Ghost of Clough

Bird's having a good game. Mopping up loose balls and tidily knitting play together

On 16/01/2024 at 11:46, Ghost of Clough said:

Wildsmith

Wilson   Nelson   Cashin   Elder

Bird   Hourihane   Thompson

Barkhuizen   Collins   Mendez-Laing

Subs: Vickers, Bradley, Ward, Sibley, DRobinson, DBrown, John-Jules

Not a bad guess. Only Sibley in for Thompson. Presumably to give us the flexibility of changing to 3 at the back dependant on Lincoln's shape - Elder to LCB?

5 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Seem to recall there was a large amount of historical agent debt to clear from Mels glory year.

£800k historic, £250k 'actual'

18 minutes ago, richinspain said:

£1.25M in pensions. Curtis Davis and co certainly didn't come cheap.

Most of that is tax and national insurance

12 minutes ago, Malty said:

No, on regelation you’re probably right. But that does mean that Bielik has a carrying value of £2m in our accounts. 
 

I suspect we made a loss on disposal of him then, which might offset anything we made on knight.

Bielik was closer to £3m with the other 4 players having a combined £300k. Bielik would have been amortised by £1.5m each year. It means in the current accounting period, we will make a book loss of £0.5-1m on him - more than offset by the profit on Knight.

Gate receipts and sponsorship each £1m down on my original estimates, with 'other' £0.5m down. TV £0.5m up, hospitality about £200k up. Overall income is c£1.8m lower than expected, altough it is over a 9 month period rather than 12.

I can't accurately say what our wage bill was, but based on previous Clowes' Development wage bill, our club wages were about £10.25m, with £1.25m in pensions amd social security. This would match my original estimate. However, a 12 month period would mean I underestimated by quite a bit.

It looks like our total other expenses were about £10.5m, and we made a transfer profit of just under £1.5m, which results in the £6.8m loss.

1 hour ago, therealhantsram said:

That 3.3m squad valuation would have included Knight at the time.

5 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

Knight (and any other youth players that were in the books) would have been valued at £0, as we never paid anything to acquire him.  That £3.3m would have been almost entirely the remainder of Bielik’s value.

I was just about to post this. Nominal book values for Bird, Knight, Sibley and Duncan (due to agent, signing on fees, etc). I assume this doesn't include academy players as I think we kept around 8 from our U21s that summer.

34 minutes ago, Dean (hick) Saunders said:

Ian Hall goal scorer. Was he the former radio Derby guy from 90’s?

Yes, but he played in more cricket fixtures for Derbyshire than he played football. I belive he also authored some Derby County related books (unless it was a different Ian Hall)

1 hour ago, ram59 said:

We shouldn't be talking to him until his accept our offer, which was today.

Anyway, it was a general question also. You chase a player because you think that's who you want, agree a deal with his club and when you talk to him, you think 'i don't like you'. It must surely happen.

Discussions with Charlton, Blackett-Taylor and his agent had started months ago. The contrcat woth Blackett-Taylor was agreed prior to the fee being agreed with Charlton, hence why this has progressed so quickly after the bid was accepted yesterday.

1 hour ago, angieram said:

The EFL won't currently help this situation whatever they do because the way things are set up they are part of the problem. Their range of sanctions only hits the club and more importantly their supporters harder, as we find out to our cost only too recently.

Change is needed at the very top. 

The EFL can't do anything to help really. Reading will only be saved when the owner is no longer the owner. He's not going to sell up, the EFL can't legally take the club off him, so they need to 'encourage' him to put them into administration - essentially find a sanction or two which make them sell all players of value.

Honestly, I can't see a scenario where they're in the EFL in 25/26.

2 hours ago, O'hare is the goat said:

Swear he's a defender and not a winger

He's played in a few positions. RCB or RWB in a back 3, RB or RWin a back 4. He may have even filled in at LB or CM at some point too

Blackett-Taylor, Mendez-Laing and Barkhuizen all rotating and chipping in with goals and assists will be a game changer for us in this 2nd half of the season. It allows us to keep them all fresh and shouldn't have big dips in form (which often comes from fatigue). We also have Wilson terrifying full backs. Good options  to have.

24 minutes ago, Comrade 86 said:

Isn't this the back up to the CBT signing? Would we need both? Found some video and he looks to have some potential FWIW.

 

Blackett-Taylor is a winger, Young I'd a centre forward

4 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Warne quoted in this article saying there are National League clubs interested in taking Weston and Brown on loan. Warne thinks Brown will go out on loan this month. 

