[Albion] Paul Winstanley joins Chelsea as Director of Global Talent and Transfers

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Kind of disagree re Bruno, it was clear there would be a role for him IMO, now picked up by Crofts. We are very good at looking after our ex-players, and I see no reason to suggest this would have been different. He chose to go, in my view, doesn’t make him a bad person or anything like that, but really disappoints me (mainly because I liked him so much). Me, me me -

Re Potter yes, with you 100%.

Although looking back with hindsight it's turned out the role Crofts now has could have been Bruno's, at the time of his departure he'd been told nothing was guaranteed.

 

[highflyer]

Booing? Certainly. I have always loathed Chelsea anyway, and am sickened beyond belief by the whole episode. But it is the logical result of the way modern football operates. Everyone's feelings about it will obviously be different. These are mine: two posts on my Facebook page over the last couple of weeks.

Post 1
This Guardian article reflects my own feelings exactly. https://www.theguardian.com/.../football-must-remember-it...
I spent over a decade of my life passionately involved in the battle to save the club I love, was the stadium announcer for 14 years and saw us rise from the bottom of Division Four (as it should be called) with no ground, playing our home games at Gillingham, to 7th in the Premier League, playing beautiful football, acknowledged as a brilliantly run club.
Now we have hit a glass ceiling, a Groundhog Day of fandom. Three of our best players, our manager and entire backroom staff stripped away by MONEY. And we are fully aware that in the next transfer window MONEY will come back for more. Not sport. Not superior footballing brains, not better planning: just MONEY.
And the most ridiculous thing of all is that we have enough money of our own, indeed far, far too much for the way I'd like football to be run. Our chairman and club set up doesn't need the money that MONEY will give us in exchange for our best players. But what makes their money MONEY, and ours just money, and what makes our players want to play for them, is that they are 'one of the six big clubs' and we're ‘one of the other small clubs'.
And if a 'small club' (so small that we nearly went out of existence in our case) can't become a 'big club' the way we tried to do it - years of campaigning, good stewardship, careful recruitment and one of the finest managers the game has ever seen - because MONEY trumps not just all that, but MONEY trumps money itself if the money is not in the hands of those who make it MONEY...then football is, as the article says, no longer a sport.

Post 2
Juergen Klopp has got nothing to apologise for in pointing out that brutal oligarchic and state owned regimes ‘owning’ football clubs is a huge part of the reason why the modern game is simultaneously obscene in its excesses and predictable in its outcomes.
We have had an incredible 25 year rise from the bottom of the 4th division with no ground to 7th in the Premier League. It has been a roller coaster of wonder. Now we have reached the glass ceiling, it’s nowhere near as interesting. The football is beautiful, but the game is sick.
The Potter episode sometimes makes me want to walk away, if I am honest, and given my passion for the Albion that is saying something. Brilliantly run club, great recruitment, unique manager, everything ripped away by the power of money. And not just any money but Chelsea money, money stolen from the Russian people, leaving millions living in misery.
As I have said before, I feel like a goldfish owner who loves my pet as much as ever but utterly loathes the water it is swimming in now.

Something fundamental has to change. If someone like me - who spent years of my life battling to save the club he loves - feels like this when we are 7th in the Premier League, there really is something wrong with the game.

Yeah, but all these thoughts and feelings are just driven by 'jealousy'.
Apparently.
According to some on here.
'We'd all do the same' blah blah.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Has he gone yet?

 

[Zeberdi]

Sorry if that came across as me arguing, I was basically just thinking straight onto the screen, hence the rather unfocused nature of my replies.
I say unfocused, a more honest assessment would be meaningless dreck.
If we set the bar for posting at "things people don't already know" then we might have to dump most of the forum

No worries mate - feelings are very raw right now, it’s like the straw on the camel’s back for a lot of fans.

I don’t know where we are going as a club anymore tbh - TB will step back eventually and with it, with the injection of cash he’s been bailing us out with over the years - I just cant see us becoming financially sustainable enough to compete in the top half of the table season after season at the speed talent and expertise is running out the floodgates that the 7 mega rich clubs have opened to our staff and players. It’s not enough to say we should be proud we’ve come so far that Brighton players are becoming attractive to the top richest clubs or that it’s good for the club when we get a record transfer fee. Staff recruitment and scouting talent in finding replacements for key staff and players is fantastic but not that good - every replacement needs time to adjust and grow into the job, players and staff alike and the existing team around them also needs to adjust.

Meanwhile, the magnificent 7 will continue to cream off the top from us as we make repeated backslides while making that adjustment. Personally I think BHA should be looking now for some seriously big major investors so we can start looking at Europe/CL as a long term plan and not sell our best players because the ‘price is right’ or loose them to richer clubs because we can’t afford to give them a competitive contracts when they do become our best players.

