Does Tony Bloom want us to go down?

[redoubtable seagull]

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.

Indeed but it's needs must at the moment. the fact CH is looking to the loan market possibly further still following March's injury just shows what a shambles this season has been and how poor the squad actually is currently.

It's interesting, I was reading old posts from the pre season games and it's sad/ironic to see how many NSCrs were forecasting this mess as the season loomed without strong signings to replace those who had left.

 

[KZNSeagull]

I 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.....

That's an interesting sentence - so basically you want a Chairman who is more hands on, does not delegate and makes all the footballing decisions himself, so that you can blame him when it goes tits up? He IS ultimately responsible, but surely the sensible approach is to employ people who know football better than he does. Which he has. And he has sacked them when they get things wrong. That is not deflecting blame.

 

[chaileyjem]

I think the long term future is extremely bright, no complaints about that at all. ..

I would have signed players and not relied on loanees. ...I know you are very pro everything Albion but surely you can see that the last two seasons recruitment policy has been a disaster? .....

Agreed about long term future.

We did sign players (McCourt, cog, Baldock, Colunga, stockdale, Holla, Toko, and recently BK) - that's 8 signings in a few months. Would you have signed more ? Or are you saying we should have signed better players ? If latter- I agree. And TB agrees doesn't he or he wouldn't have sacked Burke.

Pro albion ? - I'm a fan but not blindly pro the club and as disappointed as the next man coming home after a miserable draw at home to Rotherham but I do like to call out misconceptions ...

Burke made some good signings (and some poor signings), the club spends more on players (wages/fees) than is acknowledged , Tony bloom has no other agenda than spending his vast fortune getting the club to the Prem league, Paul Barber is a impressive football administrator and that one season of poor results is in no way comparable to the dark days of 1997 being the most common ones repeated on here...

Also I don't see everything through a lens where it's either feast or famine. ...Assuming we give dirty Leeds a thumping on Tuesday night that is , otherwise I'll be on here ranting and raving with the best of em.

 

[Icy Gull]

I

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.

Except Wayne Bridge was a one off, tempted here by Poyet and is the only player of that ilk and wage that we have acquired. We ****ed up royally with Ward in the close season and have ended up with a much less effective full back because of it, again on loan. I believe the club think like you, sell your best players get loanees in, working well this season isn't it?

 

[Stat Brother]

I

Except Wayne Bridge was a one off, tempted here by Poyet and is the only player of that ilk and wage that we have acquired. We ****ed up royally with Ward in the close season and have ended up with a much less effective full back because of it, again on loan. I believe the club think like you, sell your best players get loanees in, working well this season isn't it?

The real irony about Ward is I think he was exactly the player Sami needed to make the whole thing tick.
He'd have had a field day here, the whole team would have been better, and who knows what might have happened.

At the end of the day he's now a Premier League player (just) playing for a manager who also likes his full backs to attack.

 

[simballs]

You can't expect a Chairman to get all decisions 100% correct. Look at those they employ. The manager and players make mistakes on a regular basis.
Mistakes can be compounded also but I think when Sami left there were moves to address a number of the mistakes.
To my mind based on comparisons with some other Chairman he's done an amazing job and long may it continue!

 

[El Presidente]

I

Except Wayne Bridge was a one off, tempted here by Poyet and is the only player of that ilk and wage that we have acquired. We ****ed up royally with Ward in the close season and have ended up with a much less effective full back because of it, again on loan. I believe the club think like you, sell your best players get loanees in, working well this season isn't it?

What about Vicente, Upson, Darren Bent?

 

[Peteinblack]

Indeed but it's needs must at the moment. the fact CH is looking to the loan market possibly further still following March's injury just shows what a shambles this season has been and how poor the squad actually is currently.

It's interesting, I was reading old posts from the pre season games and it's sad/ironic to see how many NSCrs were forecasting this mess as the season loomed without strong signings to replace those who had left.[/QUOTE]

Yes, we were being slated as 'bed-wetters' - I was buying a new mattress each week

 

[Danny-Boy]

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, Watford came close to promotion in 2012/3 with almost a complete team of loanees from Italy and elsewhere.

Apart from who stopped them at the last hurdle, their promotion would have been a hideous abuse of the loan system. And that was an opinion generally voiced in the media.

 

[Icy Gull]

What about Vicente, Upson, Darren Bent?

I didn't realise they were on 100k a week and we were only paying 10k towards them. Bent didn't hang around long either did he?

 

[Surrey_Albion]

The whole thing stinks .... Not so sure anymore this club is is in the hands of someone who wants to keep it.
Given the benefit of the doubt - is Tony Bloom the victim of poor advice or poor judgement ? Neither are good news for a proven gambler .
Surrounding yourself with overpaid , under performing staff - who prove difficult to dismiss without fiancial penaltiies can't in the end be an excuse for pressing the " premiereship ready " button ... whilst simultaneously
dismantling the team.
Do you trust the club - what they say - or more importantly what they dont say ?
As I said - this stinks .
Apart from bricks and mortar - an interest in the hotel industry ...
Do you think tony Blloom has another agenda ?

Quick tip for you: if you wear shoes on your hands its easier to talk out of your arse

 

[Danny-Boy]

Like I said on another thread, maybe he put a whopping bet on Albion for relegation at the start of the season.. what WERE the odds then? Must have been fives at least.

 

[Brighton Mod]

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.

