Are we an "unprofessional" professional football club?

[Mar]

Do you? So even if they managed to find the imaginary £30M quid in one window (that we've never had) and let Allardyce spend it, and increase the wage bill etc...

Whats the best outcome? We get in the champions league, and then what? He wants more or he goes.

Or we don't get in the champions league and he wants more and he goes.

Leaving us with the same situation we're in now, just with a far higher wage bill, far less money and a far shitter position, probably a terminal position.

Allardyce just wanted a way out. He knew the club wouldn't back his plans to double and treble ticket prices, and to get rid of the academy to fund more signings and for Eddie to hand over 30M of his own cash.

He wanted a way out, where he could blame someone else. Which is a shame. Cos if he'd said "I've done all I can here but my times up" it would have been a lot more graceful.

Maybe Allardyce wanted a crack at CL and the only way to get it was to leave or get Bolton to fund it through the coffers, which by all accounts we couldn't really afford to do. That being said signing the likes of Anelka was definitely a masterstroke due to the amount we got for him so he might have done the same with a few others. However the signing of Alan Smith from Man Utd to Newcastle certainly didn't inspire. Maybe Big Sam wanted a Kevin Nolan style player for midfield without waiting for Nolan.

[Loyal White]

Where has it come from that Sam wanted to double/treble ticket prices? Never heard that before.

[boltonboris]

I've heard it previously on here, but there's never been anything to substantiate those claims.

Like most things, I suppose.

[BWFC_Insane]

Where has it come from that Sam wanted to double/treble ticket prices? Never heard that before.

When Lee was appointed I emailed Gartside expressing concern about the situation with the number of players we had linked with moves and an inexperienced manager. He rang me back within 5 minutes and talked about a lot of stuff. That was one of the things he mentioned.

[Wandering Willy]

It comes from the " make up anything you want to" school of thought.

Bit like " Coyle's team don't train, they just play table tennis".

Some people believe it.

[BWFC_Insane]

It comes from the " make up anything you want to" school of thought.

Bit like " Coyle's team don't train, they just play table tennis".
Some people believe it.

Thats clearly a joke. However, several first team plaeyrs earlier in the season said in interviews that the training does not involve much defensive work or set piece work, or work on the shape of the team..........
]

[midlands exile]

Where has it come from that Sam wanted to double/treble ticket prices? Never heard that before.

When Lee was appointed I emailed Gartside expressing concern about the situation with the number of players we had linked with moves and an inexperienced manager. He rang me back within 5 minutes and talked about a lot of stuff. That was one of the things he mentioned.

Must be true then?! It's not as though gartside would have had any motive to smear big Sam at that point...

[midlands exile]

He wanted 30M quid to spend according to PG. I can only assume without balancing any of it out by selling his better players. So a) we never and have never had that kind of money to spend. And b) given what we know now thank god we didn't give it him or we'd probably not have a club to watch full stop.

But since then we've lost well over £30 million due to firing two managers, signing overpriced players, finishing in the bottom half, and now finally getting relegated. I strongly suspect Gartside and Davies wish they could take a Mulligan on that one.

Totally agree.

In the following 6 years, we've dropped like a stone down the league, ten places = approx 10m a year in tv money straight off. The wage bill has gone through the roof. The squad has deteriorated in quality. And the icing on the cake is relegation.

The best time to make an investment is when you're on top. We didn't, have faded, and panic spent trying to stabilise, to no avail.

And say what you want about the wage bill being slashed next year, that is totally independent of us getting relegated, which is the real failure.

[boltonboris]

Allardyce was a great manager for us, but he was lucky with the fact that it was a different market back then. Players like Okocha and Djorkaeff aren't available, because they go abroad on MASSIVE contracts.

[a1]

Thats clearly a joke. However, several first team plaeyrs earlier in the season said in interviews that the training does not involve much defensive work or set piece work, or work on the shape of the team..........

this shit is what makes me think they should sack him.

i thought it after about 2 weeks when the jussi , bogdan , hasbi quit story came about.

*big siren like a dogwhistle that only a few people can hear*

[officer_dibble]

It comes from the " make up anything you want to" school of thought.

Bit like " Coyle's team don't train, they just play table tennis".
Some people believe it.

Thats clearly a joke. However, several first team plaeyrs earlier in the season said in interviews that the training does not involve much defensive work or set piece work, or work on the shape of the team..........
]

Its pretty obvious we don't train set peices. The amount of goals we leaked off corners was a joke.

[Hoboh]

It comes from the " make up anything you want to" school of thought.

Bit like " Coyle's team don't train, they just play table tennis".

Some people believe it.

I'll bet you just couldn't wait to tell the young un's 'there's no father christmas'

[Sponge]

Thats clearly a joke. However, several first team plaeyrs earlier in the season said in interviews that the training does not involve much defensive work or set piece work, or work on the shape of the team..........

this shit is what makes me think they should sack him.

i thought it after about 2 weeks when the jussi , bogdan , hasbi quit story came about.

*big siren like a dogwhistle that only a few people can hear*

?

[Sponge]

Allardyce was a great manager for us, but he was lucky with the fact that it was a different market back then. Players like Okocha and Djorkaeff aren't available, because they go abroad on MASSIVE contracts.

