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Post by weststandfruitloop on May 7, 2024 12:20:36 GMT
[Somewhat long and waffly post, but I hope it's of interest, as a general overview, to some.]
There has been a lot of talk about us using the 'Ipswich model' re building the squad (particularly in light of their recent elevation to the Premier League) but what exactly does that mean? How will it affect our summer transfer dealings? Will we go about it the same way as Ipswich or try to do it on the cheap (or at least, cheaper)?
There are a couple of important facts to bear in mind here. The media are currently creaming themselves over Ipswich reaching the PL having only spent £4m on players during this past Championship season (a pittance compared to many rivals) but let's look at what they spent the season before.
With accounts published for the 2022-23 season when Ipswich gained promotion from L1 we now know how much they actually spent on transfer fees. (The obfuscation of so many undisclosed fees disappears somewhat when the accounts come out and show the actual legally reported total.)
In 22-23 Ipswich spent OVER £8M on player purchases (ie transfer fees). That's just the fees, not any uplift in wage bill that such fancier players would presumably inflict. By way of comparison, the next highest spenders were £1.5m (Pompey) and £1m (Bolton). 14 teams spent less than £250k (including three who spent nothing). A graphic illustrating this is doing the rounds on forums at the moment.
Putting it even more bluntly: Ipswich's £8m+ spend on transfer fees to win promotion from L1 is the same amount that ALL THE OTHER 23 L1 CLUBS PUT TOGETHER spent on transfer fees in that 22-23 season. They literally (to whatever extent you can) 'bought' promotion.
What was the logic behind this? Quite simply: The Championship has FFP and L1 doesn't. You can spend whatever you like on transfer fees in L1 whilst there are loss limits in place in the Championship. So the more of your squad building you can do in L1 (prior to promotion to the more financially restrictive Championship) the better.
Memo to the drooling journalists: Ipswich only needed to spend £4m on players in 2023-24 because they spent £8m+ (as much as the rest of their division) the year before. They had already put a so-called 'Championship ready' squad in place. Indeed, a majority of the players they have used in the Championship were regulars in that L1 season, with many of the others being PL loanees.
If Charlton are really going to follow 'the Ipswich model' accurately, we're in for our spendiest summer of recruitment since the Premier League days.
Whilst you can spend what you like on transfer fees in L1, there is of course the much discussed salary cap. This only applies to wages not transfer fees. (I'm not sure about 'loan fees' given that they're effectively a contribution towards wages, but we're supposedly having minimal loans next season so this shouldn't make much impact.)
We can only spend 60% of our income (which includes any money the owners inject) on player wages. There are two ways to improve the quality of the squad without worrying about the salary cap. The first is to reduce the overall size of the squad - you can therefore offer a higher average wage, presumably attracting better players, within the same total sum. The second is to increase the percentage of younger players in the squad. Players aged under 20 at the start of the season don't count towards the salary cap.
It's interesting to note that 'making the squad leaner' and 'giving more opportunities to academy players' are two things that NJ and other senior figures at the club have mentioned recently. Both of these will allow for increased wages (within the salary cap) for 'elite' players.
Beyond that and any natural increase in income (eg higher gates due to a less turgid season/better team) we will need to spend elsewhere to increase the salary cap limit. Infrastructure improvements are a good example.
Let's take the case of the new Desso hybrid pitch being installed over the summer. Whilst the women's team has secured a £750k grant towards this, purportedly ITK figures on CL reckon the club (ie the owners) are funding the rest at a cost of around £400k.
This means we COULD increase the wage bill for senior players by £600k. (The owners inject £1m, of which 60% can go on wages per salary cap rules, with the other 40% spent on the pitch.) This is a slightly hypothetical example as the cost of the pitch may (at least partly) be going against this season's accounts rather than the coming season. I don't know, I'm just giving an example.
Another example is the cost of SMT wages. People moan about what a bloated off-pitch management structure we have, but bear in mind these wages don't come out of the 60% (that's just for players aged over 20). In fact, being part of the other 40%, the higher these wages are the more we can spend on the players' salaries! So stop moaning about Andy Scott's 50k a week, yeah?