Not a dig at Paul Barber, he's in charge of the succesful part of the club, changing the caterers four times, Bennets Field Car Park re negotiation as we near the end of the season, purchase price of merchandise and influential in setting the level of fee we are paying for the influx of loan, out of contract and free agent players we have signed. He's not responsible for the football performed on the pitch or is he. CEO of the year when we're riding high, based on what? He's the man when we're winnin gbut not when we are losing. In terms of his history, must have been difficult making a success of the organisation running the national game and the premiership Spurs, i'm not sure how he's doing here as the club publishes its accounts which say one thing and he says another.

The question is about Tony Bloom and the only facts that I will use is that i'm pretty sure he doesn't want to go down but does not know the answer to getting up and it is a fact that currently we are fourth from bottom of the championship, with little form, a few loan signings and a manager that has managed in the Premiership who knows his way around who will surely start to challenge what he sees at the club shortly.

Whilst I understand that Tony Bloom is putting his money into the club, was the cost of being a top performing Champinship Club not factored into the calculations when this venture was embarked upon. BTW, I have no inner sanctum on the board room and will judge for myself on how they have performed on our position in the table.

 

[Brighton Mod]

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.

A complete hash would be relegation, the ROI on the stadium and the money spent so far would be farsical,lets talk at the end of the season?

 

[chaileyjem]

I didn't realise they were on 100k a week and we were only paying 10k towards them. Bent didn't hang around long either did he?

You said Wayne Bridge was "the only player of that ilk and wage that we have acquired" . Sensibly others refute this as Vicente, Upson and Bent are/were also extremely highly paid internationals, who signed for the Albion in recent years and were looking to rebuild their career via that route, 2 of which were actually via loans which you argue are a bad thing per se.

Then you said oh actually i meant "on 100K a week and only paying 10K towards them" ...and hinted that you also meant stayed for a season as Bent wouldn't qualify...by which i can only conclude that "players of that ilk" just means we haven't signed anyone since Wayne Bridge , who is er, Wayne Bridge. To which i suppose the answer is well yes we haven't.!

 

[Icy Gull]

You said Wayne Bridge was "the only player of that ilk and wage that we have acquired" . Sensibly others refute this as Vicente, Upson and Bent are/were also extremely highly paid internationals, who signed for the Albion in recent years and were looking to rebuild their career via that route, 2 of which were actually via loans which you argue are a bad thing per se.

Then you said oh actually i meant "on 100K a week and only paying 10K towards them" ...and hinted that you also meant stayed for a season as Bent wouldn't qualify...by which i can only conclude that "players of that ilk" just means we haven't signed anyone since Wayne Bridge , who is er, Wayne Bridge. To which i suppose the answer is well yes we haven't.!

I was not aware that we paid just a small percentage of Vicente's wage ( I thought we signed him so he doesn't actually qualify as a loan anyway), or Upson's or Bent's, If you and El Pres know that we paid a very small proportion of their wage I bow to your superior knowledge. It was being suggested that we got a good deal and couldn't have signed Bridge without breaking the bank, which is true and hence the comment about Bridge being the only one of his ilk. We signed Upson so we can assume he wasn't on silly money, and yes I concede Bent was a high quality but very short lived loan, I imagine we paid a much higher percentage of his wages than we did Bridge's though.

Anyway my point is that loans are not the way forward and putting forward a loan signing that was a mega deal for us as the norm and as an example about how it is a good idea is just plain daft. You only have to look at the quality and impact of most of our loan signings to see it's not a great idea to fill a team with loanees. .

 

[drew]

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

Their doing better than us but hardly setting the division alight. They had a great start then had a run that was probably worse than ours!

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.....

I get the impression you are not a fan of Tony Bloom.

I was not aware that we paid just a small percentage of Vicente's wage ( I thought we signed him so he doesn't actually qualify as a loan anyway), or Upson's or Bent's, If you and El Pres know that we paid a very small proportion of their wage I bow to your superior knowledge. It was being suggested that we got a good deal and couldn't have signed Bridge without breaking the bank, which is true and hence the comment about Bridge being the only one of his ilk. We signed Upson so we can assume he wasn't on silly money, and yes I concede Bent was a high quality but very short lived loan, I imagine we paid a much higher percentage of his wages than we did Bridge's though.

Anyway my point is that loans are not the way forward and putting forward a loan signing that was a mega deal for us as the norm and as an example about how it is a good idea is just plain daft. You only have to look at the quality and impact of most of our loan signings to see it's not a great idea to fill a team with loanees. .

I heard, but don't know for sure, that we were paying £20k a week for Bent out of his £65k per week salary. ie about a third. With Bridge, we were rumoured to be paying £10k out of his £80k a week wage, ie an eigth. So yes, were were paying a bigger percentage of Bent's wage but that's down to negotiation. The loan system should be used in conjunction with permanent players, nothing wrong with that.

 

[Icy Gull]

I get the impression you are not a fan of Tony Bloom.
.

I am grateful for what he has done for us, I just don't think he should be above criticism, not sure I'd want him as a friend I have to confess

 

[GT49er]

I

Except Wayne Bridge was a one off, tempted here by Poyet and is the only player of that ilk and wage that we have acquired. We ****ed up royally with Ward in the close season and have ended up with a much less effective full back because of it, again on loan. I believe the club think like you, sell your best players get loanees in, working well this season isn't it?

In terms of being a good loan deal, Bridge was by no means a one off. Upson and Ward were pretty good too - we got quality players for only a portion of their wages. There are times, like this last transfer window, when there are obvious advantages for loaning players rather than panic buying at over the odds prices, and getting lumbered with a bench warmer (or worse) sitting on a nice long contract.
If only we had got Agustien as a loanee......!