100% with ya Valley , except with the two up front . Graham is so underrated . Never mind that only a dozen players in the Premier have more goals than him but the way he runs the defenders down like a mad dog & I'm not sure what we would have done without him on the defensive set pieces .... a bargain amoungst bargains on many levels .
In our first game of the season against Man city Aguero reminded me of Borini so a player of thier class is beyond our means imo. Were going to need quite a few new and replacement players in the summer break hope we get some quality loans in again and class bargains who are off the radar of other clubs ! This is where Rogers will need to use all his skills to set us up to fight the mysterious second season syndrom. We must keep Vorm ahead of anyone else first !
The thing about pundits and their opinions is that their opinion is worth sod all. 1st game of the season they didn't know anything about us, it took until about Christmas for them to wake up and even now most commentators display complete ignorance (imploring us to get it forward quicker, pouncing on every loose pass at the back with "I told you so" glee etc.) How about some credit for being in games at all given our resources compared to our competitors. At the start of this season we had the smallest budget, the next closest was Wigan...who were spending DOUBLE what we are, the next closest to them was spending double again and so on into the stratosphere. What I've learnt this season is that the people who are paid to know about football in this country (coaches, managers, directors, commentators, pundits and journalists....are, by and large, cretins. And that's why the English football team are so poor despite having the raw ingredients. At the start of the season when we were destined to go down (not a mid table premiership team) we signed Danny Graham, after trailing him for about 5 years, knowing we were getting a player who could play as a target man, who scores regularly enough to justify his inclusion as 1 of 2 or even out on the left wing. A player who works his bollocks off, rarely misses a game, is ambitious and equally not likely to spit his dummy out and **** off as soon as we go down. He's fulfilled what we required and has been integral to the team's success, he will be here for the long term. We need to get rid of Lita and replace him with a youngster who gives us another option
Good post mate, the only thing wrong was that Norwich was also on a similar budget as us, think they spent less than us over the season to be honest.
Norwich have done great too but I think you'll find they have long had more resources than us. They outbid us when we had the Zak Whitbread transfer lined up, and they were in League 1, ditto on Robert Ayala. See hear; http://www.thescratchingshed.com/2010/07/quiet-transfer-market-for-all-championship-clubs/ Last season Norwich spent 4 million pounds, the same as Burnley who had a parachute payment from the premiership. The second biggest spenders in the Championship, after Middlesboro. They also spent big in League 1 and the season they were relegated from the Championship. Transfer spend this season may have been less than us, after years of higher investment, but I'm certain they are paying much higher wages than us.
Norwich have had a Prem league structure about them for some time. Not that long ago they were in it, remember. Has to be an advantage.
I am not doubting that, but out of interest how much did we spend in the same period? I think probably about £3m when you consider who we brought in
2010/2011 - Sinclair 500k (upfront), Luke Moore 850k, Leon Britton 400k, Agustien & Ryan Harley on free's. Total = 1.75 million, can only guess at the wages but I imagine only Sinclair would be at the top of our wage structure.
The Swans were almost dropping out of the last division when Norwich were in the top one . Since then they had parachute payments & 25 ,000 seats sold every season . The way the Swans rose to the Premier , & is staying there , sits alone in the achievement scale IMO
2009/2010 - Nathan Dyer 400k and David Cotterill 800k, Taylor (transfer tribunal, was it 150k?), Dobbie, Lopez, van der gun, Kuki all free.......Beattie and Donnelly undisclosed. Total = aprox. 1.75 million Sold = 2.25million (Tudor jones 250k, Scotland 2million, Bessone free)
But add on the other £600k to this for Sinclair as we had to pay extra if we got promoted I think. Borini added on a fair whack as well
2008/2009 - Alberto Serrano 80k, steffan Morrison, Tony pen nock on frees Sold = Darryl Duffy 100k, and Andy Robinson, Steven Watt, Darren Way, David Knight and Tony Pennock on frees
No idea can't remember, but we had some loan players to pay for as well , so when you add on everything it will be coming closer to £3m spent last season to gain promotion for this one.
Norwich 2008/2009 - bought = All freebies. Sold = all freebies 2009/2010 - bought = 18 players Tudor-jones 250k and Grant Holt 400k BUT 8 of the remaining 16 players were undisclosed transfers, this list includes; Simon Whaley, Rhoys Wiggins, Russell Martin, Anthony McNamee, Oli Johnson, Zak Whitbread, Andrew Surman and John Ruddy? Freebies were; Matthew Gill, Michael Nelson, Stephen Hughes, Paul McVeigh, Andrew Crofts, Elliot Ward, Steven Smith and David Fox. We are talking MAJOR INVESTMENT. Sold = Sammy Clingan 650k and 10 others (5 of which were unknown youngsters) 2010/2011 - bought = James Vaughan 2.5million, Steve Morrisson 2.8million, and 4 undisclosed fees which include; Leon Barnett, Aaron Wilbraham, Marc Tierney and Elliott Bennett Sold = Whiggins, Nelson and Smith (all undisclosed) and 4 more on frees They are working on a different level to us and as well as Lambert has done they should have been knocking on the moor to the premiership. They have a much bigger squad than us....wouldn't surprise me if their total wage budget Is more than double ours.
nouble, emnes, easter, priskin and borini were all loans last season and we had to pay compo for priskin also!
danny is a target man and scored plenty of goals.....when? he has missed more goals that a schoolboy could have buried......thank god we are looking for another striker for next season. danny has his uses but his position will be replaced by a natural lone striker and rightly so. good player that has a poor track record for misses that the club cannot sustain if they want to stay in the premiership for a number of years. Brendan would not be in the market for a goal scorer otherwise....
