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So when you get promoted from the Championship you're supposed to go from effectively an enforced maximum annual loss of £13m p/a then immediately 3 months later compete with a team / teams that are allowed to outspend that rule by 27x. And that's without even considering how grossly favourable those teams' relative incomes are. Yeah that feels fair and likely to encourage competition.
You couldn't make up what has happened to this sport. If you were in the rIght place, at the right time and had the right owners your position is now protected for eternity. This is what elite English football used to look like...
1 Leeds United (C) 2 Manchester United 3 Sheffield Wednesday 4 Arsenal 5 Manchester City 6 Liverpool 7 Aston Villa 8 Nottingham Forest 9 Sheffield United 10 Crystal Palace 11 Queens Park Rangers 12 Everton 13 Wimbledon 14 Chelsea 15 Tottenham Hotspur 16 Southampton 17 Oldham Athletic 18 Norwich City 19 Coventry City 20 Luton Town (R) 21 Notts County (R) 22 West Ham United (R)
It's costing them about a quarter of a billion pounds to operate the club per decade and they have consistently spent as much as they possibly can without the EFL being able to deduct points. At times they've been / will be perilously close to that limit too.
If that's how we operate WITHOUT massive spending owners I dread to even think what it would be like if we did have them.
5-0 actually a pretty good result given Southampton had 21 players on the pitch. Actually Walsh may have been their best player so let's make it the full 22.
Now you mention it - the current crop of Sky golf commentators are absolutely appalling. Nick Dougherty especially. I appreciate they have to sit there for hours on end talking but they repeat everything they know about anyone involved at least every single hour. I imagine they must assume people only tune in for 30 mins to an hour max.
A couple of years ago at the Masters there was an amateur that competed at the top end of the leaderboard for the first three days. Now, get this... he had a tattoo on his arm. Yes, a real life permanent tattoo. Dougherty and Paul McGinley must have mentioned this tattoo a thousand time easily over the week. It was ridiculous. They also find it seemingly impossible to mention Scottie Scheffler without mentioning he's ranked number one in the world. It verges on unlistenable.
Never heard that before. That's so stark compared to what modern commentators would be doing - as James has pointed out.
This is commentary to compliment pictures. Modern commentary attempts to be theatre in itself. Sometimes the pictures do all the talking. Just let them.
For me this lad is doing some things that we haven't seen from our strikers for many years. First - as per the old cliche - missing chances can be seen as a positive as he's in the right place in the right time to get them. Second - there have been a few goals here and there that I just don't believe the likes of Dykes and Celar would have scored. Saturday's being one. Wrexham away another good example. He's not consistent with it yet but he does have an ability to be lethal. He's had games where he's only really had half a chance over 90 minutes and he's walked away with a goal to his name. That is such a valuable ability / tendency.
I think his build up play has got better and better all season presumably as he's adjusting to the pace and physicality of the division. If he could turn into Kevin Gallen with his back to goal and grow as a consistent finisher he'll be a huge asset and a will likely fetch big money.
He has been frustrating at times no doubt but the development job here is to make the good things more consistent. With Celar and Dykes it felt like the development job were to find some good things.
I think every aspiring commentator should be force fed a la A Clockwork Orange ten thousand hours worth of Brian Moore commentary. He was as close to perfection as there ever was for me. Never over did it, just added a subtle soundtrack.
His commentary for Michael Owen's iconic goal vs Argentina at WC '98 is one of the finest pieces of commentary ever for me; "Here's another Owen run, he's going to worry them again... It's a great run by Michael Owen and he might finish it off... Oh it's a wonderful goal!"
Nothing patronising, nothing pompous, just the perfect description of events. It even makes the goal better somehow. Those were the days man.
These days they're all desperate to over-inform. Like they're communicating with people that have never seen a game of football before in their lives.
Yeah when we lose it’s because we’re dreadful and when we win 3-1 away at a top six team it’s because the opponent is dreadful. One thing is for sure; the team and manager never deserve any credit. Only complaints, derision and mockery.
Could you point me in the direction of any Championship club that wouldn't suffer to some or a great extent if the owner suddenly stopped writing checks - for whatever reason?
Most if not all Championship clubs make a massive loss every single year. The majority push the P&S limit as far as they can. Other clubs have much higher revenues which gives them more cash than us to invest before they get to that limit... but they do it anyway.
If any one of those clubs started to operate to break even financially, their budget would be so low they'd almost certainly be staring at relegation immediately. With our relatively pitiful revenue, that would be even more pronounced.
Any such belief that these football clubs - including ours - shouldn't be posting these types of losses is an argument against English football as a whole - not QPR - who frankly have little to no choice to behave in this manner unless they're prepared for us to sink down the pyramid.
The 'daylight' created with the Ainsworth austerity was reassuring but daylight doesn't win you points and doesn't help you compete. I'm glad and grateful they're investing and are willing to push those limits but these days doing that is practically a prerequisite in order to own a competitive Championship club. Whether that investment is going far enough is a different debate. But looking at these numbers and bemoaning the losses free of context is a bit daft.
There's some suggestion this is a recurrence of the Austin / Johansen splurge... I don't see it that way as that investment left us with practically no saleable assets whatsoever. They basically all expired. Even if we do need to make as much £5m quite suddenly over the next 2/3 years I'm confident they'd be able to A) find some of it in sudden incremental revenues (like they did last time) and B) Flog one or two players at market value to cover the gap if they absolutely had to.
Last point (promise!) - Selling a player for genuinely big money a la Eze actually gives you a problem financially because it gives you a sudden and stark spike in P&S daylight that expires just as suddenly as it came along three years later. The hankering for another big money Eze sale is a bit misplaced in a way I think. You'd be better off consistently turning £1m players into £5m players every 2/3 years, if you could elect. Which is roughly what they've done with Varane and Burrell is looking like another just like that.
I honestly think a quality goalkeeper and two specialist full backs that can both defend and stick a decent cross in would be totally transformative. Everyone else would look miles better.
Urrr… he DID go out on loan last season. And he HAS just agreed to a termination with those cnts down the road.
Sterling has had to deal with this sort of stuff his entire career. People are very happy to generalise or assume his character. Even when arguably England’s leading light he was always more heavily scrutinised / criticised than some of those around him. It’s frankly unfair and a bit scary / worrying for me.
Listening to Ian Wright talk about his and his son’s experience during their careers and chats he’s had with Jude Bellingham on Stick to Football is utterly heartbreaking. Les has said some eye opening things of a similar nature over the years too.
Jack Grealish gets photographed practically comatose on a Balearic island in the summer or completely paralytic getting off an open top bus and he’s a ‘lad’ and it’s all bants. Same for when he can’t even put a pin in where Birmingham is on a map of the British Isles. Now imagine that’s Raheem Sterling or Jude Bellingham behaving like that - what are the headlines then? How does the press portray them?
Personally, as a product of my football club’s development and educational system, I’m very proud of everything Raheem has achieved AND the way he’s conducted himself over his entire career and he doesn’t deserve to be brandished with lazy assumption that don’t even really have any basis in fact.
Joe Walsh must be buying Mbengue his beers this week. He condeded two stoppable goals and handed one over himself free of charge on Saturday but Mbengue is taking all the flack.
Well… the ‘Enough’ thread seems to have somehow made the problem even worse. Huge problem now. Thread after thread after thread of reason completely spoiled and turned into playground nonsense by one poster and one poster only.
This site is becoming close to unreadable. It’s such a shame.
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