In summary: If we are serious about climbing the divisions (as NJ's 'looking beyond just promotion from L1' comments suggest) we need to build most of our 2025-26 Championship team this coming season, when losses (eg transfer fees) aren't an issue. This will likely mean hiring some players on big (for L1) wages, but we have ways - from streamlining the squad to infrastructure improvements increasing non-salary cap expenditure - to mitigate that.
This won't be cheap, but as we've seen with Ipswich (whose owners sold 40% of the club for £105m a few weeks ago) the rewards are there if the ambition is. The biggest flaw in this plan is that, particularly given their recent PL promotion, I'm expecting at least half a dozen other L1 clubs to also try and emulate 'The Ipswich Model' this coming season.
Incoming players (here and elsewhere) over the next seven or eight weeks will give us a good indication of where we rank (for ambition) amongst those competitors.
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Post by valley on May 7, 2024 13:01:38 GMT
Very good post.
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Post by valley on May 7, 2024 13:04:33 GMT
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Post by seriouslyred on May 7, 2024 13:39:18 GMT
Yes, it makes sense to clear out players and build early. Just as most promoted sides appear to do, together with appointing a new manager halfway through the season before.
One might look at where the £8M went AND how many appearances made by new signings. As stated one can also seek to understand the various salary caps in place, and how that impacts CAFC.
Our SMT spelt out the 8-8-8 approach last January with eight academy players not counting towards SCMP. Our manager has repeatedly stated that he's looking for new players to slot straight into the first XI.
So how many of our matchday 18 do we currently have already? We know they're looking to bring in six+ new signings. So at what cost, will they gel and what improvement might we expect.
I think it's hard enough to evaluate whether players on paper are competing in this league, so would never try to address our fortunes after promotion. But what is certain is that it will require owner contributions (losses) to bring in the talent, along with skilled recruitment.
And that increased gate and commercial revenue will follow an uplift in performances and results. But never enough to cover increased wage bills, let alone the fees!
No, what's required is an estimation of the enterprise value of CAFC in the league above. An increase to £35M+ surely justifies significant owner investment. But no blank cheques for the SMT and football mgt! There needs to be accountability and delivery.
We can be sure that the owners and SMT will have faith in Jones. And one assumes they also have faith in Dr Abbott plus scouts plus... What I mean is that in just nine months CAFC has recruited the people who can potentially deliver.
Much time is spent on social media talking of mistakes and poor players. Perhaps this summer we might focus on the calibre of the new players... then pay attention to our opening fixtures, our tactics, approach and xG.
Let's see where we are at the end of September!
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Post by weststandfruitloop on May 7, 2024 13:52:01 GMT
Obviously that list of 14 incomers includes their January window dealings too, so breaking it downs in terms of numbers, in their L1 promotion season Ipswich signed: SUMMER (9): Five players for a fee, three out of contract freebies, one season-long loan. JANUARY (5): Two for a fee, one freebie, one loan, one short-term deal. WHERE THEY CAME FROM: Five Premier League (inc both loans), four Championship, four League One, one free agent. Would similar suffice in our regard? I reckon so. Eight permanents (mixture of fees and frees) and 1-2 loanees seems to be what Reams has heard re our summer business, which is very Ipswich-ish. Then just a couple of tweaks in January. Interesting that Ipswich signed nobody from a lower level (apart from their short-term free agent, goalkeeper cover who had last played in L2). Personally I'd like to see us pluck one or two gems (a Kemp or Keillor-Dunn) from L2. Still, I think that overall Ipswich template in terms of numbers looks good for the rebuild we need.
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Post by kings hill addick on May 7, 2024 14:03:08 GMT
Charlie Methven has, already, stated that we are looking to reduce losses in the coming season. They hope to reduce costs and increase revenues. The former will make football success harder and the latter is likely to be very difficult, even if performances, on the pitch, improve. There is no intention to spend anything like the c. £8m that Ipswich spent in 2022/23.
I still believe that Methven sold the project to the owners on the basis that he was so smart that he could get us promoted and keep the losses low. He did achieve something like that at Sunderland but they did average, close to, 40,000 fans. It is a lot easier to achieve promotion, without huge capital injections, when your average gate is more than five times the divisional average.
