan Ahadme gone to Cambridge United on loan for the season.

I may be well wide of the mark, but this is a classic example of signing someone on a 3-year deal on too much money, who you can’t move on permanently because nobody will take on his contract.  Fee in 6-figures too.

On the flipside, Jack Taylor a good signing for them on paper, fits their style.

[Davefevs]