It's just a thought...

Personally I am very encouraged by the summer's activities...so far.
I do believe that the Board were forced into making some investment in quality players.
I have never trusted the Yanks BUT I will be delighted if I am proved wrong!
Time will tell...but I believe they are slowly listening to us (the fans), to the necessary and important protests we made, and to people that know a little about football.

Maybe they finally smelt the coffee and realised that we were heading to L1 the way we were going. It's not rocket science, sell your better players and replace them with cheapies/or not at all leads to relegation.

Be interesting to learn where this funding is coming from: some of it wages freed up by wage earners like Savage; maybe the £4m we receive as part of the TV deal each season has been allocated for players instead of debt repayment; debt repayments mean more is available now for player recruitment; or even one vague rumour that Gadsby paid over money regarding the Park Plaza development.

Let's hope it is spent wisely.

No expecting you to be convinced Bush, but you have to say that the transfer activity is more than just a little encouraging.
It's as if GSE are saying " Look fans, sorry about our apparent don't give a toss attitude last season. We really are bothered and this is what we're doing."

Is their investment worth more though - which is all they are concerned with?

It is a bit stange that last year we were trying to flog anything that moves, surely we knew over a year ago that this money was going to be available. If so was there really any need to let the squad get in such bad shape that we now need 6 to 8 players just to make us competitive again?
Don't these people have some kind of business plan?

Baaaed,

I see where you're coming from. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Last season, we could have bought Shackell & Sharp, probably less for what we've paid for Shackell (& Sharp's value has increased).

I read somewhere a few months back that Glick acknowledged signings had to be made & money spent, but that it wouldn't be a regular occurrence.

I saw one argument on another site where one poster said paying off/easing debt repayments meant the club could now borrow money more favourably. I don't profess to know, it's not my area of expertise, but I suppose banks might be prepared to lend more if an effort has been made to pay off part of the debt instead of simply lending without any payment made.

But I do hope some kind of strategy is in place because clearly there wasn't one last season.

guys, things seam to be moving in the right direction. at least mr glick is now walking the walk. it's going to be interesting next season, even at this stage. we've even got a friend in the media.

GSE know exactly what they are doing and have done all along. They are miles ahead of every other board in the country when it comes to their undertstanding of the new financial regime that clubs will have to work within.

For the last 2 years the onus has been on getting rid of the higher paid players (Hulse, Commons, Savage etc) so that our wage bill will fit into the model.

Now we've done that, a sensible amount of money can buy us decent players and their wages will be more modest than the departed players so we dont break the model.

I dont, for one minute, believe that fan power led them to spend any money - I think they have had this in mind all along but have spun it so it seems a bit like they are doing what we've asked for.

I agree that its been frustrating over the last 2 years for us fans, but long term we are now in a much better position than 90% of other clubs.

Alright Bob?
It's not hindsight, all but the most blinkered criticised them for selling/not replacing Hulse and Commons etc.
When Barker signed I thought they'd seen the light, and that should have been the benchmark for future signings, but we didn't learn our lesson and we've been going steadily downhill since then to the point where the squad needed a total overhaul. As we've seen before it's not really a good idea to throw ten players together and hope they gel, whereas if we'd consistently signed one or two quality players every time we'd be in a strong position now. Looking at the players we've signed so far, Fielding and Shackell are good signings, Bryson a maybe, as yet unknown,but are the rest of them the sort of players to take us forward? I think not, and rather than sign those sort of players we should be waiting to sign another one or two of the Barker/Fielding/Shackell type signings that have a reasonable chance of success.

"GSE know exactly what they are doing and have done all along" lol, yeah righto

Baaaed,

I think you post a lot of sense. I recommended Shackell as a signing months ago, but to temper self-praise, I remember telling you that we would be OK after our dismal relegation and you expressed doubts - it was you who was - sadly for us - proven right. Jewell tried to change too much too soon with variable quality.

Before he left, Adam Pearson said we were going to follow a strategy whereby we'd add to the team each season, not make wholesale changes - well we didn't follow this. Whilst pleased with the signings, the key point is will they be able to gel, I'm still not convinced we have enough in midfield (consistency, guile) and the team will take time to develop.

We missed out on some terrific targets like season (the lad Pitman now at Bristol C) who I believe could have made more impact than Tyson. I have nothing against Tyson, I'd love him to do well, but his form, injuries & consistency leave a question mark over him.