On that basis we will not be doing an Ipswich.
I suspect that we will be looking to spend just enough to compete and hope that better management, and luck, are enough to enable us to exceed our wage budget.
The difficulty is that many clubs are now being purchased by very wealthy, overseas, individuals who all describe their model/plan for success as being the same as ours.
This season was, I believe, the easiest League One, to get out of, than we are going to see for a fair few years.
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Post by valley on May 7, 2024 14:06:13 GMT
Charlie Methven has, already, stated that we are looking to reduce losses in the coming season. They hope to reduce costs and increase revenues. The former will make football success harder and the latter is likely to be very difficult, even if performances, on the pitch, improve. There is no intention to spend anything like the c. £8m that Ipswich spent in 2022/23. I still believe that Methven sold the project to the owners on the basis that he was so smart that he could get us promoted and keep the losses low. He did achieve something like that at Sunderland but they did average, close to, 40,000 fans. It is a lot easier to achieve promotion, without huge capital injections, when your average gate is more than five times the divisional average. On that basis we will not be doing an Ipswich. I suspect that we will be looking to spend just enough to compete and hope that better management, and luck, are enough to enable us to exceed our wage budget. The difficulty is that many clubs are now being purchased by very wealthy, overseas, individuals who all describe their model/plan for success as being the same as ours. This season was, I believe, the easiest League One, to get out of, than we are going to see for a fair few years. Could we sell Leaburn too fund our promotion?.
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Post by weststandfruitloop on May 7, 2024 14:10:37 GMT
Could we sell Leaburn too fund our promotion?. He's not due back from injury until October so a lot of unknowns re if and when he'd become a saleable asset again. I don't think NJ would be here and saying that things he is if the owners hadn't agree to at least a mini-Ipswich in terms of funding a push.
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Post by aucklandaddick on May 7, 2024 14:16:50 GMT
Charlie Methven has, already, stated that we are looking to reduce losses in the coming season. They hope to reduce costs and increase revenues. The former will make football success harder and the latter is likely to be very difficult, even if performances, on the pitch, improve. There is no intention to spend anything like the c. £8m that Ipswich spent in 2022/23. I still believe that Methven sold the project to the owners on the basis that he was so smart that he could get us promoted and keep the losses low. He did achieve something like that at Sunderland but they did average, close to, 40,000 fans. It is a lot easier to achieve promotion, without huge capital injections, when your average gate is more than five times the divisional average. On that basis we will not be doing an Ipswich. I suspect that we will be looking to spend just enough to compete and hope that better management, and luck, are enough to enable us to exceed our wage budget. The difficulty is that many clubs are now being purchased by very wealthy, overseas, individuals who all describe their model/plan for success as being the same as ours. This season was, I believe, the easiest League One, to get out of, than we are going to see for a fair few years. Think we will lose another 5 players off the wage bill either loaned or sold which will make 18 released…..and bring in 8-9 first team starters which will fit in line with the 8-8-8 strategy with one set of 8 being the kids……… Plymouth proved by smart recruitment you can get out of this division without having to do an Ipswich…….but I think our budget will be more substantial this season with an emphasis on quality coming in on perms rather than quantities of perms & loans…..As Weststandfruitloop stated earlier I don’t think NJ would have taken the gig unless he was promised a very competitive summer budget
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Post by kings hill addick on May 7, 2024 14:38:24 GMT
Charlie Methven has, already, stated that we are looking to reduce losses in the coming season. They hope to reduce costs and increase revenues. The former will make football success harder and the latter is likely to be very difficult, even if performances, on the pitch, improve. There is no intention to spend anything like the c. £8m that Ipswich spent in 2022/23. I still believe that Methven sold the project to the owners on the basis that he was so smart that he could get us promoted and keep the losses low. He did achieve something like that at Sunderland but they did average, close to, 40,000 fans. It is a lot easier to achieve promotion, without huge capital injections, when your average gate is more than five times the divisional average. On that basis we will not be doing an Ipswich. I suspect that we will be looking to spend just enough to compete and hope that better management, and luck, are enough to enable us to exceed our wage budget. The difficulty is that many clubs are now being purchased by very wealthy, overseas, individuals who all describe their model/plan for success as being the same as ours. This season was, I believe, the easiest League One, to get out of, than we are going to see for a fair few years. Could we sell Leaburn too fund our promotion?. I don’t doubt that this is the plan but, as has been said elsewhere, we won’t be able to sell him until January and by then the season will have already taken shape.
