• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Steve Hitchen

Muttley said:
To add to the story, here's the budget numbers all in Euros (via transfermarkt)

2017 - In 121, Out 103, Net 18
2018 - 0, 5, -5
2019 - 151, 65, 86
2020 - 110, 13, 97
Total - 382, 186, 196
Average net spending per year 49m Euros

Since
2021 - 96, 35, 61
2022 - 180, 39, 141
2023 - 272, 121, 151
2024 - 149, 55, 94
Total - 697, 250, 447
Average net spending 112m Euros

We've clearly been elevated into a different transfer league since the Poch days. I think Jose and Conte started to feel the benefits but there was so much work to do. Ange has it best, and will continue to have that luxury although I don't think it will be at previous spending levels. I could be wrong on that though.
Click to expand...

There will continue to be more money for Ange

- That was the point of the stadium
- The uptick/approval of additional non football events (now 30 a year?) will bring more revenue
- Back in Europe
- Lots of brick wages off the bill

Really hope Ange can pull a trophy out this year, because I think it would go a long way to giving him the time he needs to build a challenging squad.
 
Raziel said:
There will continue to be more money for Ange

- That was the point of the stadium
- The uptick/approval of additional non football events (now 30 a year?) will bring more revenue
- Back in Europe
- Lots of brick wages off the bill

Really hope Ange can pull a trophy out this year, because I think it would go a long way to giving him the time he needs to build a challenging squad.
Click to expand...

All the things you say (and more) have materialised and we will find ourselves at this fantastic plateau of revenue streams. Even so, when you look closely you see losses on our P&L, implying we've been spending slightly above our means. Hence my logic why net transfer kitty may normalise a little lower than what we have today. With FFP/PSR being mostly a 3-year rolling calculation, can we even spend that much again even if we wanted to?

I guess we find out.
 
Muttley said:
All the things you say (and more) have materialised and we will find ourselves at this fantastic plateau of revenue streams. Even so, when you look closely you see losses on our P&L, implying we've been spending slightly above our means. Hence my logic why net transfer kitty may normalise a little lower than what we have today. With FFP/PSR being mostly a 3-year rolling calculation, can we even spend that much again even if we wanted to?

I guess we find out.
Click to expand...

The 30 events is new (up from 16 I think?), Karting probably hasn't shown up yet in numbers, there has been subtly more commercial sponsorships (we now have official furniture sponsors), a few good cups runs could up the ante a little bit more as well.

So, my view, we will probably still have a bit more ceiling but I don't think the noise around outside investors is smoke without fire, club probably feels now is the time to double down (finally) and some addition investment is probably needed to supplement that new revenue stream to really compete.
 
Raziel said:
The 30 events is new (up from 16 I think?), Karting probably hasn't shown up yet in numbers, there has been subtly more commercial sponsorships (we now have official furniture sponsors), a few good cups runs could up the ante a little bit more as well.

So, my view, we will probably still have a bit more ceiling but I don't think the noise around outside investors is smoke without fire, club probably feels now is the time to double down (finally) and some addition investment is probably needed to supplement that new revenue stream to really compete.
Click to expand...

That's fair. With the players rolling off in the summer and close to 150m euros of net spending, we really could see another gear change in this team.

Sunday's 1st team bench was fantastic and perhaps the biggest reason we sent Villa home packing. 2 or 3 more will make a massive difference.
 
Muttley said:
That's fair. With the players rolling off in the summer and close to 150m euros of net spending, we really could see another gear change in this team.

Sunday's 1st team bench was fantastic and perhaps the biggest reason we sent Villa home packing. 2 or 3 more will make a massive difference.
Click to expand...

Piece for me is

- We have a great pipeline of promising youth players
- We need to add finished (or close to) finished product, those 2-3 need to be "Solanke like"

If we can either do like Solanke or even experienced pro later in their career (if they have been part of a successful team), to your point, I think the difference would be considerable
 
good discussion.... for the ENIC thread

hitchen has done well for himself after seriously botching up our transfers around and after 2018
the appointments saw the decline of poch and the ridiculously inappropriate appointments of mourinho and conte (without proper funding) - like hiring an F1 driver to race in the go kart nationals

1730767588671.png
 
Raziel said:
Piece for me is

- We have a great pipeline of promising youth players
- We need to add finished (or close to) finished product, those 2-3 need to be "Solanke like"

If we can either do like Solanke or even experienced pro later in their career (if they have been part of a successful team), to your point, I think the difference would be considerable
Click to expand...

Saying that, I always have a dilemma with the late-twenties and thirty-something signings. I have an even bigger dilemma now that we play Ange-ball as it is almost too intense for the older players as their engines diminish. We seem to always buy the broken ones that end up in the treatment room, or the ones who are on the beach after a few months of signing on the dotted line. If we go the route you're saying, we need to break that cycle.

