on July 25, 2025, 10:21 pm, in reply to "Again I don't get. Stadium is a massive boost, yet we are bottom of the pecking order."
Previous Message
Where would we be without the stadium then if it's such a massive boost?
Am I the only one who doesn't get this to me obvious disrepancy?
But I disagree being near the bottom. We very obviously aren't. Five top leagues in Europe have bout 100 teams. We are around 20th biggest by revenue and will easily be inside 20 with the added revenue from BMD. If we are behind smaller clubs in the PL in the pecking order the question has to be why? Most of them do not have European football. Neither to most of the other 100 clubs.
Top six are obviously in their own league. Newcastle has a massively rich owner. Forest, Villa and Palace can offer some form of European footy, but if you were to sign a multi-year contract do you really do that because you get to play in the Conference League play-offs?
That leaves Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Fulham, West Ham, Wolves, Leeds, Sunderland and Burnley. 9 clubs. Which of these are ahead in the pecking order and why?
In the other leagues difference is even starker. How many clubs in La Liga would be above us? 3?
I would rather say that finances permitting (like they should now) we are somewhere around 30th at worst in this "pecking order" listing. 10 clubs from PL and max five from each of La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. Clubs from other leagues we can blow out of the water in wages if we want.
Heck, let's go through the other leagues and be pessimistic:
- La Liga: Real, Barca, Atletico are obvious. Couple of clubs (Real Sociedad, Real Betis, Sevilla) are in the same ballpark revenue-wise as us (all of them still much lower especially after move to BMD). And some of those clubs have financial issues.
- Serie A. Milan, Inter, Juve, Napoli, AS Roma have higher revenues. We will pass at least the last two in revenue this year. Atalanta has done such a great job they are probably a more desirable. After that, not so sure. Fiorentina, Lazio, Bologna, Udinese?
- Bundesliga: BM, Dortmund and Frankfurt have higher revenues for now, but we will pass Frankfurt. Leverkusen lost Alonso, so big question marks on them. RB Leipzig, Werder Bremen, Wolfsburg, VfB Stuttgart?
- Ligue 1: PSG, Marseille and Lyon are bigger but we will get very close or even surpass the latter two this year. For a lot of players those clubs will still be more desirable. But PL in general seems more attractive to most players.
Only Benfica outside of those leagues have a higher revenue than us, and that, too, will change this year since their revenue was just a few million euros higher.
To summarize: if we had a good project and good people selling it to players there's really not that many clubs that are clearly above us. So could we stop this pecking order nonsense? We are not that far down the pecking order. Other clubs at our level manage to make good signings every year. Previous Message
Moyes would like that too and if it was at all possible we would have done it.
It won’t be through the lack of trying and we will be trying and they will keep trying, like the post I wrote the other day, there’s a pecking order and we’re near the bottom.
I hate that as I’m sure most fans do but it is what it is and it’s the reality of it.
Anyone we are interested in will have a list of clubs also interested in them and so there will be lots to do and lots of back and forth.
I wish we could do our business like Liverpool, we can’t and our transfer business will likely go right up to the end of the window, I get the feeling we are holding off any loans until we see what we are able to do on the perm side.
Annoyingly the window will still be open past the start of the season so we will be stronger as a squad after the first few games, again, it’s shite, but it’s unavoidable.
Ste Previous Message
Absolutely spot on
It's not wrong to criticise where we are while at the same time appreciating the difficulties and every thing tfg are doing for the club in general. Previous Message
there has to be a middle ground beyond spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave and expecting players we're interested in and their current clubs to accommodate our policy of fiscal prudence. Err on the side of caution by all means, just balance that against the need to have cover and options amongst the first team squad. Previous Message
Rather than reassessing and looking at our other targets for better value for money, or taking our time and negotiating via various tactics.
It worked out so well when we massively overpaid for Gylfi after all. We should just do all that all over again and we can have another summer when everyone was delighted and buzzing because we bought about 8 players in a week who mostly turned out to be shite and nobody would take them off our hands so we were lumbered with shite players on massive contracts and it almost led to the club going bust.
Let’s do that again to appease all the fans who think signing a player in real life is the same as it is on football manager.
Ste Previous Message
But it's "hysteria" to criticise our lack of signings..sigh... Previous Message
Meanwhile, Sporting have agreed a fee for Vagiannidis
Cool
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