The model we have to follow

seasidemike

seasidemike

Well-known member
Are we adopting the right model at the club? Seeing the success other 'similar' sized clubs have had and a comment on another post about Brentford got me thinking. We've got Simon Sadler and they have Matthew Benham. He has his own algorithm/xG provider smartodds which no other club has access to. Tony Bloom has the same thing with Starlizard at Brighton. Hence why a vast majority of their signings have been excellent and/or made profit on. On top of that they seem to have hired the correct backroom staff at all levels. I saw the other day we are one 10 Championship clubs that is signed up to Stats Bomb. This is positive and shows we are trying to highlight the right signings along with the Coventry scouts but we don't appear to have utilised either of these well yet. Not to mention there's 9 other teams in direct competition with us using the same program. Recruitment has been poor to say the least.
We've really got to try and follow the Brentford/Brighton model and buy undervalued/underperforming players and sell for a premium then reinvest significantly in the club to stand a chance and progress. Carey and Owen Dale (600k?!) aren't gonna cut it. Most of the other signings have been reasonably successful (Grimshaw, Lyons looks great, Lavery, Yates, Bowler, Marv, Keshi etc) but we need a solid Championship spine at least with younger high potential players scattered around, not the other way round. Brentford signed Andre Gray for approx £350k from the Conference and sold for 6m a couple years later - are we even identifying the right prospects or are we just not coaching them well enough?
I'm sure Simon is progressing with the infrastructure of the club but on the pitch is more important in the short term and we don't seem to have seen that since we got promoted to the Championship. I don't think the managerial appointments have been good enough either by a long stretch but I'm not sure how much more another manager could get out of this current group. If similar club sizes to ours can achieve sustained growth, there's no reason we can't with the right philosophy. As a side note, Brighton's attendance was around 7k at the withdean in 2010/11 and now getting 31.5k average at home.
 
seasidemike said:
Are we adopting the right model at the club? Seeing the success other 'similar' sized clubs have had and a comment on another post about Brentford got me thinking. We've got Simon Sadler and they have Matthew Benham. He has his own algorithm/xG provider smartodds which no other club has access to. Tony Bloom has the same thing with Starlizard at Brighton. Hence why a vast majority of their signings have been excellent and/or made profit on. On top of that they seem to have hired the correct backroom staff at all levels. I saw the other day we are one 10 Championship clubs that is signed up to Stats Bomb. This is positive and shows we are trying to highlight the right signings along with the Coventry scouts but we don't appear to have utilised either of these well yet. Not to mention there's 9 other teams in direct competition with us using the same program. Recruitment has been poor to say the least.
We've really got to try and follow the Brentford/Brighton model and buy undervalued/underperforming players and sell for a premium then reinvest significantly in the club to stand a chance and progress. Carey and Owen Dale (600k?!) aren't gonna cut it. Most of the other signings have been reasonably successful (Grimshaw, Lyons looks great, Lavery, Yates, Bowler, Marv, Keshi etc) but we need a solid Championship spine at least with younger high potential players scattered around, not the other way round. Brentford signed Andre Gray for approx £350k from the Conference and sold for 6m a couple years later - are we even identifying the right prospects or are we just not coaching them well enough?
I'm sure Simon is progressing with the infrastructure of the club but on the pitch is more important in the short term and we don't seem to have seen that since we got promoted to the Championship. I don't think the managerial appointments have been good enough either by a long stretch but I'm not sure how much more another manager could get out of this current group. If similar club sizes to ours can achieve sustained growth, there's no reason we can't with the right philosophy. As a side note, Brighton's attendance was around 7k at the withdean in 2010/11 and now getting 31.5k average at home.
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The Withdean only held 7k tbf
 
It starts before all that.
We want to play exciting, entertaining football.
That means identifying and bringing in the right type of manager and then backing that manager with the right type of players needed to make this work. Plus a contingency plan in case the manager is poached or leaves for any reason.
Our choice of managers is all over the place. Certainly no identity towards entertaining football or a manager the supporters can really get behind.
The recruitment similarly awful. The position needed e.g., creative midfielder, transcended whoever is the manager, yet never got resolved on a permanent basis. Even the loans have been more miss than hit.
 
