Bloom's Open Letter

[Acker79]

Has anyone considered this could be a good thing (beyond not overpaying)?

Last season we were great at scoring goals, but personally I always thought we lacked that goalscoring threat when Knockaert didn't play.

We've had a poor start to the season, but let's not forget that the first of those games was against Man City where we didn't seem to want to try to score, rather just keep the goals conceded to a minimum. Then away against a strong leicester side where an early error knocked the wind out of the side.

Then comes Watford. Knockaert starts and we suddenly look like an attacking side. With AK back, we're going to be more of a threat. He is now supported by Izquiwhatever whose short cameo looked very promising, and maybe we won't have to rely on AK so much for our threat. Yes, we failed to score, but we did that a couple of times last season, too. We hit the post a couple of times, forced saves, and were playing against a 10 man defence for large parts of the game. Sometimes you have a bad day at the office.

With new signings settling in and improving, with a Krul to either replace or put performance-improving pressure on Ryan, we could start to find our feet. Start creating and taking chances, cutting out errors at the back. We could start to pick up points and come January look like a side that should be clear of relegation trouble at the end of the season.

If we're that team, we're more appealing to prospective strikers. At the moment, we're a promoted side who has shown little promise and will only appeal to strikers looking to use us to get their foot in the premier league door. If we're looking good come January, we might be able to attract a better quality striker, one who wants to be with us for the longer term, someone we wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford had we bought a lesser striker yesterday.

Or, y'know. We could be screwed...

 

[Bob'n'weave]

We may not have been short in any areas Tony, but....we still came up short.

It’s obviously never a straightforward process with so many factors involved to bring in a quality striker. But I still find it incredible that given the amount of time we had to sort this out, we still couldn’t get a deal over the line. Were our targets unrealistic ? Is our wage structure inadequate ? Going by the Janssen bid, it certainly looked like we were prepared to throw more money at the dilemma at the last minute, once our backs were really up against the wall, but by then it was all too late. Janssen looks like a last minute afterthought to me, not an actual target we were ever serious about until we were desperate.

I get that we’re PL rookies this season, but surely we *should* still be an attractive proposition to sign for. A club on the up, magnificent stadium and training ground, stable ownership with a well liked and respected manager, big crowds, great place to live. It’s not a hard sell to join a PL club like ours. And yet one by one, all our targets fell away until there was literally nobody left to bring in. Why ? We weren’t (to my knowledge) in any bidding wars with other clubs, where the auction just got too hot for us. Our targets stayed put, we were the only deal in town. So why ? What is the underlying reason ? This needs looking at.

I don’t just want to hear “its difficult”. Sorry, but other clubs seem to manage it, who on the face of it would be far less attractive propositions than ours. Is it simply a case that we refuse to pay the market rate ? Commendable to an extent of course, and I certainly wouldn’t want us to ‘do a Leeds’ obviously. But there is a balance to be struck, and at the moment, I think we’ve now left ourselves uncompetitive for the first half of the season. Come January the damage could be too great to rectify, and by the end of the season we could well be lamenting a swift return to the Championship, and left thinking “I just wish we’d really given it a proper go”.

Hope I'm wrong.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine is that this is bollocks. We did everything we could and just like other teams in the PL we did not get all that we wanted. Move on.

 

[Brighton Mod]

Thank you Tony for the communication, I have always thought that the club was in safe hands and not being able to get what you want does not mean that you have to break the bank on whats left. AS long as our team does not give up and continues to put their best effort into the games, thats fine by me.
I believe that we have the manager and players already at the club to keep us up. Two away games and the hosting the wealthiest club in the country for our first three matches was a hard ask. Our players will stand up, our quick men March, Knockhart, Izzy (2) and Murphy will do a good job, I can also see the new signing from Sweden having a run out as well.
Its not a game of poker, look at Leicesters achievements.

 

[The_Viper]

I guess one thing to come out of this is that the club surely won't make the same mistake in January. We will know that we have to pay silly money and offer silly wages to get a striker in, so surely we will get it sorted out early on this time, and not try to play poker again.

The thing about being in a relegation battle is that the teams around you don't win very much. So even if we were bottom at Christmas and 6 points adrift, if we sign a decent striker on January 1st and win a couple of games, we can climb out of it very quickly. Here's hoping, anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We'll be selling in January, not buying.

