True, I was just putting him at RB in my team until we have someone else there. We have got some options there thankfully, as we needed them all last year!
If I remember rightly, last year we were told that Lambert would be given the extra TV revenue (roughly £35mill more then in the Championship) to spend on the playing budget. With a wage bill of nearly £25m and transfers totalling over £10m this seems about right. My impression is that the extra £10m this season will be added to the playing budget, rather then specifically for transfers. So if we assume our wage bill will rise by about £5m, we will have just over £15m to spend on players, which seems fairly realistic to me. The extra money for transfers compared to last year is essentially the extra money we got from finishing 12th rather then 18th-20th. We then have ticket sales and merchandise etc to pay off debt and the other costs of running the football club. This is a link to the article I think Canary Rob was talking about http://www.norwich.vitalfootball.co.uk/sitepage.asp?a=283722
Fair enough then, I suppose right back is a big old gap at the moment, I am confident it will be filled though with a good player.
Thanks! You say £15m and that stacks up, but I mean you have to remove the £10m we owe at the end of the season, so that means we've got more like £5m. I think you can add on a few more million to factor in our league position, so I estimate our total transfer budget is in the region of 8-10m. I reckon that means we won't bring in more than two or three players.
Not sure where Setanta get their info but according to this, if Holt does leave, Nikola Zigic to come in as his replacement!? http://www.setanta.com/ie/Articles/2012/06/08/Hammers-to-test-Hughtons-striker-resolve/gnid-144391/?
My impression is that the £10m can be paid using ticket sales, merchandising and other income like that. The board have known for a while now they will have to pay it back and will have allowed for that in the overall budget. They will have also expected prize money for finishing 17th-20th, so the extra £5m or so there will probably be the extra transfer money. In last years accounts Bowkett said that Revenue would increase by at least £40m (from 23.1). This means revenue from this season was probably around £65m so for next season will probably be around £65m-£70M. Allowing for a playing budget of £45m, I'm sure we can find the £10m from the rest as well as paying other costs.
Holt is a big striker, Zigic is a big striker. Hughton used to manage Birmingham and now manages us. I think it's a case of 2+2=5
i'd say we have a budget of around £15m. ignore the money to be paid off to clear the debt - that was all accounted for, this isn't a new thing they've just thought about!
Yeah, I mentioned the extra money for league positions in my last post. That's how I got the figure of 8-10m. I think you're being hugely optimistic with the finances. If you look at the Vital article you posted above, our revenue this year was £41m. As you can see, the operating profit was £18m (which matches your wage bill) and the article removes the £10m and £4m from January transfers, allowing only £4m over the summer, in fact. But given that West Brom finished 12th last year and eventually received £45m, I expect our total will be another £4-6m on top of that. I really think, unfortunately, due to this £10m payment that the wage budget won't be much beyond the £8-10m mark. Given that next year it will more like be £18-20m if we stay up, we'll be in an incredible position- puts Lambert's supposed "£20m" transfer kitty into perspective as they're such a "big" club
I work with a bluenose and he says Zigic has his moments in the box but his all round game is disappointing so he ought to score 25 to make up for it but he doesn't. And CH didn't buy him so I don't see him getting rid of a 31 who can score in the Prem to sign a 31 year old who scores 1 in 4.
Afternoon all. New user here, I've been reading the forums for a while now but only just got round to signing up! There's been a few mentions of getting cover for Fox and there's one player I can think of who I'm really surprised hasn't been linked with any transfer speculation at all this summer - Stuart Holden of Bolton. He was out all of last season with cruciate problems and is due to be back for the new season. He was immense in the 2010/11 season and was integral to the Bolton setup before he got injured. Was voted player of the season despite his injury. In my opinion, if he can stay fit he is a real class option. He's only got one year left on his contract and must be looking for a way out of Bolton now they've been relegated. Probably doesn't play as deep as Fox but I'd love to see him at Carrow Road and the circumstances do seem right for a transfer (if he can get and stay fit).
Didn't it get said at the end of season conference that the budget was increasing from last seasons by 10m? Why are people doubting that when it came from a NCFC official as opposed to a few paper articles?
.........macca has stated that our transfer budget this season is roughly the same as last plus the all money received for finishing 12th, about £7M. at least that is what i understood him to say.
good player he'll have plenty of suitors though. with the serious nature of the injury it will be interesting to see if anyone comes in for him during the summer or wait until january to see how he's performing.
Yeah that's been noted a number of times, it was just the Vital football article mentioned the £10m payment, so of course there may be no truth in it, though Macca has a habit of exaggerating... I would find it surprising if, given that suggests the budget would be £15-17m, that McNally would have told Lambert to aim for 17th- that's a huge amount of money and, tbh, not really believable. Great if true though! I just think it sounds like the author of the article has had a good look at the accounts and is quite reliable. On transfers- how would people feel about getting Lovenkrands on a year-long contract? Decent player, good competition and education for Pilkington I think
