Does Tony Bloom want us to go down?

[drew]

I'm sure he doesn't want us to get relegated but in addition i'm quite sure he doesn't know how to get us promoted to the Premiership. There is a little of the emperors new clothes about Tony and those he surrounds himself with. It is as if the club has lost ambition (one ambition maybe) or that fright has taken hold. There have been some key decisions that have been extremely poor and now the club finds itself at the foot of the table with no guarantee of survival in this division.

I understand the op in his observations but maybe not his interpretation, however the executive have made a complete hash of this season and that is without doubt!

Is that a dig at Paul Barber who, whilst not a former professional footballer he is clearly a football fan and on top of that a very good administrator compared to many others. He was a success at Spurs and England and, arguably, with Vancouver. We might not like everything that he does but it is done with the best interests of the long term future of the club. Had we kept the previous incumbent we may well have had lower sponsorship deals and would probably be in the middle of a transfer embargo.

Also, your analogy with the Emperors New Clothes seems to suggest you have access to the inner sanctum that is the boardroom and know for a fact that all the other directors bow humbly in front of Bloom and that he makes decisions without taking advice from anybody.

 

[Gullflyinghigh]

This is a fishing trip isn't it? Surely? Please?

 

[Icy Gull]

Chris Hughton has worked in football all his life , playing for Spurs and then managing in the Championship and Premier League.
Paul Barber has worked on the commercial/marketing side of football all his life - Spurs, the FA, and football teams in Canada
Head of Recruitment; Paul Winstanley has worked in scouting/recruitment at Derby for 7 years and before that at Wigan for 5 years.
Head of Commercial; Paul Beirne has worked in the commercial side of football for most of his career and founded his own football club.

and so on for Chris Calderwood, Nathan Jones in terms of the football side and in the backroom the heads of marketing; the head of media have all worked in football if not for the Albion all of their careers and were fans of the club before being appointed..

Who are these "non football" people that he's surrounded by ?

TBH, on a public forum I don't want to air my views any further. We'll have to agree to differ....again

You can discount Hughton and Winstanley from my views as they have only been here 5 mins, the damage was caused long before they arrived.

 

[Stat Brother]

Chris Hughton has worked in football all his life , playing for Spurs and then managing in the Championship and Premier League.
Paul Barber has worked on the commercial/marketing side of football all his life - Spurs, the FA, and football teams in Canada
Head of Recruitment; Paul Winstanley has worked in scouting/recruitment at Derby for 7 years and before that at Wigan for 5 years.
Head of Commercial; Paul Beirne has worked in the commercial side of football for most of his career and founded his own football club.

and so on for Chris Calderwood, Nathan Jones in terms of the football side and in the backroom the heads of marketing; the head of media have all worked in football if not for the Albion all of their careers and were fans of the club before being appointed..

Who are these "non football" people that he's surrounded by ?

Yeah but other than that, what has Tony Bloom actually done for the Albion.

I've not seen any viaducts, have you?

 

[OzMike]

Obviously no, but it is different than playing poker and I think he is being ill advised, he also has a tight wallet when it comes to the players budget.

 

[chaileyjem]

he also has a tight wallet when it comes to the players budget.

The players budget is the highest its been in the clubs history, and its reported to be well inside the top 10 in the championship.
How much more should be spending to *guarantee* success, given its his investment and it will run out one day ?

 

[Stat Brother]

The players budget is the highest its been in the clubs history, and its reported to be well inside the top 10 in the championship.
How much more should be spending to *guarantee* success, given its his investment and it will run out one day ?

The same as Forest.

Promoted by Christmas, Champions League in 2 years time, easy-peasy, happy days.

 

[KZNSeagull]

TBH, on a public forum I don't want to air my views any further. We'll have to agree to differ....again

You can discount Hughton and Winstanley from my views as they have only been here 5 mins, the damage was caused long before they arrived.

Ooh, what a tease!

 

[father_and_son]

however the executive have made a complete hash of this season and that is without doubt!

The board have made a couple of mistakes...

However, a "complete hash" would be transfer embargo for not paying an instalment on a player you bought, failing FFP and being unable to strengthen the squad, being on your fourth manager in a season, calling in the receivers, having to play football on a ploughed field rather than grass and having an owner who even the FA don't think is fit and proper.

Even selling our ground to developers without an alternative in place and having to play in Kent and at a running track for years, public enquiries, demos and petitions weren't enough to sink the club, so a few bad signings and sticking with a manager who clearly wasn't getting the best from the squad isn't even a blip on the radar of complete hashes.

 

[Icy Gull]

The players budget is the highest its been in the clubs history, and its reported to be well inside the top 10 in the championship.
How much more should be spending to *guarantee* success, given its his investment and it will run out one day ?

Another bone of contention for me, we have a very thin spread of quality of players contracted to the club. I imagine most of the expenditure to make this high player budget is on loan players. We are not investing in the short term future. I get the impression that we are going to be also rans until the academy produces. I can live with that but can the club at least come out and admit that we are going to be treading water rather than bullshit about promotion challenging squad of loanees and cheap last minute signings, The yet to be played in his correct position Baldock, being the exception as we paid rather a lot for him along with Stockdale who still has something to prove.

