Enthusiastic Spending, Poor Execution

Good (although depressing) analysis.

There seemed to be a narrative developing a few months ago that some people were parroting which suggested Sandgaard was “greedy” (wasn’t there a weird banner on Floyd Road that compared him to Scrooge or something?). The story went that he was “pocketing” the transfer income that we had seen, some of it imagined, and was running the club for his own profit. 

Interested analysis and surprising.

jimmymelrose said:

Who the hell did we spend 1.75 million on?

Transfer fees are nearly always undisclosed these days, so it's all based on what is reported but I'm guessing the bulk of it was made up of Kirk £500K, Lavelle £200K, Aneke £300K, Fraser £400K and Clare £50K. The permanent signing of Stockley - estimated at £400K - was in mid-June 2021, so at least a chunk of that fee would have been in the previous accounting period. I don't know how clubs account for signing on fees etc. Ironically, the one really good signing in the summer of 2021 George Dobson, didn't involve a fee. 

With the probable exception of Clare (who blows hot and cold), each of those signings has been on a spectrum between mediocre and lamentable. Jayden Stockley did very well in 21/22 but he was poor this season (possibly due in part to his back injury) and I expect that we recouped only a fraction of the £400K or so that we paid for him from Fleetwood. Maybe £100-150K ? How much would we recoup for Fraser now if we decided to sell him ? Maybe a similar level of fee, given that his stock has fallen in the last two seasons.

Given the club's appalling track record on recruitment and the overall scale of the losses, it's perhaps more understandable why Sandgaard has declined to fund any more transfer fees - albeit some of the damage at least has been self-inflicted by the vanity appointment of his son, Martin - not that any of us really know what's going on behind the scenes.

It would be interesting to see how we compared with other teams in League 1 in terms of transfer receipts, as we received substantial sums for Mason Burstow and also for the Grant sell-on fee. I expect very well.

Apart from squandering a large sum of money on poor recruitment, those signings will also be on salaries commensurate with the excessive fees paid, meaning it will be very difficult to move the players on without the club making a further contribution - whether it be through a reduction or waiving of any transfer fee or the payment of a lump sum to the player to reflect their lower salary at the new club. It's an albatross that will be around our necks for the next two seasons and one which will inhibit inevitably further recruitment this summer.