Rubbish

[Isaac]

GY - others have added the detail but your assertion that OUFC have 3 times as much to spend on players is a load of mince isn't it? Please go through the oufc accounts though, as I'm sure we'd all learn something. I had a look on the Cheltenham website at for 2010/11 they state the wage budget was 844000 (before national insurance is taken into account - which I suspect it should be when comparing wages) and also mentions they paid very few bonuses due to being crap. So maybe a budget of £1m? So while we undoubtedly have more money, I'm pretty sure it's not 3 times as much. I notice they lost .25million too and 0.8m the season before, which suggests the wage cap is not proving very effective. And perhaps they're not the club to compare us too....

Your other point, made repetitively, is that it's all down to the manager. I agree he's obviously important, but if what you say is true, why is it that managers never earn as much as any player in the first team? You'd think if they were the sole reason behind a clubs success it would be the managers earning massive fees like the players. Why isn't this?

I've always thought scouting has a lot to do with it. The better the scouts, the better the players you get for your money. Organising them on the pitch is then the manager and coaches job.

Personally I think if Wilder has got a bigger budget than anyone else he and Kelvin Thomas have earnt it by getting us promotion, generally playing pretty good football and running the club well. Rather than use that as a stick to beat them with, it's fairer to give them a bit of time to work it out.

[GodalmingYellow]

So what's your answer then? Sack Chris Wilder and appoint Jim Magilton, as some RadOx text-numpty was suggesting on Saturday evening? Personally, I'd suggest that's rather a knee-jerk position when the games we've just lost have been against sides on excellent runs and when we've had a large number of key players out injured.

To reiterate: I believe that results will pick up when our most influential players are back in the team. I also believe the November results are not a fair reflection of the squad's ability (just as some of the earlier results were rather flattering).

Err no, where on Earth did you get that idea from?

My answer is that Chris Wilder should be a bit more careful in signing players that are good enough, and then stick with a settled side and formation, instead of tinkering.

[GodalmingYellow]

I'm interested to read that many of the posters on this thread are saying,'I have'nt been to many games this season and boy was it disappointing'.

Yet our crowds are well up.

Best poster on this thread has been 'Nashy'. Yes it was pretty cruddy on Saturday but that was generally a load of knee jerklng old twaddle I've just read.

We have injuries/suspensions affecting at least 3 key players, (not forgetting good old Jim Capaldi being lost in the Traffic, (who do i owe the royalties to? and have just lost to the top 3 in the league.

GY, the club is being run prudently and looks on course for another profitable year ....maybe. Fantastic effort in current economic climate. Let's not be drawn into signing some lower league Carlos Kickaball just because of a few dodgy results.


I did'nt get too excited when we went top 3 with a jammy draw at Macc and I'm not too excited now. I think we have improved from last season but there is still a way to go.

Put it in context chaps!

I agree largely. The club is run better now, than in my entire lifetime. I don't want us signing overpaid players. Just players who are good enough and prepared to work hard enough. Only 3 of this season's signings fit that bill.

[GodalmingYellow]

Sorry Isaac you are going to have to point out where anyone else has supported your argument and refuted mine, because I can't see them.

Yes 3 times may be the tiniest amount of artistic license, but at a fraction under £2m on player costs (per Snake and I believe him) certainly more than double seems to me to be entirely accurate and supports my point in exactly the same way as if it had been 3 times as much, and that assumes your figure isn't overstated. Websites aren't always that accurate.

Making a loss has no effect for wage cap purposes. So your point seems to be completely meaningless to this discussion. The reason we are comparing to Cheltenham of course is because we played them on Saturday, assuming you keep up with goings on at OUFC. And I say played them, but we didn't really. Their players paid less than half of our lot, played us off the park. Hmm, that argument of yours seems to be disappearing over the horizon. We can try a comparison with Crawley if you like, or Burton, or Morecambe. They are all above us in the table, and all have tiny home gates compared to us.

I think you'll find managers do earn in the same ball park as players, although some players get significant image rights and funds because they put bums on seats, because football is about entertainment and what you see directly from the footballers is the entertainment. I very much doubt Wilder is on significantly less than the majority of the first team at Oxford.

Scouts don't sign players Isaac. They only recommend them. A manager chooses his Scouts, or at least the ones that he trusts, and generally will still go to see a player before signing him. the manager signs the players and is responsible for them.

I haven't said everything is down to the manager. Again please don't put words into my mouth. What I actually said was that the manager is responsible for the majority of success and failure, except where there are exceptional circumstances, or reasons beyond his control, because the majority of the footballing decisions are those of the manager.

I think it is fair to criticise, where criticism is fair. Too many players signed this season are not good enough, and we got rid of perhaps 2 that were good enough. That criticism is fair and justified imho and it is blinkered to ignore this.

