Ghost of Clough

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

2 years out injured, invluding the entire 22/23 season. 2 first team apps this season, including 75 mins in the Europa League. He had 1 goal and 3 assists from his first 4 starts of the season (at U21 level), but has struggled for form since. This'll be due to being out for so long. A good pre-season and he'll have a very good season next year.

They asked Gibson for advice - if Sala had been available, they would have picked up 3 extra points and avoided relegation. This is why the compensation is close to £100m more than the Sala transfer fee (£15m?). That part will be quickly dismissed, as the figure ignores the fact an extra season in the PL also results in additional costs and there's no way to prove what Cardiff would or wouldn't have spent. The tactic is to start high and settle for less. I expect around halfway between the full fee paid and the expected legal costs. So far, only the owner(?) of the flight providers has been prosecuted. Cardiff claim is due to the agent (who represented Nantes) was the person who organised the flight.i don't think Cardiff have filed against the correct party, but Nantes will probably give in (to an agreement) due to the potentially high legal fees.