| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary 10:32 - Jan 27 with 15599 views | thehat |
I believe it’s two years this month since Christian Nourry took over the helm at QPR. I thought it would make an interesting midweek thread on what the thoughts were of progress so far. Personally I am in the cup is half full camp and believe we have turned the ship and are now heading in the right direction below are some main pointers from me:
Positives
Squad - Recruitment has improved and we now have the best squad we have had for years and it seems a good blend of youth and experience and looks a much happier dressing room. For the first time in years we have players who are now worth looking at for teams higher up the food chain. We are not (yet) in a relegation battle and still with an outside chance of the play offs.
Manager - Maybe divides opinion but I’m still happy with the progress we are making under Julien Stephan who was a thoughtful choice and the same profile to continue the work done by Marti.
Academy - Plans to upgrade to Cat 1. Seems to be a positive move although only time will tell on this one.
School End - Removal of away fans from lower tier and having our own fans there seems to have certainly helped improve our home form.
Negatives
Better communication with fans. Good to see we are now communicating better with injuries but maybe more sessions with fan groups.
Performance team - This does need to improve the overall condition of our players compared to other clubs does by the naked eye seems very poor not just the injuries but the overall fitness of the team.
Pitch - God knows what happened there, it would be good if the club could let us know what the problem was and what is being done to fix it.
Finally a big shout out to our owners who continue to write the cheques to keep the lights on. Not only that but then converting the debt to shares so it is not shown on the balance sheet as club debt.
So for me this is still very much work in progress but we are in a much better position now than we were two years ago.
|  | | |  |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 15:43 - Jan 30 with 1578 views | Spaghetti_Hoops |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 12:23 - Jan 30 by Jevlar |
If Nourry can get us out of the cycle of signing players with dodgy injury records, that for me, will be a huge win.
We've had years of signing good, potenially great players often caveated by the fact that they're a bit injury prone.
If we can remove ourselves from scouring in that level of the transfer market, then a lot of our squad issues could be solved. [Post edited 30 Jan 12:29]
|
I'll make the point yet again in case anyone wants to face the facts.
With a below average player budget for the division something has to give. We could try to get by with less players than most of the division. We could sign more League One level players for less wages. Players that will run all day, not tire in the second half or get injured, but unfortunately get relegated anyway. Or we could compromise in another way.
The compromise the club could have decided on, but wouldn't admit to of course, is they are accepting some risks in recruitment in terms of injury records or physiology. If we are getting more injuries than average that may be the reason? It's just a theory.
But with less money to spend on players, than at least two thirds of the division it seems, something has to give. | | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 15:55 - Jan 30 with 1523 views | Northernr |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 15:43 - Jan 30 by Spaghetti_Hoops |
I'll make the point yet again in case anyone wants to face the facts.
With a below average player budget for the division something has to give. We could try to get by with less players than most of the division. We could sign more League One level players for less wages. Players that will run all day, not tire in the second half or get injured, but unfortunately get relegated anyway. Or we could compromise in another way.
The compromise the club could have decided on, but wouldn't admit to of course, is they are accepting some risks in recruitment in terms of injury records or physiology. If we are getting more injuries than average that may be the reason? It's just a theory.
But with less money to spend on players, than at least two thirds of the division it seems, something has to give. |
I've disagreed with you a lot this week so, just to say, I do agree with this.
My long standing point that if there's nothing wrong with your flying, fit 24-year-old winger then he wouldn't be playing for QPR applies.
If you are going to take that approach though you really have to, as they said at the forum, "take every step to put them in the best possibly place to succeed". Making them play on a ploughed field does not comply with this. |  | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 16:14 - Jan 30 with 1455 views | TheChef |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 15:55 - Jan 30 by Northernr |
I've disagreed with you a lot this week so, just to say, I do agree with this.
My long standing point that if there's nothing wrong with your flying, fit 24-year-old winger then he wouldn't be playing for QPR applies.
