January Transfer Window.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

28 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Burnley also have the second highest paid squad in the division.

Literally google "Championship wages 2022/2023" and 99.99% of them have them as second

We will of course know the full truth shortly, as club accounts are released throughout the year. Not that many do, which irks when it is the same people who constantly deny the advantage FFP has given some clubs. Just read the expenditure of clubs and their performance and you can see the link

So there is absolutely no need to be delivering a project at Burnley, because they have five times as much money guaranteed to be paid to them over the next three years than 75% of Championship clubs

Their goal is to ensure it isn't wasted, a la Stoke City or Huddersfield

Their 'project' is to become a club that will compete in the Prem, but Kompany is going to be sorely disappointed if he thinks he will get the money to do that. Burnley's business model is clear - follow Norwich and Watford and yo-yo, ensuring good dividends over a 5 year period for shareholders whilst enjoying the advantage footballs financial rules give clubs in that yo-yo spell

And that is why they have retained the 2nd most expensive squad in the division and brought in a load of fee loans to deliver them a squad capable of achieving a promotion push

Contrast to Rovers - who sit around about 17th in the wage expenditure - and you can see the need for a project

We can all sit and ignore the financial consequences of Football, pretend it is irrelevant if you like, but the reality is that wage expenditure is directly related to promotion. And we simply do not have the financial firepower to compete with the likes of West Brom, Sheffield Utd, Norwich, Watford, Stoke City or Middlesborough

And any manager will have to realise this 'project' at a club like ours. They will need time because we cannot throw money at it and generate a load of real skilled players into a squad with depth. That's a fact

You can hate it, but criticising JDT for it is stupid. He's just seeing what you aren't. And so is Broughton.

With all due respect were the “ project “ argument falls down is that clubs like Rovers can’t sustain a successful team over that period of time. If we had any really good players they’ll be lured away by clubs further up the food chain just like Armstrong was. Let’s just say we’d stormed up the league playing brilliant football - how long do you think JDT would hang around ? One of the bigger clubs that had just been relegated would be after him like a shot. 
The only way it works is if you have a shit hot senior management and scouting system that can identify replacements before you need them as Brentford and Brighton have done.

We couldn’t be further away from being run along those lines if we tried 

Edited February 8, 2023 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[wilsdenrover]

6 minutes ago, Gav said:

Not really no.

I'm surprised our league position is as good as it is after the players we lost at the back end of last season, we certainly haven't replaced like for like which would usually result in regression. 

Maybe it just shows how poor a league it is.

 

[Gav]

2 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

Maybe it just shows how poor a league it is.

 

That isn't the question you asked.

Have you seen improvements this season, if so where?

[wilsdenrover]

9 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

With all due respect were the “ project “ argument falls down is that clubs like Rovers can’t sustain a successful team over that period of time. If we had any really good players they’ll be lured away by clubs further up the food chain just like Armstrong was. Let’s just say we’d stormed up the league playing brilliant football - how long do you think JDT would hang around ? One of the bigger clubs that had just been relegated would be after him like a shot. 
The only way it works is if you have a shit hot senior management and scouting system that can identify replacements before you need them as Brentford and Brighton have done.

We couldn’t be further away from being run along those lines if we tried 

Re Brentford and Brighton:

It’s easier to know what you might need if you already know what you’re doing.

We used to be like that too…

 

 

 

[wilsdenrover]

5 minutes ago, Gav said:

That isn't the question you asked.

Have you seen improvements this season, if so where?

No it wasn’t - you answered exactly what I asked - I was just suggesting a possible explanation as to why we aren’t further down the table.

I no longer attend so I can’t comment on whether we’ve improved or not - however the match threads certainly read very similar to last season.

