The Official structured dialogue meeting thread

I'm going to wait until I have heard plenty of feedback, all I have seen so far is that he has no intention of selling the club but no one would blame him if he did because the amount of money he is putting into it to keep it going and now listening to the fans, hmm, need to hear a lot more than that.
 
hertfordseasider said:
I'm going to wait until I have heard plenty of feedback, all I have seen so far is that he has no intention of selling the club but no one would blame him if he did because the amount of money he is putting into it to keep it going and now listening to the fans, hmm, need to hear a lot more than that.
Click to expand...
To be fair the 90 million sums are bollocks
 
The question has to be "ok,grand, thanks for backing the club - how do we get better value in the future for the money invested in the playing squad compared to the last 12 months"

Cos, we're going down and the last 3 sets of transfers have basically yielded Lyons who looks like he might be an asset in the future and nowt else. For a club who apparently invested in recruitment strategy and data, that's not ideal.

I want to know what our footballing identity is and how we're going to make sure we don't end up with two successive managers with totally different playing strategies, neither of whom have the tools with which to execute their plan cos that's been the underlying problem this year and one that if we don't solve, we'll be forever searching for 'a new Critchley' and the owner will be pumping in dead money to tread water.

I shall look forward to the minutes as streaming such an event is obviously way beyond the capacity of a 21st century club.
 
LA1 Seasider said:
He’s set it out pretty simply and the maths seems to add up to me. Why don’t you explain to us all why you think it’s incorrect ?

Losses of £3-5 million per annum, £40-60 million on infrastructure. Over a decade that’s £90 million + as a conservative estimate.
Click to expand...

Losses in covid times or every season?

90 million seems high.
£40 million on infrastructure? The council are paying for half of the revoe development aren’t they?
Not a dig at you just wondered.
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
To be fair the 90 million sums are bollocks
Click to expand...
How so? I’m not disagreeing with you as I have no idea.

Do you believe that the club isn’t up for sale? I know you’ve said it was common knowledge in the past so it would be interesting to hear your take on that.
 
Brett&Murphs. said:
Losses in covid times or every season?
Click to expand...
Losses in Covid times were far greater. Apparently this season we’re operating at £4 million + losses. Lose Championship status and revenues and those losses aren’t getting any smaller - certainly not in the immediate future.

Bare in mind PNE lose £12 million or thereabouts each season and have done for a decade. And that’s with slightly larger crowds, sustained Championship football, some decent player sales and you would imagine lower non playing staff running costs (as they have less to put right)
 
Brett&Murphs. said:
Losses in covid times or every season?

90 million seems high.
£40 million on infrastructure? The council are paying for half of the revoe development aren’t they?
Not a dig at you just wondered.
Click to expand...
Apparently the training ground is looking like £22 million. Coupled with half of Revoe that’s £40 million before a single shovel is in the ground and delays and costs start impacting the project.

In the meantime BR needs maintenance and further improvements as does Squires Gate.
 
LA1 Seasider said:
Losses in Covid times were far greater. Apparently this season we’re operating at £4 million + losses. Lose Championship status and revenues and those losses aren’t getting any smaller - certainly not in the immediate future.
Click to expand...
The last set of accounts published - which pertain to the COVID season - say the losses were 4.8m (as opposed to 2.2m the prior year). Given we invested heavily in playing and coaching staff that season, it is perhaps fair to say that the losses weren't 'far greater' than this year.
 
LA1 Seasider said:
Apparently the training ground is looking like £22 million. Coupled with half of Revoe that’s £40 million before a single shovel is in the ground and delays and costs start impacting the project.

In the meantime BR needs maintenance and further improvements as does Squires Gate.
Click to expand...
Brilliant cheers for that.👍
 
td53 said:
The last set of accounts published - which pertain to the COVID season - say the losses were 4.8m (as opposed to 2.2m the prior year). Given we invested heavily in playing and coaching staff, it is perhaps fair to say that the losses weren't 'far greater' than this year.
Click to expand...
League 1 football though with League 1 wages. If we’re relegated all wages / costs won’t automatically go back to that level. So losses in Covid times need to be considered against where the club was at that time and not right now. So proportionally the losses were far greater.

Not sure I explained myself very well there.
 
LA1 Seasider said:
League 1 football though with League 1 wages. If we’re relegated all wages / costs won’t automatically go back to that level. So losses in Covid times need to be considered against where the club was at that time and not right now. So proportionally the losses were far greater.