If you are going to take that approach though you really have to, as they said at the forum, "take every step to put them in the best possibly place to succeed". Making them play on a ploughed field does not comply with this. |
Amazing then how well we've done with getting minutes out of Sam Field given his injury history prior to signing.
But he's very much the outlier.
And of course he's the one we're bombing out.
You Rs! |  |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 16:54 - Jan 30 with 1372 views | KensalT |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 15:43 - Jan 30 by Spaghetti_Hoops |
I'll make the point yet again in case anyone wants to face the facts.
With a below average player budget for the division something has to give. We could try to get by with less players than most of the division. We could sign more League One level players for less wages. Players that will run all day, not tire in the second half or get injured, but unfortunately get relegated anyway. Or we could compromise in another way.
The compromise the club could have decided on, but wouldn't admit to of course, is they are accepting some risks in recruitment in terms of injury records or physiology. If we are getting more injuries than average that may be the reason? It's just a theory.
But with less money to spend on players, than at least two thirds of the division it seems, something has to give. |
I take your point about our small budget and that signing players with poor injury records is always likely to be a risk. And we do have a good few of those when you thing about it. Off the top of my head:
- JCS
- Poku
- Morrison
- Field
But recently we have been losing players who didn't have a bad record for injuries. Chair has missed a lot of games in the last 18 months. Dembele has also missed a lot of games since we signed him. And Burrell looked like an accident waiting to happen for several games before he finally crashed. If the fans in the stands could see that Burrell was fatigued and needed a rest why couldn't the coaches and physios see it? | | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 16:57 - Jan 30 with 1340 views | Wegerles_Stairs |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 16:54 - Jan 30 by KensalT |
I take your point about our small budget and that signing players with poor injury records is always likely to be a risk. And we do have a good few of those when you thing about it. Off the top of my head:
- JCS
- Poku
- Morrison
- Field
But recently we have been losing players who didn't have a bad record for injuries. Chair has missed a lot of games in the last 18 months. Dembele has also missed a lot of games since we signed him. And Burrell looked like an accident waiting to happen for several games before he finally crashed. If the fans in the stands could see that Burrell was fatigued and needed a rest why couldn't the coaches and physios see it? |
I still don't understand why he didn't take a few players off at half-time against Leicester. Even we would have struggled to throw that game away. | | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 17:00 - Jan 30 with 1356 views | nick_hammersmith |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 15:43 - Jan 30 by Spaghetti_Hoops |
I'll make the point yet again in case anyone wants to face the facts.
With a below average player budget for the division something has to give. We could try to get by with less players than most of the division. We could sign more League One level players for less wages. Players that will run all day, not tire in the second half or get injured, but unfortunately get relegated anyway. Or we could compromise in another way.
The compromise the club could have decided on, but wouldn't admit to of course, is they are accepting some risks in recruitment in terms of injury records or physiology. If we are getting more injuries than average that may be the reason? It's just a theory.
But with less money to spend on players, than at least two thirds of the division it seems, something has to give. |
This fits perfectly with the huge "performance" backroom staff that we now have, who can use data science to careful handle the fitness of our fragile stars.
I agree, if we turn these players careers around and get them playing regular minutes, then this is only good news for the club.
Remember how we all felt after seeing JCS play more than 20 games in a season? We were sure he was going to be poached in the summer for millions!
I think other posters have mentioned, the only other example that sticks out was Sam Field, who was injured a lot at WBA and has enjoyed consistent football during his time at QPR.
Recently though, not many good examples.
In fact, if we go back further there is the antithesis of sport science, Neil Warnock.
Adel Taraabt was an ever present in that side, despite not training regularly.
Maybe some of the players just need a day off and an arm around the shoulder to steer clear of these horrible "contact" injuries?
-- Yes, the pitch is a shambles and obviously a factor at the moment, but its fairly recent and doesn't explain all our woes |  | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 18:00 - Jan 30 with 1284 views | Northernr |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 16:54 - Jan 30 by KensalT |
I take your point about our small budget and that signing players with poor injury records is always likely to be a risk. And we do have a good few of those when you thing about it. Off the top of my head:
- JCS
- Poku
- Morrison
- Field
But recently we have been losing players who didn't have a bad record for injuries. Chair has missed a lot of games in the last 18 months. Dembele has also missed a lot of games since we signed him. And Burrell looked like an accident waiting to happen for several games before he finally crashed. If the fans in the stands could see that Burrell was fatigued and needed a rest why couldn't the coaches and physios see it? |
Chair had barely missed a game in his life.
