Welcome Ange: To Dare is to Didgeridoo

[Bedfordspurs]

As turnover goes up, our wages will go up in absolute terms but not in relative terms. And we're well behind the top clubs on both counts. ENIC will not bridge that gap.

Would we sign a Declan Rice? Would we sign an Erling Haaland? Would we try to sign Mo Salah if he leaves Liverpool in the summer? They are top players who would help you challenge for top prizes.

No
But pool didn’t sign the finished article Salah. They were mocked because he had failed here before and he is going Saudi this summer IMO
Rice, yes if we had the squad right before hand, just like they did
Haaland, no. It’s a rigged deal with money going everywhere on top

 

[Bedfordspurs]

You tend to win things when you set out to - that means in part going for the higher calibre of players, i.e. paying the higher wages that we were told we needed the bigger stadium for....

Which is why our wages have gone up with the income
I appreciate that doesn’t seem to be seen in the pitch as we have stood still but they have gone up

 

[glorygloryeze]

Which is why our wages have gone up with the income
I appreciate that doesn’t seem to be seen in the pitch as we have stood still but they have gone up

But have we gone up relative to our competitors? That is, if before the new stadium we were, say, 10th in wages wrt to our income, have we gone up to 5th or 6th in respect to our new income?
The ratio is the key for me and what is the difference between wanting to increase our income to directly make us more competitive in the sporting sense.
This current cycle feels not much different to the Santini/Jol refresh times...

 

[DeanoAustin]

No
But pool didn’t sign the finished article Salah. They were mocked because he had failed here before and he is going Saudi this summer IMO
Rice, yes if we had the squad right before hand, just like they did
Haaland, no. It’s a rigged deal with money going everywhere on top

I'm not talking about when Salah signed for The Dippers though. To challenge, we need the ready made finished article. Would we compete for that sort of player? We never do and, in my view, that's more to do with wages than the actual transfer fee.

If that lad Isak came on the market tomorrow - would we be in the race? I'd bet The Dippers and Woolwich would be.

 

[Muttley]

I don't believe that Levy will ever allow our wages to revenue ratio go over a certain level. That means we will always pay less than the big boys because our % is lower and that'll be exacerbated by the fact our revenue is lower than them too.

Our model, under ENIC, will always be to sign lads with potential, sell on value and have their contracts heavily loaded with pay for performance.

The wages to revenue data isn't apples to apples though.

I think of THFC as two shadow P&Ls both running in one big über P&L. The first P&L is football operations and the second is the rest e.g. stadium, NFL, events etc. If you remove the capital repayment and interest on the £800m loan from the equation, I bet we have one of the highest salary to revenue ratio in the league. Liverpool are down with us because they spent big on their stadium. Everton are at the top because they haven't got to the point in their timeline where they are on our model. Utd will move closer to us over time as well if they spend heavily on OT. Obviously, City are where they are because of the Sheikh's game of artificially increasing the revenues through the airline.

I personally think Levy saying that football ops and stadium were mutually exclusive (and it wouldn't effect what was spent on the pitch) was very naive comms. He should have educated the fans better in his messaging. What he is doing building the club organically is the right way though. We just need to accept that our wages to revenue can't be >80% like other clubs otherwise we don't own a stadium in the future.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I'm not talking about when Salah signed for The Dippers though. To challenge, we need the ready made finished article. Would we compete for that sort of player? We never do and, in my view, that's more to do with wages than the actual transfer fee.

If that lad Isak came on the market tomorrow - would we be in the race? I'd bet The Dippers and Woolwich would be.

Salah is being offered £1m a week
Woolwich and the dippers didn’t get players this summer because they couldn’t spend the money on the right man
Arsenal still loaned 2 players in because they don’t have the head room

 

[DeanoAustin]

The wages to revenue data isn't apples to apples though.

I think of THFC as two shadow P&Ls both running in one big über P&L. The first P&L is football operations and the second is the rest e.g. stadium, NFL, events etc. If you remove the capital repayment and interest on the £800m loan from the equation, I bet we have one of the highest salary to revenue ratio in the league. Liverpool are down with us because they spent big on their stadium. Everton are at the top because they haven't got to the point in their timeline where they are on our model. Utd will move closer to us over time as well if they spend heavily on OT. Obviously, City are where they are because of the Sheikh's game of artificially increasing the revenues through the airline.

I personally think Levy saying that football ops and stadium were mutually exclusive (and it wouldn't effect what was spent on the pitch) was very naive comms. He should have educated the fans better in his messaging. What he is doing building the club organically is the right way though. We just need to accept that our wages to revenue can't be >80% like other clubs otherwise we don't own a stadium in the future.