seasidemike said:
Are we adopting the right model at the club? Seeing the success other 'similar' sized clubs have had and a comment on another post about Brentford got me thinking. We've got Simon Sadler and they have Matthew Benham. He has his own algorithm/xG provider smartodds which no other club has access to. Tony Bloom has the same thing with Starlizard at Brighton. Hence why a vast majority of their signings have been excellent and/or made profit on. On top of that they seem to have hired the correct backroom staff at all levels. I saw the other day we are one 10 Championship clubs that is signed up to Stats Bomb. This is positive and shows we are trying to highlight the right signings along with the Coventry scouts but we don't appear to have utilised either of these well yet. Not to mention there's 9 other teams in direct competition with us using the same program. Recruitment has been poor to say the least.
We've really got to try and follow the Brentford/Brighton model and buy undervalued/underperforming players and sell for a premium then reinvest significantly in the club to stand a chance and progress. Carey and Owen Dale (600k?!) aren't gonna cut it. Most of the other signings have been reasonably successful (Grimshaw, Lyons looks great, Lavery, Yates, Bowler, Marv, Keshi etc) but we need a solid Championship spine at least with younger high potential players scattered around, not the other way round. Brentford signed Andre Gray for approx £350k from the Conference and sold for 6m a couple years later - are we even identifying the right prospects or are we just not coaching them well enough?
I'm sure Simon is progressing with the infrastructure of the club but on the pitch is more important in the short term and we don't seem to have seen that since we got promoted to the Championship. I don't think the managerial appointments have been good enough either by a long stretch but I'm not sure how much more another manager could get out of this current group. If similar club sizes to ours can achieve sustained growth, there's no reason we can't with the right philosophy. As a side note, Brighton's attendance was around 7k at the withdean in 2010/11 and now getting 31.5k average at home.
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Brighton started getting 20,000 plus crowds beneath the Prem. Everyone keeps questioning the club but very few mention the fact our average home gates are League One.
 
Grayson, Critchley, Appleton, McCarthy. Who are we trying to be.
If it was me I'd say right I want my club/teams to play like this with this kind of player so the only managers I'm interested in are managers who play like I want. We have gone dinosaur, progressive, loans and appleball back to dinosaur again.
SS may have said he wants Blackpool teams to be attacking and high pressing and exciting but his appointments have shown a total different story.
 
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If you want to adopt the buy, improve, sell for big profits, then the first thing you need to do is invest fairly heavily in that. Not just the support staff and ass. software type stuff, but also in the players.

The model has to hit the ground running with players who will be in the first team near enough straight away ( I mentioned we could get Callum Wilson for 500k from Cov back in the day, play and sell on for big money, in the event he went for 750k, but you get the drift). Ones for the future, or renegotiated fee types because your recruitment staff got it wrong, shouldn't be touched until the model is up and running, and even then.....

It all needed , I don't know, 2/3m spending on it.
 
You have to remember that Simon only took over the club just over 3 years ago.

At the time it was a complete basket case having suffered decades of neglect.

Our training ground isnt the best .

If you are young talent you go and look at training facilities before committing to a particular club.

I know we live in a world where if you want something say a pizza you can get it delivered in 15 mins to your front door but some projects are much longer term.

SS im sure knows about the Brentford model and implementing it etc etc but it takes time.
 
Don’t really follow any of them anymore, used to like Sam fox when I was a kid, I suppose I quite liked Jordan too when I was in my 20s👍🏻
 
We have to organically grow the club. Infrastructure is key to that.

Unless we grow the home fan base to nearer 20k regularly attending it’ll be almost impossible to go further than where we are now.

When we critique the board, owner, budget etc etc we as a collective forget this essential point.
 
Wizaard said:
Which model? Scunthorpe or Colchester?
Both aspired to not that long ago.
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Colchester will have been 16 years ago, so your post is slightly disingenuous. It's a similar argument to the one people made comparing EVERY cheap signing to Alex Baptise. Just sheer whataboutery.

The board should always be looking at what we can learn from other clubs above their weight, regardless of whether we implement it or not
 
Tango1953 said:
Colchester will have been 16 years ago, so your post is slightly disingenuous. It's a similar argument to the one people made comparing EVERY cheap signing to Alex Baptise. Just sheer whataboutery.