David Weir said back in July when Man City were sniffing around Cucu:

“It's not something we want to do, we want to keep all of our best players. I think we are fortunate in having an owner [Tony Bloom] who won't sell players if the valuation isn't right or he doesn't think it's right for us as a football club. That is really important to emphasise.

"But if it's right for everyone and it suits the football club and the player makes it clear he wants to leave then that is very different. But we want to be a club where people want to be and I think we have shown that. I think we have shown that we can be a destination club, we can be a top ten Premier League football club as well. That is where we want to strive to be. We want to be in a position where we have got really good players but they don't want to leave as well."

Brighton owner Tony Bloom 'won't sell' players if the valuation is not right

Brighton have been at the centre of a number of transfer sagas in recent windows, firstly with Ben White to Arsenal, then Yves Bissouma to Tottenham, and now Manchester City target Marc Cucurella

www.sussexlive.co.uk

It’s mostly all about the money though, of course it is. Everything is for sale at the ‘right‘ price.

 

[Pavilionaire]

The big clubs are not just nicking our fish, they've also stolen our rod.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I'm someone who will engage if there is some sort of end game. If I can't see one, I'm inclined to move on. What would success look like, now Chelsea have pinched our staff? How would that success be achieved?

In general terms a mobilization against unacceptable ownership would be nice. But who is to decide what is unacceptable and how? Some people have stated on NSC that all foreign owners should be 'removed' and 'banned'. This is currently against the law, so a campaign to petition MPs would be required. 'Sling the foreigners out of our game'. Has a nice ring to it. Good luck with that.

OK, instead of that, what about some sort of fitness rules that allow Liverpool to keep their foreign owners but Newcastle and, er Chelsea to....no that won't work will it? Chelsea are now American owned. Like Sky TV.

Albeit some people think America is a rogue nation. Other people think that is just daft. Who decides, then?

So it gets tricky does it not? It is all very well @attila bemoaning the state of things, and we can take it back as far as we like - Sky, the first foreign owners? What about when Littlewoods owned Everton? What about when rich mill owners forced players to stay on a maximum wage? What about when a club could sack a player and stop paying them, but refuse to let them join another club unless a fee was paid?

So, when did enough become enough? What was the straw that broke the camel's back? What was the camel? What is the consequence of the broken back? Is this a euphemism for people saying they are going to walk away from they club and boycott football?

If anyone thinks I'm being blasé, please tell me exactly who should be doing what and with what end to change all this stuff. I love a good plan.

Meanwhile, it is all very well rushing to occupy the high ground, but 99 out of 100 non-Brighton supporters of other much longer standing EPL clubs, and those who have started to sink down the leagues, would say 'you are only moaning now because throughout your history, till 6 months ago, your club was too shit to raid, with no assets. Clubs like ours however have been pecked at by the big boys for 100 years. Sorry you had your club ransacked in one fell swoop after 100 years of being under the radar, but that' life, mate. Get used to it.

I am not looking forward to the Chelsea game, with a risk the atmos becoming as poisonous as 'that' Palace game some years ago where lots of people completely lost their shit. And we lost.

Brighton means different things to different people. Anything from panto to religion. For me it is the connection with my past and my home town (and the panto element, with the occasional bit of glory being an added bonus). It is not an effing religion.

The weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, directed at some sort of imaginary creature called MONEY is not the same as the campaign that saved our club, and I don't like the attempt to conflate the two, and I don't like the idea of walking away from our club just because it has been raided by a rich club.

On a lighter note, I'm looking forward to the game finishing 0-0 allowing us to sing 'Are you Brighton in Disguise'.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

This is getting beyond a joke! Why not take Paul Barber as well and make it a full set? I have no doubt that players will leave in January. What’s the point in trying to succeed? Any glimmer of success and the big clubs tempt away our coaches and players. O K we get the message, they are telling us to “get back where we belong in the lower leagues “

Lol, can you imagine…

“Brighton and Hove Albion have given Chelsea permission to talk to Paul Barber……he could be gone for some time.”

 

[ac gull]

well according to Chelsea USA based owners they bought it as the EPL is "under monetized" and thus by default they reckon they can increase revenues which only means:
- more commercial income
- charge fans more
as in MORE MONEY for the owners, which will help pay down the cash borrowed to buy Chelsea in the first place

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

Although looking back with hindsight it's turned out the role Crofts now has could have been Bruno's, at the time of his departure he'd been told nothing was guaranteed.

As per my post, I would say the opposite. IMO there is no way Bloom would have allowed anything happen that resulted in Bruno being pushed out.