We are now in our 2nd season in div 2. Wilder received the plaudits quite rightly for getting us back in the league. He received the plaudits quite rightly for a good solid first season back in the league. Now with our big budget for 2 consecutive seasons, the supporters and the club have a right to expect a little bit more than last season, and we have a right to expect that all players signed reflect the higher than average wages that they are paid.

[Isaac]

I was using the evidence from other posts to support my argument.

Snake's point was £2m after paying back debts, then minus 0.5m for rent. £1.5m estimate on wages. More than double? The website I referred to for Cheltenham was their official website.
I think you need to be more specific to be honest, otherwise it looks like rhetoric to me.

[GodalmingYellow]

I was using the evidence from other posts to support my argument.

Snake's point was £2m after paying back debts, then minus 0.5m for rent. £1.5m estimate on wages. More than double? The website I referred to for Cheltenham was their official website.
I think you need to be more specific to be honest, otherwise it looks like rhetoric to me.

I still can't see anything in anyone else's posts that support your argument. But let's leave that.

If you want more specific:

The accounts for OUFC for the year ended 30 June 2010, show direct costs, which is essentially players wages, very close to £2m. There was no material repayment of debt, and if there had been that would have been a cash movements issue which has nothing to do with turnover, costs, wages, or profit and loss. The 2010/11 figure will be higher than that still to compare with your reported figure for Cheltenham, due to increased ticket sales and changes to revenue allocation between the club and the stadium company.

[Isaac]

If we really must, I'll download a copy of the accounts of each club and prove it to you.

Who is responsible for choosing the players to be signed? The Manager.
Who is responsible for determining the value of each player? The Manager.
Who is responsible for selecting players that will fit into the squad? The Manager.
Who is responsible for choosing the system being played? the Manager.
Who is responsible for selecting which players will play each match? The Manager.
Who is responsible for the tactics? The Manager.
The list goes on, but I'm sure we are all bored reading the same line over and over.

The whole point about the structure of a football club, is that subject to budget &amp extreme situations, responsibility rests with the Manager, because it is the Manager who makes all the major &amp most of the minor footballing decisions at the club. That's why when a club does worse than it's budget suggests it should, it is the Manager who gets the chop.

It was this bit that made me think you were saying &quoteverything is down to the manager&quot. Or are we discussing semantics? I look forward to the next condescending personal put down as well, they are a real consistent highlight of your posts.

If players and managers are paid wages in the same ball park then it's a very big ball park. Which if consistently applied to the relative wage bills of Cheltenham and Oxford puts both clubs in the same ball park as well.

As for the accounts - if we're spending £2m as you say on wages, out of a £2.7m - does this mean our wage budget is well over the agreed 60% wage cap? I'm well aware that the accounts aren't necessarily straightforward.

The problem here is that there is and will never be a league table based on wage budget - so in my opinion, the best thing to do is to set a reasonable level of expectation at the start of the season and then compare progress to that. The relative performance of other clubs compared to their perceived wage budget muddies the water. There will always be another club doing better.

My thoughts this year (as I do keep up with OUFC, funnily enough) was that we'd need to be in the playoffs at a minimum. I suspect the clubs view is the same. Currently we're 2 points away, which is worrying and disappointing, but I think can be mitigated slightly by our injury problems this season. Also, crowd numbers have stayed consistent and assuming the club has budgeted properly should mean we operating at break even. I don't think it's time to rant or panic.

[GodalmingYellow]

If we really must, I'll download a copy of the accounts of each club and prove it to you.

Who is responsible for choosing the players to be signed? The Manager.
Who is responsible for determining the value of each player? The Manager.
Who is responsible for selecting players that will fit into the squad? The Manager.
Who is responsible for choosing the system being played? the Manager.
Who is responsible for selecting which players will play each match? The Manager.
Who is responsible for the tactics? The Manager.
The list goes on, but I'm sure we are all bored reading the same line over and over.

The whole point about the structure of a football club, is that subject to budget &amp extreme situations, responsibility rests with the Manager, because it is the Manager who makes all the major &amp most of the minor footballing decisions at the club. That's why when a club does worse than it's budget suggests it should, it is the Manager who gets the chop.

It was this bit that made me think you were saying &quoteverything is down to the manager&quot. Or are we discussing semantics? I look forward to the next condescending personal put down as well, they are a real consistent highlight of your posts.

If players and managers are paid wages in the same ball park then it's a very big ball park. Which if consistently applied to the relative wage bills of Cheltenham and Oxford puts both clubs in the same ball park as well.

As for the accounts - if we're spending £2m as you say on wages, out of a £2.7m - does this mean our wage budget is well over the agreed 60% wage cap? I'm well aware that the accounts aren't necessarily straightforward.

