Ghost of Clough

Define "decimated". In terms of players, we lost only Ryan, Eze (who joined us at the start of that season), and Kellyman from our academy sides during adminstration. Williams was a fringe first teamer by the time we sold him. In terms of staff, I beleive we no longer have any vacancies for academy roles. Define "dreadful". Last season, the U18s finished 7th last season (2 points off 4th) and are currently 4th (3 points off 3rd) this season. Results for the U21s this season still aren't great, but if you'd watch them you'd know they aren't too far off the pace - evidenced by having lost by more than 1 goal only twice in all compettiions since September (a record which our first team also has). It defeinitely won't take a "geenration" to get back to the levels we were at previously. Warne has had a number of academy players participate in first team training. That doesn't mean he's willing to give them a go in the first team though. It also doesn't mean Warne is a good or bad judge of player. As I've stated many times before, there is also a difference between the ability of a squad/fringe player and a regular starter. Examples I gave in the past were Brown and O'Shea being good squad players at Man Utd, but less impressive as regulars for a struggling Sunderland side. You could also look at current PL sides and their use of academy players. For example, Liverpool have given Bobby Clark 6 appearances this season, but if they were to loan him out to a L1 side. "If they're good enough" is only true if a manager is willing to give them a go. Thompson was good enough for 25 Championship games in the 21/22 season (1521 mins) but only good enough for 10 under Warne last season (159 minutes). Warne isn't the only manager guilty of it, but he absolutely is afraid of putting young players in incase they make mistakes.

There was nothing to stop other clubs adopting the same approach, so it was as if it was an 'unlevel playing field'. In fact, further down the line it would have put us at a disadvantage before evening out. The club could have called upon 'The big 4', but the audit file had been reviewed by the ICAEW and approved as compliant. The IDC also stated "[evidence] was consistent with the Club having been able to determine the pattern of its consumption of future economic benefits from its ownership of player registrations ‘reliably’" You also must have misremembered that about our expert witness. "The Club did not serve a report from or call evidence from an expert accountant... It took the decision not to call any such expert evidence having seen the factual evidence served by the EFL". When the EFL wanted to submit a late report, the Club weere given another option to call upon a witness.

I've found Inpost and Stasher

The gave a range of £77.4-89.5m (£83.45m mid range). The IDC had the power to go with this figure ratehr than the one stated in our accounts, but felt that it was fair to stick with our recorded figure as it sat within the acceptable range. The EFL's 'expert' not only based the value agaisnt Morecambe's ground, but also stated we would only need a 28k seater replacement as that's what our recent average was (20% less than actual capacity) Refering back to the amortisation charge: 1. The IDC dismissed all particulars, excluding the failure to adequately disclose the change in policy. Importantly, the IDC dismissed the 'experts' evidence. 2. The LAP (appeal) felt the opinion of the EFL's expert should have been taken more seriously - he felt the policy wasn't FRS102 compliant, esentially becuase we couldn't reliably estimate values. Despite the IDC panel containing Chartered accountants, their own opinion shouldn't have been used in favour of the non-practicing 'expert'. The club failed to provide their own expert, but if they had, his opinions would have been enough to change the outcome of the LAP's verdict. Prof Pope felt "no serious acccountant would deem is to be an acceptable amortisation approach based on the consumption of economic benefits". This is at odds with all of the Chartered Accountants involved in the case - the club, auditors, IDC, etc... The LAP themselves pointed out "there is no accountant on our panel (ii) we are differing from a DC which included and was required to include an accountant member" and "However, the DC was faced with expert evidence from a distinguished academic accountant, and this was the only expert evidence which was led before them". Hence, why the LAP felt the evidence of the academic 'expert' should have stood. The example given by the club suggested a straight amortisation to the start of the final year, then the remaining value amortised to zero. What some people with a lack of attention to the real details assumed (and I imagine this is what @Leeds Ram's BiL also assumed) was that a non-linear amortisation approach was used (ie values made up each year to suit our P&S budget). It was also not possible to uplift values (as a large number of people believed). Impairment could still be used (to drop the book value to a fairer value if deemed approriate) which is used in common amortisationn policies anyway. 3. The 2nd IDC (which contained Chartered Accountants) couldn't argue agaisnt the LAP's findings. The decision was to task the club with creating a new policy which could be proven to be reliable - this didn't have to be drastically different from the one we had been using. 4. The club then went into administration. The administrators didn't have the time or funds to argue the case of a new policy so accepted the EFL's charges.

