By ill-judged purchases, I guess you mean that our owners spent money on players who did not improve under the guidance of our coaching staff, and who we could not sell for a profit at a later date. There is no doubt that the club has bought players who have not responded to our coaches, and whose value has not increased. What is not clear is just whose fault that is. Were the players we bought a mistake, or were the coaches we hired the mistake. Personally, I find Asbaghi too focused on defense, and I believe that that focus has given the players a negative outlook. Perhaps the players would have improved under a different coach. What is true is that most players fail at most clubs most of the time, or at least that is the view of most fans. Barnsley thought that it had cracked the problem of buying a larger proportion of players on an upward curve in value because they bought according to a formula developed by Cryne Jr. Several things have happen within the last few years that has taken away many of the advantages of that system. The rest of football has caught up. They are all using similar systems to identify players. Our withdrawal from the EU has meant that the UK government wanted only international players to be granted permission to work in the UK, and we cannot afford to pay the wage demands of international players. Bargains are no longer available from the lower leagues because of competition amongst clubs from higher leagues, and most of those clubs have higher pay budgets than Barnsley does. As our reserves of cash have dwindled, we have had to take more risks to acquire the players that we need, and many of those risks have not paid off. Young players have not yet developed consistency. They may eventually develop in the way that we hope they will, but that will take longer than the instant success that you need in a relegation fight. However, they are cheaper to buy than older players with proven characteristics, and crucially, their wage costs are lower than older players. Finally, it is part of our business plan that we sell players for profit, and that is just not an option for the older player. I am sure that we did not set out this summer to buy players who would take us down, but the accounts for the year before showed just how little money there was to strengthen the team. I guess we used the money that we got from West Brom for Ismael, but that was not enough to buy the quality that we needed. The owners do not run the business. They appoint a CEO who does that on their behalf. They set the general business plan, and they will approve budgets, but they do not run the business on a day to day basis. Conway took over the role of CEO only because the **** had hit the fan. He has no experience of doing that role in the UK. He did not do a very good job, but he was all there was. His time at the helm has arguably cost us our place in the Championship, although how you can prove that conclusively with so many alternative explanations, is beyond me. We have to watch our team play in a lower division next season. The owners potentially need to refinance the club. Neither party has come out of last summer with anything to look forward to.
It is definitely difficult to think of much to look forward to. Your analysis simply points to the fact that the owners’ model cannot, and will not, work.
Derby County are looking at new owners paying more than 8 million and they don't own their ground. Wigan don't either do they and they got buyers.
I think there are 4 things we could do instantly. Stop paying transfer fees on inexperienced gambles. Reduce the squad size to manageable levels. Reduce executive salaries. Recruit players within our affordability criteria that are ready for the first team now. As a club, we've wasted so much money it's frightening. I'd be keen to tot up all the players we've bought under their stewardship and work out as a percentage to turnover how much we've had to write off each year. I suspect it would be eye watering. If we can minimise that wastage, reduce the squad size so more than half of our first team players actually have a chance of getting on the pitch most weeks, cut the exec budget, we'll have more scope to be more competitive with our wage budgets at whatever level we are. The idea to generate return on players is a noble one. Granted less noble when you plunder the coffers for your own ends as an ownership. But we have to shift tack slightly to look at the first team. The focal point is the success of the first team. If we sign someone, are they improving the first team now? That has to be the priority. We have a youth set up. Let it work. Give our kids a chance rather than ones signed for fees. If they aren't good enough, fine, look to replace. And by all means, look to use data. But not in a stand alone way. I think it's imperative to watch players, to have scouts still doing their jobs and looking at attitude. What are they like when their team lost. When they've been booked. When they are under pressure. When they are behind. And that can supplement data. My other query really is just how robust is the data we collect? Who is collecting it? Is it accurate? Is it reflective of what we expect of them? Is it sufficiently complete?
