9 minutes ago, imy9 said:

https://associationofsportingdirectors.com/williams-shaping-the-welsh-way-forward/
 

interesting article on Williams and what he has been doing.

Wow, thank you. Williams seems an exceptional guy. Hope he’s allowed to build something similar at Rovers 🤞🏽

21 minutes ago, Ossydave said:

You have to bear in mind JDT came into the job not knowing who pretty much all the players we class as first team are, let alone the kids. A clean slate for everyone and a change to impress as he keeps saying. Absolutely the right thing to do.

The frustration comes for us because time isn't on our side. Our business is going to be done late, we're gonna have to hope the incoming players have some game time under their belts at existing clubs. They're not gonna have much time to integrate with our existing players. BUT I doubt JDT will piss about with any new players getting them used to 'the way we play' like Mowbray did.

A very different team will start on Saturday, last chance to impress for me then its time to draw a line under it and get the new faces in next week.

This is a really fair assessment. From JDT and GB’s point of view, they’ve certainly started behind the curve. They’ve reportedly ripped up the Park/Mowbray list which makes sense when you consider the reported contrasting styles. We’re finally going to get a pattern of play and an identity as a team now and the players will have to be compatible.

So there’s basically constant assessments ongoing regarding what gaps they need to fill and maybe who of the senior pro’s they’ve still got, they need to replace!?

Im as frustrated as anyone that these new players aren’t at the club yet, but I want them to make sure they get the right ones first and foremost.

My feeling is that we’ll get going next week and have 2 or 3 in before the season starts. The rest, will be made before the end of the window and be dependent on the BBD sale.

34 minutes ago, rigger said:

It is just my attitude. I tend not to worry about things that haven't happened. If other people want to worry, then go ahead.

Amen to this!

7 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Maths not your strong point at school then? Half of 60 is 30 not 16.

Very optimistic to think we could sell two players for £30m each every year imo. And I also think that you only thrive on the pitch by keeping hold of your better players and building round them.

We competed perfectly well last season up until January then bad management and poor decision making on and off the pitch let us down. Thankfully football isn't an exact science corresponding precisely to revenue.

…sell one or two players (for a sum total) of £30m…

9 minutes ago, BigUts said:

As others have said, we are stagnating on so many levels to try and increase revenue.

Getting more bums on seats and becoming more savvy when it comes to sponsorship are two obvious avenues. If we had reduced ST prices and got more people in the ground then our overall income levels would increase significantly. Instead, we are incredibly short sighted and just try to rinse a core contingent as much as possible.

I don’t think we’d ever sell enough tickets to compete with the clubs receiving parachute payments. The only viable way I can see is to sell one or two each season for £30m and then invest half back into the squad on 4x £4m type players with a view to selling another two the next summer…meaning that every year you’ve improved the club by +2 good players. Sales of academy stars are free hits…

But even IF Venkys decided to pump in £50m today they couldn’t. Wed fail FFP….

1 hour ago, glen9mullan said:

Rovers have gone from punching above their weight based on money spent on wages/transfers under the walkers trust in the premiership, to now punching above their weight in the championship.

Venkys put a lot of money in, but it pretty much services the debts. Beyond that our wage structure and money available for transfers is no longer competitive enough for a championship club with aspirations of the premiership. We are not alone in that within the championship and fall in that bottom half category.

As each season passes, we will get closer to being league 1, than premiership.

Everything is on the rise in football, transfer fees, wages, cost of going. At the same time the cost of living is rising even quicker.

In recent times, money from transfers recieved has gone to balancing the books with very little spent in terms of transfer fees.

Rovers are being left behind, and the "run a tight ship theme" looks very much here to stay.

Its very evident that we just cant compete on wages, and still think loans, free transfers and players under a million will suffice. This belief that our academy will keep us pushing forwards towards the premier league is dillusuonal, given very few players in 30 years have come through there and gone on to be exceptional premier league players.

Its sad to say, but we are just making the numbers up, and as each season passes, we will struggle to even do that unless there is a massive shift in the boards/owners ambitions.

The season starts in less than three weeks, and as things stand unless bodies start to arrive (who are at least as good as , the ones who left this summer), we are going to be in for a tough start and a very long season.

