[Albion] We are a remarkable club

[Napper]

We will need to be investing at some point as we are getting fortunate with the latest batch coming through.

It can all go saints and Leicester in the blink of an eye

 

[jcdenton08]

I think Tony's plan is far more complex than you give him credit for.
It isn't just buy cheap - develop - sell. It's about incrementally increasing the value of the entire squad.
Our least talented players are significantly better than they were 6 years ago.

Every time we sell a player to a top club, our reputation increases.
The "ceiling" of the prospects we are able to buy gets higher each season.

We are starting to buy players that are closer to being Premier League standard.
Rather than waiting 2-3 seasons of development, before they can play, we are now seeing players with 6mths loans being recalled to start in the Prem.

We will always be a selling club, very few teams aren't, but that doesn't mean we can't have a team capable of competing at the top level.

Also, what is a “selling club” nowadays? Everyone is a selling club when the price is right and the player wants to go. Lamptey chose us over Chelsea. The right money would buy any footballer in the world for any club in the world.

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

We will need to be investing at some point as we are getting fortunate with the latest batch coming through.

It can all go saints and Leicester in the blink of an eye

Not comparable with Leicester and Southampton as the problems there started with the people running the clubs.

If Bloom or Barber go, I worry. Until then, not so much.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

You can almost guarantee if BW was still here he would never be dropped and would be our best right back.

Yes, because we would have coached him into being so.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

We will need to be investing at some point as we are getting fortunate with the latest batch coming through.

It can all go saints and Leicester in the blink of an eye

I think it was Leicester and Saints who were the fortunate ones.
They had a golden batch of players come through their books at the right time.

Tony's analytics are the differentiator for us, there is no need to assume we can't keep unearthing the best prospects from across the globe.
Plenty of untapped markets, which I daresay the club are working on.

Leicester pretty quickly upped their wage structure, to retain their talent, and caused their own demise
TB has learnt from the experiences of other clubs our size and has adapted the financial model accordingly.

The improvements are too slow for some fans, who see the current squad as the best it could ever be.
They might be right, but I doubt TB sees it that way,

 

[Muzzman]

We will need to be investing at some point as we are getting fortunate with the latest batch coming through.

It can all go saints and Leicester in the blink of an eye

Aren't we investing in young talent in this present moment?

Saints and Leicester lack the data that Tony has access to, it's why the club are relaxed about changes in the backroom, yes Dan Ashworth and Paul Winstanley have unearthed some great talent, but that's only based on the data they are given.

Without Tony's data, they're back fishing in the same pond as all the other clubs without a plan... or the exclusive data Tony holds within Starlizard.

 

[jcdenton08]

Yes, because we would have coached him into being so.

Errr you realise Bielsa doesn’t manage us?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Aren't we investing in young talent in this present moment?

Saints and Leicester lack the data that Tony has access to, it's why the club are relaxed about changes in the backroom, yes Dan Ashworth and Paul Winstanley have unearthed some great talent, but that's only based on the data they are given.

Without Tony's data, they're back fishing in the same pond as all the other clubs without a plan... or the exclusive data Tony holds within Starlizard.

Precisely. A few of us get this, it seems. Someone the other day said Bloom is 'weak' because he 'lost his staff to Chelsea'. I shake my head in sadness.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Precisely. A few of us get this, it seems. Someone the other day said Bloom is 'weak' because he 'lost his staff to Chelsea'. I shake my head in sadness.

All through the Potter to Chelsea thing I was enormously encouraged when Mr Bloom made it clear that he knew who he wanted to replace GP, went out to get him and didn’t talk to anyone else.

as someone else has already said, our big problem would probably be if TB were to go. Saints have had very chequered leadership since Herr Liebherr died. (Not that Liebherr was a Tony Bloom!)

 

[jcdenton08]

All through the Potter to Chelsea thing I was enormously encouraged when Mr Bloom made it clear that he knew who he wanted to replace GP, went out to get him and didn’t talk to anyone else.

as someone else has already said, our big problem would probably be if TB were to go. Saints have had very chequered leadership since Herr Liebherr died. (Not that Liebherr was a Tony Bloom!)