The lack of focus on the first team, and in building a team rather than recruiting a set of individuals with, hopefully, potential resale value, is the main problem with the ‘model’. In my opinion, it is also the major difference between Patrick Cryne’s approach and the way things are being done now. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I believe the data is bought in. It would be impossible to collect all player data from every game throughout the UK and also Europe. The model of buying and selling players is common. Every team in the Championship sells players at some time or another. The difference is that many owners are prepared to cover losses until the books can be balanced by a windfall from a player sale. That is fine, except it is hard to know when you are funding losses until a player can be sold, and when you are simply funding a loss making company that has no chance of ever making a profit. In no other walk of life would an owner continue to fund a business that was losing money year after year like football clubs owners do. Your model is not too dissimilar to the model that we use. You have simply cut out the transfer fees for players that you perceive will be a waste of money. You are hoping that the sale of academy players will bring in sufficient cash to cover the losses we make playing football. I do not know whether your model works, just as I do not know if our current model works under different circumstances. However, I would caution against reducing the squad size too drastically. I my view, part of the problem this season has been our long term injury list. Even on Saturday, I counted 4 players who would have been in the starting 11 if they were not injured, and when there is no quality beneath the starting 11, that is bound to make a difference.
The pool of players who have made a first team appearance is 34. We also have Aitchison and Christie-Davies who haven't yet made an appearance but you could class as options for the first team. I suspect Winfield would have made an appearance too if he hadn't been injured. 36/7 is way too much. As a result, I think we're loaning out 9 players. That's just bonkers. And that's the waste. 9 players who we're not playing, but paying towards for another club. Hopefully, they benefit on the pitch, but in several cases, we're only doing it to offset the wages we pay as we wait for their long contracts to lapse. Start to rectify this obvious imbalance and we'd be in a better place financially. What I do think we should be doing is breaking even every year. Which is a significant shift from the current. Transfer fees incoming are then clear water. At present, we take fees in, pay fees out and increase the wage bill to unsustainable levels. This all on the false premise that this approach will deliver greater transfer fees in and continue the conveyor belt.
The problem with comparing football with any other form of business is surely that no other form of business could afford to treat customers in the way that some football clubs do. In other words it’s not the same, and by treating it as such you risk killing the blind loyalty that clubs like ours rely on.
It is a bizarre model that they are using, where they try to be a club that develops young players to sell on, then signs a ton of players that are 23 or under who then impede the development of the academy players. Are the likes of Devaney and Hassell consulted when signing players to see if there is anybody coming through in that position? Last season saw Herbie Kane displaced by Romal Palmer, this season saw Wolfe overtake Benson. Two players from the academy overtaking the players we paid fees for. And they're the two that can leave for free in the summer. No doubt Luton will sign at least one of them.
I think all logic suggests that either through incompetence or bad luck or a combination of the two we were completely unprepared for the summer transfer window with Murphy & the management team departing. It strikes me that Oulare, Iseka & Vita were all players that wouldn’t have been identified by any data model & were more than likely recommended by an agent to Conway or other board members. Gomes was probably recruited as well based on the pre-season friendly with City’s under 23’s. I really don’t think there was much if any research gone into these 4 signings & it showed with how unfit they all were (or surely must’ve been to not be involved in Vita’s case). Benson, Cole & Kitching haven’t performed either so up to now it has to go down as a really poor window. Some of them might come good in the future but we needed some of them to hit the ground running & they weren’t ready for that.
Cole and Kitching were both signed by Dane Murphy. Kitching was signed in January '21. Ismael was still in charge when Cole signed, I wonder if either Ismael or Murphy thought they would still be around to see him play? My suspicion is that Khaled was behind the signings of Vita and Gomes on deadline day, while Conway oversaw the spending on Oulare, Iseka and Benson. The one thing I can't understand about the summer, is the suggestion that none of the players were given training programs in pre-season. A championship club, and we had nobody to make sure the players were fit going into the season?!
It isn't a suggestion Leythtyke. Coming back from Reading this season we stopped at Services. Bristol Rovers also stopped at the same services. We had a chat with Luke Thomas. He confirmed it. Also talked about a few other things which I won't say. Seemed very surprised that someone played that day too.