 

[Wardy's twin]

Problem is we have entered the big wide world of Football money and are a part of that problem as much as Chelsea, Man City etc. We might be small fry to the top 7 but we are a very big fish to all those clubs in the lower leagues and lots of those clubs would love the chance to compete at the highest level with guaranteed income of £100m.

I like many don't like what happened but it was expected (well most of it) and would it be any better if Liverpool came in for Trossard or Man City for Caicedo rather than Chelsea . In my mind the answer is no, same 9expected) result we loose our best players.

Let's move on from this and if booing gives people closure then do it at the weekend.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

As per my post, I would say the opposite. IMO there is no way Bloom would have allowed anything happen that resulted in Bruno being pushed out.

But there have been reports that Bruno was told his job wasn’t guaranteed under a new manager. Bloom could have stepped in and told him then that he’d been taken care of but that clearly didn’t happen.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

But there have been reports that Bruno was told his job wasn’t guaranteed under a new manager. Bloom could have stepped in and told him then that he’d been taken care of but that clearly didn’t happen.

Even if it was made clear he'd have a job, if he's got a career progression in mind a guaranteed position in Potter's team at Chelsea could well be more appealing than "we'll keep you on doing something or other whatever the next manager thinks", because that might not lead anywhere.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

But there have been reports that Bruno was told his job wasn’t guaranteed under a new manager. Bloom could have stepped in and told him then that he’d been taken care of but that clearly didn’t happen.

Be interested to know the source of the ‘reports’, I certainly haven’t seen them and we don’t know that Bloom didn’t step in, again there is no evidence either way that I can see.

 

[Pavilionaire]

We might be small fry to the top 7 but we are a very big fish to all those clubs in the lower leagues and lots of those clubs would love the chance to compete at the highest level

1. Compete at WHAT? Winning the "Finishing 7th Cup"?
2. We will never be "a big fish", especially to those clubs in the lower leagues like Massive, Sunderland, Derby who all think they have a divine right to be in the Prem because they won a couple of trophies 50 / 60 / 70 years ago.

 

[rool]

1. Compete at WHAT? Winning the "Finishing 7th Cup"?
2. We will never be "a big fish", especially to those clubs in the lower leagues like Massive, Sunderland, Derby who all think they have a divine right to be in the Prem because they won a couple of trophies 50 / 60 / 70 years ago.

This reminds me of Jack Nicholson when he comes out of his psychiatrist's office and says to the others in the waiting room 'what if this is as good as it gets?'.
I think we reached that point last year as a club of our size.

 

[Wardy's twin]

1. Compete at WHAT? Winning the "Finishing 7th Cup"?
2. We will never be "a big fish", especially to those clubs in the lower leagues like Massive, Sunderland, Derby who all think they have a divine right to be in the Prem because they won a couple of trophies 50 / 60 / 70 years ago.

I guess it depends on your definition of big fish ... but clubs like Rochdale etc who can only dream of a £100m a year income.

You are doing the club down - in the last 3 years we have not lost to Liverpool at Anfield, we have beaten Man City. Last year we beat Spurs & Arsenal away and did the same to Man U this year. We are competing and something few of us could see in our first two seasons in the PL.

We have taken a couple of heavy blows , doesn't mean we are knocked out.

And you are sounding a little pretentious (which I don't think you are) playing for 7th (or maybe 8th now) is still pretty good and quite amazing given the history of the club.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

No one is indispensable. A long time ago someone told me this and said you could measure how indispensable you are by taking a bucket of water, sticking you hand and arm in and splashing about creating waves but the measure of hiw much you’ll be missed can be calculated by the size of the hole left when you pull your arm out.

 

[Weststander]

well according to Chelsea USA based owners they bought it as the EPL is "under monetized" and thus by default they reckon they can increase revenues which only means:
- more commercial income
- charge fans more
as in MORE MONEY for the owners, which will help pay down the cash borrowed to buy Chelsea in the first place

European Super League.
EPL games played overseas.
North v South EPL all stars game.
Further gentrify Stamford Bridge by hugely upping food and drink prices.

Boehly would refer to all ideas as “sweating” the EPL and Chelsea asset.

 

[NorthstandRacoon]

Steady on…at the very least that isn’t going to reflect well on our club

haha tongue in cheek.

 

[albionalex]

I’ve followed some Top7 fora where we’re admired. A regular theme is about buying the Caicedo’s when they’re £5m, not £60m. Even they have to stop spending somewhere.

We’ll never be able to quantify the damage of Ashworth, MacAuley and Winstanley walking away with a complete inside knowledge of our recruitment networks, of course we won’t know which players now won’t join or be interested in us. But there must be significant damage over time.

I can’t recall a football club be systemically asset stripped in the past (other than thefts of real estate).

I don't think we're fishing in the same pond as Chelsea, or even Newcastle.