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Post by aaronaldo on May 7, 2024 15:27:47 GMT
Charlie Methven has, already, stated that we are looking to reduce losses in the coming season. They hope to reduce costs and increase revenues. The former will make football success harder and the latter is likely to be very difficult, even if performances, on the pitch, improve. There is no intention to spend anything like the c. £8m that Ipswich spent in 2022/23. I still believe that Methven sold the project to the owners on the basis that he was so smart that he could get us promoted and keep the losses low. He did achieve something like that at Sunderland but they did average, close to, 40,000 fans. It is a lot easier to achieve promotion, without huge capital injections, when your average gate is more than five times the divisional average. On that basis we will not be doing an Ipswich. I suspect that we will be looking to spend just enough to compete and hope that better management, and luck, are enough to enable us to exceed our wage budget. The difficulty is that many clubs are now being purchased by very wealthy, overseas, individuals who all describe their model/plan for success as being the same as ours. This season was, I believe, the easiest League One, to get out of, than we are going to see for a fair few years. Where did Charlie mention this btw? To be honest, I think they are focusing on the increasing revenue bit to reduce any losses. I don't expect us to "do an Ipswich" if you consider the £8m~ they spent. As others have said, I'd imagine we're looking more like a Plymouth model. Our owners have never mentioned spending crazy amounts like Ipswich and Charlie is dead against this himself. Very risky business. It's wortk for them but many others have failed and paid a costly price. They are the exception here and not the rule imo.
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Post by Mundell on May 7, 2024 16:07:56 GMT
Excellent post weststandfruitloop and I’m delighted that I’m no longer the only ITTV member who can be accused of “long and waffly” posts!! Of course, I would argue, wouldn’t I, that when you’re trying to explain something and/or evidence a view properly it sometimes isn’t possible to do so briefly. As you say, we are definitely not going to do an Ipswich and the following additional colour might help to reinforce that conclusion. 1. In addition to their heavy transfer spend, Ipswich had comfortably the biggest wage bill in League One at £19.8m (that’s total wages). For the same season our wage bill was £10.3m. 2. In part, but only in part, Ipswich were able to afford to “buy the League”, because they had the biggest revenues, at £21.8m. Ours were £9.8m. Ipswich’s revenues were higher than ours in all areas but the difference in commercial income is most notable, £9.9m v £2.5m. 3. Nevertheless, Ipswich still had the biggest operating losses in League One, £19.8m versus our £9.7m. 4. Ipswich’s owners issued shares to the value of £29.4m. This funded the £8m of transfer spend as well as a £7.3m investment in tangible fixed assets (infrastructure) and meant that the Salary Cost Management Protocol (League One’s version of FFP) was completely irrelevant. The club spent what it wanted to, unconstrained by those spending controls. 5. To your point about being Championship ready, I recall an analysis by Fink Tank at the end of the season during which Southampton were promoted from League One which used their measure of relative strength (Xg, essentially) to rank teams across divisions in the EFL. It placed Southampton above all but one or two Championship clubs, i.e. even though they had spent the season in League One their performances were rated highly enough to have won promotion from the division above. That proved to be remarkably prophetic when the following season Southampton stormed to a second successive promotion. In this context, it’s worth noting that though Ipswich finished second in League One last season, behind Plymouth with 98 points, Experimental 3-6-1’s measure of their underlying performances suggests they were good enough to win a staggering 123 points, i.e. they “would” have got 123 points had their results matched their performances. It’s quite possible they were the best team ever to play in League One. Their success reflects a perfect storm resulting from a combination of a huge budget, excellent recruitment and an outstanding young coach. Perfect storms are obviously very difficult to replicate and, broadly speaking, I reckon that a big club with a wealthy owner has two potential strategies to win promotion to the Championship from League One. The first is to aim to significantly outspend other clubs in the belief that this will create a decent probability of promotion. Note that even here though there is no certainty of promotion. Despite dramatically superior underlying performances, Ipswich still finished behind Plymouth, who had less than half the wage bill, and they finished just two points ahead of Sheffield Wednesday. One of the best teams ever to play in League One was close to falling into the lottery of the playoffs. The second strategy, recognising the randomness of competitive football, is to target a competitive wage bill (perhaps in the top 2-6), aim for good execution and hope to “get lucky”, in the belief that if you do this consistently you’ll get there in the end, while recognising that if you get unlucky it might take 3-5 seasons. While it may not be as attractive from our perspective as what happened at Portman Road, all the evidence we have about SE7’s approach suggests that we are following this second strategy. I do think we can be optimistic though that when we do return to the Championship we’ll be much more competitive than we were last time around. I hope this all makes sense. I’ve no doubt it also qualifies as “long and waffly”!!
