Financial accounts ending 30th June 2018

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How can that possibly be the case? Is our wage bill that high that the TV money doesn’t cover it?

Turnover of £152.6m. Wages of £113.3m + other expenses of £33.2m. £6.3m in taxes. Those items alone exceed our revenues.

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Take player sales out of the equation, and we were cashflow negative last year. It'll be worse this year.
 
I'm not sure I picked up this specific point before

Will there be an operating deficit in the next financial year assuming no more transfers in or out?
If so, is this because of our increased wage bill?

It's mostly because our revenues tanked. Our wage bill last year actually decreased slightly. But yeah, if we're going to finish 17th every year, our wage bill is uncomfortably high.

Can we increase our income without transfers?
i.e. Finish higher up the league and get more TV income
Possible if Academy keeps producing and Ralph is a magician

We need to finish higher up the table, yeah. That's pretty much the only way we can significantly increase revenues without sales.

Can we improve the squad to facilitate this without any net expenditure on transfers?
Possible, if we can sell some of the misfits and therefore remove some high earners from the wage bill
i.e. Carillo, Hoedt, Boufal

Can we dump just the detritus and get better? Possibly, as they're obviously not doing anything for us, though I wouldn't really count on it being much. I'm not sure that we can swap Carillo/Hoedt/Boufal for even one meaningful transfer.

Can we finance some short-term operating losses to produce the long-term benefit of increasing income?

Most clubs would; the biggest threat to our financial position is either remaining where we are, or getting relegated. We won't, though; I think it's well-established that Gao does not wish to finance the club. I'd expect us to try to dump as many of the non-entities as possible (which is perfectly fine), but I wouldn't expect any great summer investment in the squad unless we're selling important players.
 
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Turnover of £152.6m. Wages of £113.3m + other expenses of £33.2m. £6.3m in taxes. Those items alone exceed our revenues.

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Take player sales out of the equation, and we were cashflow negative last year. It'll be worse this year.

So how does our wage bill compare with the likes of Leicester, Newcastle and Wafford for example?
 
So how does our wage bill compare with the likes of Leicester, Newcastle and Wafford for example?

As a percentage of turnover, we're third at 74% (among those who have published their books) behind Leicester (75%) and Everton (77%). Among those still in the PL, no one's close.

This is -- easily -- the highest our wage-to-turnover ratio has been since the Championship.
 
As a percentage of turnover, we're third at 74% (among those who have published their books) behind Leicester (75%) and Everton (77%). Among those still in the PL, no one's close.

This is -- easily -- the highest our wage-to-turnover ratio has been since the Championship.

Okay cheers, do you know if the £33m in other expenses is about average for similar for other sized clubs?

Definitely need a bit of a cull this Summer, might be easier said than done though.

Be interesting to Wolves in a year or so too, or even Fulham (gulp).
 
It's mostly because our revenues tanked. Our wage bill last year actually decreased slightly. But yeah, if we're going to finish 17th every year, our wage bill is uncomfortably high.

We need to finish higher up the table, yeah. That's pretty much the only way we can significantly increase revenues without sales.

Can we dump just the detritus and get better? Possibly, as they're obviously not doing anything for us, though I wouldn't really count on it being much. I'm not sure that we can swap Carillo/Hoedt/Boufal for even one meaningful transfer.

Most clubs would; the biggest threat to our financial position is either remaining where we are, or getting relegated. We won't, though; I think it's well-established that Gao does not wish to finance the club. I'd expect us to try to dump as many of the non-entities as possible (which is perfectly fine), but I wouldn't expect any great summer investment in the squad unless we're selling important players.

:emoticon-0148-yes:
I’m pleased I managed to get the basic questions I thought were important out in a way that you understood. All your answers are bang on what I was saying

We are in a financial hole because we have bought players for substantial fees and with high salaries and they have failed. The question now is how quickly we can get out of that hole and what happens football wise while we are doing that

I wonder how Ralph sees this as he can’t have come in expecting expensive signings

Hopefully Real Madrid will hurry up and buy Mane and VVD and the sell in clauses are generous :emoticon-0100-smile
 
Okay cheers, do you know if the £33m in other expenses is about average for similar for other sized clubs?

Higher than Leicester's £22.9m; Swiss Ramble doesn't keep a table on that, so I'd have to go through all of his posts to find others.

Now, some of that might be transfer-related (bonuses, etc) but it would be eyebrow-raising if our transfer dealings in 2017-18 resulted in far higher agent fees/incoming bonuses than Leicester's £79m spent.

However, we also had no exceptional payments last year (which I presume means there was no payout for Pellgrino? Might explain that odd hire if he came on very cheap terms). That won't be the case in 2018-19: we paid Mark Hughes £6m to go away.
 
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As a percentage of turnover, we're third at 74% (among those who have published their books) behind Leicester (75%) and Everton (77%). Among those still in the PL, no one's close.

This is -- easily -- the highest our wage-to-turnover ratio has been since the Championship.

I couldn't see this posted here but I saw this being discussed on Saintsweb

https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?5-The-Saints

Full list of our players and their wages. It just boggles the mind the money we are paying out - just doesn't seem sustainable. And the sheer waste on players who do nothing or aren't even at the club! What I was struck by most of all was reading from the bottom upwards you quickly run out of players who are delivering on their wage bill. The top end of our earners iare not showing much in terms of results.

https://www.spotrac.com/epl/southampton-f.c/payroll/
 
So how does our wage bill compare with the likes of Leicester, Newcastle and Wafford for example?

About 30m more than Watford, Bournemouth and Newcastle. On par with Leicester according to the link posted above.
 
I couldn't see this posted here but I saw this being discussed on Saintsweb

https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?5-The-Saints

Full list of our players and their wages. It just boggles the mind the money we are paying out - just doesn't seem sustainable. And the sheer waste on players who do nothing or aren't even at the club! What I was struck by most of all was reading from the bottom upwards you quickly run out of players who are delivering on their wage bill. The top end of our earners iare not showing much in terms of results.

https://www.spotrac.com/epl/southampton-f.c/payroll/

We have to be careful what we wish for as fans. I remember when fans were moaning about not paying players enough money to keep them or sign them. Now we’re paying too much to move them on when they don’t work.

Recruitment and running a business is difficult.