46 minutes ago, S8 & Blue said:

Long ball merchants. Say what you want about Mowbray, but at least we can pass it around a bit better.

Could be ideal for Sammy G and Lenihan's hoof but I don't see it happening.

Not really worried if it is long ball or possession based football, so long as it is effective, we win matches and we get promoted.

3 minutes ago, tomphil said:

3 million bought Raya,  3  million bought Tom Cairney...

Let's just think about that when putting actual sale prices on some of these lads.  I could easily see Nyambe or Travis going for that of a bit less before add on's. 

Armstrong and Dack will have the premium prices but maybe not as daft as some would think. 

If we sold the 5 players we would get around £20m. Their wages and the out of contract players would probably save around £8m for the next season, which is probably what is required.

Allow 1 or 2 free transfers on low wages and a couple of loan signings as replacements and that would probably be it for us

Just now, Bigdoggsteel said:

Of course and we don't know their thoughts(not even Mowbray seems to!) but I don't think they are going to start selling cheaply whilst Mowbray is here. 

If history is any indicator, he won't have a say. 

11 minutes ago, 47er said:

If we sell them then the last 3 years will have been a lie. We won't have been "building" at all will we?

I would agree we should be building around them.

A building strategy is always a silly idea, as things change. If you have a chance for promotion you go for it whenever it arises as you may never get another chance.

1 minute ago, chaddyrovers said:

Aren't the bank of India loans with Venkys London limited? 

Surely we should wait for Mowbray to get our budget which I believe will be this week

The overdraft is a Rovers debt.

In 2008, the company i worked for had our £5m overdraft called in by Lloyds during the financial crisis with just 10 working days notice to settle it. It was a horrifying experience.

There are going to be more and more of these stories over the summer. For 2 main reasons, agents want their players out of Rovers and we are looking like we have to sell.

If we look at what is happening in India, Bank of India is having liquidity issues and calling in debt. For Rovers, the issue with that is they are more than likely to call in our £15m over draft to be paid pretty quickly (and this is a Rovers debt). For, Venkys the issue is they are unlikely to be able to raise funding for Rovers in their normal way.

So pretty quickly if the worst comes to it we may need to raise £30m this summer in player sales and reduced wages, to keep us afloat for the next season. With potentially £15-20m being needed in the next 6 weeks.

I think all 5 will be gone as well as a few more at probably pretty low prices.

It pains me to say but I think if someone offers between £3-5m for him this summer he will be gone.

We'll find a lot out in the next few days. Under normal circumstances and with how generous Tony is with contracts, you would expect all of our out of contract players to be offered new deals. If all of them leave without being offered any type of deal, it would indicate that Venky's have turned the taps off and we will most likely be selling most of our star players.

The interview yesterday about 6+ loan players is also a worry.

2 hours ago, JHRover said:

These are the people who ushered Tom Cairney out the door for a knock down fee without even consulting the manager

 

Wasn't that sale to pay a HMRC tax bill who were threatening to launch administration proceedings.

The summer will be very difficult for us and I expect more player sales than arrivals. The good news is a lot of the academy lads are coming through so we should have a reasonably competitive side when all of the sellable assets are sold.

Also if Coventry have the funds and Venky's accept the offer, he will be gone.

10 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Surely big cutbacks needed there with their squad. Very rich owners yes but piling more onto the losses and wages will cause chaos for them and FFP. Plus they've also got the costs of firing managers to account for. Parachute money will halve this summer. After 2 years down.

I don't doubt you are correct they could easily afford it, as could Venkys, but surely they will have to reign it in a bit.

The difference being they are fans and will find ways round FFP. Also the Coates family are true verifiable multi Billionaires where as Venky's are not necessarily as rich.

Stoke is fully funded through Bet365 and so will not be that hard for them to absorb the costs etc especially is FFP is relaxed for the next season.

7 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Brentford have money in the bank. So could afford it but unlikely to spend that much

West Brom might have line up Grant if they go up. 

 

Stoke can easily afford it

2 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Why administration is almost a certainly? 

why do Venkys get out of that? 

As far as i know Venky's have never put a penny of their own cash into us. It has been loans and mortgages from the Bank of India using the 1000's of acres of prime land and real estate they own as collateral for these loans.

This is all well and good so long as the land assets continue to increase, to enable them to remortgage every couple of years and they pay the interest payments. 

Issue arise such as 4 years ago and our relegation from premier league when they can't remortgage quickly or land prices have not gone up sufficiently. This is when, such as during the last summer of Gary Bowyer and the Coyle summer, when we had difficulty paying our wage bill on a number of occasions in those 2 seasons.

So long as the loans stay with Venky's everything is ok, if the loans are transferred to the UK holding company then that is when we will be put into administration and quickly.

This summer i expect it to be very tight again, as land prices have fallen and the Bank of India is calling in loans and not lending at present.

12 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Just look at the Wigan owner who put the club in admin after 4 weeks. 