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Post by watameires on May 7, 2024 16:37:14 GMT
Interesting posts guys. Have to say that from my perspective we don’t need to emulate Ipswich we just need to dramatically improve- I’d take a play off slot now for next season as that would signal a big step forward .
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Post by weststandfruitloop on May 7, 2024 16:57:43 GMT
Interesting posts guys. Have to say that from my perspective we don’t need to emulate Ipswich we just need to dramatically improve- I’d take a play off slot now for next season as that would signal a big step forward . I think literally emulating Ipswich (given their spending etc) is a big stretch. However it's surely now every L1 club's dream to do the same on a less blockbuster budget. Adopting the 'Ipswich Method' to me means building a 'Championship-ready' squad in League One. Charlie Methven himself has mentioned that CR term as key to GFP's Charlton plan many times. Doing it for cheaper than Ipswich for me means a similar influx/turnover of players (especially starters) but more frees, less fees. Also, Ipswich largely recruited from the PL/Championship in that L1 promotion season. If we could beat Peterborough to some of the L2/NL gems they usually hoover up, that's likely cheaper and potentially better in the long term (re future cashing in for rebuilds). I'd say a 50/50 mix of 'The Ipswich Method' and 'The Peterborough Method' is what I'm hoping for. I also suspect that's what almost every L1 team is aiming for. Let's see if NJ, AS and others can do it better than the other clubs.
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Post by Mundell on May 7, 2024 17:16:49 GMT
Interesting posts guys. Have to say that from my perspective we don’t need to emulate Ipswich we just need to dramatically improve- I’d take a play off slot now for next season as that would signal a big step forward . I think literally emulating Ipswich (given their spending etc) is a big stretch. However it's surely now every L1 club's dream to do the same on a less blockbuster budget. Adopting the 'Ipswich Method' to me means building a 'Championship-ready' squad in League One. Charlie Methven himself has mentioned that CR term as key to GFP's Charlton plan many times. Doing it for cheaper than Ipswich for me means a similar influx/turnover of players (especially starters) but more frees, less fees. Also, Ipswich largely recruited from the PL/Championship in that L1 promotion season. If we could beat Peterborough to some of the L2/NL gems they usually hoover up, that's likely cheaper and potentially better in the long term (re future cashing in for rebuilds). I'd say a 50/50 mix of 'The Ipswich Method' and 'The Peterborough Method' is what I'm hoping for. I also suspect that's what almost every L1 team is aiming for. Let's see if NJ, AS and others can do it better than the other clubs. Being realistic, rather than pessimistic, and to paraphrase seriouslyred , I think we need to “enjoy the journey” and travel with optimism rather than make it all about the destination next May. Huddersfield, Birmingham, Rotherham, Wrexham, Stockport and a number of League One incumbents (including the three that don’t make it through the playoffs) will all have a credible plan to win promotion next season. We’ll need to “out execute” them and hope to get the run of the ball when it matters. I’m looking forward to an exciting and entertaining season but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect more than a strong challenge for promotion. Promotion if it comes is then an awesome icing on the cake.