The problem here is that there is and will never be a league table based on wage budget - so in my opinion, the best thing to do is to set a reasonable level of expectation at the start of the season and then compare progress to that. The relative performance of other clubs compared to their perceived wage budget muddies the water. There will always be another club doing better.

My thoughts this year (as I do keep up with OUFC, funnily enough) was that we'd need to be in the playoffs at a minimum. I suspect the clubs view is the same. Currently we're 2 points away, which is worrying and disappointing, but I think can be mitigated slightly by our injury problems this season. Also, crowd numbers have stayed consistent and assuming the club has budgeted properly should mean we operating at break even. I don't think it's time to rant or panic.

I think you need to take a look at your own posts before you start dishing out accusations.

There is nothing condescending or personal, intentional or otherwise, in my posts.

As you've started to get personal, I'm stepping out of this discussion with you. What a shame.

[Isaac]

Ah come on GY, don't flounce, this is an interesting discussion. I withdraw and apologise for accusing you of being condescending, so hopefully you can respond to my last message ignoring that particular comment. I'll even edit it out if you want.

[GodalmingYellow]

Ah come on GY, don't flounce, this is an interesting discussion. I withdraw and apologise for accusing you of being condescending, so hopefully you can respond to my last message ignoring that particular comment. I'll even edit it out if you want.

No sorry Isaac, that isn't good enough. I don't need to open myself up to abuse on here, and I would rather do without it.

I am satisfied that the arguments I have raised are correct where factual and reasonable where subjective, and I am happy to let others form their own opinions based on that. Some may agree and some may not. But what i will not do is allow an argument to descend. I appreicate I've been no angel in the past, but that was a long time ago, and I'm just not interested in that sort of discussion any more.

[Isaac]

I'm not interested in that sort of discussion either, which is why I apologise and withdraw the comment. If that's the end of it it's a shame, as I thought it was too interesting to be derailed by a misjudged one-liner.

[slappy]

The accounts in year ending June 2010 showed a turnover of £2.614m but we only spent £1,964m of that. i.e. a profit of £0.65m was made and used to pay debts, not footballers.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that isn’t prudent, just pointing out that our increased revenue since then does not mean an increased player budget.

It means that we hit the wage cap were unable to spend any more on players even if we wanted to, so there was nothing left to spend on and a profit was made.

I can perhaps accept Snake misinterpreting the accounts, but after £650K of operating income, there are £741K of administrative expenses (presumably rent, rates, service charge, Kelvin etc), leaving a loss of £91K. The £531K player transfer profit (Whitehead) was perhaps used to repay debt, but not WPL debt so far as I know.

[theox]

It seems to me that GY's comments are being confused. I do not read it as an attack on Wilder - more as querying why we are spending money on players who are either not good enough or not motivated enough. Obviously, the longer such a situation goes on the more the finger of blame will point towards the manager because he brought those players to the club.

I think we can all agree that we must have a higher wage budget than Cheltenham.

Therefore, we should be signing better players than them. Obviously, it would be very boring if the teams with the biggest budgets won all the time (which is why I don't understand the 'excitement' of the Premier League or the Champions League) but it is simple common sense that the more you pay a player the better he should be.

Ergo, we should not be getting spanked by Cheltenham.

Yes, its a simplistic argument, but teams spending the most money in their league should not be failing week after week. I imagine that they have the same conversation at Bradford every week!

[Isaac]

Thing is, it's too simplistic to be meaningful. You're trying to use the wage budget for the season to explain why one team should beat the other in a game. A more valid game specific comparison would be the wage budget of the squad available for that game as that is the tangible influence of the wage difference on the game itself. This is partly why bookmakers are very interested in injury news prior to kickoff.

For the overall season performance then obviously season wage budget is a more useful measure. However, at this point it's not sensible to just compare one club vs another club, as you're at the mercy of unusual over or underperformance of one of those 2 clubs. Which is why I think the idea of setting expectations at the start of the year based on where you think a club should finish is the more sensible way to go. This is the time you make the decision about how much of an influence budget is on a teams overall performance.

When we went on the good run of results earlier in the season it wasn't solely down to the fact we had a higher wage bill than most teams. What we had was a settled team, playing a familiar formation who were high on confidence. I think league 2 is a fairly poor standard of professional football and players at this level are more likely to be influenced by poor form/confidence, so as a result my theory is you'll see less correlation between budget and overall league position than you would in other leagues.

None of this escapes the fact we're underperforming so far this season though. I just thought there was some nonsense around &quot3 times the budget&quot, which is clearly not true, plus the influence of the manager that was worth discussing.

[slappy]

Perhaps more relavent (given our next match) is Morecambe. They have perhaps one of the lowest average crowds, and presumably lowest playing budget, yet are one point above us.

As for our squad budget, around 5 / 23 have been injured most of the season and apart from loanee strikers we haven't really got back to a 23 man squad.