Selling the stadium was a mechanism to spend MORE under P&S rules, and isn't a sign of an owner unwilling to continue funding the club - as per all the other clubs to have done the same and not gone into administration.

Perhaps I should have highlighted this for you: "Do you really think Pride Park is worth 80 million quid... At the time I'm pretty sure it was widely regarded this was a very high end valuation" £80m was justified as fair value under independant review. Other sales (such as Stoke) were sold using the same method.

Stoke sold their stadium for £70m without any critisism.

In the 21/22 PL season, Man City, Brighton, Burnley, Brentford, West Ham, Aston Villa and Liverpool were the only teams to make an accounting profit (£141m combined). However, in the two years previous, the same teams made a combined £509m loss, with only Burnely making a profit (£0.5m in 19/20). West Brom are the only current Championship side to have made a profit in 21/22 - £5.4m (thanks to their £45m parachute payment). The 5 Championship clubs to have submitted their 22/23 accounts have all made a loss (£84.3m combined) - Norwich, QPR and Bristol City all losing in excess of £20m.

More likely to be 352 tbh. Mendez-Laing, Gayle Barkhuizen and Sibley as the options upfront. I expect something like this: Wildsmith Nelson Bradley Cashin Wilson Bird Adams Hourihane Elder Mendez-Laing Barkhuizen Subs: Loach, Nyambe, Ward, Smith, Thompson, Sibley, Gayle

Everyone is allowed to make a mistake 😅

Riggott made his debut in 2000. He rejoined us in 2011 but never played Personally, I wouldn't include Pringle, Hoganson, Hector-Ingram, Watson or Rooney as they were U21 signings. Ross Atkins was in 2011 Huddlestone (not listed) debuted was August 2023, whereas Holmes (listed) made his debut on Boxing Day 2022 Lee Grant, Pablo Mills, Marcus Tudgay also made their debuts in 2002.

In the U21 games, I don't think there's much between Fornah and DRobinson We had a couple of bad years with U18 intakes. Following the very succesful 2018 group which contained Cashin, Ebosele, Archie Brown, Sibley, Thompson and Stretton. In 2019: We had Bardell (still with us but struggled with injuries), Nto (just returned to our U21s), as a well as the likes of Solomon, Aghatise and Cybulski. Delap would have been part of this group, but left prior to the season starting. In 2020: We had Ibrahim and Borkovic. Williams was signed by Chelsea in Jan 2022 We are then into the 2021 group who are only 1st year pros this season so you can see why we've had a gap. 2021: Evans, Aideyan, Ryan Moore, Moloney, Sebagabo, DRobinson, Fapetu, Eze, Richards, Ebiowei, Nicholas-Davies, Kaide Gordon, ZDixon 2022: Shattell, Grant (joined Man City at U13/14 level), Cox, KRobinson, Perry, Gough, Hawkins, Simons, Kellyman, Sharpe, Davidson,DBrown, Wheeldon 2023: JThompson, Price, Osayande, IGordon, Banks, Gill, Eames, Tola, Allen, McAndrew, Osong, Agustien, Kaba, Scanlon, Oguntola From having just a couple of 'high potential' players likely to play in the Championship or higher in 2019 and 2020 combined, we're back to having several players with a good chance of making it to that level in each year group - even with 9 players from the 3 most recent groups having been snapped up by other Cat 1 clubs

Charlie Goode? He was at Northampton in League 2 at the time. He's now into his 4th season at Brentford and has featured for just 882 mins in the league (half of which when they were still in the Championship). He appeared just 3 times for Blackpool last season, and is now on loan at Wigan. Perhaps a lucky escae htat we didn't spot him and waste another £1m.