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Post by kings hill addick on May 7, 2024 17:21:34 GMT
Charlie Methven has, already, stated that we are looking to reduce losses in the coming season. They hope to reduce costs and increase revenues. The former will make football success harder and the latter is likely to be very difficult, even if performances, on the pitch, improve. There is no intention to spend anything like the c. £8m that Ipswich spent in 2022/23. I still believe that Methven sold the project to the owners on the basis that he was so smart that he could get us promoted and keep the losses low. He did achieve something like that at Sunderland but they did average, close to, 40,000 fans. It is a lot easier to achieve promotion, without huge capital injections, when your average gate is more than five times the divisional average. On that basis we will not be doing an Ipswich. I suspect that we will be looking to spend just enough to compete and hope that better management, and luck, are enough to enable us to exceed our wage budget. The difficulty is that many clubs are now being purchased by very wealthy, overseas, individuals who all describe their model/plan for success as being the same as ours. This season was, I believe, the easiest League One, to get out of, than we are going to see for a fair few years. Where did Charlie mention this btw? To be honest, I think they are focusing on the increasing revenue bit to reduce any losses. I don't expect us to "do an Ipswich" if you consider the £8m~ they spent. As others have said, I'd imagine we're looking more like a Plymouth model. Our owners have never mentioned spending crazy amounts like Ipswich and Charlie is dead against this himself. Very risky business. It's wortk for them but many others have failed and paid a costly price. They are the exception here and not the rule imo. This was something that he said some time ago about reducing losses in the Where's the Money Gone podcast. To be fair it is the aim of all clubs. I'm not suggesting that Methven said that they hope to reduce costs and and increase revenue, but they are, realistically, the only two ways to reduce losses. Methven did, however, talk about limits on spending and how fans buying season tickets will help that, during his interview that was released a week or so ago. Inferring that if the fans want more investment they should put their own money in. Methven has been very open about his distain for fans that demand that their club sign more players. He (again on the podcast) mentioned Reading fans and, rhetorically, asked if fans want their club to do a Reading. He never, actually, referred to Charlton fans but it's not, exactly, a stretch to assume that this was a message to our supporters. Until recently, for example, there was a poster, on here, demanding, on a regular basis, that the club spend millions on Championship players. I believe the poster was, also, boasting that he wouldn't be buying a season ticket.
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Post by kings hill addick on May 7, 2024 17:27:49 GMT
I think literally emulating Ipswich (given their spending etc) is a big stretch. However it's surely now every L1 club's dream to do the same on a less blockbuster budget. Adopting the 'Ipswich Method' to me means building a 'Championship-ready' squad in League One. Charlie Methven himself has mentioned that CR term as key to GFP's Charlton plan many times. Doing it for cheaper than Ipswich for me means a similar influx/turnover of players (especially starters) but more frees, less fees. Also, Ipswich largely recruited from the PL/Championship in that L1 promotion season. If we could beat Peterborough to some of the L2/NL gems they usually hoover up, that's likely cheaper and potentially better in the long term (re future cashing in for rebuilds). I'd say a 50/50 mix of 'The Ipswich Method' and 'The Peterborough Method' is what I'm hoping for. I also suspect that's what almost every L1 team is aiming for. Let's see if NJ, AS and others can do it better than the other clubs. Being realistic, rather than pessimistic, and to paraphrase seriouslyred , I think we need to “enjoy the journey” and travel with optimism rather than make it all about the destination next May. Huddersfield, Birmingham, Rotherham, Wrexham, Stockport and a number of League One incumbents (including the three that don’t make it through the playoffs) will all have a credible plan to win promotion next season. We’ll need to “out execute” them and hope to get the run of the ball when it matters. I’m looking forward to an exciting and entertaining season but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect more than a strong challenge for promotion. Promotion if it comes is then an awesome icing on the cake. Indeed. All three of the playoff teams from last season (that didn't go up) were in the playoffs, again, this season. They could all fail, again, this season, but as the playoffs are a bit of a lottery if a team finishes 3rd to 6th regularly, sooner or layer lady luck will help out.