 

 

[Dreams of 1995]

35 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

With all due respect were the “ project “ argument falls down is that clubs like Rovers can’t sustain a successful team over that period of time. If we had any really good players they’ll be lured away by clubs further up the food chain just like Armstrong was. Let’s just say we’d stormed up the league playing brilliant football - how long do you think JDT would hang around ? One of the bigger clubs that had just been relegated would be after him like a shot. 
The only way it works is if you have a shit hot senior management and scouting system that can identify replacements before you need them as Brentford and Brighton have done.

We couldn’t be further away from being run along those lines if we tried 

We need that management team in place 

But it’s looking better than it did before. Broughton is an actual football man - not like the chancers such as Paul Senior we have seen before him 

And we do seem to have made improvements in both our scouting and football side of things, although I know there’s been a farce of a transfer window 

the same things also happened to Barca and Chelsea this window 

But I’m trying to look on the positive side, and I honestly believe that what we have now is much better than what we had 3 years ago. Therefore this journey or project or whatever is going somewhere. I’m under no illusion though - we are the masters of our own downfall. And a huge part of me is reminded each day that the people at the top remain the same: distant, unaccounted and delusional

[roversfan99]

Why are Broughton and Senior so different? If Broughton is a "football man" then he hasn't really shown it so far.

[RoverDom]

55 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

With all due respect were the “ project “ argument falls down is that clubs like Rovers can’t sustain a successful team over that period of time. If we had any really good players they’ll be lured away by clubs further up the food chain just like Armstrong was. Let’s just say we’d stormed up the league playing brilliant football - how long do you think JDT would hang around ? One of the bigger clubs that had just been relegated would be after him like a shot. 
The only way it works is if you have a shit hot senior management and scouting system that can identify replacements before you need them as Brentford and Brighton have done.

We couldn’t be further away from being run along those lines if we tried 

But would you say that 9(?) months is sufficient to go from Mowbrays mafia to Brighton / Brentford? 

[Dreams of 1995]

Just now, roversfan99 said:

Why are Broughton and Senior so different? If Broughton is a "football man" then he hasn't really shown it so far.

Well, for one Gregg Broughtons list of football appointments have been at:

Luton City as head of youth development 

He then went and did a 5 year stint at Norwich City, where he took Jamal Lewis and Max Aaron’s to them from Luton - he was head of youth recruitment and then promoted to head of academy 

He then went on to Glint - where he again went in as Academy Manager. This was in 2018. 
During his time there Bodo Glimt sold major players for big profit in all 3 seasons and replaced them with lads from the academy. They won back to back league titles, with Knutsen as head coach. 
 

Paul Senior had worked as a commercial advisor to the successful clubs like Charlton and Sheffield Wednesday before 

Oh and West Ham - during their bad years 

He was a money man. Not interested in football or development 

They are chalk and cheese. Do some research on them before comparing them so wilfully 

[booth]

1 hour ago, wilsdenrover said:

Do you think there’s been an improvement in identifying shortfalls within the squad? 

Not that it matters if you can’t get the deals across the line (or do the paperwork properly when you have done!)

There obviously has from the manager.

[Exiled in Toronto Mk2]

1 hour ago, Miller11 said:

Everything about our “project” is massively flawed.

It’s like an off the shelf plan that isn’t fit for purpose.

- Employ a director of football. Ignoring the fact that the club is dysfunctional from top to bottom and expecting him to change this

- Play out from the back. So basically try and do what everyone else is trying to do. Not only is it causing all sorts of short term issues with results, even if we do it well, there will be teams that do it better because they can afford better players. The only way to buck the trend of the monied teams being the best teams is to do something different effectively, not doing what everyone else does averagely.

- Develop players. In theory, as soon as our players become good enough to get in the Premier league we sell them. Hardly conducive to long term on pitch success. In practice we are hamstrung by poor negotiations, a limited and unswerving wage structure, and owners with unrealistic ideas who don’t care but like interfering.

On top of this it’s also now being used to dampen hopes and expectations and shrug off failings. The journey went nowhere for 5 years. The project will be the same.