The board should always be looking at what we can learn from other clubs above their weight, regardless of whether we implement it or not
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It was a joke. I didn't think it a relevant comparison then and still don't.
 
Wizaard said:
It was a joke. I didn't think it a relevant comparison then and still don't.
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It was valid though, we should have been looking at Colchester in 2007 and analysing if they had something that was giving them a competitive edge. It may well have been that they had processes that they were able to replicate to get consistent results and success, but they didn't, so you can then disregard them as someone to learn off.

Brighton and Brentford have proved that they are able to sustain their success though, so we should be looking at ways to give ourselves the competitive edge they have. Sadler and Benham aren't millions of miles away in the areas they made their money (one in hedging against financial markets, one is matched betting). I'm surprised we are relying so much on the manager to identify targets rather than through data.

If Sadler wants to be a successful owner of his local club, the template is there in Bloom and Benham.
 
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Wizaard said:
Which model? Scunthorpe or Colchester?
Both aspired to not that long ago.
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It doesn’t matter, to a certain extent, which model you follow just as long as we stick to it. We were told with succession planning a change of manager/ head coach wouldn’t affect the plan. What happened? We are all over the place, signing crocks, frees over 30s etc, no wonder we’re in the doodoo. We were told the playing budget was more than last season, then sign 1 player in a panic in the last hour of the window, pass on one possibly decent signing,Bishop, then sign another crock, Bridcutt who has lived up to his reputation. Talk about piss ups in breweries.🤷
 
Tango1953 said:
It was valid though, we should have been looking at Colchester in 2007 and analysing if they had something that was giving them a competitive edge. It may well have been that they had processes that they were able to replicate to get consistent results and success, but they didn't, so you can then disregard them as someone to learn off.

Brighton and Brentford have proved that they are able to sustain their success though, so we should be looking at ways to give ourselves the competitive edge they have. Sadler and Benham aren't millions of miles away in the areas they made their money (one in hedging against financial markets, one is matched betting). I'm surprised we are relying so much on the manager to identify targets rather than through data.

If Sadler wants to be a successful owner of his local club, the template is there in Bloom and Benham.
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Both Brighton and Brentford are getting far more income than us. Yet people say we should forget about the new stand.

You need capacity crowds to compete.
 
Wizaard said:
There was a spell in the mid70s when you'd go along to Bloomfield Rd thinking, I wonder if it's 30,000 there today, and invariably it would be around 25,000, maybe 26,500 at a push.

When you look at the ground in the late 90s before the demolition started, you really wonder how they got that many in just a few years before.
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I remember those days well.

There was a game, forget which one, in the early 70s where the Kop was so full and we were all crammed so tightly, I could literally lift my feet up and not fall over more than that I could stay upright.

Scary when you think back and yeh you’re right seeing the Kop as it was in the mid 90s was tragic really but mind boggling how many used to be in there.
 
Wizaard said:
Both Brighton and Brentford are getting far more income than us. Yet people say we should forget about the new stand.

You need capacity crowds to compete.
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That's where they are now but you're ignoring the start and the middle of Benham's involvement.

Benham started with Brentford in League 1 and playing at Griffin Park. Not a wholly dissimilar position to Sadler. Benham didn't generate funds via crowds or sponsored bars, he generated it via smart trading of players.

Finding someone like Toney, you can dismiss as being fortunate or lucky. Putting it in the context of him being the most recent of a run of Andre Gray, Callum Wilson, Neil Maupay, Ollie Watkins and then Ivan Toney and you realise there's more to it.

Between promotion to the Championship in 2013/14 and promotion to the Prem in 2021 they've sold Stuart Dallas, James Tarkowski, Scott Hogan, Jack O'Connell, Chris Mepham, Ezri Konsa, Said Benrahama AND improved their league performance season on season. They also sold four of the five strikers mentioned previously.

Talk all you want about needing "capacity crowds" to compete. But you don't. And above is the proof you can do it by club generated funds. He also built a whole new stadium and training facility whilst doing it.

What will your next excuse be?
 
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