roversfan99

Its so short sighted. The only real way to reduce losses substantially is through player trading. We are now left with no real assets. With Szmodics, we paid was it £2m and sold for £9m. You can even get away with a dud or two on top of that and youve still made a profit on trading. If you spend money, its not just a case of increasing losses, especially as its amortized over the course of his contract. You are investing in potential assets to actually make money out of transfers.

Ignoring the repeated totally unnecessary patronising undertone. My point was that basically all Championship owners have to pump money in. In fact, football clubs in general, apparently the only Premier League owners not to need to offset losses last year was West Ham due to their government subsidised stadium. All I am saying is that it doesnt warrant credit. And I doubt that the fans of other clubs whose owners do the same even mention it, its just taken as a given. Share capital being raised to offset losses in the accounts to keep the company solvent, you own a football club, thats what you have to do. Theyve only been able to "take a hiatus" from offsetting the losses in the 2024 accounts due to the fortune of having an academy graduate (so not even an asset theyve brought in) who emerged and generated a club record sale as 100% profit. Theyve been clearly intent purely on reducing losses for a number of years. They still are but theyll still have to raise share capital in the 2025 accounts because we wont generate sufficient sales that will offset the losses. We havent spent a fee of over £2m for over 5 years. There hasnt been year after year of pumping in money out of ambition. You havent really disagreed with anything I have said. Im not sure what point you perceive that I have made that is odd.

Venkys clearly are trying their best to avoid having to fund losses. I think in the 2024 accounts we will show a small profit.

Because the owners are both totally detached delaying decisions being made and also have stripped back any reinvestment, its very difficult to get deals done quickly because you are left begging, stealing and borrowing for the scraps at the end of the window. The problem is, we dont only need quality in, we need players not at the end of the window but now. Chuck in rearranged games and our January is so busy, and we have gaps in key areas. Carter will be out until the start of February, Travis will be out until February, Baker has left a hole and Ohashi will be out until the start of February. We are short in all of those positions anyway, we only had 3 centre backs to begin with as McFadzean is not a genuine option in a back 4, we have 2 midfielders including Travis and then Buckley who isnt good enough. And Ohashi is our only striker who is anywhere near Championship standard and hes out. And thats before you consider the lack of pace in the team.

If you own a Championship football club, you will naturally spend more than you bring in. It doesnt deserve any credit, its something you know going into it and its something that if you arent willing to do then you need to sell. Preston recently announced that their owners had to put in an eight figure amount to cover their losses again, its widespread across the league.

For Baker? Doesnt play the same position.

Baker was average but he was sold enough. The type of squad player that is useful as opposed to last season when we had Garrett and Buckley in reserve when Travis and Wharton left. Buckley is a liability. Doesnt work hard, poor attitude, petulant and has far less footballing ability than certainly he thinks he does and even still some fans think. Takes far too long on the ball.

So we need another player now on top of what we already needed. Baker was average but average is a lot better than what Buckley is.

Its not the same as an ill advised attempt at getting extra income in counterproductive ways that will piss people off. I have no idea where you have got 50k from, theres no way we would have been paying close to that. But either way, I dont see what he would gain from kiboshing deals that have already been agreed. The most logical reason is that the owners didnt The Batth deal last summer was mentioned by @islander200. The owners cut the budget mid window and wouldnt allow his wages or the length of contract so the deal fell through.

With the Batth one, that was in the window where they cut the budget and put a freeze on transfers mid window. So I presume it would have been allowed until they moved the goalposts. So your theory is that the owners would allow deals to happen, Waggott and co set them up then for some reason kibosh them afterwards, for what motive I cant fathom. And they also would spend more but simply arent asked.

Why would Broughton and Waggott have set up deals only to then stop them? Makes no sense. The owners are the ones who have stopped the deals, who require authorising every deal at huge delays and who wont reinvest any money back in.

When they have been willing to spend a fee, its always been a miniscule one. Im sure this window will just be 2 or 3 squad players on loan again and it wont be enough to sustain a play off push. The owners are simply not interested.

Its Venkys aim to cut back as much as possible regardless of the damage it does. Waggott is just someone employed to do as hes told.

To be fair, Jason Lowe was our captain when we finished 8th/9th. Gueye has played plenty this season. Not saying either Hedges or Dolan are on par.

Theres no way that anyone here is on close to 30k.

Again symptomatic of Venkys that people dont seem us as having the resources to participate properly in more than 1 competition. What excites you more. FA cup or nations league?

Versatility is useful but I feel like its going to be instead of getting 2 players for 2 different positions, we need a winger and left back cover, you cant just sign 1 player to cover both because if hes needed at left back we are then left short out wide again. I just dont think hes the type of player we need, more of a utility man than someone to make a real difference in attack. He also wont be match fit so he will need some time to get up to speed if the argument for him is that he can slot straight in.

Notice given as you touch on is much better than it has been but that doesnt offset the fact that so many games are moved in the first place. Public transport wont change and also issues are caused with work etc if the game is moved to Friday night. So I agree that people will potentially reconsider going. I think the most ridiculous element is having so many games at the same time at Saturday dinner time. Theres no need to have 6 or 7 games across 3 leagues at the same time. Who genuinely is going to watch say Plymouth v Stoke, Exeter v Lincoln or Accy Stanley v Bradford as a neutral to the point where it justifies the inconvenience to the fans of those sides.

Agreed. If you loan someone from this country, Schlupp is an example of this. Even though they may not need to settle in terms of being in the country, they are going to take time to get up to speed as they likely wont have played much football lately. The 2 ways to open up the range of potential signings are obviously to have more money which presumably again wont be the case, or to at least consider options outside of the box, potentially from abroad. Although we do need cover defensively, the main area we need to strengthen is in attack and I dont think experience is a primary necessity. If anything, we need energy and pace.

If Schlupp, Kent and Hanley are genuine targets, are they likely to hit the ground running? None of them have played much football recently. I think Hanley has also recently had injury issues. If we have more money, we stand a better chance of getting better players. Im not saying focus on signing players for the future, it was just a side point that years of budget cutting and no reinvestment has left us sorely lacking in assets. I have no idea if Eustace specifically endorses any signings we go on to make, no one knows. Obviously he should and he probably will. But I also anticipate that the choices put before him will be a very limited one due to a lack of budget, so it might have a feeling of best of a bad bunch. Say we sign Schlupp for example, that might be the option Eustace chooses from a list put before him of other potential loans. But if we had 2 or 3 million to spend on that position, that would open up a far bigger range of options and potentially change the choice he would make. I dont think we are currently lacking much in terms of experience, we have brought quite a lot in already. What we sorely lack is pace and goals. I think if Eustace/Gestede was backed rather than just forced to scrape for loans then we would stand a much better chance of bringing in quality, with the added bonus of bringing in players who could potentially benefit us longer term.

Id likely take him but I dont see Eustace being backed which is why I said it will never happen. It will be pick from this list of loanees and hasbeens.

There are often players with 6 months left on their deal that can be picked up cheaper than normal.

Sellable assets doesnt mean young lads who arent ready. Its bringing in higher quality than what is available fishing around to borrow players which isnt backing him.

Hes probably our most valuable player, and im not sure hes that valuable. Currently recovering from a second serious injury, and not young or of sufficient quality to have Premier League interest.

Its good to have experience but we have absolutely no sellable assets or players who down the line we can polish up and sell on should we choose. Problem is, they cost money, and absolutely none is being made available despite all of the sales we have made. We need to have players like that because our squad is full of plasters and they get ripped off in the short term.