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lewisham
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Post by lewisham on May 7, 2024 18:58:14 GMT
I remember a time when Leicester wanted to emulate Charlton
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Post by seriouslyred on May 7, 2024 21:39:25 GMT
I think literally emulating Ipswich (given their spending etc) is a big stretch. However it's surely now every L1 club's dream to do the same on a less blockbuster budget. Adopting the 'Ipswich Method' to me means building a 'Championship-ready' squad in League One. Charlie Methven himself has mentioned that CR term as key to GFP's Charlton plan many times. Doing it for cheaper than Ipswich for me means a similar influx/turnover of players (especially starters) but more frees, less fees. Also, Ipswich largely recruited from the PL/Championship in that L1 promotion season. If we could beat Peterborough to some of the L2/NL gems they usually hoover up, that's likely cheaper and potentially better in the long term (re future cashing in for rebuilds). I'd say a 50/50 mix of 'The Ipswich Method' and 'The Peterborough Method' is what I'm hoping for. I also suspect that's what almost every L1 team is aiming for. Let's see if NJ, AS and others can do it better than the other clubs. Being realistic, rather than pessimistic, and to paraphrase seriouslyred , I think we need to “enjoy the journey” and travel with optimism rather than make it all about the destination next May. Huddersfield, Birmingham, Rotherham, Wrexham, Stockport and a number of League One incumbents (including the three that don’t make it through the playoffs) will all have a credible plan to win promotion next season. We’ll need to “out execute” them and hope to get the run of the ball when it matters. I’m looking forward to an exciting and entertaining season but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect more than a strong challenge for promotion. Promotion if it comes is then an awesome icing on the cake. Yes we should enjoy the journey as we compete against the clubs you mention. First to acquire talent, and then to secure two points per game. By November there will only be four clubs on 40+ points from 20 games. It feels like we'll outperform our last few seasons, but who knows. Let's see who we sign. And additional revenues plus better atmosphere at The Valley will definitely help. By some quirk of the ratios at play the 60% mentioned in the SCMP equates to 50% of gross sales. Therefore a £300 ST allows for an additional £150 on the squad. Or £1,200 on a West Stand ticket with lounge pass yields £600. Individually we can't make much of a difference. But celebrating our potential and making the grapevine positive again allows the potential to reverse years of decline. 1,000 fans at a time. Here's the thing: we can speculate over the summer. Within five months we'll have a good idea of our chances. But absolutely zero certainty as to how things will pan out. Too right we'll enjoy it 😉
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scoham
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Post by scoham on May 8, 2024 7:31:55 GMT
Could we sell Leaburn too fund our promotion?. He's not due back from injury until October so a lot of unknowns re if and when he'd become a saleable asset again. I don't think NJ would be here and saying that things he is if the owners hadn't agree to at least a mini-Ipswich in terms of funding a push. Leaburn was expected to be out for five months from the start of December, so he should be involved in preseason. www.charltonafc.com/news/leaburn-undergoes-successul-hamstring-surgery
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Post by kings hill addick on May 8, 2024 8:19:41 GMT
He's not due back from injury until October so a lot of unknowns re if and when he'd become a saleable asset again. I don't think NJ would be here and saying that things he is if the owners hadn't agree to at least a mini-Ipswich in terms of funding a push. Leaburn was expected to be out for five months from the start of December, so he should be involved in preseason. www.charltonafc.com/news/leaburn-undergoes-successul-hamstring-surgeryI’m sure that a more recent update, all be it not on the club website, suggests that the return date is more likely to be October, now. If I were cynical I would suggest that the club will make that announcement, officially, as soon as they believe we have sold as many season tickets as we are going to.
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Post by surridgecobbler5 on May 8, 2024 8:27:19 GMT
Great Post !
