Ok I have identified why there is a difference between the figures you produced and the ones I got from audited accounts. Having a further look at the website where your list was produced, (although you may have gathered the same information from a different website) https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/how-final-championship-table-would-16506843 a fairly relevant section of the article before the production of the list paints a clearer, although slightly distorted picture. Quote taken from the 4th paragraph of article from above website So they are making a prediction for the league table, based on financial information from 2 seasons ago. I stopped doing the following table when I realised the figures quoted related to a prediction for the 2019/20 season based on financial information gathered at the end of the 2017/18 season. At the end of the 2018/19 season, the 3 clubs mentioned below all had a significant higher turnover than ourselves, (by at least £20million) due to parachute payments. Those 3 clubs had also significantly reduced their wage bill by between 40%-50% compared to the previous seasons accounts. Our wage bill by comparison was about 20%-30% less. (You could even say just going on the financial information that we should have finished at best 7th in the Championship, instead of finishing 3rd, given that Norwich, Villa and Boro also had a higher turnover than ourselves, so we potentially over performed even though we didnt get promoted that season) By the end of the 2019/20 season (when we got promoted), despite those 3 clubs still receiving parachute payments, our turnover was marginally higher. Stoke and Swansea had continued to reduce their wage bill. WBA wage bill increased by £22m, which is probably due to the bonus made to players upon gaining promotion (I made an error with the t/o for WBA when I originally posted the financial information earlier today). Our wage bill was £4m higher than WBA, again following the payment of a bonus to players on gaining promotion. Do clubs relegated from the EPL get a benefit due to parachute payments ? Of course they do, and I would think most people on here know that. However when it comes down to ourselves, due to both our history and the structure instigated by Radrizzani, then by the time we got promoted, we had a higher turnover than clubs who having been relegated from the EPL 2 years ago, were in receipt of funding from the EPL by way of parachute payments of approx £30m. Just as an aside, I would have happily agreed with you that the season we got promoted, other clubs had a higher turnover than ourselves, without having to check all the figures. However due to the numerous times Elland has mentioned that we had the highest wage bill when we got promoted, spending over £70m, had stuck in my mind, given that he mentioned it that often, then there was an obvious discrepancy between either what he keeps repeating or the data in your post. Thus the data in the audited accounts would have proved me wrong.
You said Bielsa spent more than the rest, he didn't and the rest had a head start with higher paid wages
Yes, but my original point was that he used mostly players he inherited from the previous coaches, (whatever the club were paying them) didn’t bring in many big money signings. Had players sold and by and large accepted by the vast majority that “he took a bunch of average mid table championship players and turned them into mid table premier league players”. Not sure why you’re so reluctant to give him credit for that but that’s your prerogative. I’ll just agree to disagree with you
Gawd, I can remember the days when we just had arguments about refereeing decisions, players performances and how poor the managers was. Those were the days hey?
Perhaps retitling the forum to notFT? No seriously it will be great to see football talk back at the weekend, but not taking anything away from the tremendous stats you collate. Is this a passing interest or is it your job. If not then you must be an engineer?
The lack of relevant football over the last few weeks has indeed took its toll on here I was a computer technician/programmer but as a kid I struggled to retain any information except when learning maths, probably these days someone would say I had some sort of dyslexia. Anyways thanks to some great teachers, who taught me to compartmentalise information ( my school books were full of lists and hand written tables) I progressed, and for the past 40+ years it's not something most people would notice about me. Because of this I've always had a tendency to gravitate towards factual information, and just seem to have a knack and patience for being able quickly research information and put it in a way that makes some sort of sense to me. Thus on the discussion between Ristac and Wakey, because the data posted by Ristac didnt seem to make any sense to me, I just went and looked at the best source of data that I could find that would make it clear to me. The information I got was not what I expected, I can at least understand why Wakey has the opinion he has, even if I disagree with that opinion. You will be glad to know that because I was not able to rely upon facts and figures , this post has been rewritten about 5 times and is way shorter than the ones I kept deleting