Not sure I explained myself very well there.
Click to expand...
A club that positions itself as it does with our budget should absolutely have worked in relegation clauses to protect itself from the impact of relegation on the wage bill.

If we haven't done that, them it's plain daft.

You can't both pay small wages in the championship and not buy anyone any good and not protect yourself financially. Rotherham have broken even whilst yo-yoing so we can too.

(Granted, the investment is different, but they've built a whole new ground so they've had infrastructure too)
 
What about the terrible recruitment and the terrible managers? I'm more bothered about the squad and manager and staying in the Championship. It's been a farce for 18 months. I'm not really that bothered about the training ground and the East Stand, then have to be done and he knew that when he bought the club so he can whinge about that as much as he wants it isn't valid.
 
td53 said:
A club that positions itself as it does with our budget should absolutely have worked in relegation clauses to protect itself from the impact of relegation on the wage bill.

If we haven't done that, them it's plain daft.

You can't both pay small wages in the championship and not buy anyone any good and not protect yourself financially. Rotherham have broken even whilst yo-yoing so we can too.

(Granted, the investment is different, but they've built a whole new ground so they've had infrastructure too)
Click to expand...
There’s bound to be some clauses but I doubt it would cover all of it. Likewise do you sack all the extra club staff that were brought in on the back of promotion ? Not sure it’s realistically possible to just seamlessly revert from League 1 operation to Championship and vice Verda. There’s bound to be some sort of hangover / overlap
 
Disagreeing on/questioning whether SS is putting in £40m or £60m or £90m etc etc.
It's irrelevant to a large extent - the important thing is we have an owner now who is making significant investments in the club that it will benefit from for decades. Absolute polar opposite of what we've had before.
Despite a very painful season, I'm really optimistic for the future.
 
The club has been desperate for this kind of investment and it will secure the future of the club for decades to come.

Of course, we all want success on the pitch in the short term too, but Simon is trying to build a lasting legacy and rightly so.

Good to know he remains committed to the club and I’m sure that we will turn things around on the pitch.

Feeling positive based on the feedback from the meeting so far 👍
 
BFC_53 said:
Disagreeing on/questioning whether SS is putting in £40m or £60m or £90m etc etc.
It's irrelevant to a large extent - the important thing is we have an owner now who is making significant investments in the club that it will benefit from for decades. Absolute polar opposite of what we've had before.
Despite a very painful season, I'm really optimistic for the future.
Click to expand...
That's fair enough. 👍
 
LA1 Seasider said:
There’s bound to be some clauses but I doubt it would cover all of it. Likewise do you sack all the extra club staff that were brought in on the back of promotion ? Not sure it’s realistically possible to just seamlessly revert from League 1 operation to Championship and vice Verda. There’s bound to be some sort of hangover / overlap
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm sure there'll be some hangover, but with the number of loans and out of contract players we don't need to carry a large legacy. The in contract players or the ones we take options on will include a number of our more saleable assetts (probs Grimmy, Marvin, Gabriel and Jerry) or future salable assets (e.g. Lyons, Carey) - the baggage we carry forward will be contingent on the quality or otherwise of the recruitment in summer.

The non playing staff are a drop in the ocean (aside from Big bad ben obvs) generally in the overall budget. Don't forget, Badlan replaces John Stephenson and Critch ran quite a large coaching staff that included an experienced manager within it, so it's possible future costs there would be less compared to 2020/21. The only 'extra' staff I'm aware of (as full time appointments) would be the other lad from Cov and Sean Mcginley in the media job. I'd be suprised if any of the non playing staff outside the manager and the CEO were paid the kind of wages that would trouble the average footballer.

The academy stuff doesn't make any income (outwith player sales) so you'd likely not budget for that based on league performance in the same way you would the cost of the first team squad - i.e. if your plan is based on player development, you can't afford for that plan to be contingent on league position as the league position is bound to fluctuate, especially at the level of spending we're at - relegation at some point is an almost certainty somewhere along the line...

I think the key point is - if every club in League 1 ran to break even (i know they don't but...) we'd be maybe about 8th in terms of spending based on the crude measure of crowd size whereas in the Championship we're competing against clubs with bigger crowds AND legacy money from the Prem - arguably we should be able to get get near to break even AND compete much easier in League 1.

