(That long since we've had any, couldn't find the thread)

Alan Nixon: "Top Liverpool starlet Cameron Branagan will Ben allowed out on loan in Jan.

Bolton lead the race for the 20 year old midfielder"

Edited December 11, 20169 yr by Ratwhite

9 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

To be fair on Arfield, he didn't go back to the SPL, it was the league below, and he basically didn't play when they got back in the Prem.  I also think he got a bad press from us and just got in a rut in an under performing team - same as Taylor.  They proved themselves as decent players before they came here, and literally half a dozen games for us and they're treated as being Greenidge and Maskell category - they aren't/weren't that bad.  If Dalby had also been restricted to half a dozen appearances he wouldn't be far above Dan in our affections!

I agree with you that championship is miles above anywhere below top 3 of Scottish.  Every team in the bottom half of the championship would finish top 6 IMO.  I don't think L1 teams would finish top 6 but I think we'd avoid relegation no problem.  Just opinions of course.

I'd be amazed if many bottom half Scots Prem players could cut it in the championship, another comparison of players that have done L1 and Scots Prem in recent times are Baccus who we wanted, Dan of course, Doidge (Champ for us but not good enough for that level), Vela, Taylor, Dalby.  L1 standard, got loads of games in the Scots Prem, not really championship standard (that's not meant to be a dig at Dalby, just talking about his career path to date).

Arfield's time for us was summed up by his attempted clearance against Arsenal in the Carabao cup and they went and scored 

Edited June 2Jun 2 by DirtySanchez

Arfield came slap bang in the middle of Ian Evatt completely losing his fucking mind and thinking we could play with wing backs and 3 up top. 

He was still shite like but a bit like that wanker Keith Andrews, he couldn't have landed at the club at a worst time.

51 minutes ago, DirtySanchez said:

Arfield's time for us was summed up by his attempted clearance against Arsenal in the Carabao cup and they went and scored 

Yes, similarly Taylor's time was summed up by this attempted clearance v Port Vale that resulted in a goal (and being honest that wasn't his only blip).  But a bad clearance punished by a goal is how we remember players, we were playing Arsenal and he wasn't the only one out of his depth, if it wasn't a goal we forget it.

As with Taylor, they didn't get the chance to put things right.

We'd be remembering Dalby for missing that open goal from 5 yards in the autumn (before he'd scored any at home) or the cross into the crowd at Doncaster when we had a chance on the break, and everyone was getting pelters especially him.

And Cissoko would never have played after Burton away or that home game he got booed in.

1 hour ago, Johnnyrotten said:

I'll let SS and Fergal get on with it but my post was to suggest that I'd be surprised if a young player from Kilmarnock was going to be starting many in the first half of the season ahead of the players already here, and any experienced signings.

I think they are going to have to.

My logic goes something like this,

We, and every other club in the Championship are subject to the new Squad Cost 'pay cap' rule which includes the net cost of transfers - meaning that all clubs are limited to 85% of their clubs turnover (with owners being limited to putting in equity of no more than £15m per season).

(This would also seem to also rule out the recent rumour of the £30m American investment into the club?).

To put that into some context the FV had a trading loss of £14m and wages (note NOT wages and net transfer spend) was 98.8% of revenue in the last accounts for the completed 24/25 season.

The thing is though all the clubs who are already in the Championship have squads that have been good enough to stay there (ok several struggled but then again you only need to finish higher than three other teams).

Meaning they can look to strengthen their weakest areas, knowing that in other areas across the pitch they are (shall we say) good enough for now and thus we are starting very much at the back of the grid well behind them all.

We (and presumably Lincoln and Cardiff) have relatively few players that we know will be adequate at Championship level and will have a limited budget to recruit and retain several needed and known to be Championship level players (who wages wise won't come cheap) - especially if equity allowed into the club in a season is limited to £15m - meaning we will have to be extremely frugal how we spend what money we are allowed, to build an entire Championship level squad from virtually nothing (bar Dalby, Rodrigues, Sheehan give or take). 

