Darren Bent

[StefanAVFC]

But even with the point about Benteke being our most expensive signing last summer, you could argue that would you rather pay 7m for Benteke or 30m for Dzeko, 15m for Sturridge etc (and that's without the ridiculous money like Carroll, Torres)

[P3te]

hasn't it been established, anyway, that we only paid £5m for benteke?

[leviramsey]

Oh no recall...oh well, then I guess we either end up with someone who's gone up in value at the end of the season or a totally unsaleable lump through bad performances.

It would appear, based on the events of this summer, that we already have an unsaleable* lump (or, more properly, several unsaleable lumps).

*: unsellable?

[Morpheus]

 

 

I called the idea that more money = better value stupid, which has been proven to be true has it not?

 

Your making a generalisation there SF which certainly isn't true. Take your blinkers off for a moment and look who has gained most success and why in the Premiership.

 

If you want to take us into consideration then focus on our placement in the Premiership when we did spent money in comparison to where we finished last season.

 

 

To be honest, looking at the players in isolation, a player like Westwood/Lowton for less than a million is better value than say, Aguero, because Aguero just isn't 35x (for whatever he cost) the player that Westy/Lowton are.

 

I'd take 15 Westwoods over 1 Joe Allen and 18 Lowtons over Glenn Johnson (I'd take 1 of each over the others )

 

Yes, but for the umteenth time, the players that were brought in for small money were the shining lights. The players that cost the big money and were on the big wages were a huge disappointment. You keep referring to last season without looking at context. it's pathetic.

 

'We came 15th so our manager is shit'

'We came 15th so the signings we made weren't good enough'

 

Do you know how ridiculous that is?

 

'The players that cost the big money and were on high wages were a huge disappointment.' That is down to choice of player rather than the price paid and our most expensive signing last season was who?

 

I tell you what is pathetic Stefan. Jumping down someone's throat for blaming you on something you apparently didn't say and then calling someone ridiculous for something he didn't say.

[ArteSuave]

 

Sustainable business model. Understand those words then have this conversation again.

Then why did we hold up the £ signs?

Why did we want Doug gone?

 

 

Maybe because his pennypinching was to the extent where we had our bumfluff manager telling us that the best we could hope for was to compete with the likes of Charlton. Sustainable business model doesn't mean zero risk. That's what Doug wanted, a nice little dividend every year while we ticked over with no signs of progress.

 

Ironically when we were being told that we were competing with Charlton we signed Baros and they signed Bent for half the fee.

[Big_John_10]

In terms of spending money I don't think it's possible to do a Dortmund in this league.

Chelsea and City have had to spend unbelievable amounts of money to win the league. Look at the consistent levels of investment spurs have had and even that hasn't been enough to see them as top 4 regulars.

I also thinks its no coincidence that the player we spent the most on last year was our best signing.

There will have to come a point where the spending increases or we will just be a team happy to survive on the cheap.

Right now we are doing the right thing though. We'll see what the future brings.

 

Generally like your optimism so far for this season BJ, but wouldn't you agree that even though Benteke was our most expensive player last season, he is easily one of the best strikers in the league now?

 

Personally, if he starts well and performs on par with or better than last time around I'd say he is the best all-round striker in the Premiership.

 

For what it cost us that is a steal and although I know we won't get as lucky with every signing, if we can build our team around this model (which it looks like we will do) of signing lesser known talents that are willing to work hard then I'm sure we can have some sort of success. I also don't think we will see so many signings each year, we have a decent size squad now so in future I'm sure we'll be able to spend more on specific targets transfer fees.

 

It will be difficult to perform with the top 4 of course, but I don't think we will be simply 'surviving on the cheap', I'm positive that we'll be throwing our weight around the league if things carry on as they are.

I think the approach is correct right now. I was very worried last year but in the end things clicked.

I'm also glad this summer we've signed players closer to the Benteke mould than the Bowery mould. By that I mean I'm glad we've gone for foreign potential rather than the lower leagues in this country.

I think we need to build something and we certainly are. I have no doubt we'll surprise a few pundits and neutral fans.

The big question is where do we go once we've got ourselves up back around that top 8 spot? What do we do when we sell Benteke and Lowton for big money? Obviously those questions can't be answered now. But I hope at some point we take the next step in terms of spending to challenge that top 4 spot again. I'm still not 100% sure Lerner wants anymore than surviving while keeping the costs down. While I'm critical of Lerner I will credit him for the early business we conducted this summer and the strong messages we put out when Benteke handed in his request.

[Big_John_10]

Sustainable business model doesn't mean zero risk.

Hopefully you're right.

Maybe because his pennypinching was to the extent where we had our bumfluff manager telling us that the best we could hope for was to compete with the likes of Charlton

And our current owner has seen us competing with the relegation candidates for 3 years in a row.

[StefanAVFC]

'The players that cost the big money and were on high wages were a huge disappointment.' That is down to choice of player rather than the price paid and our most expensive signing last season was who?

 

 

 

I tell you what is pathetic Stefan. Jumping down someone's throat for blaming you on something you apparently didn't say and then calling someone ridiculous for something he didn't say.

 

 

I can find you the quotes for how you implied Lambert didn't do a good job because we finished 15th.

 

Regardless of whether Lambert picked them, they were outperformed by the cheaper players on lower wages were they not?