Someone at the club off mic once told me the difference between Eze and Chair is that Ebs was very laid back, trust in God, it'll come if it's meant to come, whereas Illy would crawl over his dead grandmother for one game of professional football.
Last two years, never fit. | | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 18:14 - Jan 30 with 1261 views | Jevlar |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 15:43 - Jan 30 by Spaghetti_Hoops |
I'll make the point yet again in case anyone wants to face the facts.
With a below average player budget for the division something has to give. We could try to get by with less players than most of the division. We could sign more League One level players for less wages. Players that will run all day, not tire in the second half or get injured, but unfortunately get relegated anyway. Or we could compromise in another way.
The compromise the club could have decided on, but wouldn't admit to of course, is they are accepting some risks in recruitment in terms of injury records or physiology. If we are getting more injuries than average that may be the reason? It's just a theory.
But with less money to spend on players, than at least two thirds of the division it seems, something has to give. |
Joined the thread late, clearly missed some of the points made, and wasn’t attempting to wind anyone up.
And the points you make are very valid points. I totally agree.
Also, worryingly, what Clive said, the fact that Chair is now almost permanently crocked.
Is this just down to bad luck or has something changed since wonderboy and his side kick lyrca man took over. |  | | |
Login to get fewer ads
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 19:52 - Jan 30 with 1135 views | Spaghetti_Hoops |
There are players with worrying injury records. There are players with bodies which suggest they might break down at some point who haven't had many injuries. Others who have niggles they play through or earlier operations....... Then there are the unlucky ones where the injury comes out of the blue. You'd have to say it is a complicated picture.
Every club takes risks but how much risk to take, and for what reason?
If clubs are to be believed they are always guided by the medics? | | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 22:48 - Jan 30 with 1022 views | wombat |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 18:14 - Jan 30 by Jevlar |
Joined the thread late, clearly missed some of the points made, and wasn’t attempting to wind anyone up.
And the points you make are very valid points. I totally agree.
Also, worryingly, what Clive said, the fact that Chair is now almost permanently crocked.
Is this just down to bad luck or has something changed since wonderboy and his side kick lyrca man took over. |
Something has changed poor quality staff doing there jobs or more likely the person who’s telling them what to do isn’t up to the job . We recently advertised for yet another physio the club had 20 applicants in one day the advert was supposed to be open for over a week . It was closed after one day.
We all know th person running the club hasn’t run a company before ,never employed a member of staff in his lifetime . And his football knowledge is minimal . It’s not exactly. Recipe for success from top to bottom is it . Lightning seems to have struck twice all being with the help of Ai this time.
I doubt Ruben knows what’s going on as the person reporting to him is mainly the one to blame for the mess and I can’t see him hanging his mate out can you ? |  |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 23:08 - Jan 30 with 976 views | numptydumpty |
I wonder how our medicals compare to other clubs at this level.
Clearly with a policy seemingly to buy crocks with some talent but the potential to possibly improve.
Wonder what tests are umdertaken.
Can you walk in a straight line
Can you touch your toes
Can you do a triple bsck flip |  |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 00:13 - Jan 31 with 920 views | NorthantsHoop |
How everything is so over complicated these days in modern football, an industry that is just so bloated. I love going to the Rangers, but back in the glorious Venables days of the early to mid 80s and back to the Sexton/Jago days of the 1970s you had about 14 players tops, hardly any major injuries etc, having to deal with mud pitches, plastic pitches and industrial type tackles. The modern footballer to me seems over trained, overpaid and made of glass. |  | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 00:13 - Jan 31 with 919 views | OakR |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 23:08 - Jan 30 by numptydumpty |
I wonder how our medicals compare to other clubs at this level.
