Casino?

Marko, I rarely agree with joe re bates, but he's no eric, I'd cut him some slack.

well, saying parachute payments are the same as our team budget and therefore we can't compete, that's not really an argument is it, when the issue is why are we spending so little when we bring in so much? This statement he has made goes on the assumption that £12 million is all we can afford to spend, the other £21 million needs spending on running costs of the club and developments.

It's a nonsensical argument because then you have to assume that whichever club is on parachute payments, if they are around the same turnover then they'd have similar running costs, so they'd have to pay the majority of their parachute payments in running costs before player wages come into the equation.

The fact that so many clubs can afford to spend more than us on wages without showing even a hint of financial difficulty tells us that we can actually afford to spend significantly more than we are.

Either, we're spending as much as we can and clubs like Burnley are "overspending" despite constantly being praised as a well run club only spending what they bring in, or we're not spending as much as we can. Burnley on parachute payments with a £27.4 million turnover, spent £19.4 million on their wage bills.

With a turnover £5.3 million higher at £32.7 million, we supposedly spent £16.5 million on our wage bills. When we already know the player wages took up £11.6 million and we already know the club include transfer fees in that, and the fact we have the staff of two loss making companies on the books and they don't, you can then deduce that they are spending much less on non-playing staff.

So why are Burnley, a financially stable club significantly smaller than us, with a turnover less than ours even with a £16 million parachute payment, spending more on wages than us? When you consider they will have to pay players more on account of having players under contract on Premier League wages, it looks even worse because we know we have more money to spend than them, and we know we can do it without breaking the bank, and we know we could get more out of every £ than them because they have various players earning more than they'd normally get had they not gone into the Premier League.

When you consider all these factors, we're untouchable on raw spending power, even only using what we bring in. So why aren't we competing? Bad businessmen.

Marko, I agree, unfortunately many people buy into the bates spin.

So tempted to ring in to the extra time phone in, but I cba making my point because I'd probably get cut off. I want to put across the idea that the problem is the attitude of the club as a whole - there's no "we want Premier League at all costs as a first priority".

marko
parachute payments are £48 million over 4 years,graysons player budget was £9million but spent £12 million so how do the parachute payments not equate to our player budget? you seen to confuse player budget with total club income

It's like I'm banging my head against a wall.

Our player budget is LESS THAN WE CAN AFFORD.

Just because it's a budget doesn't mean it's all we can afford.

My point was that we should have a higher wage budget because of our alarmingly high turnover.

And look it up, that £48 million is £16 million for 2 years and £8 million for 2 years.

It's like you've just completely ignored what I've written. Do you have a selective filter that ignores anything that makes you sound stupid? Because last time I put something in a post that was iron clad and couldn't be argued, you turned to questioning my love life.

This time since there are points you can pick out and take them out of the context in which I used them, you've only had to ignore half my post.

marko
"we want Premier League at all costs as a first priority"

we tried that before remember? ridsdale is still fresh in many peoples minds and we dont want to go down that road again,so no we dont want premier league at all costs as a first priority,maybe thats .why not everybody shares your view that bates is doing a bad job and statements like that make you look an idiot

going to watch snooker now,give my regards to your rubber doll

oh for crying out loud you seriously need to get a grip.

There's one thing spending over your means like Ridsdale, it's another to then use that memory to hook in the idiots like you in making you believe the only alternative is spending like a mid table club of a much smaller size and much lower turnover.

No wonder he's managed to get into his position of power with no decent business sense if he finds it that easy to manipulate the weak minded.

In what universe is £12 million of a £33 million turnover all we can afford? What's the other £21 million going on and why is it all so damned important that we can't survive without it? Whatever it is we were doing fine without it before and we'll do fine without it again.

And if you don't think bates is doing the same as Ridsdale, just not on players, then you're even more insane than I thought.

How can you still back the business sense of a man who has cost the club millions in court cases over a matter of a few thousand pounds because he can't keep his mouth shut?

How can you possibly ignore that and still think you're not stupid?

Oh and I should point out that, again, in true idiot fashion, you've cherry picked a comment, taken it out of its context and used it to back up your hollow argument, conveniently ignoring the rest of what I said.