This is why we need to support Tony and his team no matter what. Running a football club must be bloody hard, let alone investing huge amounts of your own money with little hope of even recouping, let alone achieving profit.

We have the best owner in world football. Never, ever forget that guys.

 

[Austrian Gull]

Some NSCers seem concerned for the future - I think we should enjoy the ride we are going on. We have a great squad, a decent fanbase, fantastic infrastructure...We will never be the kind of club who young footballers around the world see as the ultimate destination. I think we are doing very well providing top players with a way into the league - it is inevitable that, if they are successful, some will want to move on.

Right now, my boys couldn't be prouder to be Albion fans. They go to school wearing a shirt or a cap and love showing off their support. That's a place I didn't believe we could ever reach again. Let's trust the club and enjoy where we are and where we are heading.

 

[Justice]

Aren't we investing in young talent in this present moment?

Saints and Leicester lack the data that Tony has access to, it's why the club are relaxed about changes in the backroom, yes Dan Ashworth and Paul Winstanley have unearthed some great talent, but that's only based on the data they are given.

Without Tony's data, they're back fishing in the same pond as all the other clubs without a plan... or the exclusive data Tony holds within Starlizard.

Star lizard was around before TB was our owner, in between then and now we’ve signed some utter dross. It wasn’t until certain members of the recruitment team joined the club that things started to improve. It’s not all down to data which by the way has to be entered manually in the first place. Unless TB owns skynet and it thinks for itself

 

[Simster]

We've done brilliantly in the transfer market, brilliantly with player development and I agree with the sale of Trossard.

But I can't think of a single club in any division ever, who has consistently sold their best players and managed to replace them on a long term basis. Sure there have been plenty who've got away with it for a season or two, but it's caught up with them in the end.

To me that's the only warning. At some point we're going to have to stand our ground and refuse offers for players we consider irreplaceable, or the laws of football gravity will catch up with us eventually.

I don't really agree with this. If you refuse offers out of hand, you get a pissed off player and you lose the reputation of being a club that will allow a player to further his career. Caicedo has undoubtedly been told he can go in the summer if he really wants to, but we can't let him go mid-season. In fact, I wouldn't mind betting that this conversation was had in South America when we first signed him after Man Utd made the £75m mistake that the transfer was "too complicated".

The laws of football gravity will always be there - our long term competition is not Arsenal, Chelsea etc. It is Middlesbrough, Sheff Utd, Derby, Southampton, Wolves, Reading and so on; all clubs that will feel they can sustain a place in the top division, and eventually, a trophy might even come of that.

To do that, we have to keep bringing good players in, and to do that we have to maintain a reputation for not getting in the way of big moves for our players after they've done their time. (note, not ONE season like that big haired twat Cucurella). .

Where I would presumably agree with you is that it is unrealistic to expect to keep finding £5m players and turning them into £50m players. Sometimes we are going to have to reinvest £25-£30m of funds from a single £50m player in order to plug a gap.

 

[chickens]

I obviously want this ability to find a seemingly endless conveyor belt of talent to continue. However we’re going to make occasional misjudgements along the way.

Football tends to be cyclical, and a period of progress to be followed by a period of stagnation or even decline, as such I’m loving what’s happening at the moment, but know that tougher times will follow at some point.

What TB/PB builds, someone with a fuller wallet will try to take for themselves. The strength of the club is in TB’s patience and determination to keep building regardless of how many individual pieces go astray. I’m proud to support this team, and am hoping we can keep building for many years to come. I suspect we’re going to have to get used to a revolving cast of individuals, but if we can grow our revenue and improve our league position, then we start to become an attractive destination in our own right, not just as a stepping stone.

 

[Silverhatch]

We will need to be investing at some point as we are getting fortunate with the latest batch coming through.

It can all go saints and Leicester in the blink of an eye

Leicester stalled because they went beserk with salaries to keep players after Kante & Drinkwhisky f***ed off to… Chelsea!!