Playing out from the back and selling players we develop for huge sums to Premiership clubs are inextricably linked though: if they don’t/can’t demonstrate they are skilled at playing out from the back, no Premiership club will buy them. There’s no big money market for players who tonk it down the channels for our carthorse of the day to chase. This, I believe, is why he isn’t playing to the mythical strengths of the current squad.

[DavidBrent]

5 hours ago, Gav said:

Its easy to have ambition when you've got £30m+ to spend, pay the highest wages in the league and have just raked in over £500m by being in the Premiership. 

 

We didn’t spend £30 million plus.

 

We don’t have the highest wages in the league. Watford, Sheff United and Norwich all pay more than us.

[Dreams of 1995]

Just now, DavidBrent said:

We didn’t spend £30 million plus.

 

We don’t have the highest wages in the league. Watford, Sheff United and Norwich all pay more than us.

Watford probably do, thanks to Sarr

Sheffield Utd definitely don’t 

Norwich it’ll be close. But most have you pinned as second highest 

Cork, Westwood before he left, Rodriguez, Barnes, Brownhill, Gudmondsen, maybe Muric will all be £30k+pw

[Miller11]

18 minutes ago, Exiled in Toronto Mk2 said:

Playing out from the back and selling players we develop for huge sums to Premiership clubs are inextricably linked though: if they don’t/can’t demonstrate they are skilled at playing out from the back, no Premiership club will buy them. There’s no big money market for players who tonk it down the channels for our carthorse of the day to chase. This, I believe, is why he isn’t playing to the mythical strengths of the current squad.

Which only makes any sense if your primary objective is to develop players rather than to have success on the pitch. Fine for a chicken farm, but all we will do in football terms is become a blue and white Crewe.

[bluebruce]

2 hours ago, Gav said:

Not really no.

I'm surprised our league position is as good as it is after the players we lost at the back end of last season, we certainly haven't replaced like for like which would usually result in regression. 

In fairness, Brittain replaces Nyambe although they're very different styles of player, and Hyam replaces Lenihan. There's just Rothwell from our permanent personnel who hasn't really been replaced, although Morton plays (often poorly) in the same position albeit not role. He's a downgrade but the other two aren't. Some would argue Brittain and Hyam are actually improvements on their predecessors.

Of the loanees, the only real losses were JPVH and Khadra. Although some aren't fans of Khadra. JPVH was quality, but we do have young CBs coming through. Even though they're not as good yet, it helps deal with squad depth and we're generally playing 2 at CB instead of three. Khadra, well we did sort of bring in his replacements last Jan in Hedges and Markanday. Admittedly the latter didn't play as much as I'd like and the former doesn't have that pace, but I'd say Hedges more or less replaced Khadra's quality of contribution. Last season, you couldn't have remotely said that about him, so to use an old cliche he's been 'like a new signing'. Not that it was planned or expected, but it's helped.

Overall it was probably a downgrade, but not an extreme one. The loanees the likes of Clarkson, Zeefuik, Giles, were all either not good enough or misused.

[roversfan99]

36 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

Which only makes any sense if your primary objective is to develop players rather than to have success on the pitch. Fine for a chicken farm, but all we will do in football terms is become a blue and white Crewe.

Our primary objective is to develop and let leave for free.

We have an over-reliance on our academy, as good as it is.

[Exiled in Toronto Mk2]

3 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

Which only makes any sense if your primary objective is to develop players rather than to have success on the pitch. Fine for a chicken farm, but all we will do in football terms is become a blue and white Crewe.

Here’s where I think their thinking lies: our Academy is probably going to produce players who end up better and worth more than the kind of players we have and can currently buy. Can academy players alone get us up so we might stay up - probably not - we need better non-academy players around them than we currently have, but we can’t afford them. So we need to develop and sell one or two academy players so we can buy better non-academy players, assuming the academy pipeline can keep producing.

There’s lots of reasons how this can go wrong, but then there’s even more reasons how keep doing what we have been doing before will go wrong.