 

[Seasidesage]

I think none of us know what actually happened. What I think we can say is that if it was a combination of bad luck and circumstance then we will try and learn from it, if it wasn't then you will see changes in the recruitment team between now and January. Burke paid the price previously, I see no reason why it should be different this time? We need to get as many points as possible between now and January and hope we are still in the hunt then. Tony will have to/should gamble on getting that striker signed as soon as possible as it will only get harder to attract someone in Jan if we are struggling at the bottom. It's a mistake and a big one but we move on, what else can we do?

 

[Commander]

We'll be selling in January, not buying.

Why?

 

[Weststander]

The club has said we are unsustainable in the Championship over the past few seasons when haemorrhaging money there, but we've well and truly set course back there.

Barber stated in the Sky TV studio after the Man City game "We must stay in the PL". No guarantee of that obviously when we are one say 10 clubs that will drop, but inherently he was making it abundantly clear that as a sustainable business it's the only place for the Albion to viably exist with its huge costs.

 

[Weststander]

I think none of us know what actually happened. What I think we can say is that if it was a combination of bad luck and circumstance then we will try and learn from it, if it wasn't then you will see changes in the recruitment team between now and January. Burke paid the price previously, I see no reason why it should be different this time? We need to get as many points as possible between now and January and hope we are still in the hunt then. Tony will have to/should gamble on getting that striker signed as soon as possible as it will only get harder to attract someone in Jan if we are struggling at the bottom. It's a mistake and a big one but we move on, what else can we do?

Unless Winstanley came up with the goods, but a King Canute wage structure (at first, until belatedly abandoned) from above led to none of the striker candidates fitting the bill in April to July?

 

[sydney]

We may not have been short in any areas Tony, but....we still came up short.

It’s obviously never a straightforward process with so many factors involved to bring in a quality striker. But I still find it incredible that given the amount of time we had to sort this out, we still couldn’t get a deal over the line. Were our targets unrealistic ? Is our wage structure inadequate ? Going by the Janssen bid, it certainly looked like we were prepared to throw more money at the dilemma at the last minute, once our backs were really up against the wall, but by then it was all too late. Janssen looks like a last minute afterthought to me, not an actual target we were ever serious about until we were desperate.

I get that we’re PL rookies this season, but surely we *should* still be an attractive proposition to sign for. A club on the up, magnificent stadium and training ground, stable ownership with a well liked and respected manager, big crowds, great place to live. It’s not a hard sell to join a PL club like ours. And yet one by one, all our targets fell away until there was literally nobody left to bring in. Why ? We weren’t (to my knowledge) in any bidding wars with other clubs, where the auction just got too hot for us. Our targets stayed put, we were the only deal in town. So why ? What is the underlying reason ? This needs looking at.

I don’t just want to hear “its difficult”. Sorry, but other clubs seem to manage it, who on the face of it would be far less attractive propositions than ours. Is it simply a case that we refuse to pay the market rate ? Commendable to an extent of course, and I certainly wouldn’t want us to ‘do a Leeds’ obviously. But there is a balance to be struck, and at the moment, I think we’ve now left ourselves uncompetitive for the first half of the season. Come January the damage could be too great to rectify, and by the end of the season we could well be lamenting a swift return to the Championship, and left thinking “I just wish we’d really given it a proper go”.

Hope I'm wrong.

that....i just can't get my head around our policy with regard to getting a goal scorer in ..you can ping the ball around all day long but you've got to get the ****er in the net to win a game.....i will always love this club but this dilemma......i just don't get .

 

[rocker959]

Reading between the lines I’m interpreting an understandable "Go *&%$ yourselves! You ungrateful bunch of *&*&s!"

He would have had every right to say that . Wish he had .

 

[spence]

Barber stated in the Sky TV studio after the Man City game "We must stay in the PL". No guarantee of that obviously when we are one say 10 clubs that will drop, but inherently he was making it abundantly clear that as a sustainable business it's the only place for the Albion to viably exist with its huge costs.

That applies to most clubs i guess. The only beacon of light is that we will be part of the parachute brigade when we go down. Also the value of our players will rise providing they perform reasonably well at this level. We could easily fetch 20 million for Dunk

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I think he, and the recruitment team, are bang on not wildly overpaying. It's very easy for all of us to spend the club's (Tony Bloom's) money willy nilly and with no thought to the consequences.

There is not one single person on this board who has not slammed Palace and Portsmouth for their financial meltdowns and their inappropriate behaviour to get around re-paying their debts. And yet, all of a sudden, we demand to spend ridiculous sums of money on players who may or may not be successful for us. How is that any different to the crazy overspend by Palace and Portsmouth, two clubs who are constantly, and correctly, ridiculed and vilified on this forum.

Financial responsibility is boring. But when the choices are boom and bust, or caution and long term planning - I know what I choose.