The repayments aren't in the equation for the wages to revenue calculation. It's basically how much we pay in wages as a percentage of how much money we take in (before any costs are deducted).

 

[billyiddo]

As turnover goes up, our wages will go up in absolute terms but not in relative terms. And we're well behind the top clubs on both counts. ENIC will not bridge that gap.

Would we sign a Declan Rice? Would we sign an Erling Haaland? Would we try to sign Mo Salah if he leaves Liverpool in the summer? They are top players who would help you challenge for top prizes.

I believe we will do that, maybe not for the likes of Haaland who only one or two doped clubs will be in for, but the likes of Rice for sure. But i don't think we will be paying top wages until we are in a good position on the pitch, some may say you need to speculate to accumulate but then you look at the trouble we've had shifting our higher paid experienced players these last few years and you can see how it can go wrong.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

What id like to hear is what’s the tweaks that people think we should make?
Bear in mind that if the defence dropped deeper we wouldn’t get the turnovers we did, which’ are key to chance creation. Would also create a void in midfield

We started with sarr and Biss in CM playin the holding role between them

What should Ange change?

 

[billyiddo]

It's an often made comparison with Arsenal recently but we really are (imv) following their turnaround blueprint under Edu & Arteta, they spent 2 years purging the squad of the brick accumulated from the previous years, invested in youth/low cost/wage players whilst the manager bedded things in (i think i saw recently that we've actually spent more in this period of the rebuild than they did?) - after 2-3 years they started to buy more established players (but ones who were not really proven top level in Jesus & Zinchenko eg surplus to requirements at a top top team) it wasn't until last summer that they really splurged in the market when buying Rice. Havertz in the same summer was seen as a gamble and even since their transfers have been more 'sensible' than they are stellar.

So for my money no reason why ownership would prevent us doing what they have, you just need the right pieces to fall in to place (transfers & manager namely)

 

[Muttley]

The repayments aren't in the equation for the wages to revenue calculation. It's basically how much we pay in wages as a percentage of how much money we take in (before any costs are deducted).

Yeah, I didn't say they were in the calculation. I was talking about line items that exist in our revenues that exist to pay for the stadium e.g. NY Jets or Lady Gaga. Maybe I didn't explain that well or not understanding you. My assumption is that Scott Munn (football ops) will be running a shadow P&L that has a wages to revenue calculation that we can't see. What we see is the grossed up one including all the revenues that don't really count as football ops in the THFC model. They pay for our stadium.

I'm also assuming that if we have covered the interest on the debt and the capital repayments on the stadium in an accounting period, then Levy would happily give the surplus to Munn. From what I know, he locked in the interest rates on the debt way before they went up to the levels we call feel today.

 

[glorygloryeze]

What id like to hear is what’s the tweaks that people think we should make?
Bear in mind that if the defence dropped deeper we wouldn’t get the turnovers we did, which’ are key to chance creation. Would also create a void in midfield

We started with sarr and Biss in CM playin the holding role between them

What should Ange change?

When we don't have VDV, don't push to the half-way line unless it is us who have the ball in their penalty area. Once the opposition does have the ball and we know they have pacy forward have the last line deeper than when Joelinton(?) got it and turned Maddison.

Like many other coaches create a '3' across the middle spine with Bissouma (or maybe Bentancur or Gray) by having one of the midfielders sit in in-between the split centre-backs when we push our full-backs up


I think these two changes might have big wide-ranging effects in terms of the security in our minds when we attack: as our defence has looked more and more vulnerable, our attacking passing has looked more and more tentative...some of the passing going forwards yesterday when we did get those turnovers looked scared to get counter-attacked more than anything..

 

[Muttley]

What id like to hear is what’s the tweaks that people think we should make?
Bear in mind that if the defence dropped deeper we wouldn’t get the turnovers we did, which’ are key to chance creation. Would also create a void in midfield

We started with sarr and Biss in CM playin the holding role between them

What should Ange change?

That is the million dollar question. Ironically, this squad lends itself well to the prior managers' tactics. You could see Conte's 3-5-2 (Serie A) or 3-4-3 (PL) working with this set of players. Jose's 4-3-3 was way too deep but he would have moved that back line up once he got the pace into the back four. Your point is well made about the press as under Jose the gap between midfield and the forwards was a chasm. It was our downfall. Then you look at Poch's 4-2-3-1, suiting guys like Madds, Kulu and Bergval in a flexible 3 with the fullbacks wide.

