Ghost of Clough

4 minutes ago, richinspain said:

If we can get better, on a free, and on similar wages, then yes.

Matt Ryan and Marek Rodak are probably the two best keepers avaialbe who would be realistic for Championship clubs, but I would expect both to want more than we'll be willing to pay, especially Rodak. Rodak spent 2 years on loan at Rotherham, so Warne could potentially sway him to come here.
A more realistic choice would be Walton, who had 23 clean sheets for Ipswich in 22/23 and 14 the year before. He also had 21 clean sheets in 80 Championship games for Wigan and Blackburn (plus 19 in 31 L1 games for Wigan)
I've always been impressed by Joel Pereira (Reading) on the rare occasions I've seen him. He only broke into Reading's side for the final 9 games of the season.

I thought I would have a look back at some of my January suggestions...

On 14/01/2024 at 23:45, Ghost of Clough said:

Max Dean is a player to keep an eye on. Signed from Leeds last January, but only got regular starts for MK Dons in October. He's now got 9 goals and 1 assist in his last 14 games (including a goal vs Reading in the FA Cup).

He finished the season with 18 goals and 5 assists in 32 games for MK Dons (7 games off the bench) including 6 goals and 4 assists in the final 6 games. A scorer and a creator, he just needs to work on the defensive side of his role. At 20, there's plenty of room for improvement.

On 14/12/2023 at 23:37, Ghost of Clough said:

Stephen Wearne - a 22 year old CM (can play on the wing or at AM) with 10 goals and 10 assists in 20 games for Gateshead (NL). He's a willing runner with a fantastic first touch. Was at Newcastle's academy until 16, then moved to Boro followed by Sunderland, so understands what it's like at a larger club with decent facilities.

Joined MK Dons for a modest £60k in January. He had to fill in for 4 games at CF when Max Dean was injured, but still finished with 4 goals and 6 assists in 17 apps for them (5 sub apps). The step up from Gateshead has been easy, and he's had the 3rd most open play assists per 90 in L2 this season as well as creating the 2nd most chances.

I was certain I also suggested Joe Tomlinson (also MK Dons). He's a LWB (can play RWB) who signed from Peterborough last summer. He's picked up 7 goals and 5 assists in his 36 league games this season, building on his 12 goals and 4 assists in 42 games for Eastleigh in 20/21.

If any one is interested in pretty charts:

Quote

Just now, Eoghan1884 said:

He’s out of contract this summer

He's 22 so will command a compensation fee - essentially he'll go to the highest bidder and out of our price range.

12 minutes ago, Srg said:

Yeah, the list is clearly guff. 

I assumed everyone knew Simmo just makes rumours up pretending to be ITK

1 hour ago, Jubbs said:

Heard very good things about him. 

A very interesting read:

https://offtheline599656488.wordpress.com/2024/01/18/in-the-spotlight-15-dan-ellison/

41 minutes ago, IlsonDerby said:

They were honest last season - we had the highest wage bill in the division didn’t we at £17m. That is a budget to compete for autos in league 1. 
 

I suspect that we’ll have a wage bill of around £25m this year. The average being £31m but that’s distorted by the parachute payment clubs. It’d be a wage bill slightly over Preston’s which would seem about right considering our crowds are much bigger and our revenue streams are therefore bigger. 

It's fair to say we'll have a midtable wage bill next season. The same can't be said about transfer fees. This season, only 5 clubs spent less than £2m (according to Transfermarkt), a figure I'll be amazed if we exceed. If you exclude player sales from all clubs, I would still expect our total budget (wages plus fees) to be lower midtable (13th-18th).
Preston's wage bill was £21m in 22/23. We'll be closer to Swansea, Blackburn and QPR who were in the £25-26m region last season. Swansea and Blackburn both having a cat 1 academy so are reasonable comparisons in relation to first team budget.

2 minutes ago, valakari said:

Effing hell, we signed Wayne Rooney & Ashley Cole, why is Szmodics so out of our reach?? 🤣

The first 2 cost no transfer fee whilst the 3rd would cost more up front than we paid Rooney in wages during his time as player and manager with us. It's a transfer fee which would mean no budget for any other signing during the summer.

Forsyth, Adams and Collins are the types of player you want in your squad as they set standards for the rest of the squad - professionalism off the pitch as well as effort and determination on it.

All three are good enough to be at least Championship squad players, so as long as they're happy with wages to match their role, then we should be trying to keep them around.

6 minutes ago, SamUltraRam said:

Saw mention of this on the Rotherham Forum today - now we are promoted, their fans are wondering how much Rotherham will get paid ?

