02 Jun 2025 21:02:21
So hear we go again selling our best players seems to be a yearly thing since nuno left shame

1.) 03 Jun 2025
03 Jun 2025 13:31:19
It was Planned, and the Players want to leave VP does not want players that do not want to be here, he is correct, as with Lemina and Dawson, are you a baggies fan

2.) 03 Jun 2025
03 Jun 2025 13:46:37
These are also the 'better players' who helped us finish 16th. If the money is spent wisely, we can replace the 2 outgoings (Cunha and AIT) with 4 players meaning we have a stronger squad. We are 2 days into the transfer market and a lot of the players are either on International duty or on holiday.

3.) 03 Jun 2025
03 Jun 2025 14:21:41
Does he need to be a baggies fan to recognise that regularly losing your best players is not good business?! That's just called common sense, are you a fan of common sense?! ??

4.) 03 Jun 2025
03 Jun 2025 19:15:32
If you can sell your better players for a profit, you can re-invest and have a higher net player value.
That's how they're trying to increase the team's worth.

5.) 03 Jun 2025
03 Jun 2025 19:47:16
Sorry WO but (as you yourself have said on the thread above) nothing about how we've operated in the market before suggests that's true or being done successfully!

6.) 04 Jun 2025
04 Jun 2025 10:40:06
Firstly, we are not a massive club compared to many others in the Prem.
As far as I can see we don't generate enough income on its own to fund a top 6 team. Therefore we need to adapt, we can't just buy the best players and pay the best wages.
The Villa turn over far more than us and they too have to sell their best players - Grealish and Luiz spring to mind and they need to sell again this window to avoid sanctions.

All the doom mongers on here moaning about us selling our best players are ignoring reality.

What should our strategy be?
Buy players within our budget on wages we can afford so struggle to attract a manager and hover around the relegation zone, or.

Keep our best players, increase their wages when bigger clubs come looking, refuse to let them go when their heads have been turned, have an unhappy dressing room and get fined or have points deducted for overspending, or.

Buy lesser players that want to play in the prem, develop them and ultimately sell them for profit. Happy dressing room, a team ethic and move the disruptors on, Cunha and Lemina types.

This model has been adopted by Brighton, Palace, Bournemouth, Brentford and Fulham.

In the main our strategy has worked. There have been mistakes, we were shafted by Mendes a few times, but also got some real talent. Our managers have been hit and miss, but again we can't afford to shop at the big table. We're now exploiting the S. American market as well and now have a fair few players that are worth far more than we paid for them. The strategy carries an amount of risk, but what are the alternatives?

By all means criticise the management, but that's easy. Try criticising them but explain realistically what they should do as an alternative.

7.) 04 Jun 2025
04 Jun 2025 12:13:01
Not massive compared to how many others in the Prem exactly, cause you mentioned yourself Brighton, Brentford, Palace and Fulham are they bigger than us then?! I suppose they must be because each one of those clubs are operating at a FAR better rate than us financially, why? Please do explain it to me Tim cause clearly I'm just a doom monger and my expecting us to actually compete for something is clearly crazy talk! Just like it was for Palace before this season, remind me how has their ambition worked out for them exactly? Bayern wanted Glasner and they said no, looks like a pretty good call right now wouldn't you say?!
Also you say about Villa having to sell but that is ONLY because they (harshly) missed out on Champs League, before that they were posting record profits. This is the same Villa by the way that Fosun had a head three year start on, so again Tim please do enlighten me on why they have flown past us whilst our place in the league has got worse year on year?!
I don't care if people call me a doom monger but I am getting somewhat bored of this bizarre notion that 'everything has gone to plan', cause it absolutely has not in the last four seasons. We have survived as much by luck (three horrifically poor teams in the league) as we have by judgement (parachuting VP into the role)! You may call me doom monger but I'd call you delusional! In the last four seasons we have not been run like a football club we have been run like an investment portfolio which if your goal is making transfer money then that's great, if your goal is staying in the Prem then (as the league position has proven) I'm afraid it just doesn't work! It looks like we are about to have a major shake up so let's see what that brings. Something needs to change though and simply pretending the current system is working when every playing/competitive/financial metric suggests otherwise is like I say deluded! ?

8.) 04 Jun 2025
04 Jun 2025 13:12:01
BB,
At no time did I say I was happy with how WW are run. Mistakes have been made, but we're still in it. By changing the financial model we would go down or go bust. The idea is we continue as we are but hopefully fewer Guedes and Silva deals and more Gomes and Andre types.
To address your points :-
The teams you mentioned aren't bigger than us, just getting more decisions right at the moment.
Palace sold their best player last year, Olise, as well as Andersen.
Villa have to sell and were talking about selling Rogers months ago, but they have sold big and consistantly. They overspend on wages and claw it back with sales.
I don't think things have gone to plan, but as I said earlier, give me alternatives. If there was a better way, we would be doing it. Basically it's our recruitment that determines league position in the main, but as we generate so little in turnover without sales we start in a worse position than Villa and others and so far a few of the lesser teams are buying smarter.
It's all very well criticising how the club is run, but what needs to change, other than buying fewer duds?

9.) 04 Jun 2025
04 Jun 2025 14:23:46
So quite a bit to unpack there so let's try. Firstly you say that by changing the financial model we will go down or bust but I would argue the exact opposite, on our current trajectory we seem to be doing worse in the league year on year (the table doesn't lie)! So I would argue that without change then sooner or later we will run out of luck and get relegated! You say about Palace selling their 'best players' but I think Marc Guehi and Eze would have something to say on that, yes they sold some of their better players but like most other clubs they rarely (if ever) let more top players go than the team can afford to lose in one window, something we absolutely did not do last season (let's hope we aren't making the same mistake again this window)! We also have had a habit of not reinvesting when we sell top players, then having to over spend in Jan to get ourselves out of trouble (quite literally as two Jan's in the last three seasons we've been in the relegation zone at Jan and spent the money to fix the problem). We sold Kilman at rhe start of last season are you HONESTLY trying to say that if we had not just gone out and got his replacement (Agbadou) that very same window that we wouldn't have done better?! Behave! Two of the last three seasons now Fosun have tried to get away with not replacing key players and pinching the pennies and BOTH times it's a) almost cost us relegation and b) almost certainly cost us MORE money as the Jan market is famously not the best for value! That's without even starting to unpick the league positions it's cost us (each one of which is also worth money) because we haven't had a good enough squad for the first half of the season!
Then there's the fact that as TFG has pointed out (many times) our non player wages/fees are absolutely off the charts! Can you please explain why this is as well because I've yet to see a single person (Jeff included) explain exactly what that moneys being spent on, cause it ain't being spent on high end staff (for the most part)?!
So there's a few things that need to change straight off the bat and it's not even my job to notice them! Sorry but it's just FAR to easy to look at our demise in the league and just say 'yeah it's just bud luck in the transfer market' cause a) it's not that simplistic and b)if you REALLY think that is the only problem then surely we should have fixed it by now shouldn't we? Like I say let's hope this new model helps move things forward cause if we keep making the same mistakes it simply a matter of WHEN not IF we will end up relegated and BTW in that scenario then we REALLY are in trouble!

10.) 04 Jun 2025
04 Jun 2025 17:24:14
BB, Not much time today, but in a nutshell, what exactly should the board be doing differently other than reducing their salaries and costs?

I'm not happy with the way we have performed over the last few seasons, but really, what would you change in order to improve?

Keep our best players and keep unhappy players who wish to move and get punished for overspending, or just buy cheaper players that mean we're not being forced to sell to stay OK with PSR.