That could be the best thing for them. They have very little Football debt and are in a much better recovery position than ourselves from a financial sense.

If we go into admin now, ours will be a lot trickier to recover from. We are still playing managers, players etc off from years ago. All our transfers have been payments over a number of years and these for new owners have to be paid in full as per the agreement. Football debt is not like normal debt where the new owner offers 10p in the £ to clear the debt etc.

It will be a horror story looking at our books, probably why the haven't put us into Administration thus far.

I think Rothwell was a good buy at the price but he is used very poorly.

He needs a better manager, he'll probably leave in the summer, go to a new club, have a blinder of a season and we will sadly regret it.

2 hours ago, davulsukur said:

Venkys are terrible for slow starts with transfer budgets.

Mowbray can't fly out to India this time, so you would hope that they just get this Skype call done asap.

I am not sure how he keeps up with his claptrap about not knowing his budget.

It's simple and pretty much all of us know the budget for next season already, to comply with FFP we need to reduce our budget for next season by £13m. So he will need to generate £8-10m in player sales and reduce the wage bill by £3-5m.

To do that he needs to immediately get rid of all out of contract players, which should reduce the wage bill by £2-3m. He then needs to player trade like he has never done before to get a competitive squad together quickly. I would have much more confidence in a Warnock or Allardyce to do this or even Gareth Ainsworth and Karl Robinson who can bring through good quality lower league players and there will be an abundance of those being released by clubs. 

If FFP are relaxed for a season he will get the same budget as this year. It is that simple but you would plan and budget based on the rules staying the same.

What was Wycombe's wage budget for the year, around £2m to 2.5m tops?

A very impressive promotion considering the squad reduction and sell off he had to do last summer.

1 minute ago, superniko said:

Their share price has also risen something like 250% since they bought us to today’s price (400%+ pre-COVID), yet has made no difference in how they invested over those years. 

I do agree that I’m expecting nothing positive due to the shit show that is 2020 alongside bleak FFP. They are as rogue as it comes though so who knows.

They have Invested based on mortgages on the land they own increasing in value 15 fold since they purchased us and being able to remortgage etc at higher amounts.

As land prices are now reducing and the Indian banking system having liquidity issues due to Covid, i would say they may not have the available cash to invest that much at the moment even if they want to.

15 minutes ago, Mercer said:

I think we will see a transfer window that we have rarely seen before with player sales and incomings restricted in the main to frees and loans. 

I think Waggott and Mowbray will be tasked with raising a minimum of £10million through player trading and slashing the wage bill by £5million (including NI).

Next season, IMO, will be one tough challenge for survival.

 

To stay within FFP guidelines, the above is the minimum we will have to do, i would probably say £12m in trading surplus plus £7m wage bill reduction would be more likely requirment..

If FFP are relaxed for next season then spending a bit this summer would be the best course of action. All depends what happens with FFP rules for next season in the next couple of weeks.

1 hour ago, tomphil said:

When the owners decide they want to do that they do so regardless. Therefore perfectly understandable fans might urge the same sometimes.

You reap what you sow.

For ourselves a rule like that would be pretty harsh and rule out a lot of owner investment in sides and players.

If you think at present  we have a £10m turnover, so to run the club properly and on a sustainable footing, we would be looking at the following:

1. Total Wages For all Employees (Players, Staff, Directors, Groundsmen, security) including Pensions, NI contributions - £5m

2. Youth Setup - £1.5m

3. Transfer Budget - £1m

4. Operating Costs, Police, Ground Maintenance - £2m

5. Contingency - £0.5m

Total - £10m

1 hour ago, tomphil said:

They'll never do that whilst there are assets to cash in it wouldn't make any sense really. Like last time we were sailing close to the wind the 30 million they recouped reset the clock for a bit longer.

Bound to need re sting again soon though.

Other option is for the next 12 months to reduce the amount they will put in down to £3m for the season, meaning we need to generate or reduce costs by £12m. If they do want to do that, there will be no contract extensions and all sellable players will be gone. So we'll need someone better than Tony at developing youth players and much more experienced at player trading to put a team out for next season.

I am not sure which is worse administration or death by a 1000 cuts.

I am more worried about this being the perfect time and excuse for Venky's to put us into administration without losing any face.

You can easily spin it and get lots of positive press in India by saying they have put us into administration to invest the £15m a year on Indian healthcare projects during this extremely difficult time.

8 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Like article says they want someone who will develop their young players. Plus players who have 1 year left on the contract likely to be sold. They dont want old school manager who gets involve in everything. Guess that's their owner choice. We see how successful it is

It is the Brentford approach, head coach looks after team, training, day to day etc, DOF looks after the strategic areas. Do Bristol City have a DOF?

I also see that Brentford have now brought in specific coaches for the defence, set pieces (both attack and defending) and link up play etc.

I think i would go for Gareth Ainsworth for what he has achieved at Wycombe on a shoe string budget bringing through lots of kids etc.

If he gets them promoted we may find out just how good he is next season when Wycombe probably take 6 points of us.