40 minutes ago, R@M said:

So clearly now the ‘out’ argument is that with that budget it should have been easy and my 9yo could have managed us to promotion 🤪

A factor I haven’t seen mentioned is that we had about 4 players 20 months ago. It is always going to cost more to get what was required, firstly a team, then competitive then winning. Our squad was not huge, but I’m betting we signed twice as many in 20 months than any other team. 

I'm betting we signed just as many players as most clubs over the past 2 seasons.

Last summer, we made roughly the same number of signings as the league's average, but had a quiet January. We also had a quiet January last season.

According to Transfermarket, out of the 31 clubs to have played in L1 over the past 2 seasons, we've actually made the joint 3rd least signings (36) with only Wednesday and Bolton (both 32) signing less.

3 clubs signed at least 60 players and 10 other clubs signing over 50 over the course of 4 transfer windows.

11 hours ago, Ambitious said:

The average wage bill in the Championship being £30m seems high to me, certainly post-COVID. The parachute payment sides doing their best to prop that up, maybe, but last accounts for some of the non-parachute sides: 

Stoke - £31.1m turnover - £28.2m wage bill (268 staff)
Middlesbrough - £28.5m turnover - £29.6m wage bill (228 staff) 
Cardiff City - £26.2m turnover - £22m wage bill (206 staff)
QPR - £23.2m turnover - £25.4m wage bill (189 staff)
Coventry - £20.3 turnover - £18.4m wage bill (196 staff)
Birmingham - £19.7m turnover - £28.9m wage bill (237 staff)
Swansea - £19.6m turnover - £26m wage bill (510 staff)
Millwall - £19.3m turnover - £22.5m wage bill (156 staff)
Bristol City - £18.5m turnover - £26.3m wage bill (205 staff) 
Huddersfield - £18.1m turnover - £21m wage bill (234 staff)
Hull City - £18m turnover - £23.6m wage bill (225 staff)
Rotherham - £15.6m turnover - £9m wage bill (166 staff)
Preston - £15.5m turnover - £21.5m wage bill (134 staff)

We turned over more than 8 of those teams I searched for whilst in League One - turnover £20.4m & wage bill £17.2m (177 staff). The Championship TV money is going to push us on an equal footing as MIddlesbrough - give or take a little. Stoke over-inflate their accounts with an annual £10m+ sponsorship deal with B365 which is why they have the highest revenue of all the non-parachute sides. 

It doesn't matter what a club's turnover is, it's how much an owner is prepared to lose.

A league average wage bill of £30m would be about right if using the latest Championship accounts, and estimating wages for the clubs 'new' to the league. I would actually estiamte it at closer to £31m for the current season.

However, if you exclude the top 6 and bottom 6, the average would be close to £26.5m, roughly where I expect us to be for 24/25, and rank us 12th in the league.

2015? The summer we wanted a young and upcoming coach, and ended up with Clement.

29 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

 

I don't think anyone can dispute that we had the highest wage budget in the league. I know the club were coy in putting 'first-team wages' in the public domain but ultimately we spent more on wages last season (22/23) than Sunderland did in their promotion campaign (21/22) and they also had a category one academy. 

Sunderland spent £16.1m total across 572 employees - 252 full-time staff & 320 matchday staff during the 21/22 season. 

We spent £17.2m total across 177 employees - 59 playing staff & 118 non-playing. 

When the accounts are released for this season, considering promotion bonuses will be included & the increase in the first-team squad, I wouldn't be surprised to see it surpass £20m - which would be higher than probably roughly 10(?) Championship clubs. 

The accounts didn't even state 'first team wages'. It stated 42% SCMP from a £20.442m turnover, which equates to £8.6m (Dom made an error by stating £7 3m). As I pointed out previously, this figure would have excluded wages for the likes of Cashin, Bird, Knight, Sibley, Thompson and Rooney. As you can imagine, the true first team wage bill would have been a fair way higher than £8.6m. Bielik's wages (the share Birmingham agreed to pay us) would have also been excluded from this figure.

9 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Let’s open up that conversation again, you and those others with valid concerns that you’re undoubtedly able to articulate should put them forward now (not saying you shouldn’t have before either by the way). The season is done, the radio Derby review and preview last night included some deserved praise for what has been delivered and some fair observations on what could be better, so let’s discuss it openly as adults as you say 🍻
 

Any inappropriate comments or behaviour can be reported should there be any. 

When Warne was first appointed as manager, I pointed out a number of my concerns.

