Top 4 budget apparently. Yet we signed 3 free transfers from Swindon, 1 from Rochdale, 1 from Lincoln, 2 loans and one of out of contract last playing for Crewe? If that’s a top 4 budget then I’ve grossly over estimated the money swimming around in football
Yes but it's also all of the signings before that, including Stockley and Aneke who came from the division above, Fraser, Lavelle, DJ, Kirk, Clare all signed in the last two years.
Remember that transfer fees aren't paid as a lump sum up front, they're almost always paid over time.
Plus, frees will have signing on fees and bigger wages.
I can't verify the claim, but I could understand the maths if it were true.
The bigger problem is, when you look at the list of players who we've signed for fees, only Clare and Fraser are first choice. Stockley doesn't fit the system. Aneke is never fit.
It's not that we don't spend money, it's that, to this point under TS, we haven't spent money well.
You make a very good point SD, our best run of games in terms of wins has happened twice under TS, the first time after Adkins replaced Bowyer and the second was after Jackson replaced Adkins. In both instances the high press game was not being forced upon either manager and in both cases those two managers knew that the team needed wins on the board to move forward. When left to manage both managers produced a winning formula very quickly, I would argue that this would be the case again under Garner but TS, with no experience at all, is dictating tactics. Garner will eventually come under pressure to produce a winning formula, most everyone in the ground can see that we have a centre forward who is one of the best in the division but is being played in a system that clearly doesn't suit him, we are also asking Kirk or CBT to provide goals which again is clearly not their strength. The worrying thing for me is that TS states that he wants reach cost neutral in two years time but by his own interference he is stopping a team progressing and costing himself more money in the process.
4th highest budget? Higher than last season.. I don’t understand that. Does he include the contract length and total value of the contract in to this years budget? or are we paying big signing on fees?
It makes no sense to me either, when you consider some of the experienced players let go such as Gunter, Purrington, Matthews, Watson and Washington who would surely have been on higher wages than the ones we brought in this summer?
No doubt I’m going to get hammered for this, but what do we actually want?
We protested against Roland/Katrien & Sandgaard was proclaimed as the second coming. Now we’re not dominating all comers, Sandgaard is getting pelters, I’m no longer sure what the end game/target is
Did TS make a mistake with his blow the league out of the water, yes - Are tickets too expensive, yes - should the likes of Olly Groome have been treated better, yes
I've lost sight of what we actually want, are a loaded Saudi group going to be interested in a League 1 club, no & at the same time, Sandgaard isn’t loaded enough to give an open chequebook - he’s made mistakes in terms of not backing Garner but I’m not sure what we’re actually looking for any more
TS main issue is all the over promising rubbish he came up with at the start. It fuelled fans expectations and he has massively under delivered.
What I 100% would say is I think it strange the Trust saying if Charlton fans were in charge we would have bought in a striker... We make £8M loss per year. If fans were in charge we would be bust. A Trust demanding (?) players seems to me like over stepping the mark with a loss making club.
Tuesday night was abysmal and one of my worst Charlton memories but it never crossed my.mind not to go in future / renew and I am surprised by the number of fans on here saying they will stop going. Never figured @golfaddick for a glory hunter for example.
I don’t get that. It was frustrating, we were poor at times, and our finishing was abysmal, but worst Charlton memories? Wait til we get stuffed at home by Lincoln or someone. Because that’ll happen.
Lose today and it could all get very ugly.
The key to progressing as a club is reuniting the ownership of the freeholds with the ownership of the football club. If there are to be protests I’d rather they were against Roland who’s preventing that.
No doubt I’m going to get hammered for this, but what do we actually want?
We protested against Roland/Katrien & Sandgaard was proclaimed as the second coming. Now we’re not dominating all comers, Sandgaard is getting pelters, I’m no longer sure what the end game/target is
Did TS make a mistake with his blow the league out of the water, yes - Are tickets too expensive, yes - should the likes of Olly Groome have been treated better, yes
I've lost sight of what we actually want, are a loaded Saudi group going to be interested in a League 1 club, no & at the same time, Sandgaard isn’t loaded enough to give an open chequebook - he’s made mistakes in terms of not backing Garner but I’m not sure what we’re actually looking for any more
TS main issue is all the over promising rubbish he came up with at the start. It fuelled fans expectations and he has massively under delivered.
