Albion's finances - for those who like graphs and charts.

[Peter Grummit]

Sign Lookman and we wouldn't have to worry about James Wilson. He was the best young winger I've ever seen on that start!

Even excelled the Peter Ward debut at Hereford. Bruno did everything right (enough to stop any other winger he has ever faced) and still didn't get close.

I've always been in favour of keeping some readies back until that rare player comes along.

No he didn't. He let him beat him on the outside and gave him time to smash in a near post shot. I love Bruno, but he was culpable there.

PG

 

[El Presidente]

Staggering that we would expect the annual wage bill to grow by more than £50m! For the current players it must feel like an all-or-nothing situation: I suspect half would never play in the Prem, the other half might treble their wages? Although they will, of course, have a substantial promotion bonus whatever.

I believe this Swiss Ramble guy is an Albion fan, although he does similar (if not quite so comprehensive) blogs on other teams. Does his £217m Tony investment tally with your own EP?

PG

He's an Arsenal fan whose second team is the Albion. He looks at NSC regularly too.

Impeccable taste in music as can be gleaned by the titles to many of his blog posts. Had some correspondence with him and we went to some of the same gigs at the Top Rank in the 70's.

I'll stick up my analysis of the numbers in a few days.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

I'll stick up my arse the numbers in a few days.

 

[Luke93]

Excellent read whilst on a train home from Uni! Cheers for that.

 

[perseus]

No he didn't. He let him beat him on the outside and gave him time to smash in a near post shot. I love Bruno, but he was culpable there.

PG

Just wasn't quick enough. I don't know of any full back or defender could stop that one!

Bruno did quite well later on cutting out the balls before they got to Lookman. Can't rate a player just on one goal but Lookman had 33 touches and basically put Charlton 0-2 up. My reckoning was if we were playing a PL team we would have to just put it down to good play e.g v Arsenal.

The gamble with young players is how they adapt when closely marked. And it is hard to judge just how quick they are. Quicker than Baldock and Muurphy, perhaps even quicker than Lualua?

Bruno usually gets a block in (rarely doesn't).

Accounts look good enough for a decent cash flow to snap up promising youngsters. Lookamn is nearest to Peter Ward (better) that I've seen.

 

[Return of the Rev]

Footballs gone mad!

 

[The Camel]

I think it's highly unlikely that TB will take any of the PL money as a debt repayment.

Wage bill in PL likely to rise from £22 million to £70-80 million, plus amounts spent on transfers and agents will swallow up most/all the income increase.

Even established PL clubs such as Everton are still losing money.

You think wages will up over 300%?

Do players have a guareenteed payrise if achieving promotion written into their contracts?

 

[Marty___Mcfly]

Lots of positives to take from that analysis. The main negative I would identify is the downturn in attendances but the matchday income shows the club are making good money regardless of the empty seats. The question I am left with is will the club spend in January to increase the prospects of a top two finish? Time will tell.

 

[ChickenBaltiPie]

That was a highly enjoyable, fascinating read. Thanks Swiss.

 

[BigGully]

You think wages will up over 300%?

Do players have a guareenteed payrise if achieving promotion written into their contracts?

I think the general increase is a minimum of double wages, not to sure how this works throughout the club but I have heard this goes throughout the playing staff so a nice increase for a few of the youngsters. again individual players may have their own clauses surpassing that I do not know.

I suspect any overall increase is written into the clubs bonus schedule agreed at the beginning of the season and signed by ALL players, remember they would currently be in the top tier of their win bonus amount.

 

[Seagull]

Fantastic detailed and enlightening analysis, thank you swissramble.

What's most stark from the figures is that without Tony's monumental investment and lifelong love of the Albion, we'd be nowhere.

And answering this one ...

One question - on the Player Amortisation - if the £10m player signs a contract extension for another 2 years at year 4 (so has 3 years left), does the remaining balance get re-calculated? i.e the final £2m gets spread across the 3 years, or still based on the original 5 year contract?

I think you could make an argument either way. It's a policy rather than a rule. If I was the FD, I'd prefer to take the £2m hit now i.e. Year 5 & I reckon that's what the club would do, unless they desperately needed to reduce cost to meet something like FFP.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Interesting that a huge proportion of the loss is depreciation. In many cases land and buildings are not written down at all due to increases in land / property value. It's entirely possible that a revaluation in future could wipe out a lot of the paper loss (to a revaluation reserve, but still). As with player amortisation, many of the figures are flexible and the club (along with their accountants) will have made decisions on how to show them to get to the required bottom line.

When the GOONS from shithurst start mocking about us making massive losses they don't take any of this into account.

Great read as usual from SR (have only had time to skim it but will read properly later). He's the best at clearly explaining football accounts.