I think it's more like: I run a business selling designer t-shirts. The big-ticket brands, such as Armani and Hugo Boss are very expensive, even at wholesale prices(but also guaranteed to sell, albeit at a lower profit) and my business doesn't make enough to stock them. What I can afford is a bunch of other, lesser-known brands that are currently cheaper, but if one proves popular its value will be sky high and I can make big money from it. The big question is how long can I keep investing in potential big-ticket items and hold on to the lesser-known stock before it becomes a huge detriment to my business progression, and is it a false economy to keep my business plan as it is rather than just paying out for the good **** and accepting a smaller margin(i.e. the point if your analogy)?
I think we're not intentionally trying to sign crap forwards. Equally, we could sell Schmidt, Miller, Aitchinson, Thomas, Frieser and Adeboyejo, and use the entire budget on 1 striker, who then also doesn't live up to expectations. It's swings and roundabouts. The ones we do have, barring Morris, were signed to fit into a different managers style of play. We're getting incredibly top heavy with average players again though, and the decks need clearing before we're able to bring anyone else in I reckon. Its difficult to do business in January already, without a pandemic and the uncertainty brought on by Covid. I think the best thing for us to do today and tomorrow is, ensure our best players remain at the club. Then maybe plug the gaps where we have them, until the end of the season. Maybe 1 or 2 loanees. An out of favour championship striker, or young lad from the PL.
you are more pissed off for being 12th in the championship than you were being bottom of league one and losing at altringham? it takes all sorts I guess.....
You hope we don’t buy any more players? There’s not a club in the land whose got a 100% success rate of signing players, not one.
What about if you’ve spent all your money on the Debenhams shirt and it turns out to be really poor quality. Oh and you’ve lost the receipt so can’t return it.
Kind of an ok analogy. Would work better if the Debenhams T-shirt was actually a Prada T-shirt, that you had blown your gas bill money on. Then all the shirts, shorts, pants and socks started kicking off because you bought them from primark as well. I appreciate this is a tad more surreal. Then the Prada T-shirt actually turns out to be rubbish and all your mates rip the pi$$ out of you. And you still have no gas bill money left.
I'm in a better frame of mind after a good night's sleep, so I'll just say this. I'd rather watch our front three (no matter which three of our forwards were selected), than watch Lewis Grabban.
I do think we hoof the ball up too much when under pressure. But this year I am very optimistic about winning every game.... which for this league hasn’t happened very much. So overall I’m quite happy about the situation... To keep the analogy going.... I don’t want to sell a Prada T-shirt cheap on eBay so that I can buy 3 primark T-shirt’s. Also I’m not sure I want to sell my old Prada T-shirt that will wear out at the end of the year, because before then I’ve got a couple of big parties to go to. I might even want to rake it to the tailors and get it fixed...
It wouldn't. None of us expect to shop for Prada. None of us expect us to buy outside of our budget. Debenhams is within our budget. It's just we have chosen to spend our budget on a lot of cheaper items rather than a couple of more expensive ones that are within budget. Your analogy would only make sense if I was suggesting we overspend, which I'm not.
The good old days of signing players off the back of a decent season in English Football. I don't know why we still don't do that. For example there is Luke Jephcott at Plymouth..... https://www.soccerbase.com/players/player.sd?player_id=116541 He's just the kind of player we used to go for. He knows English Football, he is only 21, a youth international for Wales and scored 16 in 26 this season. Infact he's scored in a dozen of his last twenty games after a slowish start to the season.
Agreed. Imagine paying all that money for Grabban, Knockaert, Kronovic and the rest and then having to watch that.. The BBS WOULD be in meltdown
I'd consider Chaplin and Freiser to be more of a Tank top than a t-shirt !! Look lovely but don't quite do the job that you want em to do.
I would love to see Cauley reach twenty league goals this season and it's doable if he gets the right service. It would be nice to see him bag his first brace of the season as it's been a while since he's scored more than one.
The reason why Woodrow has a crack at getting 20 goals this season is because of players alongside him doing all the donkeywork. Chaplin, Ade, Frieser.
No. I hope we don't blow a heap.of money on a player in his first season of professional football. Too much of an expensive gamble.
Was herbie kane cheap? The problem isn’t the fee, it’s wages. When was the last time we signed a ‘proven’ championship player? Alternatively, show me one that’s playing today, that we could sensibly afford? Our recent ‘better’ players were signed from lower league teams, on lower league contracts - then moved on. Not because they were past their best. Because they’ve signed for clubs who could pay them more. A lot more. In principle it makes sense what you’re saying. I agree. In practice I’m suggesting it’s way harder than that. If it wasn’t, we’d be doing it.
You need to bear in mind that someone at EFL Headquarters has spotted that we've exceeded our penalty quota for the season. It's the only way to explain the decisions in the last two games. That could put the mockers on Woodrow getting to 20.
It's very difficult for us to now afford the wages of a few decent players as the budget is taken up with so many mediocre players. We have way more forwards than we need. We had three in the starting line up yesterday and four on the bench. We're still looking for another. But we pretty much already know that forward won't have any kind of pedigree. It's not that we can't, theoretically, afford a couple of players that have shown a bit of form elsewhere, it's that we're already using a lot of the budget to pay the wages of players we don't need.