 

[Justice]

A year ago Mac was playing the #10 role and Caicedo was playing for a bottom of the league team in Belgium. Now one of them is a world cup winner and the other is worth £75m or some such under a coach seemingly an upgrade on Potter that I and many on here had never heard of, . I wonder what you were predicting last January …

To be honest after watching Caceido play for his country when he had just signed for us I was surprised we loaned him out he was ready then. Potter had to admit he didn’t realise how good he was and shouldn’t have loaned him out.
I allow that you are starry eyed but keeping Cucurella and BW for just one season wasn’t great. TB is a businessman first football fan second we have to remember that. We didn’t have a young left back coming through and had to spend £20m to get another so the profit on Cucurella despite his fee was around the £28m mark deducting his fee and the Pervis fee still decent profit.
You can see why the City bid was to low.
As it worked out for Macalister we didn’t replace Biss and had to push Mac further back again no young replacement was ready. It worked out, Mac won the World Cup and will go in the summer.
The conundrum is we will need to replace two world class midfielders and whoever else gets sold which won’t be an easy task.

 

[Berty23]

Perceptions of us are changing. Rightly so. My lad is 14 and he has been following Brighton since he was about 5. We live in Warwick. At primary school his mates were all “who are they?” And then early in secondary school he got grief because we were dull etc. now he is in year 10 and his mates all respect Brighton, understand how we work and, dare I say it, they are a little bit jealous of the journey supporting albion rather than say a spurs or Chelsea fan.

Most evenings I have a chuckle when he is playing fifa as he has developed a habit of shouting “seagulls” when he does something good and he tells me his mates laugh and don’t give him stick anymore.

We are slowly becoming a global club. South America, Asia and I had some Aussie lads stay here a couple of weeks ago in a hockey exchange and they were chatting about Brighton and matty Ryan.

We will never be a giant of the game but it is effing remarkable how quickly we have dropped the “teams like Brighton” tag. You don’t really hear it now. In fact as the teams walked out for wolves vs Liverpool Danny murphy’s last comment was “either of these are gonna struggle at Brighton the way they are playing”

Liverpool to struggle at Brighton. Think about that.

 

[nicko31]

We will need to be investing at some point as we are getting fortunate with the latest batch coming through.

It can all go saints and Leicester in the blink of an eye

Agree, we source of cheap players that turn into gold won't last forever. I do think we are better run than both these clubs, Bloom and Barber are a class act.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I obviously want this ability to find a seemingly endless conveyor belt of talent to continue. However we’re going to make occasional misjudgements along the way.

Football tends to be cyclical, and a period of progress to be followed by a period of stagnation or even decline, as such I’m loving what’s happening at the moment, but know that tougher times will follow at some point.

What TB/PB builds, someone with a fuller wallet will try to take for themselves. The strength of the club is in TB’s patience and determination to keep building regardless of how many individual pieces go astray. I’m proud to support this team, and am hoping we can keep building for many years to come. I suspect we’re going to have to get used to a revolving cast of individuals, but if we can grow our revenue and improve our league position, then we start to become an attractive destination in our own right, not just as a stepping stone.

Yeah this is fair.
As well as misjudgements, there will be cases like Mwepu, where careers are ended prematurely.

I think the biggest risk to our model is rule changes on the number of:

• overseas players
• U21
• loanees

At the moment we can take a punt on a lot more youngsters, maximising our chances of one or two becoming first teamers.
We started with centre-backs, most of them haven't come close to making the first team, but Ben White made us £50m and we picked up a few million for Matt Clarke and Ostigard.

As long as we are allowed to operate in this way, we can take as many punts as we like, if we're making margin on the majority of deals job's a goodun.

 

[father_and_son]

Not comparable with Leicester and Southampton as the problems there started with the people running the clubs.

If Bloom or Barber go, I worry. Until then, not so much.

Perhaps controversial, but if Barber goes I don't think I'd worry...
Paul is very, very good at his job but he is a "normal" chief exec doing what "normal" chief execs do (admittedly very well).

Tony is NOT a "normal" club owner. He is very much out of the normal "in it for the money/glory/sportswashing" that infects almost all other PL clubs.

Losing PB would be bad, but not the end of the club. Losing TB would be the end of the club in its current iteration and I'd be very worried where we end up.