Our revenue will go up around £20m with being in the Championship but or trading loss will take the lions share of that I would expect.

How then can Preston, Millwall and Wrexham spend millions on a player this season, because they must consider they are solid across the rest of their side for the Championship and can basically spend the bulk of their transfer budget on one or two players.

We can't.

I estimate that there is probably around £5m equity left in the club by the end of this season (30th June 2026) so it would make perfect sense to me if players are signed before that date, so any transfer fees paid won't be included in next seasons Squad Cost rules.

It would also help if FV can put as much equity into the club before that date also so as to allow themselves a bit of financial wriggle room for future seasons in advance of the £15m equity per season limit that comes in.

So I simply don't believe we haven't the luxury of building a Championship squad from almost nothing, whilst being subject to financial and capital constraints (that will have much reduced impact on existing Championship teams (because they have a head start on us by already having squads largely of Championship level players already - as we will be next season after staying up) and spending something like £1m between them on Watson and Stephenson simply not to play them for half a season.

They will be out of necessity (in my opinion) active squad players from the start unless they show they can't hack it at this level just yet.

That's my thinking anyway.

27 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

I think they are going to have to.

My logic goes something like this,

We, and every other club in the Championship are subject to the new Squad Cost 'pay cap' rule which includes the net cost of transfers - meaning that all clubs are limited to 85% of their clubs turnover (with owners being limited to putting in equity of no more than £15m per season).

(This would also seem to also rule out the recent rumour of the £30m American investment into the club?).

To put that into some context the FV had a trading loss of £14m and wages (note NOT wages and net transfer spend) was 98.8% of revenue in the last accounts for the completed 24/25 season.

The thing is though all the clubs who are already in the Championship have squads that have been good enough to stay there (ok several struggled but then again you only need to finish higher than three other teams).

Meaning they can look to strengthen their weakest areas, knowing that in other areas across the pitch they are (shall we say) good enough for now and thus we are starting very much at the back of the grid well behind them all.

We (and presumably Lincoln and Cardiff) have relatively few players that we know will be adequate at Championship level and will have a limited budget to recruit and retain several needed and known to be Championship level players (who wages wise won't come cheap) - especially if equity allowed into the club in a season is limited to £15m - meaning we will have to be extremely frugal how we spend what money we are allowed, to build an entire Championship level squad from virtually nothing (bar Dalby, Rodrigues, Sheehan give or take). 

Our revenue will go up around £20m with being in the Championship but or trading loss will take the lions share of that I would expect.

How then can Preston, Millwall and Wrexham spend millions on a player this season, because they must consider they are solid across the rest of their side for the Championship and can basically spend the bulk of their transfer budget on one or two players.

We can't.

I estimate that there is probably around £5m equity left in the club by the end of this season (30th June 2026) so it would make perfect sense to me if players are signed before that date, so any transfer fees paid won't be included in next seasons Squad Cost rules.

It would also help if FV can put as much equity into the club before that date also so as to allow themselves a bit of financial wriggle room for future seasons in advance of the £15m equity per season limit that comes in.

So I simply don't believe we haven't the luxury of building a Championship squad from almost nothing, whilst being subject to financial and capital constraints (that will have much reduced impact on existing Championship teams (because they have a head start on us by already having squads largely of Championship level players already - as we will be next season after staying up) and spending something like £1m between them on Watson and Stephenson simply not to play them for half a season.

They will be out of necessity (in my opinion) active squad players from the start unless they show they can't hack it at this level just yet.

That's my thinking anyway.

Well sometimes there’s a need for long posts and I consider that one of them. A complicated scenario explained pretty well.. 👍

.. maybe it’s the fentanyl 🤣

…but that’s on the trusted assumption that what you are saying is correct 😂

There's more to Taylor's failings that simply being shite. It may never be known but it sniffs a bit Mark Bosnich to me ... with absolutely no evidence whatsoever. He MAY actually, turn out to just be an awful player.