What I 100% would say is I think it strange the Trust saying if Charlton fans were in charge we would have bought in a striker... We make £8M loss per year. If fans were in charge we would be bust. A Trust demanding (?) players seems to me like over stepping the mark with a loss making club.
Tuesday night was abysmal and one of my worst Charlton memories but it never crossed my.mind not to go in future / renew and I am surprised by the number of fans on here saying they will stop going. Never figured @golfaddick for a glory hunter for example.
I don’t get that. It was frustrating, we were poor at times, and our finishing was abysmal, but worst Charlton memories? Wait til we get stuffed at home by Lincoln or someone. Because that’ll happen.
Lose today and it could all get very ugly.
The key to progressing as a club is reuniting the ownership of the freeholds with the ownership of the football club. If there are to be protests I’d rather they were against Roland who’s preventing that.
Not just the game. No atmosphere. Tiny crowd. No away fans. Boring footy. Raining. The whole thing just felt like a training game for me. There was no passion in the stands and little on the pitch. It was dreadful.
No doubt I’m going to get hammered for this, but what do we actually want?
We protested against Roland/Katrien & Sandgaard was proclaimed as the second coming. Now we’re not dominating all comers, Sandgaard is getting pelters, I’m no longer sure what the end game/target is
Did TS make a mistake with his blow the league out of the water, yes - Are tickets too expensive, yes - should the likes of Olly Groome have been treated better, yes
I've lost sight of what we actually want, are a loaded Saudi group going to be interested in a League 1 club, no & at the same time, Sandgaard isn’t loaded enough to give an open chequebook - he’s made mistakes in terms of not backing Garner but I’m not sure what we’re actually looking for any more
TS main issue is all the over promising rubbish he came up with at the start. It fuelled fans expectations and he has massively under delivered.
What I 100% would say is I think it strange the Trust saying if Charlton fans were in charge we would have bought in a striker... We make £8M loss per year. If fans were in charge we would be bust. A Trust demanding (?) players seems to me like over stepping the mark with a loss making club.
Tuesday night was abysmal and one of my worst Charlton memories but it never crossed my.mind not to go in future / renew and I am surprised by the number of fans on here saying they will stop going. Never figured @golfaddick for a glory hunter for example.
I don’t get that. It was frustrating, we were poor at times, and our finishing was abysmal, but worst Charlton memories? Wait til we get stuffed at home by Lincoln or someone. Because that’ll happen.
Lose today and it could all get very ugly.
The key to progressing as a club is reuniting the ownership of the freeholds with the ownership of the football club. If there are to be protests I’d rather they were against Roland who’s preventing that.
Not just the game. No atmosphere. Tiny crowd. No away fans. Boring footy. Raining. The whole thing just felt like a training game for me. There was no passion in the stands and little on the pitch. It was dreadful.
Tbh when I look back I remember games like that, but that was when I was sitting in the West or East stands. I remember games against Rochdale and Oldham during the Slade era in particular where it was really painful. I think being near the Covered End choir masks the overall lack of atmosphere I guess. And even they went very quiet in the second half. It’s weird how clubs like Sunderland and Portsmouth don’t suffer the same drop in gates and atmosphere that we do. Is it because fans have more alternative options on a Saturday afternoon or Tuesday evening in London? Can you imagine what it’d be like if we were in L2?
Would it make a difference if we did? It's not like we've reinvested the Burstow and Pope money.
Burstow effectively paid for Chuks and Fraser (I know they signed before Burstow left). Both undisclosed but Chuks was said to cost £300k and Fraser must have cost a similar figure.