 

Great post Glen, there’s so much truth in there. My hope is that they’re not stupid enough to believe that we can get into the PL in the model that we’ve seen recently. The changes in manager and system (DoF / Head coach) etc tells us that there is a new plan. So fingers crossed it involves generation of cash from transfers that’s then reinvested as I believe that’s literally the only way we’re going to progress.

Serious question regarding the perceived ambitions of the owners. Assuming you or I were billionaire owners of Rovers, how actually would we be able to legitimately get anymore money into the club for wages and transfer fees? FFP kills our affordability! Sheikh Mansoor couldn’t fix it, surely?

1 hour ago, jim mk2 said:

You fell for that one. I know what “bad” means in modern parlance - I don’t like it though and will always take the rise out of youths when I see or hear it. There’s nothing “silly” in pointing out footballers are driven by money and very little else. Yes they’ll come out with some tripe about “the project” or similar but  it’s all meaningless PR twaddle 

Waffle.

12 hours ago, jim mk2 said:

I didn't say you were bad (I'm sure you're a very pleasant person), just mistaken

Bless, showing your age there Jimbo!! 

Anyone who has led at any level knows that whilst money is of course relevant in terms of a persons self worth and perceived value in an organisation, there are several other essential factors such as leadership, culture, vision, a feeling of value and opportunity.

Just admit you don’t know EVERY footballer and that you said something silly, and we’ll move on 👍🏼

16 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Wrong again I'm afraid

Ahhh my bad, you know them ALL then obvs? Just with you saying “Not a single new signing” will care about the manager or opportunity….rubbish.

1 hour ago, jim mk2 said:

Nothing to do with me - or you

Just telling you how the average footballer thinks 

Not a single new signing (if we actually get one) will be joining Rovers because of the credentials (good or bad) of the new boss

 

 

Eh? You don’t know any footballers Jim. Turn it in will ya.

18 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

The Brentford model is nothing like what we see at Rovers.

Firstly, we are placing focus on the academy. Brentford disbanded their academy team to cut costs and have a B team instead.

You mention reinvestment of say 50%. That clearly isn't happening here. Investment is random and usually below that marker, see last summer where it was essentially nil. Brentford regularly reinvested in cheaper "rough diamonds" and then sell them on and instantly replace.

If it was about FFP, they would have done the full pitch renovation. It isn't. There is not some grand plan on behalf of their owners, or if there is, it isn't evident.

I didn’t say that’s what we’ve done historically - if you draw a straight line between what GB and JDT said upon their appointment and the aim of being a sustainable Premier League club, the answers to what they are trying / hoping to do lie somewhere in what I’ve said. I appreciate that there’s no evidential proof of that happening previously but it appears to be what they want to do.

2 hours ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

And we're off. Monty the first signing of the week. Exciting, 5 to go.

Monty?

12 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Maybe it is, we’ll soon find out.  It’s the owners’ club, they can pursue what they want.

But then need to stop all this silly talk about being a ‘sustainable Premier League club’, as that ain’t happening with a team of young lads.

You’re an intelligent guy, you know there’s more to it than that. The model is based on our budget. We can’t spend money we’re not generating with FFP looming and so the only way to compete is to focus on bringing top youth players through with cheap, rough diamonds from the lower / European leagues, developing them and then generating say £40m a season and reinvesting 50%, similar to the Brentford model which the club have referenced many times.

Do you expect them to come out and say “we’ve got a £16m budget vs £70-100m from those with parachute payments so we’ve just decided we can’t go up!”

The very best we can hope for is to be a sustainable Premier League club and that is the clubs goal. 

7 hours ago, bluebruce said:

That's fine if that's how you choose to view things. I'm not sure why you expend so much time and energy on castigating people who choose to view it differently though. Adopting a stance of realism based on recent history is perfectly reasonable.

I wonder how much of your emotional gains are outweighed by lamenting the thought processes of your fellow fans (and perhaps the disappointment when what you decided to expect to happen invariably doesn't). That said, this summer there is a bit more room for hope than most, with the new team. You'll note that I, who am often critical of what we do, am advocating patience in this early stage of the window. It's because I think it makes sense, not because of a positive or negative mindset.

