Slightly different Live from Redfearn's Bar at 7pm tonight

Why do you think that we have chosen to sell players with 12 months of their contracts remaining?

This is what I think. I think that we have had discussions about signing a new contract, but that they are asking for a rate of pay that we can not afford. In that case, we could continue to employ him, but at the next transfer window, his transfer fee would be reduced and at the following window, he leaves for nothing. Once again, it is about finance and doing what is best for the club financially and prudently. Finance is the clear driver of the policy.

 

Everyone knows that that is what happened and that's the decision they made. And there's sense in it.

BUT you have to bring football into the equation at some point. SWe got a couple of million for Pinnock, but if we'd kept him we might have stayed up and saved 6 million this summer.

 

The bottom 3 clubs in the Championship currently are the 3 club that were promoted. That suggests that the step up from League 1 is a big one. In that case, there is no guarantee that retaining Pinnock for the season would have prevented relegation. In that case the £3m in the hand was worth more than the £6m in the bush. In any event, I would argue that the £6m being referred to is offset to a certain amount by savings on player pay. The last time that we played in League 1, the club lost £3m so lets us say that it was £3m in the hand versus perhaps £4m in the bush. For me, in those circumstances you have to take the £3m in the hand.

You see how interesting discussions about finance are once you get into them. Perhaps it isn't just me that is interested.

 

He was relatively inexperienced himself as a manager, on a learning curve. Unfortunately the championship isn't the most forgiving of leagues. I do get the idea of hanging on to a lead but I'm not sure we've been very good at that all this season. Comes back to the inexperience of the defence again imo.

 

No I agree. Same got said about Wilson in our Premiership season too. Never a dull moment though!

 

For some reason, when I read your reply, I got the impression of a Monty Python sketch with an elderly woman clutching a handbag, scrunching up her shoulders and saying Ooooh.

Seriously, a football conversation that avoids finance is a fantasy conversation. You are having a discussion whilst avoiding the biggest and most telling factor.

 

If a club chooses not to pay Championship-level wages to retain existing players capable of operating at that level while simultaneously telling the fans that "stability in the Championship" is the Board's aim, are they not being dishonest with the fans?

 

Have to agree to some extent to this, we did get exposed by the tactics on an all out attack option fairly often. In league 1, maybe 1 our of every 5 chances gets put away, probably 1 every 2.5 in the champ. It never bothered me selling Pinnock, it's more we never adequately upped the spreadsheet quality setting as a start point. I think that is the only thing wrong with the philosophy, as we move up a division we do need to adjust the parameters accordingly. Lindsay, I never rated highly anyway so no loss IMO, no pace shirt puller who I always half expected to give away a penalty.

Pinnock and Solbauer would have been interesting though.

Good session though Loko as always.. PS could Leon have looked any more different from the picture

 

Did the club say, stability in the Championship next year?

Here you hint at a fundamental difference in my outlook as compared to many others. The first thing that is important to me is not putting the club at any risk. It was a long time ago now, but I did not enjoy our period in Administration and I do not think that we should risk it again. Now I know that you are a betting man and therefor that you have a fundamentally different attitude to myself concerning risk and reward, but I guess even you would not bet your house. That is what keeping up with Championship pay level involves. It has to be admitted that Company Accounts do not tell the full story by any means, but the levels of borrowing and refinancing in the Championship are truly mind boggling, and in many cases amount to betting the house.

I do not want to split hairs with you, but you obviously regard this single season as the straw that broke the camel's back. I have been supporting the club for 55 years. During that time, I have seen lots of ups and downs and the thing that I am convinced of is that looking at single seasons in isolation is the wrong way to go about it. If instead you look at continuous improvement you will be nearer to my position. I look at our current squad, and I see lots of talent that the club will work with to improve. In my opinion, many our our current squad will eventually be worth a lot of money. Ah, I hear you thinking, then they will be sold and we will be back to square one, which is true, except that the money that is generated from the sale of our current players will be reinvested over and over again, and over the long term that continuous improvement in the club will see us establish in the Championship. The Championship is a financial bubble. The wages that are being paid there, the losses that are being made there, the refinancing that has had to be done there are, in my opinion, unsustainable in the long term. The EFL has tried to institute FFP rules that would protect clubs from themselves and their own financial mis-management, but the clubs seem unwilling to accept those rules without attempting to cheat in order to gain advantage. The whole thing is a bubble that will eventually burst, and I hope that my club will come out the other side better than most. To summarise - You are looking for success in the short-term. I am looking for long term sustainability.

 

I'm a mere stripling of 52 years of going down to Oakwell! It is exactly two and a half years to the day since the new owners came in. I see very little that has improved from the days when our owners were (supposedly) far less wealthy people. So the selling policy that has been the club's way throughout it's history continues. I will be astonished if Mowatt, Woodrow, Brown and Chaplin are all still at the club whenever the next season starts. You pay your money and make your choice. But I find the policy of simply waiting for the financial tide to go out in order for us to succeed is totally illusory.

 

I do not think that things are much different, after all, they are applying the self same policies as Patrick Cryne. To me, that is not the point. The point is, it is the self sustaining way to operate if I want to have the club for the rest of my life. There are undoubtedly other ways of doing things but the question is then, why would our owner do things another way. My view is that our owner has not bought our football club as an act of charity, a lender of last resort. I think that our owner has bought the club to eventually make money out of his ownership. He will only make money if he can sell the club for more than his overall investment. That is, his original investment to buy the share capital from Mr Cryne, plus any subsequent investment which he makes in order to improve the value of the club. Unlike you, I do not see the current owner as a bad owner. I see them as an owner who is trying to improve on his investment by improving on the way that the club operates and manages itself. At the end of the day, the owner must improve the value of the club in order to sell it at a profit, and that could be as simple as establishing it in the Championship. The point I am making is, that in the end the owners aims match the aims of the fans. We are not on opposite sides as many like to paint it. We both want the same things, but I guess our time scales may be the thing that is not aligned.

Your question interested me and it has allowed me to think things through, and I am grateful for that.