We must have had a crazy budget last year if we have lost a number of the highest earners and have a much smaller squad as well as not paying a fee for a player. And the players we have brought in are from League 2. It has never been about busting the bank budgets, but sensible decisions for me. Something Sandgaard looks incapable of making.
Very confused by the Pompey comparison, I thought the Eisner's model was very much more about investing in Fratton Park and bringing that into the 21st century as a stadium and not really spending huge amounts on players.
Garnerball was looking promising after the Plymouth game but since then everything has fallen apart and our players are being shown up as just not good enough. Or, is it the coaching that is being shown up as just not good enough! So much for needing 2 more windows to make us promotion challengers. Looks to me like Garner is starting to run out of ideas. The wheels may very well be coming off the bus and it’s all down to penny pinching by our owner. That’s how I see it anyway. Not good times to be a Charlton fan. We are well and truly going backwards. Who fancies L2 next year? That’s where we could well be heading.
Bit of an over reaction Rob. I agree about the penny pinching but, as someone else pointed out, our stats are very good but we’re been let down by our ability to stick the ball in the net.
That's ok then, only the most important thing to win games. If only the EFL would give points for tippy tappy football.
We’re creating chances and having shots. It wasn’t long ago we weren’t even doing that.
But if you think we’d be better off abandoning the passing (‘tippy tappy’) style of football and resorting to lumping it up to Stockley in a 442 system, then good luck with that. We haven’t got the players for it. We arguably haven’t got the players for the passing game either, but I’d rather watch us develop that style over time than give up on it.
But without cash for players we’re screwed, whichever system we’re playing.
I wasn't suggesting we go route one football there are other ways of playing and getting a balance between possession and being hard to beat in getting results, we need to score more goals to win games or keep clean sheets. Like virtually most teams that get promoted from this league.
Thinking we can be champagne Man City whilst we have a squad put together with beer money is delusional. Garner has stated he needs another few transfer windows at least to even be competing at the top.
Crowds are already down there is discontent among the fan base and Sandgaard's main rhetoric is breaking even. This situation isn't going to enhance Garners chances of completing what is required getting out of this low down division.
Only Fulham and Swansea have played their way out of this league and they both had proper financial backing to get players that were above this league in quality.
We have gotten out of this league every time since the first time we were relegated to it by being a hard team to beat with a cutting edge up front not possession for the sake of it. We still played good passing football.
' but we’re been let down by our ability to stick the ball in the net'
My point though was regarding yours. We need more goals agreed, but change things to to play to our strengths, we have one fit striker and we are playing him out of the game every week. That is no different than square pegs round holes of which Adkins and JJ got slaughtered for.
I admit our football has looked good at times and I would love nothing better than for Garner to pull it off (in fact I have money on us to finish top half, not holding my brief on that yet as things are). However he hasn't been backed and we don't have the fire power so he needs to have a rethink and change it to keep us in the mix.
TS, when answering if he was still committed to the Club for the long haul, replied “Very much so, or else I wouldn’t go through all this pain." There's really no need for him to be inflicting self-harm though. That's no good for him or us and he should be considering his exit strategy if he won't change tack.
Forget about systems for a minute. We need to take stock of goalscorers and missers in the squad. We need another category too, missers who could become goalscorers. Then look who we have and sort out a formation around getting a decent number of goals in it. Whether that be Garnerball or John Beck ball.
We need to do this because you can't rely on one or two players getting the goals. Well we can't. Maybe if you had two 30 goal a season players you could. It makes us too easy to defend against.
I think in a lot of countries you can get work permits if you are bringing money and jobs in. It isn't always millions either. I don't know about this country but about £250k will get you one in Italy.
No point in protesting the way Sandgaard is going. He will do a fair chunk of his money with his stubbornness and ideas that won’t get him out of this division in the near future.
Of course we could employ a CEO who is as useless as Sandgaard. Don't get me wrong, I think we need one, but a lot of Sandgaard's decisions since he took over a village idiot could have questioned. I certainly did
I have been giving your question some thought and think I know the answer, it is quite simple.