Whether I'm talking shit or not, we won't know till a) we get relegated (we're not down yet!!!) and b) till we can compare the accounts for this year and next year, but that won't be till summer 2025!

Relegation will be a football tragedy, but I'm not convinced it will be a financial one. If we're losing 4m+ in the championship with (minumum) 7m extra income, we're actually losing more than we generally lost in league one, including NAPM (1.4m loss in 2017 and 2.1m loss in 2018 according to accounts) and Covid seasons (where the income was lower again) - therefore, actually, LEague 1 next time, with crowds and hopefully a promotion challenge and so on, we could well do better in terms of the balance sheet alone.

I think the point is - the development etc shouldn't be contingent on where we are in the league as the insane finances of football swallow the additional benefits of promotion as the cost of treading water is much higher in the championship as compared to competing in LEague 1... so Sadler's investment total for stadium and training ground will likely not alter unless we get to the Premier League and win the 100m lottery (and don't bother to compete)
 
Last edited:
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
The club has been desperate for this kind of investment and it will secure the future of the club for decades to come.

Of course, we all want success on the pitch in the short term too, but Simon is trying to build a lasting legacy and rightly so.

Good to know he remains committed to the club and I’m sure that we will turn things around on the pitch.

Feeling positive based on the feedback from the meeting so far 👍
Click to expand...
100% understanding fan🍊⚽️👍
 
LA1 Seasider said:
He’s set it out pretty simply and the maths seems to add up to me. Why don’t you explain to us all why you think it’s incorrect ?

Losses of £3-5 million per annum, £40-60 million on infrastructure. Over a decade that’s £90 million + as a conservative estimate.
Click to expand...
One year loss to be fair
 
Love Sadler and cannot praise the investment enough but does he have the money to keep us in the championship constantly? We still need further investment IMO.
 
The fact we are arguing if it’s 40mill plus tells us a lot. Did the stains put that much in? Especially after flirting in the Prem.

I’m in the long term investment team. There is clearly ambition to sort the training ground and get the ground sorted. I think sometimes fans need to take a step back and realise the longer term ambitions.

I’ve always accepted Appleton was a disaster but the time Big mick came in the damage was done by Appleton and the board but the whole thing is a leaning curve and I genuinely hope everyone has learnt from this disaster of a season.

If we are challenging for the play offs next season we know the crowds will turn up.
 
I'd be astonished if recruitment and footballing style wasn't covered.

Ultimately, it's nice to hear about the finances, but the accounts will be out soon anyway, so we'll hear about that in detail then - whereas the opportunity to glean insight into the direction of the club in a footballing sense hasn't arisen and likely (given the relative silence of the senior figures for the last year) won't again for a while
 
hertfordseasider said:
What about the terrible recruitment and the terrible managers? I'm more bothered about the squad and manager and staying in the Championship. It's been a farce for 18 months. I'm not really that bothered about the training ground and the East Stand, then have to be done and he knew that when he bought the club so he can whinge about that as much as he wants it isn't valid.
Click to expand...
** hell
 
So waste of time then
Still no clearer as to why we are in the mess we are in with no answers as to the complete chaos and malfunction since towards the end of last season 🤯
 
hertfordseasider said:
What about the terrible recruitment and the terrible managers? I'm more bothered about the squad and manager and staying in the Championship. It's been a farce for 18 months. I'm not really that bothered about the training ground and the East Stand, then have to be done and he knew that when he bought the club so he can whinge about that as much as he wants it isn't valid.
Click to expand...
Doubt he cares about your opinion, you don’t even go, actually I know he doesn’t care👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🧡🧡
 
TangerineandWhitePod said:
Not caring about the East Stand and training ground mean you automatically shouldn’t get any answers. Congratulations
Click to expand...
He had to do that anyway, he knew that when he bought the club, how much he spends on them is up to him, I want to know about WTF has happened with the signing of players and managers and why are we in the situation we are in. He may well have answered those questions but nothing has been posted about that yet so I'll wait to hear what was said.
 
hertfordseasider said:
He had to do that anyway, he knew that when he bought the club, how much he spends on them is up to him, I want to know about WTF has happened with the signing of players and managers and why are we in the situation we are in. He may well have answered those questions but nothing has been posted about that yet so I'll wait to hear what was said.
Click to expand...
Ask him ffs🙁
 
Sounds like it was quite cosy bar a couple of old fellas?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top