"I will not let him go to anybody who has not bothered to watch him." It amazes me that a football club would just ring up to ask for a player without knowing what type of player they actually are. I can understand at lower levels where we have built relationships with them and they ask for a short term loan in a certain position, but not a long term one.

I was hoping a L2 club would come in for Brown, but I imagine a lack of first team minutes would mean it's a bit of a risk for them.

7 minutes ago, DCFC1388 said:

I'd be dissapointed if we hadn't even considered him as his end product is excellent, but I think this is just a made up rumour to get more money out of Carlisle or get more clubs to bid. Charlton surely can't be after another forward either?

13 minutes ago, Dartmouth Ram said:

Both of which we've also been linked with

We were linked with Ikpeazu under Rooney, but I don't recall anything since. Ladapo I would still be happy with signing, but I didn't comment on him.

4 minutes ago, On the Ram Page said:

Just don't see Sibley as a permanent defender. Don't fancy him on 1 v 1, not particularly good at eating either. Much prefer to see him further up the field, where he still has a lot to prove.

What's wrong with the way he eats his half-time orange?

10 minutes ago, Big Trav said:

Ive just been told we’ve had a bid accepted for CBT 

10 minutes ago, Wolfie20 said:

Signing those 2 brutes makes me wonder whether they're looking to sell Alfie May - can't see them playing all three.

They'll play a front 2 of Ladapo and May, with Leaburn, Ikpeazu and Aneke as backup

Just now, Dartmouth Ram said:

Charlton certainly aren't messing about!

"Not messing around" when about to sign a forward with 23 goals in the last 6 seasons, 7 goals in the last 3, and only 1 goal in his 17 games this season 😅

3 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

I suppose if they go on a run second half of the season they could give themselves a slim chance at the playoffs and/or carry momentum into next season. They’ve still got 60 points to play for 

They would now need to average 2.5 points per game for the rest of the season (current average is only 1.15) to give them 80 points. It would also require Barnsley dropping from 1.88 ppg to 1.55, Stevenage from 1.77 to 1.7 and nonr of the other sides between themselves in 13th and the playoffs improving.
If the target was lowered to 75 points beign enough for 6th place, Barnsley's ppg would hav eto drop to 1.3. To put it another way, those 45 points over their next 20 games would be a better tally than anyone has managed over the last 20 games - both us and Peterborough have picked up 43.

31 minutes ago, Srg said:

Think it was quite telling that Sibley played in the u21 game at left back this week. Not sure he'd have learnt much in 45mins in an 11-1 win like...

He's our 2nd choice LB/LWB whilst Forsyth is out. Elder is also building up his match fitness so that'll be Sibley's position for now (either starting or as a sub). I wuldn't be surprised if we try to mould him into a wing back for next season too. Midfield's an area Warne will want to strengthen, so I can't see Sibley improving on his already limited game time at AM, so LWB is the best chance of regular football he'll have here.

1 hour ago, Spanish said:

Surely that would have been the administration and I haven’t got a good word for them or SP for that matter

Technically, Lech could only file a complaint whilst we were in admin, so it could only be resolved after Clowes had bought us out of admin. As of March, Lech were still pursuing the full amount and Quantuma were refusing to talk to them. 

10 hours ago, Shipley Ram said:

This all sounds a bit grim for Reading

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/jan/18/reading-implement-drastic-cost-cutting-measures-as-financial-crisis-deepens

Sniffing arround there forum it seems that some worry that there is a danger they might not be able to complete their fixtures and therefore be thrown out of the league. I don't like Reading much but really hope they survive.

To be honest, the only way I see them getting out of it is by their owner putting them in administration. He already owns the stadium and training ground. It means, once the players are sold they'll have absolutely nothing left... other than a massive pile of debt. I think it would take at least £25m for them to be bought out of admin. Would anyone be willing to pay that?

9 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

They seem to banging on about whoosh whatever that is.

8 hours ago, Comrade 86 said:

Did we dodge a bullet with Fankaty Dabo then? Suspect Deeney just calls it as he see it. Hard-working player so might set standards some can't, or won't meet. Some stuff best said in private though, unless that option has already been exhausted.

I think he's been dragged down to the poor standard of the other defenders and lost confidence. He's only been singled out because of where he was last season. 

Their squad is awful - they'd need 7 new starters to have any chance of staying up.