We want an owner whom is a multi billionaire whom will bank roll massive losses every year to get us back up the leagues. But they must not buy the league and the club needs to stay sustainable and pay its own way. The individual needs to have made their money from legitimate ways and ideally be a fan.
They need to bring back our best ex players but not look to bring any ex players back - never go back.
But they do need to go back and look at our history and understand it.
They need to communicate with the fans, but not the way they may wish to, but the way the fans want them too. Not too little, definitely not too much.
They should accept criticism from the fans without flinching and certainly never criticise back.
They need to keep lobbing their money in, whilst being sustainable, getting CAT A whilst breaking even, holding on to all our good young players whilst not over spending and keeping season ticket and walk up prices really low but never free and without running into debt.
They need to bring back Varney and any other previous employees who are fans and are no longer working for us. Pay them whatever they want as the owner is a billionaire and can afford it, but obviously don't put the club in debt and risk it's future.
They need to buy The Valley and Sparrows for whatever RD wants, no matter the business sense in it and even if they can't contact him.
Above all, they should understand the next 2 weeks is always crucial.
They don't exist.
Even if one did exist and he was ours, there would still be some on here who would find something to moan about.
There came a point with Roland where he could have done anything and I still would have hated him. It’s definitely not too late for Sandgaard to turn things around by employing experienced football people and reversing the shambles he’s created, but he won’t do it.
Unfortunately we have reached a point where unless there is a big change within the club this is only going one way. There is no need for demonstrations
This "4th highest budget". How would a club owner be able to assess this, given that he doesn't have the other 23 clubs' P&L.?
Partly the answer is that the EFL pools the information on budgets from all its clubs and shares that data out to other clubs in the same division in the close season. (this much I know, because I've seen it. Erik Samuelson of AFCW explained it to me and let me glance at it on his laptop, not long enough to absorb any data).
However there are two things to note. One is that, inevitably, it's last season's figures. The other thing is, I am not sure if the figures include transfer fees. It might, because if you listen to Price of Football you'll know that transfer fees are amortised over the period of the player's contract. So they could well be in the wage figure- it is included for FFP purposes.
But the way clubs use it, they take an educated guess on what these figures tell you about this coming year. But as with your unit trusts, its a guess, and past expenditure is no guide to the future. Obviously the figures for clubs like Burton and Fleetwood will be much the same as last year. But Ipswich, Sheff Wednesday, Derby? There's a lot of media noise about them but that's not reliable for business decisions. Agents will tell you stuff, but I wouldn't trust those charlatans either. They are bound to give inflated figures, because it's in their interest, the only interest they have.
So Thomas is winging it with that claim. I wish he wouldn't, it just gets him in deeper water with the fans. He could be more measured, something like "We cannot be sure, because of course we are not privy to other clubs' financials, but based on data from last year we'd expect us to be certainly within the Top 8 of budgets, maybe higher." But American businessmen don't talk like that, do they?
The top 4 budget statement is just ridiculous it doesnt matter what the budget is if you dont spend it does it. TS could just as easily say our budget for transfers is £200m if he doesnt spend a penny its irrelevant. I'm struggling to understand what the hell is going on if I'm honest we have gone from an air of positivity to total distrust! All these stories of staff being treated badly, stupid statements from a board member, TS trying to deflect by bullshit, his partner apparently running the ship day to day and making a fuck up of it. He needs to grab control really quickly and steady things by making some sensible decisions re issues like ticket pricing, stem the bad press or he will see attendances fall and apathy start to spread. Most fans just want to be able to go and watch their team and it be an enjoyable experience without all this drama going on constantly
Gues What! those teams with bigger budgets than us are above us in the league, just like last season. that is a good way to know who has a bigger budget.