This. Completely different strategy needed now.

[TKIZ!]

Young players who can stay with us for a couple of seasons and then sold on

[midlands exile]

Allardyce was a great manager for us, but he was lucky with the fact that it was a different market back then. Players like Okocha and Djorkaeff aren't available, because they go abroad on MASSIVE contracts.

Do you think we were paying them bog standard wages when they were here? Same goes for half the players we've released this summer.

The only places where players of Okocha or Djorkaeff's ilk (top internationals but coming to the end of their playing days) will get super-dreamland contracts, are the Middle East and China.

And not all players want to go there - some don't want to move to the different culture, some don't want to move so far away, some might even prefer to play in the Premierleague due to the higher profile and quality(!) of the league here.

Maybe it's not so easy to get an Okocha or a Djorkaeff these days, but the answer to that isn't to throw your hands up in the air and say "it's not fair, it's too difficult, times have changed". What we should be doing is facing up to the change, doubling / tripling our scouting efforts, and looking further and wider for talent that might match the quality of the Allardyce era.

Next step then is persuading them to sign with a credible plan for success, but that's another story...

[midlands exile]

Young players who can stay with us for a couple of seasons and then sold on

I'm unconvinced about the "buying young players to develop and then flog" strategy.

Best case scenario - we sign a promising young player on a 4 year deal, he proves himself over a couple of seasons, then we're able to sell for a decent price as he's got a few years left on his contract.

Other scenarios - we sign a promising young player on a 4 year deal, he turns out to be mediocre, he's stuck on the wage bill for 4 years.

- we sign a promising young player on a 3 year deal, he proves himself over a couple of seasons, then we have to sell for a cut-price as he's only got a year left on his contract.

- we sign a promising young player on a 2 year deal, he proves himself over a couple of seasons, then he walks out on a free.

Basically, there's a lot of other permutations, many of which don't prove the "goldmine" option people seem to think it is.

[BWFC_Insane]

Allardyce was a great manager for us, but he was lucky with the fact that it was a different market back then. Players like Okocha and Djorkaeff aren't available, because they go abroad on MASSIVE contracts.

Do you think we were paying them bog standard wages when they were here? Same goes for half the players we've released this summer.

The only places where players of Okocha or Djorkaeff's ilk (top internationals but coming to the end of their playing days) will get super-dreamland contracts, are the Middle East and China.

And not all players want to go there - some don't want to move to the different culture, some don't want to move so far away, some might even prefer to play in the Premierleague due to the higher profile and quality(!) of the league here.

Maybe it's not so easy to get an Okocha or a Djorkaeff these days, but the answer to that isn't to throw your hands up in the air and say "it's not fair, it's too difficult, times have changed". What we should be doing is facing up to the change, doubling / tripling our scouting efforts, and looking further and wider for talent that might match the quality of the Allardyce era.

Next step then is persuading them to sign with a credible plan for success, but that's another story...

But that means finding different types of talent. The older player looking for a last jaunt are not possible anymore as primarily other teams caught onto that, wage bills have sky rocketed and as you say there are the big day pay options of the middle east and China. Equally the MLS is emerging in that area too

The market Allardyce exploited simply no longer exists for a club like us.

So we need to look elsewhere, which probably means the younger end.

[midlands exile]

Allardyce was a great manager for us, but he was lucky with the fact that it was a different market back then. Players like Okocha and Djorkaeff aren't available, because they go abroad on MASSIVE contracts.

Do you think we were paying them bog standard wages when they were here? Same goes for half the players we've released this summer.

The only places where players of Okocha or Djorkaeff's ilk (top internationals but coming to the end of their playing days) will get super-dreamland contracts, are the Middle East and China.

And not all players want to go there - some don't want to move to the different culture, some don't want to move so far away, some might even prefer to play in the Premierleague due to the higher profile and quality(!) of the league here.

Maybe it's not so easy to get an Okocha or a Djorkaeff these days, but the answer to that isn't to throw your hands up in the air and say "it's not fair, it's too difficult, times have changed". What we should be doing is facing up to the change, doubling / tripling our scouting efforts, and looking further and wider for talent that might match the quality of the Allardyce era.

Next step then is persuading them to sign with a credible plan for success, but that's another story...

But that means finding different types of talent. The older player looking for a last jaunt are not possible anymore as primarily other teams caught onto that, wage bills have sky rocketed and as you say there are the big day pay options of the middle east and China. Equally the MLS is emerging in that area too

The market Allardyce exploited simply no longer exists for a club like us.

So we need to look elsewhere, which probably means the younger end.

And as I just said, not all players do want to go to the middle east or China. And MLS is limited in the number of big earners it currently allows. If other clubs have caught on to the strategy, then it just means we have to work harder to attract them rather than give up.

That said, I would suggest it would be most worthwhile for us to search overseas more, especially Scandinavia, always used to be a rich vein talent for us. Do any of our scout have passports? Do we actually have any scouts, or do we just rely on who coyle remembers playing in the championship?

[midlands exile]

Ps, that last post should have been in the past tense for attracting big names, I keep forgetting we're now in the championship...