Just now, desperado said:

Well sometimes there’s a need for long posts and I consider that one of them. A complicated scenario explained pretty well.. 👍

.. maybe it’s the fentanyl 🤣

…but that’s on the trusted assumption that what you are saying is correct 😂

Thank you.

I don't know if I'm correct though, I can only go off what the EFL have put into the public domain in respect of the Squad Building Cost rule.

The £15m equity cap in a financial year is not fully defined by them yet but it seems to me that the intent is to try to stop club owners buying the league by plunging their club in debt then watching them financially implode a season or two later (think Chansiri at Sheffield Wednesday,  Mel Morris at Derby and maybe even our own Eddie Davies).

After that I only state the obvious, we've got a big build to get a squad to Championship level and the clubs already at that level are at least a season or more in front of us already.

Maybe FV have invested £1m to bring two youngsters effectively the B team (or whatever name our reserve team goes under these days), but I suspect whatever our budget for wages and transfers needed for recruitment in our season ahead allows us the luxury to do so (even allowing that the agree fees may not be required to be paid in full immediately on transfer).

I could of course have replied to JR in a sentence or two  - "Nah, I think you're wrong mate" or something similar but I prefer to show my reasoning (it is also respectful to who I am replying to, although I do understand that respect is not a prerequisite on social media).

If people don't want to read what I post because it is too long for their liking, then fine, just put me on ignore - live and let live eh?

Anyway hope your knee heels soon.

1 hour ago, Sluffy said:

I think they are going to have to.

My logic goes something like this,

We, and every other club in the Championship are subject to the new Squad Cost 'pay cap' rule which includes the net cost of transfers - meaning that all clubs are limited to 85% of their clubs turnover (with owners being limited to putting in equity of no more than £15m per season).

(This would also seem to also rule out the recent rumour of the £30m American investment into the club?).

To put that into some context the FV had a trading loss of £14m and wages (note NOT wages and net transfer spend) was 98.8% of revenue in the last accounts for the completed 24/25 season.

The thing is though all the clubs who are already in the Championship have squads that have been good enough to stay there (ok several struggled but then again you only need to finish higher than three other teams).

Meaning they can look to strengthen their weakest areas, knowing that in other areas across the pitch they are (shall we say) good enough for now and thus we are starting very much at the back of the grid well behind them all.

We (and presumably Lincoln and Cardiff) have relatively few players that we know will be adequate at Championship level and will have a limited budget to recruit and retain several needed and known to be Championship level players (who wages wise won't come cheap) - especially if equity allowed into the club in a season is limited to £15m - meaning we will have to be extremely frugal how we spend what money we are allowed, to build an entire Championship level squad from virtually nothing (bar Dalby, Rodrigues, Sheehan give or take). 

Our revenue will go up around £20m with being in the Championship but or trading loss will take the lions share of that I would expect.

How then can Preston, Millwall and Wrexham spend millions on a player this season, because they must consider they are solid across the rest of their side for the Championship and can basically spend the bulk of their transfer budget on one or two players.

We can't.

I estimate that there is probably around £5m equity left in the club by the end of this season (30th June 2026) so it would make perfect sense to me if players are signed before that date, so any transfer fees paid won't be included in next seasons Squad Cost rules.

It would also help if FV can put as much equity into the club before that date also so as to allow themselves a bit of financial wriggle room for future seasons in advance of the £15m equity per season limit that comes in.

So I simply don't believe we haven't the luxury of building a Championship squad from almost nothing, whilst being subject to financial and capital constraints (that will have much reduced impact on existing Championship teams (because they have a head start on us by already having squads largely of Championship level players already - as we will be next season after staying up) and spending something like £1m between them on Watson and Stephenson simply not to play them for half a season.

They will be out of necessity (in my opinion) active squad players from the start unless they show they can't hack it at this level just yet.

That's my thinking anyway.

So our budget could be somewhere in the region of £47 million, 85% of £20 million current turn over, assumed £20 million increase for being in the Championship and the maximum £15 million investment.

Not a huge amount to cover wages (already £20 million) and signing fees.