The top 4 budget statement is just ridiculous it doesnt matter what the budget is if you dont spend it does it. TS could just as easily say our budget for transfers is £200m if he doesnt spend a penny its irrelevant. I'm struggling to understand what the hell is going on if I'm honest we have gone from an air of positivity to total distrust! All these stories of staff being treated badly, stupid statements from a board member, TS trying to deflect by bullshit, his partner apparently running the ship day to day and making a fuck up of it. He needs to grab control really quickly and steady things by making some sensible decisions re issues like ticket pricing, stem the bad press or he will see attendances fall and apathy start to spread. Most fans just want to be able to go and watch their team and it be an enjoyable experience without all this drama going on constantly
Budget is such a poor choice of word when you give it no context.
If we are talking about the total costs of the football club I would suspect that 4th biggest isn't actually that far from the truth.
If you talk about the cost of the squad. It's probably not far from the truth.
If your talking about the wage bill for the 18 or so "senior pros" it's probably not close to true.
What I would say is our first team wage bill budget is almost certainly in the top ten. The fact we are needing snookers, in September, for a play off push suggests it's not been spent very well.
Comments
Any chance of us seeing it?
Can you imagine what it’d be like if we were in L2?
Thinking we can be champagne Man City whilst we have a squad put together with beer money is delusional. Garner has stated he needs another few transfer windows at least to even be competing at the top.
Crowds are already down there is discontent among the fan base and Sandgaard's main rhetoric is breaking even. This situation isn't going to enhance Garners chances of completing what is required getting out of this low down division.
Only Fulham and Swansea have played their way out of this league and they both had proper financial backing to get players that were above this league in quality.
We have gotten out of this league every time since the first time we were relegated to it by being a hard team to beat with a cutting edge up front not possession for the sake of it. We still played good passing football.
' but we’re been let down by our ability to stick the ball in the net'
My point though was regarding yours. We need more goals agreed, but change things to to play to our strengths, we have one fit striker and we are playing him out of the game every week. That is no different than square pegs round holes of which Adkins and JJ got slaughtered for.
I admit our football has looked good at times and I would love nothing better than for Garner to pull it off (in fact I have money on us to finish top half, not holding my brief on that yet as things are). However he hasn't been backed and we don't have the fire power so he needs to have a rethink and change it to keep us in the mix.
We need to do this because you can't rely on one or two players getting the goals. Well we can't. Maybe if you had two 30 goal a season players you could. It makes us too easy to defend against.
People will lose interest and stop going
Partly the answer is that the EFL pools the information on budgets from all its clubs and shares that data out to other clubs in the same division in the close season. (this much I know, because I've seen it. Erik Samuelson of AFCW explained it to me and let me glance at it on his laptop, not long enough to absorb any data).
However there are two things to note. One is that, inevitably, it's last season's figures. The other thing is, I am not sure if the figures include transfer fees. It might, because if you listen to Price of Football you'll know that transfer fees are amortised over the period of the player's contract. So they could well be in the wage figure- it is included for FFP purposes.
But the way clubs use it, they take an educated guess on what these figures tell you about this coming year. But as with your unit trusts, its a guess, and past expenditure is no guide to the future. Obviously the figures for clubs like Burton and Fleetwood will be much the same as last year. But Ipswich, Sheff Wednesday, Derby? There's a lot of media noise about them but that's not reliable for business decisions. Agents will tell you stuff, but I wouldn't trust those charlatans either. They are bound to give inflated figures, because it's in their interest, the only interest they have.
So Thomas is winging it with that claim. I wish he wouldn't, it just gets him in deeper water with the fans. He could be more measured, something like "We cannot be sure, because of course we are not privy to other clubs' financials, but based on data from last year we'd expect us to be certainly within the Top 8 of budgets, maybe higher." But American businessmen don't talk like that, do they?
If we are talking about the total costs of the football club I would suspect that 4th biggest isn't actually that far from the truth.
If you talk about the cost of the squad. It's probably not far from the truth.
If your talking about the wage bill for the 18 or so "senior pros" it's probably not close to true.
What I would say is our first team wage bill budget is almost certainly in the top ten. The fact we are needing snookers, in September, for a play off push suggests it's not been spent very well.