The club tried to find the striker, there is no doubt about that. They failed to sign one, clearly. And that failure will be felt throughout the whole club, but we survive and we move on.

Spot on. And closer to home some people appear to have forgotten what happened last time we were in the top flight and decided money was just an inconvenience. Do that again and it won't be too long before we're looking up the train times to Hereford .... again.

 

[The_Viper]

Why?

January prices are when they are at their highest. Vultures will be circling for our best talent and we'll get far more in January than next summer when we have a wealth of transfer requests stuck through CH's door. Don't forget that next year we'll have FFP to worry about again.

 

[Commander]

January prices are when they are at their highest. Vultures will be circling for our best talent and we'll get far more in January than next summer when we have a wealth of transfer requests stuck through CH's door. Don't forget that next year we'll have FFP to worry about again.

Oh right, it's bollocks. Sorry for asking.

 

[Justice]

Sometimes it doesn't matter how much you are prepared to throw at a problem, if players don't fancy what will undoubtedly be a relegation battle then we just have to accept it and hope we can get enough results to the new year to encourgage players to come here then. Whilst we are Premier league ready in terms of facilities and administration, we are not yet in a position where the best players in the world would risk their reputations in a dogfight.

I posted somewhere else on here about this Dyche gets it right signing players that are just happy to be in the PL instead of going for the more high profile types. Our first season proably requires this type of player.

 

[The_Viper]

Oh right, it's bollocks. Sorry for asking.

No need to be sorry, I totally get that the truth hurts and some people are still in the denial stage. Have a good weekend.

 

[Rich Suvner]

Going by the Janssen bid, it certainly looked like we were prepared to throw more money at the dilemma at the last minute, once our backs were really up against the wall, but by then it was all too late. Janssen looks like a last minute afterthought to me, not an actual target we were ever serious about until we were desperate.

I get that we’re PL rookies this season, but surely we *should* still be an attractive proposition to sign for. A club on the up, magnificent stadium and training ground, stable ownership with a well liked and respected manager, big crowds, great place to live. It’s not a hard sell to join a PL club like ours. And yet one by one, all our targets fell away until there was literally nobody left to bring in. Why ? We weren’t (to my knowledge) in any bidding wars with other clubs, where the auction just got too hot for us. Our targets stayed put, we were the only deal in town. So why ? What is the underlying reason ? This needs looking at.

I don’t just want to hear “its difficult”. Sorry, but other clubs seem to manage it, who on the face of it would be far less attractive propositions than ours. Is it simply a case that we refuse to pay the market rate ? Commendable to an extent of course, and I certainly wouldn’t want us to ‘do a Leeds’ obviously. But there is a balance to be struck, and at the moment, I think we’ve now left ourselves uncompetitive for the first half of the season. Come January the damage could be too great to rectify, and by the end of the season we could well be lamenting a swift return to the Championship, and left thinking “I just wish we’d really given it a proper go”.

Hope I'm wrong.

I think the open letter is fair, welcome and there has certainly been an element of misfortune to our dealings with failed medicals requiring us to re enter market last minute. But I also agree with your point that we suddenly seemed prepared to throw more money around last minute that could have secured solid players earlier in window. Lack of premier league experience also worries me, not just lack of top striker.

But interesting you refer to us as a club on the up. I think to many that is clearly up for debate. Many believe we have reached our peak already and will swiftly return to the championship, and that will clearly have played a role in international footballers thinking twice. I don't feel this transfer window has yet given me more confidence they will be proven wrong.

 

[Dorset Seagull]

End of the day, the recruitment team are to blame as it was their job to bring in a striker and they didn't. It's no secret that we needed one. So surely they would have a plan A, if that didn't work, B, C, D etc...

And have the brains and nous to know that leaving it until the deadline day, we could potentially be left with no additional striker.

Someone f*cked up. Royally. Whoever was the 'striker finder' I'm sure is on a bob or 2 wages and hasn't produced a product for it. Despite knowing at least 4 months ago.

ManUre did all their deals early. I dislike Jose but you can't fault his method.

I imagine the recruitment team are there to find players, which they did. I presume someone else takes over to get them over the line

 

[Weststander]

He would have had every right to say that . Wish he had .

But lickers can stay.

Welcome to the Peoples Republic of BHAFC. Only sycophants welcome.

 

[JCL - the new kid in town]

That's not the point, simply having Akpom provided competition and gave Hughton an option. Right now I'd almost rather have Akpom than Skalak.

Not a lot of competition. I doubt the other strikers felt him competition. Skalak would do a better job than Akpom even in a less favoured position