I think it's still fair to say a couple of those concerns remain: style of play, reducing the chances of keeping our academy graduates

Style of play must improve in the future. As shown this season, when we don't win, there is nothing to fall back on and results in a lot of unhappy fans. Perhaps fans as a whole will be more forgiving when we're considered underdogs in games and we expect to lose? We've also lost Knight and Bird, and eere close to losing Cashin. Are we going to keep Sibley and Thompson this summer? 

I think it's also fair to say recruitment has emerged as a concern, in particular the apparent lack in plans to sign players to suit a system, which has also resulted in a mixed success rate. Not signing any wingers but signing wing backs in the summer, only to play a back 4 and wingers after the window closed, followed by signing a winger in January, only to stop using wingers afterwards.

However, it's only right for me to point out where my concerns appear to have been addressed: damage to the academy [retention of top prospects], dwindling attendances, the destruction of the feel good factor around the club, etc... 

So far, we managed to retain all of our top talent, with suggestions of us recruiting some very good youngsters from other clubs. Attendances also picked up, especially for the run in. Our average for the season was also our highest since 16/17 despite fewer away fans. It's also undeniable that the feel good factor is back!

We lost/sold/released Ravas, Lowe, ABrown, Bogle, Bennett, Scanlon, Kaba, Sharpe, Gordon, Whittaker, Stretton in the 12 months or so prior to admin. Delap was 2 summers before admin.

Ryan, Buchanan, Ebosele, Williams, JBrown, Hutchinson, Watson, Kellyman, Eze, Ebiowei, Plange all left during or immediately after exiting administration.

Knight and Bird have left us since we exited admin.

I've highlighted the players I think are good enough to be at least Championship squad players.

JBrown, Hutchinson and Scanlon would be the types of players I would have in a L1 squad, with a view to the being good enough at Championship level in a season or 2.

Moloney with our 2nd. Assists from 2 different trialists.

DRobinson assist on the 3rd

3 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

£500k for CBT.

That'll include his wages since January.

Retain: Vickers, Nelson, Nyambe, Rooney, Bradley, Cashin, Fornah*, Ward, Wilson, Elder*, Mendez-Laing, Blackett-Taylor, Washington*, DBrown

*Try to loan or sell

New contracts: Wildsmith, Forsyth, Sibley, Thompson, DRobinson, Collins

Release or loan ending: Loach, Adams, Bird, Smith, Hourihane, Barkhuizen, Gayle, Waghorn, John-Jules

Assuming we'll play a form of 3412 or 3421, that would mean we need the following: GK, LWB, CMx3, AM/Wx2, CFx2

20 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

What’s happening next season @Owen87ITK? Are you going to be affected by the new rules?

He's spending the summer learning several foreign languages to cater to our incredibly high number of overseas viewers

16 minutes ago, Poynton ram said:

As the dust starts to settle on an amazing day when do we expect to see the retained list? Particularly interested to see if Sibbs and Wildsmith have been offered new contracts.

Usually around 2 weeks after our last game of the season

Anyone know what's causing the traffic jam on the A38 near the hospital and kingsway? Tempted to ditch my ride to walk to the ground 😅

Edit: or not... moving again 

7 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

I imagine he dumped us because he'd had enough of the crap that the Club had left him to deal with. So what.

I suspect he was told what the first team budget was and how much of that was taken up by his own wages. It was in the beat interests of all parties to part ways imo.

8 hours ago, Wolfie said:

Oh I'm sure there's a few around these parts that will expect top 4, however unrealistic that is.

Based on a rough estimate for next season's budget, a top half finish should be the aim, with anything below 18th being an underachievement.

On 25/04/2024 at 08:21, RamLad1884 said:

Early numbers to buy Ebou, what do people reckon we’ll end up buying him for? 
 

I’ll go ball park £450k plus addons 

A deal worth up to £300k. Nominal upfront, a lump sum after avoiding relegation, plus appearance based clauses.

On 23/04/2024 at 18:37, ram59 said:

As I've previously pointed out Warne's last relegation with Rotherham was with a team with the lowest budget in the Championship and if that wasn't bad enough, they actually made an operating profit that season and a profit on player sales. I think that many top managers would struggle under those circumstances.

His budget at Derby will be competitive with most teams in the division and I would be very surprised if he was forced to make a net profit on player sales next season.

W

If we make a couple of assumptions:
1. Club losses in the Championship are no higher than what we had lad season
2. all additional income from being in the Championship is put towards the first team budget (fees and wages)

We would have a total club wage bill of c£27m. That would put us (just) in the top half of the table (roughly 10th-12) 
When factoring in non-playing staff wages, we would drop slightly, and be amongst the likes of QPR, Millwall, and Swansea in terms of player wages. Still more than double what he had at Rotherham though.