Clearly with a policy seemingly to buy crocks with some talent but the potential to possibly improve.
Wonder what tests are umdertaken.
Can you walk in a straight line
Can you touch your toes
Can you do a triple bsck flip |
I imagine medicals nowdays are fairly standard across champtionship clubs, but the difference will lie in the risks each club is prepared to take. If you've got loads of money, no need to take risks, if you have none take much more risk, and somewhere in the middle for others.
I guess it's about it's difficult but also how much of your squad is 'high injury risk' and if that is worth vs the potential of those players.
I say all this with no idea how medicals work in practice....but I believe there isn't really a pass fail, just a risk of x (I assume anyway) | |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 00:28 - Jan 31 with 889 views | simmo |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 15:43 - Jan 30 by Spaghetti_Hoops |
I'll make the point yet again in case anyone wants to face the facts.
With a below average player budget for the division something has to give. We could try to get by with less players than most of the division. We could sign more League One level players for less wages. Players that will run all day, not tire in the second half or get injured, but unfortunately get relegated anyway. Or we could compromise in another way.
The compromise the club could have decided on, but wouldn't admit to of course, is they are accepting some risks in recruitment in terms of injury records or physiology. If we are getting more injuries than average that may be the reason? It's just a theory.
But with less money to spend on players, than at least two thirds of the division it seems, something has to give. |
That's fair enough, except I reckon we're in the top 5 for net spend this year, and have spent a relative fortune in the last 18 months in comparison to the previous few years.
We were around this level of points at this time last year with a strike force of Frey, Celar, Kolli and Lloyd. I'm the meantime we've retained or brought in senior pros like Cook, Dunne and Hayden, and have all the benefits of Madsen and Varane going through their growing pains. Decent money was spent on Saito, Kone, Poku, and now Edwards, the kind of money that shouldn't bring as much risk, and we've had the options of Vale and Dembele who were not available most or all of last season.
In the context of last season's squad to this, we're massively underachieving, and for once I don't think transfer spend is an excuse. |  |
| ask Beavis I get nothing Butthead |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 06:56 - Jan 31 with 793 views | numptydumpty |
One failing of Nourry, not mentioned, if he is CEO.
The catering staff.
Half have a very limited knowledge of English. But that would be ok, if they at least knew the names of the products.
Means that its so slow to get the queues down. Anyhow, this has been an issue in South Africa Road.
Not football related but i gave up getting anything at half time especially. [Post edited 31 Jan 6:57]
| |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 08:10 - Jan 31 with 735 views | nix |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 00:28 - Jan 31 by simmo |
That's fair enough, except I reckon we're in the top 5 for net spend this year, and have spent a relative fortune in the last 18 months in comparison to the previous few years.
We were around this level of points at this time last year with a strike force of Frey, Celar, Kolli and Lloyd. I'm the meantime we've retained or brought in senior pros like Cook, Dunne and Hayden, and have all the benefits of Madsen and Varane going through their growing pains. Decent money was spent on Saito, Kone, Poku, and now Edwards, the kind of money that shouldn't bring as much risk, and we've had the options of Vale and Dembele who were not available most or all of last season.
In the context of last season's squad to this, we're massively underachieving, and for once I don't think transfer spend is an excuse. |
Not really fair to compare two seasons net spend with team performance when we’ve hardly had time to unearth the next Eze, develop and sell him over the last two years in order to fund our current squad. Hull has spent over £50 million in transfers over the last three seasons and I’m guessing a lot more on Oli McBurnie on a free and Joe Gelherdt on loan from Leeds in wages than we are on Kone and Burrell. Now this was funded over selling players like Philogene but you have to have a system that unearths them and be patient enough to do that.
We’re also competing against Wrexham who are spending on gnarly old pros like Moore, Rathbone and Windass. No resale value, big wages, but won’t blow up in the last four minutes of matches and probably good at conning refs. But what happens in two seasons time if they don’t go up and Disney stops funding them.