If I were Ange, I wouldn't get the full-backs becoming midfielders every single time. It becomes predictable. When Pep brought that to us with Cancelo it was the surprise factor that made the difference. So I would adapt that along with just bringing the defensive line back a little. Still stay on the press but start to make sure we play with a number 6. It doesn't have to be the same person, but we can't have situations where both the double pivot our out of the game on the press. Perhaps more like Klopp's team when they had Fabinho as the holder. They still hounded you all over the park.

Perhaps, Ange could adapt to a system where the full-back can be wide and the winger goes narrow or vice versa. Anything that keeps the opposition guessing. I'd also like to see those wide players switching sides more.

The other big area is set piece defending. I haven't studied it yet this season, but last season we had 3 big men on the 6 yard line marking nobody and the rest as blockers. It didn't work, especially not having any Spurs player in with our keeper. I'm waiting to see whether that structure has evolved so we don't end up with relegation stats for set piece defending again.

 

[glorygloryeze]

That is the million dollar question. Ironically, this squad lends itself well to the prior managers' tactics. You could see Conte's 3-5-2 (Serie A) or 3-4-3 (PL) working with this set of players. Jose's 4-3-3 was way too deep but he would have moved that back line up once he got the pace into the back four. Your point is well made about the press as under Jose the gap between midfield and the forwards was a chasm. It was our downfall. Then you look at Poch's 4-2-3-1, suiting guys like Madds, Kulu and Bergval in a flexible 3 with the fullbacks wide.

If I were Ange, I wouldn't get the full-backs becoming midfielders every single time. It becomes predictable. When Pep brought that to us with Cancelo it was the surprise factor that made the difference. So I would adapt that along with just bringing the defensive line back a little. Still stay on the press but start to make sure we play with a number 6. It doesn't have to be the same person, but we can't have situations where both the double pivot our out of the game on the press. Perhaps more like Klopp's team when they had Fabinho as the holder. They still hounded you all over the park.

Perhaps, Ange could adapt to a system where the full-back can be wide and the winger goes narrow or vice versa. Anything that keeps the opposition guessing. I'd also like to see those wide players switching sides more.

The other big area is set piece defending. I haven't studied it yet this season, but last season we had 3 big men on the 6 yard line marking nobody and the rest as blockers. It didn't work, especially not having any Spurs player in with our keeper. I'm waiting to see whether that structure has evolved so we don't end up with relegation stats for set piece defending again.

I must say, so far, it looks like we have improved massively on set-piece defending....cue, 3-0 down to corners in the next match haha :-(

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Don’t forget, when they scored the second we had all the back 4 in a line. They weren’t inverted

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I must say, so far, it looks like we have improved massively on set-piece defending....cue, 3-0 down to corners in the next match haha :-(

We have
But it dropped to a low bar the second half of last season
Need Vic to get his confidence back because everyone else is owning their roles

 

[Bedfordspurs]

When we don't have VDV, don't push to the half-way line unless it is us who have the ball in their penalty area. Once the opposition does have the ball and we know they have pacy forward have the last line deeper than when Joelinton(?) got it and turned Maddison.

Like many other coaches create a '3' across the middle spine with Bissouma (or maybe Bentancur or Gray) by having one of the midfielders sit in in-between the split centre-backs when we push our full-backs up


I think these two changes might have big wide-ranging effects in terms of the security in our minds when we attack: as our defence has looked more and more vulnerable, our attacking passing has looked more and more tentative...some of the passing going forwards yesterday when we did get those turnovers looked scared to get counter-attacked more than anything..

The issue is we’re so far forward for most of the game the distant between defence and attack would be huge

 

[glorygloryeze]

We have
But it dropped to a low bar the second half of last season
Need Vic to get his confidence back because everyone else is owning their roles

Yeah, he did flap badly one time yesterday which nearly resulted in a goal...hopefully just a recent one-off fingers crossed...

 

[glorygloryeze]

The issue is we’re so far forward for most of the game the distant between defence and attack would be huge

The balance in space between the 'sections' has to be made. It's not like we are the only team that has ever played on the front foot. I must say Liverpool often seem the best balanced to me in terms of pushing up and still maintaining a decent shape to make them not so easily attacked on turnovers (and before anyone jumps at me, i mean BEFORE this season lol)

 

[Bedfordspurs]

The balance in space between the 'sections' has to be made. It's not like we are the only team that has ever played on the front foot. I must say Liverpool often seem the best balanced to me in terms of pushing up and still maintaining a decent shape to make them not so easily attacked on turnovers (and before anyone jumps at me, i mean BEFORE this season lol)

Pool have always been more about countering but not in a conventional way
So they make the ball move quicker