spirit of 1990 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 5:57 pm
JammyBluebird wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:21 am
Realistically survival is the key for us to allow us to get EFL money and develop the club. I hope people aren't going to kick off if we're far adrift of playeoffs but safe from relegation when we've got a new manger and are comparatively a tiny club compared to some in this division.
Absolutely spot on. I get the feeling some think we’re a club with limitless resources!
New league, new manager so a decent cup run, survival & playing decent football will be perfect for me.
Let’s not start heaping unnecessary pressure on the set-up.
Given the circumstances of the last few months its really difficult to predict what we can expect to achieve next season. And that was before we lost our manager.
Financially its even less clear what our additional funding will actually buy us. I read a post on one forum that suggested that in 2019/20 the smallest operating budget of any L2 team (i think it was either Macclesfield or Morecambe) was something in the region of £2m-£2.1m. If you take the total amount of available grants, prize money and assume average gates of 2200, I reckon that would get us to roundabout that figure (gross of taxes etc.). So anyone that thinks that we are going to carry any financial clout needs to think again. Further if we start behind closed doors then even with live streaming it could be difficult to reach those numbers.
On the other hand however, income needs to be set against costs and it is clear that the amount of accumulated debt in League Two is seriously higher than it should be and that for some L2 clubs, lockdown has rapidly turned this into a life and death struggle, with even decently placed clubs desperately shedding higher paid (better) players just in order to reduce costs and survive. Income has fallen dramatically, costs have not. Because this has happened so quickly, many clubs will not really have planned for the changes they've had to make and this suggests that as things stand some squads may well be pretty patchy going in to next season. In fact its going to be a very unusual and unpredictable season in all probability.
In contrast we've run BAFC using sound rules and without letting debt accumulate. We have not had to shed players and in comparison with some profit and loss summaries elsewhere we are undoubtedly now in a better state. Being small and reasonably well run historically doesn't count for much (you only need to look as fr as Bolton to see this madness already repeating itself) but my suspicion is that for the majority this will now change. So whilst we may have to raise our game to compete at a higher level, it is undoubtedly also true that L2 football is coming back towards us both financially and in terms of quality.
We are going to have to continue being smart with what money we do have just as we have in getting to this point. However if we can continue to be smart then what we can expect is that our money might go further than it does for some of our competitors and that's how we progress and move forward as a club. That model is the one that the current board have been building over the last two years. It wont change simply because we've gone up a level. We have the right BoD, building the right business model at the right time.
In all the talk about David Dunn, whether it be about his temperament, experience, interview technique etc. one required attribute has not really been dwelt upon and that is his ability to be able locate quality individuals (not just by pillaging the Blackburn Academy) and find a way of getting them into the club without breaking the bank. Evatt was supremely good at this and as far as I'm concerned that ability will tell me more about the new managers prospects than any interview.