I thought it was interesting to see the comparative Turnover/Wages Budgets of Palace Millwall and Charlton recently
Forgetting the 180M Palace Turnover .... The Millwall Turnover at 15 m and their Wage bill at 13m to our 2m Wage bill , for me highlights the biggest problem is to attract the calibre of players to be 'championship ready' the Wage expectations will be huge
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Post by weststandfruitloop on May 8, 2024 10:29:56 GMT
Leaburn was expected to be out for five months from the start of December, so he should be involved in preseason. Leaburn himself told fans who spoke to him at last week's Player of the Year dinner that he was now looking at October at the earliest re being fit to play. Given NJ's policy of not giving timeframes for players returning from injury, I doubt we'll hear anything officially from the club, but you can't really get a better source than Miles himself!
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Post by aucklandaddick on May 8, 2024 12:05:07 GMT
Leaburn was expected to be out for five months from the start of December, so he should be involved in preseason. Leaburn himself told fans who spoke to him at last week's Player of the Year dinner that he was now looking at October at the earliest re being fit to play. Given NJ's policy of not giving timeframes for players returning from injury, I doubt we'll hear anything officially from the club, but you can't really get a better source than Miles himself! At this stage we can’t really factor in both Leaburn and Aneke into next years squad planning as neither (through no fault of their own) can be relied on fitness wise….I think NJ will bring a couple of big physical guys up top to compliment May and Kanu with Aneke being the sub impact player……Wouldn’t mind Ahadmi on loan from Ipswich if possible, he was pretty impressive for Cambridge this season
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Post by AndyAddick on May 8, 2024 13:06:37 GMT
"We can only spend 60% of our income" ...
what happens if we sign a very very very lucrative deal with a new shirt sponsor for say 20 million from a company 'owned' by one of our investors ?
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Post by valley on May 8, 2024 13:17:32 GMT
"We can only spend 60% of our income" ... what happens if we sign a very very very lucrative deal with a new shirt sponsor for say 20 million who from a company 'owned' by one of our investors ? Good question.
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995632
Season Ticket Holder
Posts: 362
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Post by 995632 on May 8, 2024 13:25:07 GMT
"We can only spend 60% of our income" ... what happens if we sign a very very very lucrative deal with a new shirt sponsor for say 20 million who from a company 'owned' by one of our investors ? Isn't that essentially one of the things Man City are guilty of? 'Over paying' on internal sponsorship deals?
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Post by weststandfruitloop on May 8, 2024 14:23:09 GMT
"We can only spend 60% of our income" ... what happens if we sign a very very very lucrative deal with a new shirt sponsor for say 20 million from a company 'owned' by one of our investors ? We can only spend 60% of it on player wages because it's income. But why would the owners bother to do the above when they can literally just give the club that 20 million and the exact same rules apply. A lot of people still seem not to understand that there is no FFP in League One (that only starts in the Championship). The only rule is that we can only spend a maximum of 60% of our income on players' (aged over 20) wages. Income includes everything (gate receipts, sponsorship, TV money, etc) including however much money the owners feel like just giving the club. It would be absolutely fine for the owners to give us 20 million quid. We could spend up to 12m (60%) of it on wages and the rest on, for example, transfer fees. (The salary cap in L1 only applies to wages as the name suggests -there's no limit to what you can spend on transfer fees.) We're in L1 not the Championship, so there's no FFP and no loss limits for Charlton to worry about.
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Post by aaronaldo on May 8, 2024 18:21:28 GMT
"We can only spend 60% of our income" ... what happens if we sign a very very very lucrative deal with a new shirt sponsor for say 20 million from a company 'owned' by one of our investors ? Pretty sure Sheff Wednesday owner tried everything like this. I believe their are rules against it but not 100%
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Post by earlpurple on May 9, 2024 19:59:47 GMT
What Ipswich did, pretty much what every club wants, and that included us. Super rich billionaires who will just donate massive amounts of money to the club in a way that makes it capital / income and will allow us to "buy" two promotions.
We turned on Sandgaard when he didn't have the money to do that. Of course it didn't help that he was employing family members in certain positions, but it seemed to go wrong earlier than that. Summer transfer window in 2021 - Ipswich started their rebuild then, and yes it didn't go that well for them at first, but it was clearly the start. Wigan were also going out spending. MK Dons were building a strong team that year. We were not. I think Nigel Adkins had expected it and been promised it.
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