We could probably look at other teams who’ve also got more expensive squads across the division too in Ipswich, Leicester, Southampton, Sheffield Utd, Norwich, Bristol City, Cov (sold Gyokeres for tens of millions), Middlesbrough, Stoke, WBA. I’m guessing they’ve all spent more than us over the last three seasons and therefore have a more expensively put together squad, many of which will now be on their prime. So we’re performing pretty much on track on the pitch and to some extent above our potential given the age profile of our squad compared to some of these teams.
So some of our assessment has to be guesswork. Will our current squad have the upside to bring transfer fees in and then fund the next Toney or Mitrovic? I have some beiief that we will get money for Burrell and at least one other of our squad. If we
can do that and then buy the next Burrell then we could be Hull or even Cov in two seasons time. I have no idea if it will happen and can’t judge Nourry favourably or unfavourably on guesswork. But I would say I prefer our strategy in terms of squad building to Wrexham’s even though their financial strategy is working well it’s not really something anyone could replicate what with having film stars owning it etc |  | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 08:13 - Jan 31 with 732 views | Northernr |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 06:56 - Jan 31 by numptydumpty |
One failing of Nourry, not mentioned, if he is CEO.
The catering staff.
Half have a very limited knowledge of English. But that would be ok, if they at least knew the names of the products.
Means that its so slow to get the queues down. Anyhow, this has been an issue in South Africa Road.
Not football related but i gave up getting anything at half time especially. [Post edited 31 Jan 6:57]
|
On this, you’ve got the biggest employer of permanent and temporary staff in West London at the end of the road. QPR are able to offer you a five hour shift, once or twice a fortnight, for 9 months of the year, in poor/cold conditions, on poor/minimum wage. If you want a temporary gig in W12 you work in Westfield. It’s an incredibly difficult ground to staff. | | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 08:40 - Jan 31 with 688 views | numptydumpty |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 08:13 - Jan 31 by Northernr |
On this, you’ve got the biggest employer of permanent and temporary staff in West London at the end of the road. QPR are able to offer you a five hour shift, once or twice a fortnight, for 9 months of the year, in poor/cold conditions, on poor/minimum wage. If you want a temporary gig in W12 you work in Westfield. It’s an incredibly difficult ground to staff. |
Ok understand.
Didnt think that people working in Westfield would have been minimum wage also.
i was probably thinking back to my times when people would take any weekend job to up your income a little.
Perhaps they should be permanent employees that maybe help out with other events that help with customer service etc.
Yes understand though re Westfield offering many alternative opportunities and if you had the options you would work there. | |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 08:44 - Jan 31 with 682 views | PlanetHonneywood |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 08:13 - Jan 31 by Northernr |
On this, you’ve got the biggest employer of permanent and temporary staff in West London at the end of the road. QPR are able to offer you a five hour shift, once or twice a fortnight, for 9 months of the year, in poor/cold conditions, on poor/minimum wage. If you want a temporary gig in W12 you work in Westfield. It’s an incredibly difficult ground to staff. |
Very true.
However, this doesn't excuse companies in the customer service sectors from not providing their front facing staff with the requisite training to do the basics of the job.
It's not exclusive to our provider in W12, it's a phenomenon worldwide in my experience. To often workers in these sectors are looked down upon by employers and the public alike, and things have worsened post-Covid.
It won't improve because soon, very soon, your halftime repast will be handled by the mind numbness of AI/vending machines. |  |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 08:59 - Jan 31 with 667 views | Hunterhoop |
Didn’t they change the catering contractor at the end of last season? Or did they run an RFP and keep the exiting provider? Anyone remember? I’m sure they went to market. I remember Nourry referencing this in an answer saying how the catering side of things would improve as a result of the exercise. |  | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 09:19 - Jan 31 with 643 views | Hunterhoop |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 08:10 - Jan 31 by nix |
Not really fair to compare two seasons net spend with team performance when we’ve hardly had time to unearth the next Eze, develop and sell him over the last two years in order to fund our current squad. Hull has spent over £50 million in transfers over the last three seasons and I’m guessing a lot more on Oli McBurnie on a free and Joe Gelherdt on loan from Leeds in wages than we are on Kone and Burrell. Now this was funded over selling players like Philogene but you have to have a system that unearths them and be patient enough to do that.
