There'll be no relegation battle this year, I'm not saying we'll be neccesarily challenging for the playoffs, but I see a comfortably mid table of a season ahead, and maybe, if we put a run together, maybe a tilt at the top 6. As for Forest, well it'll be interesting to see how far Dougherty backs McClaren, especially with the league having now signed up to the same financial restrictions as the prem.
Forest have got quite a bit of financial restructuring to do in the next few years, otherwise they haven't a hope in hell of complying with the new financial rules. From what I've heard Billy's departure was hastened because he had another falling out with Doughty when he found out how much money he was being given this season. Either McClaren will be given the same amount, or he'll be given more as a 'last stab' at going up. If Forest don't go up this season then it'll be cost-cutting ahoy next season onwards. Look's like McClaren's the last great gamble that Forest can afford.
Yeah I think Forest are one of a number of clubs who need to get promoted this year, others being the likes of Leicester and probably Cardiff amongst others.
Cardiff's cost-cutting's already under way, hence Chopra to Ipswich for £1.5m. There'll likely be more to follow there I think. Leicester and Forest are in a similar boat, but Leicester are even more wreckless - apparently Sven's been told to get them into the Prem no matter the cost. Thing is, whilst the new rules don't kick in for three years, they cover now, so it'll cover whatever it costs them to get promoted, and then they'll have to spend a shedload trying to stay there. I can't see how they can possibly pull that back before the 3 years is up.
Nigel has come out and said McClaren will be backed with funds though from what I hear we have some gems in the Academy who are ready to ripe + several players to sell like... Paul Smith Garath McCleary Joe Garner David McGoldrick Paul McKenna Guy Moussi Also we still could lose more players on a free (Tyson, Adebola, Wilson so far) so that opens up more of the wage bill. We do look set to get Andy Reid on a free + Keith Tracey from Preston in exchange for Paul McKenna. I would love to try and hijack Burnleys deal for Jack Cork, get St Ledger from Middlesbrough and try for a few loan PL signings to plug the other holes with Academy players being given a chance... If theres one thing McClaren can do, that is get the best talent from the Academy and blend it with the first team players.
Moussi's out of contract and virtually out of the door already isn't he? As for clearing up space in your wagebill, you need to. Last season your wagebill alone was 138% of your total turnover.
The new rules only stop you getting into Europe right? not exactly a problem to address for Forest, Derby or Cardiff I have a hard time believing the Forest Wage bill was that high, that would of made more news headlines at least but no doubt we've spent a penny or two over the past 3 years. We only need to get promoted once with the parachute payments now
The adoption of Uefa's 'financial fair play' rules is just going to be the first step. The football league seem to have finally accepted that the current situation is unacceptable, with the vast majority of debt in English football actually being in the CCC. League 2 already have a salary cap, League 1 is seriously considering bringing it in, and eventually the CCC will have to get serious themselves, either by self-governing financial prudence, a similar wage cap, or the introduction of penalties for failure to comply with the rules. It's not quite that high. I didn't notice in the published accounts that the turnover figure stated excludes TV revenues. Your wagebill actually reflects 106% of your turnover for the 2009/2010 season. It certainly won't have improved last season, and most likely worsened still, but won't know that until the 2010/2011 accounts are released. You owed Doughty in excess of £62m, again, a figure that will have since worsened. Whilst this doesn't represent an immediate problem, he's loading the interest on top (£9m of the £62m is interest), which means you come to owe him more and more, and eventually he will want that money back, that's why he knocks the repayment date forward by a year every season rather than just writing it off. Doughty's putting in c£7m each season, which you can probably add to the £62m that you already owed him to the end of the 2010 seasons, so it's probably c£70m now at least. You also still owe Nottingham City Council over £1m, or at least did, at the time of publishing. No idea if this is still outstanding or repaid. Even given Doughty's injection for the season you still ended up making a £12m loss. It really is all or nothing next year as continued failure to get into the Premier League is going to lead to a Portsmouth-style implosion eventually. Your club's hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate, and Doughty's only way of getting that back is to get into the elite league. But that's being leveraged against the risk of not doing and worsening the position every time you don't. Soon not even promotion is going to be enough. We were in a similar(ish) position a few years ago when the LoG took us over. Their good work coupled with a timely promotion helped us improve our finances dramatically, but it would have counted for nothing had GSE not continued that work and stemmed the flow of money out of the club. Over the same period used above, Derby made a loss of £2m. Last season it was less than that, somewhere between £1m and £2m. We own Pride Park, we own Moor Farm, our wagebill is less than turnover, and we have owners who're putting money in but don't treat it as a loan, and thus don't load interest in any way, shape or form. Just some of our owners; W Brett Wilson - billionaire Jeff Mallett (who put Yahoo on the map) - Not quite a billionaire, but close (think it's about $850m) Tom Ricketts - Owner and Chairman of the Chicago Cubs (The Ricketts family are worth that much that they paid $900m for the Cubs out of their own family trust) A lot of Derby fans have been frustrated over the past couple of years as clearly they could put a vast amount of money into the club if they really wanted to. Instead they stated their goal was to make the club self-sustaining. At times that's seemed incredibly frustrating, but as we see other clubs deep in the financial mire, the prudent approach is probably the best one to have taken. Of course it would be interesting to see how their approach changed if we got into the Premier League again. I suspect that those vast amounts of money may be a little more forthcoming then!
Yeah we seem to be reaping the benefit of being prudent now with being able to sign players. Ok most teams haven't even got off to a start yet but we must be the leading spenders so far! You do have to wonder if some of our investors might get a tad more interested if we were back in the top flight!
Wilson and Mallett definitely would, and I can't see Ricketts being too far behind them either. Think that's been the plan all along hasn't it - streamline the operation, make it sustainable, and then when we go up, that's where the real investment comes. It's a decent approach, providing that you can get up, which as Forest and Cardiff are finding, isn't very easy.
This is the trouble, promotion isn't easy, and I don't think Birmingham/West Ham are going to find it easy this season. My prediction to do well? Ipswich. I genuinely think Jewell is a good manager at the right club, and while the Derby job was clearly the wrong one for him at the time, I think Ipswitch suit him better.
Quite fancy Southampton to do well as well. Rickie Lambert was banging them in for fun last year, will be interesting to see how well he adapts to the CCC. Ipswich will be there or thereabouts I'm sure. Agree that PJ's generally a good manager, it was just a completely fooked up situation when he was with us. Other than that, Reading and Leicester, and dependent on who they keep/sign, West Ham, will do well.
I think Jewell intimated that at the time he asked if he could take over in the summer, but that would have entailed pretty much writing off the season, so it was a no win situation once Billy bogged off!
Yes, that's the version of the story that I've heard as well. Wanted to start in the summer so that his reign wasn't tainted by the farcical Premier League campaign, but GSE wanted to make an immediate impact and sign a load of players, but they weren't willing to let a 'temporary' manager spend the money. Instead PJ came in, they bought loads of rubbish players, and PJ's reign was effectively over before it even started.