 

No new signing today? Come on Harkin, you are slacking 🙂

1 hour ago, Sluffy said:

I estimate that there is probably around £5m equity left in the club by the end of this season (30th June 2026) so it would make perfect sense to me if players are signed before that date, so any transfer fees paid won't be included in next seasons Squad Cost rules.

It would also help if FV can put as much equity into the club before that date also so as to allow themselves a bit of financial wriggle room for future seasons in advance of the £15m equity per season limit that comes in.

 

22 minutes ago, paulhanley said:

No new signing today? Come on Harkin, you are slacking 🙂

In his interview Fergal this week made a couple of points about timing.   First that World Cup years we're historically very slow for the transfer market and secondly that he hoped we would have 4 or 5 in by the start of pre-season.

I'm guessing players are back in training early July.

15 minutes ago, TrickyTrotter said:

I'm guessing players are back in training early July.

It'll be a week later (at least) than last year - league starts 2 weeks later than this, but there is a Carabao Cup match the weekend before

9 hours ago, gonzo said:

Stats and data seem to do Brentford, Bournemouth and Brighton pretty well.

Their whole recruitment is based around that kind of micro analysis.

Arent 2 of those owned by experts in statistics and data analysis ? 

I've seen some fair bits of Watson on the Scottish TV, robust enough lad for his age (still a bit of scope for development), aggressive enough, got that bit of an eye for a late arrival into the box. 

While its absolutely right not to over expect of him, I think he'll be in and around the match day 18 from the off, if not necessarily starting.

Is he not for the B team?

In an interview he said he is a box to box midfielder . So if he isnt the new Jason Macateer Im going to be disappointed. 

27 minutes ago, L/H White said:

Is he not for the B team?

Dempsey replacement

3 hours ago, CambridgeBWFC said:

So our budget could be somewhere in the region of £47 million, 85% of £20 million current turn over, assumed £20 million increase for being in the Championship and the maximum £15 million investment.

Not a huge amount to cover wages (already £20 million) and signing fees.

 

Sorry, I've made a slight error, the increase in revenue from being in the Championship is £12m not £20m (as I've mention a couple of times recently, please forgive me my mistake).

Equity is not counted as turnover so it can't be included as part of the turnover total used to take the 85% from in order to arrive at the Squad budget limit.  However up to £15m equity can be invested into the club each year and apparently (the EFL has not published the details yet) can be used to supplement to whatever the 85% total is.

Tbh, I can't imagine that much if any of it will be made available because it is the equity sum that is used to clear the annual trading debts which last season was £14m and I would expect similar this year and again in the Championship.

I've had a look at Preston's last accounts 24-25 season and the revenue for that season was Season tickets and match day sales £5.4m, PL payment at TV revenue £11.8m (that's when it clicked that I had made an error about it being £20m) and everything else £1.7m (total £18.9m).

Their players and staff wages shown as £22.4m

Preston's loss that year was £11.7m (which included the sacking and replacing of Ryan Lowe and his crew).

OK it is only one club out of 24 in that league so can't be relied on (I'm not looking at the other 23!) but using it as a guide (because that is all we've got to go on) it would seem reasonable to assume that our revenue in the Championship would be around say £34m (£20m we were getting in the League 1 plus £12m for now being in the Championship, plus say a further £2m with increased attendance, shirt sales and food and drink.

However to offset that we will no doubt have a trading loss again and the trading losses are funded from equity.

 

I estimate there will be around £5m left in the kitty at the end of this season (30th June 2026) and I am assume the full £15m allowed under the new investment rules will be invested next season (if not before!).

So if the losses could be kept to say £15m (similar to last season and what I imagine this season will be, that would leave £5m of the equity that could be put towards the Squad Building (as I understand it)

£34m revenue x 85% = gives a Squad Building maximum of £28.9m

£34m revenue less say a £15m trading loss would leave £19m 

Add the £5m from equity would give us a budget to build the squad of around £24m.

However that would leave zero equity in the club for the season afterwards.