We’re also competing against Wrexham who are spending on gnarly old pros like Moore, Rathbone and Windass. No resale value, big wages, but won’t blow up in the last four minutes of matches and probably good at conning refs. But what happens in two seasons time if they don’t go up and Disney stops funding them.
We could probably look at other teams who’ve also got more expensive squads across the division too in Ipswich, Leicester, Southampton, Sheffield Utd, Norwich, Bristol City, Cov (sold Gyokeres for tens of millions), Middlesbrough, Stoke, WBA. I’m guessing they’ve all spent more than us over the last three seasons and therefore have a more expensively put together squad, many of which will now be on their prime. So we’re performing pretty much on track on the pitch and to some extent above our potential given the age profile of our squad compared to some of these teams.
So some of our assessment has to be guesswork. Will our current squad have the upside to bring transfer fees in and then fund the next Toney or Mitrovic? I have some beiief that we will get money for Burrell and at least one other of our squad. If we
can do that and then buy the next Burrell then we could be Hull or even Cov in two seasons time. I have no idea if it will happen and can’t judge Nourry favourably or unfavourably on guesswork. But I would say I prefer our strategy in terms of squad building to Wrexham’s even though their financial strategy is working well it’s not really something anyone could replicate what with having film stars owning it etc |
You’re right in terms of what the more sustainable, sensible long term approach is.
And you’re right that there are more expensively assembled squads in the league, most obviously the parachute teams.
And you’re right that some other non-parachute clubs have been spending, most notably the Hollywood duo of Brum and Wrexham.
But don’t mistake us for some pauper. We have spent a lot of money on transfer fees the past 18 months (some £25m). And all these players aren’t joining us for pennies. We are paying serious salaries too. I think this will become very apparent in the accounts for this season released in March 2027. The accounts released soon for last season will be interesting, but I expect them to look okay. It’s this season where we’ve really started to try to compete financially. Poku and Kone signed for us over others, and you’d have to be a little naive to think it’s anything other than salary as the main driving force behind that.
We’re not really much different these past two seasons to the middle of the pack in the league on spend, such as Derby, Millwall, Bristol City, Watford, Stoke, West Brom, Hull, Swansea, Boro even. And there are the likes of Preston, Pompey, Oxford, who’ve spent less.
We don’t have a god given right to be top half or super competitive on our spend. But, it’s certainly not an excuse not to be. [Post edited 31 Jan 10:09]
| | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 09:25 - Jan 31 with 635 views | terryb |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 06:56 - Jan 31 by numptydumpty |
One failing of Nourry, not mentioned, if he is CEO.
The catering staff.
Half have a very limited knowledge of English. But that would be ok, if they at least knew the names of the products.
Means that its so slow to get the queues down. Anyhow, this has been an issue in South Africa Road.
Not football related but i gave up getting anything at half time especially. [Post edited 31 Jan 6:57]
|
Isn't the catering franchised?
If so, it isn't the club who employ the catering staff. Or the stewards. | | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 09:59 - Jan 31 with 556 views | R_from_afar |
A problem with managing the players' fitness such that they are in peak condition later in the season is that in the earlier games, a fitness delta may heavily affect a player's performances and be mistaken for a lack of ability, with the result that the player gets fewer, if any, chances later in the season, when they hit peak fitness. |  |
| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
| |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 12:52 - Jan 31 with 439 views | nix |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 09:19 - Jan 31 by Hunterhoop |
You’re right in terms of what the more sustainable, sensible long term approach is.
And you’re right that there are more expensively assembled squads in the league, most obviously the parachute teams.
And you’re right that some other non-parachute clubs have been spending, most notably the Hollywood duo of Brum and Wrexham.
