Transfer Shouts (61 Viewers)

Hobo

Well-Known Member
Who remembers Dennis Mortimer going to Villa? Far and away our best player of the time.

Also Gary Thompson to WBA after reaching a League Cup Semi Final (when it was still a decent competion) and we had a first team squad of about 15 players 😁
 

Speedie's Head

Well-Known Member
Also Gary Thompson to WBA after reaching a League Cup Semi Final (when it was still a decent competion) and we had a first team squad of about 15 players 😁

Yes. The club had already shown that it had little ambition to compete at the top end of the first division by then (with the Mortimer sale). They seemed to be quite wealthy by the late 70s with a serious bid for Trevor Francis from the Bennies but then, as you say, top players left Ian Wallace, Gary Thompson etc to fund the new training ground, I think. It all seems like deja vu!
 

The Philosopher

Well-Known Member
Yes. The club had already shown that it had little ambition to compete at the top end of the first division by then (with the Mortimer sale). They seemed to be quite wealthy by the late 70s with a serious bid for Trevor Francis from the Bennies but then, as you say, top players left Ian Wallace, Gary Thompson etc to fund the new training ground, I think. It all seems like deja vu!
It’s a twist of history - we could have had Clough as manager (who would have probably, well more than probably signed Francis, we clearly had the money) and who knows.

Life is a series of fine margin calls.
 

Hobo

Well-Known Member
It’s a twist of history - we could have had Clough as manager (who would have probably, well more than probably signed Francis, we clearly had the money) and who knows.

Life is a series of fine margin calls.

To quote Arsene Wenger, Success and failure is often decided by millimetres.
 

Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Well-Known Member
"Calculated gambles" are a fools game. The club needs to run self sufficiently before anything else.

There are far too many fans with goldfish memories on here who have seemingly forgotten where spending money we don't have got us.

I'll be gutted to see a key player leave but that is the reality of where we stand... But give me striving in the Championship with stable foundations than gambling away our future with the risk of landing back in league 2

I have a feeling if we can ride out the post COVID finances and still have a competitive squad we will be miles ahead of loads of teams that are overreaching themselves financially.
Wasn't Hamer a 'calculated gamble'? And Gyokeres?

I (and I suspect most others on here) aren't saying we should start splashing cash like it's going out of fashion, we want to understand why we consistently have lower end budgets despite crowds and income streams being above mid table? Some clubs will be playing that high stakes game but not all surely? And if that's the way the market works then maybe our owners are in the wrong game?

The high interest on loans from the owners is millions. Even though only a fraction of that has been paid it just leads to it accruing even more. That's not sustainable either. Imagine what we could have done with £20m to invest in the squad rather than having one eye on the debt to the owners because of the interest accumulated.
 

Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Well-Known Member
We have a very strange ownership really. Most company owners invest to create value in the company and the extract a share. Our owners invest no money but extract value from the company's activities anyway.
It's how those obsessed with money work. Never want to pay for anything but want rewards just for being there.
 

Speedie's Head

Well-Known Member
We have a very strange ownership really. Most company owners invest to create value in the company and the extract a share. Our owners invest no money but extract value from the company's activities anyway.

It's win-win for the owners any losses belong to the club any profit for them. They'll be more than happy to extract interest on the notional debt as that is all income on their books whereas in reality these are historic debts are losses that belong to the owners that should have been written off. It's the way that vulture capitalists work.
 

Skybluebeliever

Well-Known Member
I have no doubt we are a selling club but other factors surely contribute to the extent that we rely on that being our primary business model? We were a selling club when we were exiled in Northampton and when we had 8000 often disillusioned fans at the Ricoh.
The club are currently riding a feel good wave of fan emotion and have one of the better upward trajectories of all clubs in the football league, this optimism is evidenced by the record number of season tickets sales we have made for 2022/2023. Therefore unless the sale is for extremely good money and it is explicitly and publicly authorarised by Robins allowing him to sign 2 or 3 important players or put towards the stadium, that psychological contract will once again begin to be damaged.
Joy and Tim need to remember how toxic things were recently and if they want to cash in fine, but make it explicitly clear to the fans what the rationale is.
Fans want to trust Boddy when he says that the best way to back the club is buying season tickets in your thousands. But if they then do that as well as buying merchandise at record levels but all roads lead to the same place it is disheartening to say the least.

I really appreciate your insight and I am not having a go at you personally but I just perhaps stupidly hoped with us being so tangibly close last year, putting some of the best in the league to the sword (without that little bit of cutting edge) we would take a calculated gamble this summer and build on some exciting foundations.
I would not be surprised if there was some kind of communication from SISU / Seppala in the coming weeks
 

SkyblueDad

Well-Known Member
It’s a twist of history - we could have had Clough as manager (who would have probably, well more than probably signed Francis, we clearly had the money) and who knows.

Life is a series of fine margin calls.
Don’t think we did have the money the Trevor Francis deal was in tandem with Jimmy Hills American adventure Washington Diplomats I think he would have been their player and loaned back to us when their season ended
 

SkyblueDad

Well-Known Member
Also Gary Thompson to WBA after reaching a League Cup Semi Final (when it was still a decent competion) and we had a first team squad of about 15 players 😁
Garry Thompson was one of a number of players flogged by chairman Jimmy Hill along with Garry Gillespie, Paul Dyson, Mark Hateley, Steve Hunt, Danny Thomas, those last three became England internationals there were others.
Manager Dave Sexton left but ironically his successor Bobby Gould raided the lower leagues and acquired the baulk of our cup-final team, as they say footballs a funny old game.
 

Samo

Well-Known Member
All clubs buy and sell.
Can we leave it with the 'selling club' shit please?
 

Old Warwickshire lad

Well-Known Member
Oh hang on a second, we bought Conor Chaplin 3 years ago

Get of the owners backs
Not on the illustrious owners backs, just stating fact.
Over the years we have had far better qualified people on here (eg. O.S.B ) than me. Who have explained in detail how the owners have made zero net investment.
We exist so they can pay their investors a dividend each year, whilst the club is burdened with more and more debt each season.
Unless they write off that debt, we are unsaleable.
I will believe in flying f****** pigs before that happens.
 

Hobo

Well-Known Member
All clubs buy and sell.
Can we leave it with the 'selling club' shit please?

I think people have just illustrated we have always sold players and brought players in. Like you say all clubs buy and sell. But some people seem to think we only sell because of SISU as owners - and that isn't true. All football clubs sell.
 

PUSB-We_are_going_up

Well-Known Member
I think people have just illustrated we have always sold players and brought players in. Like you say all clubs buy and sell. But some people seem to think we only sell because of SISU as owners - and that isn't true. All football clubs sell.
The issue is where that money goes, for us a couple of handbags for Joy, for others into signing new players to strengthen
 

Hobo

Well-Known Member
It would be funny if she put her handbag collection on display 😂
 

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