I very rarely lament any negativity these days. I only replied to a poster who mentioned my mindset. 99% of the time I just provide my opinion.

But you advocating patience and your thought process around it absolutely is a mindset. You have the same / similar information to everyone else but you’re rationalising what’s happening whilst others literally lose their shit with each passing hour. I’ll bet that come the end of the window, if things have gone badly, you’ll feel annoyed and disappointed before quickly rationalising what’s happened and maybe saying “I’ll give it to Christmas”, right!? That’s mindset and it’s a choice once. One that no doubt serves you well in life. 

1 hour ago, Wing Wizard Windy Miller said:

To be fair Paul, you give it the positive 'lets see' every window.  Invariably,  I think it's fair to say you've been underwhelmed by the end of each window. 

So 4 weeks till the season starts and as you say, no head of recruitment and a dof who's only worked with youth. A manager who failed to attract one of his old players.  

I like the appointment of JDT but the whole thing has the venky stench of an underwhelming transfer window.  No doubt with the sale of Brereton late on!

Invariably I am underwhelmed, yes. But I make the choice to live in hope because it means I can live the next four weeks happily rather than bitter about something I have no ability to effect.

The points I made about no head of recruitment, a new manager and a DoF who’s never lived outside of youth football are fact, as is our small budget. So I see no point in driving myself insane because we’re not signing players like Burnley or keeping up with West Brom or Sheff United.

I choose to be hopeful that we can find some rough diamonds and blood some more of our youngsters and then maybe have a little splurge at the end of the window if we sell Brereton.

Its not In my nature to whinge…im grateful for what i have and only worry about stuff that’s within my control. If I can’t fix it, it’s not my problem.

2 hours ago, JHRover said:

Waiting doesn't necessarily mean we are going to get the better ones. Quite possibly the good ones will be gone by the time we are getting our business done.

It seems the assumption is that moving quickly means we are rushing or getting people in for the sake of it. On the other hand it could just mean we have a plan and are acting on it whereas rushing around at the last minute suggests no plan.

We ripped up the plan when the last manager and his head of recruitment left mate. Let’s get real.

Let’s get it right, the gig here is to get the right players. It’s not a race…

I want us to sign some great players asap but not to tick a box Connor Hourihane? Please.

I still think we’ll get one in this week but remember this, we still don’t have a head of recruitment, there’s a new manager and the DoF has only ever worked in youth football.

I think, other than a RB, we can put a good first XI out. So let’s see who we get, whenever we get them.

9 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Understand he was shown around Brockhall before the squad left for Portugal.

Are we now unable to compete with Derby?

Nah

9 hours ago, Torgeir said:

Can you name some names that are within that budget?

No, but I’m hoping we begin to find out soon! 

31 minutes ago, Mercer said:

I think our club is fecked......end of.

Optimism after appointment of JDT all but evaporated.

A long walk needed tonight followed by a few drinks.

This is your problem mate. Get yourself hydrated, a hot bath and an early night 👍🏼

Just now, RV Blue said:

Not a great sign if an ex JDT player can’t be convinced by JDT to join him is it

X2.5 on salary cannot be reconciled, even between friends! 

4 minutes ago, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

We basically need to hope that no other Championship club come in for players that we want, because we get trumped every single time. Does feel like there needs to be more flexibility in this wage structure of ours.

There’s literally nothing they can do. The budget is driven by our ability to generate money and how much we’re allowed to lose via FFP. So even IF V’s wanted to spend £50m of their own cash, they can’t without massively hindering the club!

22 minutes ago, Ghost7 said:

We are starting to feel noncompetitive wage wise in the Championship.

Just a case of budgets….Sheffield United still receiving parachute payments and fill their ground every week!!

Our budget is £16m, wouldn’t be surprised if theirs is 4x or more! Interesting, I heard the PNE have cut theirs from £18m to £12m this season…finances tight outside of the parachute clubs! 

2 minutes ago, TheRevAshton said:

https://www.sheffieldunited.news/news/sheffield-united-win-race-to-sign-anel-ahmedhodzic-ahead-of-blackburn/

Apparently Sheff United have beat us to Ahmedhodzic

Reported by Nixon, so….