 

[RandyWanger]

Maybe they just wanted the land to build the hotel on and eventually turn the Amex into a casino? #ConspiracyTheory

 

[Icy Gull]

The same as Forest.

Promoted by Christmas, Champions League in 2 years time, easy-peasy, happy days.

There was me thinking that Forest were doing rather better than us for all their woes and indiscretions, I suggest we are more likely to be in League 2 than Forest tbh

 

[El Presidente]

he also has a tight wallet when it comes to the players budget.

Do you have any evidence to support this?

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

So you believe Tony Bloom wants to villanize himself not only in the eyes of everyone in Brighton, where he grew up but also to his family. And in doing so completely destroy his families legacy with the Football Club.

 

[chaileyjem]

Another bone of contention for me, we have a very thin spread of quality of players contracted to the club. imagine most of the expenditure to make this high player budget is on loan players. We are not investing in the short term future. .

We've just invested in the future by securing new long contracts with Lua Lua, JFC, solly March, Walton, Ince and Rea.
(You can argue they aren't the future or quality players but that's a different argument)

We've also invested in world class academy facilities and the u18s this season have beaten Chelsea, Spurs, Southampton , Villa and Norwich in the u18s prem Lge South.

We have a first team squad of 24/25 players and have had 4-6 loanees at any one time so "most of the [player budget] "isn't on loan players.

As for the quality of players then agreed consensus is that it's not of same quality as previous seasons which is presumably why we sacked the bloke in charge of recruitment so TB is clearly capable of changing approach if things aren't working.

So Given the new contracts, the academy, the coaching and the facilities then most observers would find it hard to argue were not investing in the future but I'm interested in what changes you would make ?

 

[Icy Gull]

I think the long term future is extremely bright, no complaints about that at all. Short term should be of concern to anyone who has watched the crap served up this season.

I would have signed players and not relied on loanees. Going down this road was a big mistake imo. We should have replaced the players we sold for very good money. You'll probably say it was a good job we didn't because Burke proved useless in the end, BUT how responsible was the hierarchy for not giving him a decent budget or prevaricating until weeks into the season before agreeing to release funds to buy players. We will never know. I know you are very pro everything Albion but surely you can see that the last two seasons recruitment policy has been a disaster? I can't accept that Bloom is blameless tbh. Burke and Hyypia make GREAT scapegoats though and imo Bloom loves a scapegoat to deflect blame.....

 

[GT49er]

I imagine most of the expenditure to make this high player budget is on loan players. We are not investing in the short term future. I get the impression that we are going to be also rans until the academy produces.

Why? Are loan players more expensive than our own? Their parent club is likely to be paying a substantial part of their wages, so that's unlikely to be the case. Anyway, I'd have thought using loanees is exactly what investing in the short term future is all about.

 

[redoubtable seagull]

Obviously no, but it is different than playing poker and I think he is being ill advised, he also has a tight wallet when it comes to the players budget.

Last set of accounts had us listed as eighth highest spend in wages compared to other championship clubs. Tight wallet he is not. Poor quality acquisitions is a different kettle of fish though.

It's been posted up before but anyone interested in the financial side of football should check out the Swiss Rambler. He did a very good overview on us at the beginning of the month.

 

[Icy Gull]

Why? Are loan players more expensive than our own? Their parent club is likely to be paying a substantial part of their wages, so that's unlikely to be the case. Anyway, I'd have thought using loanees is exactly what investing in the short term future is all about.

I suggest loan players are more expensive than our own, yes, but I have no proof. I don't think parent clubs are happy to pay the bulk anymore from what I have read recently. I totally disagree that signing loan players as the backbone of the team is any sort of investment whatsoever. Loan players to help out when you have injuries, or are pushing for promotion and can tempt decent ones, then fine but to build a team round them is a crap idea, imo obviously.

 

[GT49er]

I suggest loan players are more expensive than our own, yes, but I have no proof. I don't think parent clubs are happy to pay the bulk anymore from what I have read recently. I totally disagree that signing loan players as the backbone of the team is any sort of investment whatsoever. Loan players to help out when you have injuries, or are pushing for promotion and can tempt decent ones, then fine but to build a team round them is a crap idea, imo obviously.

Well, that would have worked with Wayne Bridge, wouldn't it - we should have put in an offer to buy him (probably well in excess of £10M) and paid all his wages (rumoured to be £80K a week). It would have crippled us financially, but at least he would have been our player, not a loanee, so would have played much better. Yeh, right!
Same applied to Ward and Upson. Of course, we'd be looking at an FFP embargo now, but......
I really can't understand this obsession that we've always got to actually buy the player, rather than loaning one when we need. Buying in January is a over-priced nonsense anyway - much better to borrow someone if we need to strengthen for the final run-in, and just pay their wages (or part of them). Then get rid, at no cost to us, unless they turn out to be brilliant.