 

I understand the summer / World Cup, would leave a quiet until period until June comes around but it really, really would be a good idea if FV could invest equity into the club by the 30th June being before the £15m equity cap kicks in - meaning they can invest up to £15m more next season 26/27.

 

I do apologise to all on here who hate me doing this but there are more than a few who seem to appreciate me doing so as well.

Live in peace everyone.

Shall we?

 

Losses will be less than last year.

23 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

Sorry, I've made a slight error, the increase in revenue from being in the Championship is £12m not £20m (as I've mention a couple of times recently, please forgive me my mistake).

Equity is not counted as turnover so it can't be included as part of the turnover total used to take the 85% from in order to arrive at the Squad budget limit.  However up to £15m equity can be invested into the club each year and apparently (the EFL has not published the details yet) can be used to supplement to whatever the 85% total is.

Tbh, I can't imagine that much if any of it will be made available because it is the equity sum that is used to clear the annual trading debts which last season was £14m and I would expect similar this year and again in the Championship.

I've had a look at Preston's last accounts 24-25 season and the revenue for that season was Season tickets and match day sales £5.4m, PL payment at TV revenue £11.8m (that's when it clicked that I had made an error about it being £20m) and everything else £1.7m (total £18.9m).

Their players and staff wages shown as £22.4m

Preston's loss that year was £11.7m (which included the sacking and replacing of Ryan Lowe and his crew).

OK it is only one club out of 24 in that league so can't be relied on (I'm not looking at the other 23!) but using it as a guide (because that is all we've got to go on) it would seem reasonable to assume that our revenue in the Championship would be around say £34m (£20m we were getting in the League 1 plus £12m for now being in the Championship, plus say a further £2m with increased attendance, shirt sales and food and drink.

However to offset that we will no doubt have a trading loss again and the trading losses are funded from equity.

 

I estimate there will be around £5m left in the kitty at the end of this season (30th June 2026) and I am assume the full £15m allowed under the new investment rules will be invested next season (if not before!).

So if the losses could be kept to say £15m (similar to last season and what I imagine this season will be, that would leave £5m of the equity that could be put towards the Squad Building (as I understand it)

£34m revenue x 85% = gives a Squad Building maximum of £28.9m

£34m revenue less say a £15m trading loss would leave £19m 

Add the £5m from equity would give us a budget to build the squad of around £24m.

However that would leave zero equity in the club for the season afterwards.

 

I understand the summer / World Cup, would leave a quiet until period until June comes around but it really, really would be a good idea if FV could invest equity into the club by the 30th June being before the £15m equity cap kicks in - meaning they can invest up to £15m more next season 26/27.

 

I do apologise to all on here who hate me doing this but there are more than a few who seem to appreciate me doing so as well.

Live in peace everyone.

Shall we?

 

No disrespect intended, but there should be one thread just for all the financial bollocks that most of us aren't interested in.

I know and a few others love it, but it'd all be better in one place.

Just been listening to Iles saying he doesn't think that Luca Stephenson link is real.

Just now, Traf said:

No disrespect intended, but there should be one thread just for all the financial bollocks that most of us aren't interested in.

I know and a few others love it, but it'd all be better in one place.

No disrespect taken.

I'm more than happy for it to be in one place but I'm replying to people who have asked questions or made statements on the threads I've replied to.

What I've basically talked about is BWFC transfer budget for the coming season, if my post doesn't belong in the transfer thread, which more relevant thread should I have posted it in?

 

I'd be happy with free's and loans if it helps secure the club financially. 

 

 

Financial gurus are us. See what happens with signings. I’ll call it after that. Not the turnover to homo ratio. Wages are important but not imperative 

Back to transfer gossip several clubs interested in GJ Hearts, Plymouth Bradford and Luton also Blackpool still after him. 

4 minutes ago, Rizlar said:

Back to transfer gossip several clubs interested in GJ Hearts, Plymouth Bradford and Luton also Blackpool still after him. 

what a grim set of clubs 

i'd be picking hearts, likely will challenge again