Chronicles Questions etc.

What did people think of the clubs answers?

For me, the response around Carroll money not being spent, free transfers costing more than fans think, and attempts to buy a striker was exactly the kind of diatribe we all expected, and we've done to death on here already.

There were a few things that stood out to me though.

Firstly the wage bill, I was surprised to learn that it will be 7% higher this year, I'm not convinced its true as I just cant work out how those coming in are on more than those that left. That said, the squad is bigger now is it not?

Singing. I agree with the boards desire to have a great atmosphere all around the ground, not just in one section, but having the 'singers' dotted around wont help. The singing section was always the catalyst to prompting singing elsewhere and should be embraced, alongside initiatives to promote singing elsewhere from the rest of the crowd. The 'collective' atmosphere is nowhere near as good as it was say 15 years ago.

Attendances. Are the board deluded? I was disappointed to see them brush this concern aside, and act like falling attendances aren't occurring. Saying that the 'opening fixture' this year had a larger attendance than last is irrelevant, last year it was Villa, this year Arsenal. A more relevant figure would be that last year’s Arsenal game was watched by 51500, this years by just 46800, that’s an almost 10% decline for the same fixture, both on a Saturday no excuses! Attendances will not rise if the board just sticks its head in the sand!

Views?

 

[QUOTE="not" geniusvoiceoreason;1277705]What did people think of the clubs answers?

For me, the response around Carroll money not being spent, free transfers costing more than fans think, and attempts to buy a striker was exactly the kind of diatribe we all expected, and we've done to death on here already.

There were a few things that stood out to me though.

Firstly the wage bill, I was surprised to learn that it will be 7% higher this year, I'm not convinced its true as I just cant work out how those coming in are on more than those that left. That said, the squad is bigger now is it not?

Singing. I agree with the boards desire to have a great atmosphere all around the ground, not just in one section, but having the 'singers' dotted around wont help. The singing section was always the catalyst to prompting singing elsewhere and should be embraced, alongside initiatives to promote singing elsewhere from the rest of the crowd. The 'collective' atmosphere is nowhere near as good as it was say 15 years ago.

Attendances. Are the board deluded? I was disappointed to see them brush this concern aside, and act like falling attendances aren't occurring. Saying that the 'opening fixture' this year had a larger attendance than last is irrelevant, last year it was Villa, this year Arsenal. A more relevant figure would be that last year’s Arsenal game was watched by 51500, this years by just 46800, that’s an almost 10% decline for the same fixture, both on a Saturday no excuses! Attendances will not rise if the board just sticks its head in the sand!

Views?[/QUOTE]

The "singing" section answer stood out for me................great way to deaden the atmosphere at a stroke. Why introduce it in first place to simply take it away after 1,000 extra tickets could be sold to "families"?

 

It was exactly what you'd expect. A simple paper exercise.

Aye, the stand out point for me was the supposed 7% rise in wages.

 

the rise in wages didn't surprise me at all. we signed 7 new players 2 of which were Ba and MArveaux they will have commanded much higher wages and we will have accommodated this as we won't have ploughed that money into a transfer fee. they'll be on good money.

then theres the likes of tiotes contract being improved and increased in length. santon will be on good money too. Cabaye will be on as much as Nolan Ba will be on more than Carroll was on. obertan although unproven was still signed from the champions where he'll have been on decent coin when compared to other PL clubs.

 

Exactly as I expected. I am glad they finally came clean about Carrolls move and admitted they wanted the cash, i.e. the move was not down to him as originally suggested. They should have just fronted up at the time, most would have understood them accepting 35m.

As you say I do worry they have their head in the sand about attendances. I think its just typical PR by them though. Privately they must be concerned. And as you pointed out the only thing we learned (if you believe them) is wages have gone up 7%. I'm struggling to believe it but who knows. It'll all depend what wages they lavished on Marveaux and Ba as frees. When you consider we shifted Barton, Nolan, Enrique, Carroll, Campbell, Routledge, Kuqi, not having to pay Irelands wages, any loans where we've dropped wages like Forster and Xisco. There seems to have been a drop if anything? Impossible to say though without the figures in front of you so the board could say what they like really. I don't put too much substance in what they say but who knows they could be telling the truth!

 

Be intresting to see at what point the wage calculation was done to see if it included Barton but then again we brought in Santon and Elliot after that so its hard to tell.
To be fair after all the accusations surrounding the Carroll deal he didnt say they "just wanted the cash" but that the deal suited them and Carroll which to be honest is what i suspected all along.
Think he just tried to put on a brave face regarding attendances but they must be concerned a bit.
As for the singing section i could actually see his point re the family enclosure extention and its location but think he is deluded if he thinks the atmosphere will come from all areas of the ground. Singers get isolated and songs dont get started especially when things arnt happening on the pitch and the enthusiasm of the singers can pull the atmosphere around if they have somewhere to congregagte to get songs going. A singing section is needed but sadly this would now involve moving existing fans from their present seats if they didnt want to be in that singing area and would set fan against fan.
Notice he sidestepped his incompetance in getting in a good striker in 7 months mind. Still hope we get one in Jan but hope after all the criticism he doesnt end up buying anyone and we end up with an expensive donkey and lets face it, a lot of the players we were closely linked with were expensive and totally unproven over here.

 

This is the passage that caught my eye:

The inference being that if we all sung a few choruses of "we love you Mike oh yes we do" at every home match we'd have few more top signings at the club. Hmm.

 

Must admit I took it as an admission of guilt, and the "it suited Andy too" was a bit of glossing. We all knew that they wanted to take the 35m, and to be fair while I'd question the timing given how long Liverpool had registered their interest for, it was an awful lot of money. The reality is to keep Carroll they were going to have to give him a contract in keeping with his new standing (England etc). Given they'd just renegotiated it a few months earlier, they probably thought this was a bit cheeky. In reality that is just how football works and shows again how naive they are to the ills of the football world. Everyone to their own is still the same here but its a far cry from the mystery transfer request and them not having any choice but to sell.

As you say I think we'd all be pissing in the wind trying to work out the wage thing. No club furnishes fans with full detail so its probably best to just ignore the statement altogether as we have no way of confirming it either way. I'm sure at some stage there'll be an article with some amateur mathematics but the reality we could be way out either way!

 

So Mike only spends when he is loved????? Surely he could trouser more cash if we were regularly in Europe. Shows his complete LACK of ambition.

 

Maybe we should have board meetings in Greggs?