Just to be clear, I wasn't disputing the accuracy of it when I called it a suggestion, just that I hadn't heard anything first hand about it. Though the evidence has been there on the pitch all season. Absolutely scandalous that nobody was tasked with managing pre-season, given all the coaching staff that were still at the club.
I completely forgot about Kitching signing in January. He was injured for ages if I remember right & made a few appearances at the end of the season. It was bizarre, for pretty much all of Schopp’s reign we seemed to blow up after an hour. The football weren’t great but there were plenty of games we were level & matching the opposition at half time only for us to fade second half. If the players had started the season a bit fitter we might be in a lot better position. An absolute shambles for sure
Breaking even is a laudable aim, and I applaud your reasoning. However, we had the 3rd lowest wages bill in the Championship in 2020/21. We lost over £4m in that year, which is the reason we are short of cash, but that figure was also one of the lowest in the Championship. There are many reasons why our performance this season has been so lamentable, but overpaying players and high transfer spending are not among them. Most of the clubs in the Championship owe their owners huge sums. Owners continue to invest in spite of the losses. The sums being spent on players will buy better quality than we can afford. We have to have a better way of playing if we are to win games against the odds. Our coach has not produced the appropriate tactics to do that. When the final few clubs publish their annual accounts, I will summarise the important figures in a series of tables for 2020/21 season. I have already looked at the figures published to date, and they do not say that Barnsley FC overpaid on player wages in that season or that the club overspent on transfer fees. They say that most other clubs in the league cheated for FFP purposes. Those financial results dictated what happened this season, because all the cash was gone. They probably dictated the mess that happened over the summer. They say that Barnsley FC will struggle to compete in the Championship if the clubs refuse to toughen up the FFP rules.
We lost £4m because our wages boomed last season, in part due to new acquisiitons, but coupled with players we couldn;t get rid of. The same is the case this season. But last year, despite furlough monies and insurance payouts which subsidised the losses even further by around £2.6m I think it was from memory, our wages far outstripped our income. To generate a loss, we have to exceed turnover with spend. So what has contributed to that excessive spend? Wages. Having a first team pool of 36/7 is a largesse in the extreme for a club our size. You have to look at what drives the figures, not just the figures. Cause and effect. I'd also suggest breaking even is not a laudible aim, but an essential one given we have no fall back guarantor of last resort.
The best time to have a player for development and increase in values at the first and second contract stages. Ralf Rangnick and Red Bull used that system. Barnsley are influenced by this at club and ownership level.
Our turnover last season was £12.5m, compared to £14.2m the year before. The reduction was of course due to COVID. The figure of £12.5m does not include our claim against our business interruption insurance because it is recorded in the accounts as Other Income, but I think it right that we include it there for purposes of comparison. The claim plus government grants amounted to £2.8m and brings total turnover up to £14.3m. Of course, the profit that we make on player sales is not counted as turnover either. That profit was 3.4m but reduces to £0.5m when amortisation and other specific player related costs are deducted. In other words, we made £0.5m on trading players, even after deducting costs specific to that activity. Total pay costs (which includes player pay) amounts to £14.4m. At the end of last season, Conway complained that finishing 5th had cost the club money. I believe that cost was partly the bonuses due to players for finishing in a play-off position. In other words, player pay is based partly upon results, and if results are better, then pay costs will be higher. I also believe that the Dyke signing was a gamble that was not budgeted for, a gamble that could have paid dividends if we had been promoted. I do not agree that the accounts necessarily show that player pay costs were out of control. Look, we should not be at odds here. I want my club to succeed as much as the next fan, but if Bournemouth for example are spending £57.4m on total pay, how is our club expected to compete for quality of player with them, and they are not the only club I could quote. If our club cut back on pay, but maintains an academy at a cost of £1m per year, how is it going to compete on wages with clubs that do not have an academy in order to attract the type of player that you want to acquire. Your aims are praiseworthy, but fans will not be happy if we are losing games, and their contribution through the turnstiles represents a larger proportion of turnover in the lower leagues. The point that I was making is that even with FFP rules that allow clubs to lose £39m over 3 years in the Championship, some clubs are still having to cheat in order to comply.