But don’t mistake us for some pauper. We have spent a lot of money on transfer fees the past 18 months (some £25m). And all these players aren’t joining us for pennies. We are paying serious salaries too. I think this will become very apparent in the accounts for this season released in March 2027. The accounts released soon for last season will be interesting, but I expect them to look okay. It’s this season where we’ve really started to try to compete financially. Poku and Kone signed for us over others, and you’d have to be a little naive to think it’s anything other than salary as the main driving force behind that.
We’re not really much different these past two seasons to the middle of the pack in the league on spend, such as Derby, Millwall, Bristol City, Watford, Stoke, West Brom, Hull, Swansea, Boro even. And there are the likes of Preston, Pompey, Oxford, who’ve spent less.
We don’t have a god given right to be top half or super competitive on our spend. But, it’s certainly not an excuse not to be. [Post edited 31 Jan 10:09]
|
I agree Hunter. But I didn’t say we were paupers or paying peanuts. I was responding to Simmos’s post which seemed to be saying we should be doing better than we are performance wise because we were spending more than other teams (given the correlation between high-spend and quality of player). I was pointing out that just looking at one season in isolation is misleading because it other teams spent huge amounts in the previous two seasons then they would be more than comparable to us. And actually Hull has spent a lot more than we have over that time and the teams that have spent similar amounts to us may have spent more on players that are at their peak now whereas we have spent more for the future.
We are also gambling on these players coming good. Wrexham are gambling on instant success. It was adding some context not disagreeing totally with what Simmo was saying. Not providing the whole picture seems misleading. I previously looked at other clubs and how much they had spent on transfers and it’s not just Hull but I’m abroad on my phone so can’t easily do that now but while we have spent a lot, it’s only to stay in touch with most other clubs not exceeding them and other clubs have spent a lot more than us, not just the parachute tears (Preston from memory was the outlier) .
I am also a bit worried about how much we are spending on salaries too as I don’t want us to be sliding towards PSR unsustainability. Also some of the teams
I mentioned who’ve spent a lot more have done so because they have already sold players for a lot so we could be in trouble if we don’t manage to do that. But that doesn’t change my point that we are not spending vast sums compared to most clubs in the Championship so we shouldn’t be better than them based on tbat metric alone. | | | |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 13:09 - Jan 31 with 408 views | Spaghetti_Hoops |
| Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary on 00:28 - Jan 31 by simmo |
That's fair enough, except I reckon we're in the top 5 for net spend this year, and have spent a relative fortune in the last 18 months in comparison to the previous few years.
We were around this level of points at this time last year with a strike force of Frey, Celar, Kolli and Lloyd. I'm the meantime we've retained or brought in senior pros like Cook, Dunne and Hayden, and have all the benefits of Madsen and Varane going through their growing pains. Decent money was spent on Saito, Kone, Poku, and now Edwards, the kind of money that shouldn't bring as much risk, and we've had the options of Vale and Dembele who were not available most or all of last season.
In the context of last season's squad to this, we're massively underachieving, and for once I don't think transfer spend is an excuse. |
This is the information on Championship wages you find on the net.
(Source - Givemesport, Capology) reliability unknown.
The average annual player salary in the division is estimated by them at £595,000.
Every 2025/26 Championship Club's Wage Bill
1. Leicester City £42,926,000
2. Southampton £38,142,000
3. Ipswich Town £28,678,000
4. Sheffield United £27,300,000
5. Norwich City £22,802,000
6. West Bromwich Albion £21,008,000
7. Hull City £20,628,400
8. Middlesbrough £19,680,000
9. Watford £19,646,000
10. Birmingham City £18,850,000
11. Wrexham £18,187,000
12. Stoke City £17,836,000
13. Millwall £14,666,000
14. Derby County £14,398,000
15. Oxford United £13,751,400
16. Queens Park Rangers £13,500,800
17. Bristol City £13,468,400
18. Preston North End £13,322,400
19. Blackburn Rovers £13,106,000
20. Coventry City £12,948,000
21. Swansea City £12,380,000
22. Sheffield Wednesday £11,515,400
23. Portsmouth £9,568,000
24. Charlton Athletic £9,103,200 | | | |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