Fans want to win every game and every season to be a promotion push. But, in my sixty years supporting Rovers, we’ve won five promotions and two trophies. So what does that make the other 53 seasons? All failures? Furphy, Smith, McKay were all failures? I’d say all were hamstrung by not being able to get good money for one or two players to be able to buy several better ones. Lee did that with the Tony Field money; Kendall did it by still being one of the best midfielders in the country and finding Crawford; Dalglish did it with Jack’s money.

I’m not averse to the thinking that coming out on top of half a dozen clubs who have 5x the income requires something more than sack the manager and play Gally in the middle, but I do have big question marks over the execution, especially after this window, which looked nothing like stage 1 of a strategy being implemented,

 

[DavidBrent]

1 hour ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Watford probably do, thanks to Sarr

Sheffield Utd definitely don’t 

Norwich it’ll be close. But most have you pinned as second highest 

Cork, Westwood before he left, Rodriguez, Barnes, Brownhill, Gudmondsen, maybe Muric will all be £30k+pw

Brewster and Berg will be on mega money at Sheffield United. They were £20 million plus signings. McBurnie was £20 million too

Suggestion is our wage bill has dropped from north of £70 million to under £30 mill. We’ll make a massive profit this year.

[Exiled_Rover]

2 hours ago, DavidBrent said:

We didn’t spend £30 million plus.

 

We don’t have the highest wages in the league. Watford, Sheff United and Norwich all pay more than us.

Any chance we could have the Burnley fans quarantined in their own thread?

[goozburger]

Sharpe has suggested that Rovers won't go for free agents in his latest article. The appeals, of course, are also expected to fail.

Our squad size has gone from 22 to 21. The irony there is that losing Annesley and Hirst, and gaining Thomas, probably leaves is in a slightly stronger position. I thought Thomas was good against Wigan. Definitely somebody who looks to create.

[Silas]

47 minutes ago, goozburger said:

Sharpe has suggested that Rovers won't go for free agents in his latest article. The appeals, of course, are also expected to fail.

Our squad size has gone from 22 to 21. The irony there is that losing Annesley and Hirst, and gaining Thomas, probably leaves is in a slightly stronger position. I thought Thomas was good against Wigan. Definitely somebody who looks to create.

Don't forget Markanday. 

[wilsdenrover]

32 minutes ago, Silas said:

Don't forget Markanday. 

🎶Don’t you forget Markanday🎶 (Simple Minds)

[Silas]

22 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

🎶Don’t you forget Markanday🎶 (Simple Minds)

'It's me, Markanday, I've come home...'

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

5 hours ago, Miller11 said:

Which only makes any sense if your primary objective is to develop players rather than to have success on the pitch. Fine for a chicken farm, but all we will do in football terms is become a blue and white Crewe.

I'd say thats exactly where we are heading. Said it a few weeks ago.  First team will be made up the better academy developed players on low wages. Like an under 23 side. All of whom will have a 'for sale' sign round their necks. 

 The under 21 side is where any 'investment' in players will go.  Just like the lad we tried to sign from Rochdale. 

Its the only model that makes sense under these owners.   

 

[jim mk2]

7 hours ago, Miller11 said:

Everything about our “project” is massively flawed.

It’s like an off the shelf plan that isn’t fit for purpose.

 

The word project itself isn't fit for purpose; .Real Madrid started it years ago with their "project" to sign David Beckham, it's overused and become a cliche.  It's basically a load of grandiose management manure to make fans think they actually know what they're doing. The transfer window and botched Brereton sale demonstrate clearly that our lot don't. 

Mowbray's "project" ran its course and now we're apparently at the beginning of another project. Hurrah!. Hey folks, we have a project,  give us 5 years and after a journey to nowhere in mid-table we might be back where we started. If only we had a manager and/or management who doesn't do "projects" and we might actually get somewhere.

Vincent Kompany doesn't do projects and he's not doing too badly, despite what misleading Burnley Express headlines say