Mostly Championship matches this season, but also reffed 2 L1 games, 1 L2 game, and 1 EFL Trophy game. He returned to the English game for the 20/21 season. Spent the majority of those first 2 seasons in L1 and mostly Championship since. He's only ref'd 2 PL games since his Norweigan break in 2019 - the most recent being September 2023.

Madleys overall record reffing us: 5W, 1D, 4L, 2 reds against (0 for), 2 pens against (0 for) Barnsley's record: 0W, 1D, 0L, 0 reds, 0 pens

From those to have played in the league this season and still at the club... First teamers: Fornah, Ward, Thompson Over 21: BJohnson, (Nunn not used) 21: Bardell, Oduroh, Gibson-Hammond, Nto 20: Bartley, Radcliffe, Bates, Weston, Oseni 19: Evans, Moore, DRobinson, Fapetu, Lindsay, (Ridd not used) 18: Cox, KRobinson, Moloney, Richards, DBrown, (Shattell not used) 17: JThompson, Gill, Perry ,Gough, Hawkins, Davidson, Wheeldon* 16: Allen, McAndrew, Osong**, Oguntolu** *17 or 18 **16 or 17 The majority of those 19 or older will be either released, sold, or loaned out by this time next season.

It's difficult going to a team which is hasn't lost since the day he joined - the won the day after he joined and he came off the bench. Since he's joined, they've won 5 and drawn 1. He got a full 90 in a cup game against NLN side Hereford. Prior to him joining, they had gone 4 league games without a win and only 1 win in 7. I'd say he's been a bit unlucky with the timing, as he would probably have been starting league games if he was allowed to go out on loan at the start of January.

8th in National League South. He came off the bench for the final 4 mins + injury time when already 4-2 up. He made 2 starts for Buxton in the National League North earlier in November. He's 21 year old, and I beleive we only signed him on a 1 year deal, so I wouldn't expect him to get an extension here.

Wildsmith Nyambe Nelson Cashin Elder Bird Adams Sibley Wilson Mendez-Laing Barkhuizen Subs: JThompson, Bradley, Ward, Smith, Thompson, Blackett-Taylor, Gayle

"No end of chances"? Taking this season as an example, his chances at CM/AM were: 14 minutes as a sub when returning from injury and helped see out a 1-0 win. Injured for thr next 2 games. 2 months until his next 'chance'. A last minute sub when winning 3-1. 3 weeks later, he starts and gets 71 minutes. Starts the next game, gets an assist and is subbed at half time (we were losing 2-1 and eventually lost 3-1). Unused sub in the next game. The following game, he came on for the last 10 minutes when losing 2-0 to Crewe, then assists our 93rd minute equaliser. Over 3 weeks until his next 'chance' at AM - a 95th minute sub. A start in the next league game (2 weeks later) and scores. Subbed off at half time in the next game (0-0, game finishes 1-1). 24 minutes off the bench in the next game. 6 weeks until his next game at AM. Subbed off at half time against Bradford (score was 0-0, we lost 1-0). A couple of games later he gets another start at AM, followed by 27 mins off the bench a few days later. 3 weeks until he gets another chance. This time 13 mins to see out a 3-0 win. 9 mins a few days later and scores the only goal in a 1-0 win. Maybe if he was given a consistent run of games in his favoured position we would get some consistency from him? Even so, he's averaged 1 goal contribution every 88 mins when playing central. The problem is he's played at LB or on the wing 75% of the time.

Is that Thompson LW and Weston AM?

4231 (after being corrected by Angie) JThompson Bardell Bartley KRobinson Gill DRobinson Fornah Ward Thompson Weston Wheeldon

Yes. Too many people wanting to watch Derby and Blackburn U21s instead of Everton and Palace.

He picked up an injury early in the season and just returned to the matchday squad last week (unused sub)