[Morpheus]

I don't think anyone is suggesting for one moment that Lerner should reinvest another 100m in this window or indeed over the next two windows.

 

What is being put forward however is that if we continue to invest at the rate we are now then there very well might be more relegation battles ahead rather than challenging for the top six. 

[StefanAVFC]

And I disagree. We keep buying bargains who flourish like Westwood and Lowton and we have a very talented team built on hardly any money.

[peterms]

 

Maybe because his pennypinching was to the extent where we had our bumfluff manager telling us that the best we could hope for was to compete with the likes of Charlton

And our current owner has seen us competing with the relegation candidates for 3 years in a row.

 

To answer the question "Why did you want rid of Ellis?" is not to say that Lerner is a model owner.

[ArteSuave]

 

Maybe because his pennypinching was to the extent where we had our bumfluff manager telling us that the best we could hope for was to compete with the likes of Charlton

And our current owner has seen us competing with the relegation candidates for 3 years in a row.

 

 

Not through lack of investment or ambition though is it? That's the most important thing. Those characteristics in a chairman, along side the ability to learn from his mistakes, which Ol' Randy Dandy seems to be doing as well, should hopefully stand us in good stead. Randy isn't undeserving of criticism but I feel like he's taking us in the right direction at this current time.

[Mantis]

I still maintain that had we paid £10m for Helenius, £8m for Okore, £6m for Luna etc people would be happier purely because we'd be spending more. It's not about the players it seems, it's all about the money. People are only satisfied if we're chucking loads of money around. It's all about names as well. Westwood and Lowton were written off this time last year because they both arrived for small fees from lower division clubs. Benteke was slated because he came from a much inferior league.

 

You'd think after the way some of last season's signings performed (mainly Benteke, Lowton, Westwood and Sylla) people would at least give these players a chance before moaning about the fact that they were cheap/not "names". I guess not.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Mantis

[StefanAVFC]

Forgot about Sylla, great shout.

[Big_John_10]

Not through lack of investment or ambition though is it?

Hiring Mcleish showed no ambition and Lambert was not given much investment in terms of wages and in January.

I think both have played in a part in relegation battles.

[P3te]

 

What is being put forward however is that if we continue to invest at the rate we are now then there very well might be more relegation battles ahead rather than challenging for the top six. 

i don't agree with that. this is the starting point, and i think lerner is probably looking at the next 24 months as hopefully being the last years he has to put any real money in at all. signing players like benteke and lowton who'll have huge resale values means that the stage where money was put in should (wholly in theory, mind) finance the future of the team. spent 30-40m net on players over 2-3 seasons then sell the more successful ones on for 25-30m a season, which then goes straight into new investments (once the club is breaking even on wages etc). the more successful the club is, the better players we can bring in, the more we'll be able to sell them for a few years down the line, the more we can spend on new players. it's essentially what spurs have done

Edited August 15, 2013 by P3te

[bannedfromHandV]

I still maintain that had we paid £10m for Helenius, £8m for Okore, £6m for Luna etc people would be happier purely because we'd be spending more. It's not about the players it seems, it's all about the money. People are only satisfied if we're chucking loads of money around. It's all about names as well. Westwood and Lowton were written off this time last year because they both arrived for small fees from lower division clubs. Benteke was slated because he came from a much inferior league.

 

You'd think after the way some of last season's signings performed (mainly Benteke, Lowton, Westwood and Sylla) people would at least give these players a chance before moaning about the fact that they were cheap/not "names". I guess not.

Best bit is that they'll be bleating on about how good they are (potentially) 12 months from now whilst simultaneously writing off our next batch of recruits.

And so the cycle continues.....

[Mantis]

On the subject of relegation, O'Neill and Lerner are both roughly equally to blame. O'Neill was his poor use of what used to be ample funds and Lerner for allowing him to do that and making some mistakes since the former threw his toys out of the pram and walked out.

[Big_John_10]

At the moment no one can really moan about what we've done this summer.

Building something means improving each year. We survived so now we're bringing in more potential and quality.

If we're continuing to build you'd hope we'd do the same next summer. At the moment it's a case of waiting to see what we continue to do.

I'm happy with the plan for this season and the business we've done. It's the right thing to do for the club we currently are.

[AshVillain]

 

 

Sustainable business model. Understand those words then have this conversation again.

Then why did we hold up the £ signs?

Why did we want Doug gone?

 

 

Maybe because his pennypinching was to the extent where we had our bumfluff manager telling us that the best we could hope for was to compete with the likes of Charlton. Sustainable business model doesn't mean zero risk. That's what Doug wanted, a nice little dividend every year while we ticked over with no signs of progress.

 

Ironically when we were being told that we were competing with Charlton we signed Baros and they signed Bent for half the fee.

 

2007 - loss of £2.6mil

2008 - loss of £7.8mil

2009 - loss of £46.2mil

2010 - loss of £37.6mil

2011 - loss of £53.9mil

2012 - loss of £17.7mil

 

Sustainable business models do not look like that.

 

Didn't Dortmund announce 30mil euros in profit recently? Yeah they did. Hmmmmmmm.

 

I understand and partly agree with your trepidation Big John, but the numbers above speak for themselves imo. I think we are on the right path.

Edited August 15, 2013 by AshVillain