Solanke was about to have his 27th birthday when he signed for us. For me, that is about at the top of the age limit where we should add players. Ideally they'd be a year or two younger for the profile we're talking about. I know that narrows the search, but we need experienced winners who are 25/26 and bring leadership into this setup.
 
I think it's a bit early to say how good/bad our signings have been recently compared to Hitchen's.
Davinson Sanchez looked a coup at the time and until maybe the Watford game away in early September 2018 (just after we battered Jose and Man Utd at OT) he looked like great succession planning.

I'm also not sure how many of the buys under Jose would have been Jose's preferred ones: Gedson? Rodon? Doherty?
I do suspect Hitchen was working much more to the 'budget' brief rather than the managers...
 
glorygloryeze said:
I think it's a bit early to say how good/bad our signings have been recently compared to Hitchen's.
Davinson Sanchez looked a coup at the time and until maybe the Watford game away in early September 2018 (just after we battered Jose and Man Utd at OT) he looked like great succession planning.

I'm also not sure how many of the buys under Jose would have been Jose's preferred ones: Gedson? Rodon? Doherty?
I do suspect Hitchen was working much more to the 'budget' brief rather than the managers...
Click to expand...

I've never had a problem with the Sanchez signing. OK, it didn't work in the long term but every intention in the strategy was correct by the club. We saw a young player who seemed to have a high plateau, and we went for it. It's not like anyone else in the football community knew where Davinson was going to plateau. You don't with these types of signings, just like we don't with Phillips, Bergval, Gray, Odobert and Yang.

My problem has always been the insistence of buying quantity over quality and spreading our budget way too thin. Our recent history would have been so much better if we had bought about half the quantity of players we actually did.

Personally, I'd have no problem in the summer to make just 2 major signings and do 2 or 3 promotions from the academy.
 
Muttley said:
I've never had a problem with the Sanchez signing. OK, it didn't work in the long term but every intention in the strategy was correct by the club. We saw a young player who seemed to have a high plateau, and we went for it. It's not like anyone else in the football community knew where Davinson was going to plateau. You don't with these types of signings, just like we don't with Phillips, Bergval, Gray, Odobert and Yang.

My problem has always been the insistence of buying quantity over quality and spreading our budget way too thin. Our recent history would have been so much better if we had bought about half the quantity of players we actually did.

Personally, I'd have no problem in the summer to make just 2 major signings and do 2 or 3 promotions from the academy.
Click to expand...
Signing a centre back for a lot of money with such clear limitations on the ball for a manager who clearly wanted us to play from the back, play through pressure and be brave on the ball was at best a gamble. Same with Sissoko in midfield.

Part of what I like with our signings now is that we seem to have higher minimum requirements in terms of ball playing ability for all our players including goalkeeper and defenders.
 
braineclipse said:
Signing a centre back for a lot of money with such clear limitations on the ball for a manager who clearly wanted us to play from the back, play through pressure and be brave on the ball was at best a gamble. Same with Sissoko in midfield.

Part of what I like with our signings now is that we seem to have higher minimum requirements in terms of ball playing ability for all our players including goalkeeper and defenders.
Click to expand...

For me, signing Sissoko was just plain stupidity. We had visibility to what he was because he was 26/27 at the time. Such a limited footballer who was never going to suit our system.

Very different for Sanchez who was only 20/21 and played at centre half. He wasn't a non ball player either at Ajax. In fact, he had no choice but to step straight into our first team with Vertonghen, in autumn 2017 because Toby got injured. He played 31 of the league games that season and nobody was complaining. Well Toby was, because he had to wait to get back into the team.

However, for whatever reason his touch and passing just couldn't be nurtured to the level we needed it. I would say his reading of the game and positional sense never plateau'd to where we needed it either. I can still see why our club saw some raw ingredients in a 19/20 year old playing for Ajax though. Centre halves grow immensely from 21 to 24 and you never really see their true potential until later. Davinson also did pretty well each time he got a run in the side. That never happened, and I think his head went eventually. He couldn't find consistency, just like before he left when he got boo'd one match and was MotM the very next.

I do hope he's enjoying life now though. Definitely, one of those great professionals. There is absolutely no prima donna style Tanguy in Davinson.
 
braineclipse said:
Signing a centre back for a lot of money with such clear limitations on the ball for a manager who clearly wanted us to play from the back, play through pressure and be brave on the ball was at best a gamble. Same with Sissoko in midfield.

Part of what I like with our signings now is that we seem to have higher minimum requirements in terms of ball playing ability for all our players including goalkeeper and defenders.
Click to expand...

Tbf, i think we/Poch always did have certain 'standards' then but budget (or even board 'interventions') meant we ended up with who we did.

It has to be remembered that Poch seemed to want Schneiderlin (we ended up with Benjamin Stambouli), seemed to want Mateo Musacchio (we ended up with Federico Fazio), seemed to want Gini Wijnaldum (we ended up with Moussa Sissoko), seemed to want Sadio Mane (we ended up with Georges-Kevin NKoudou)...
 
glorygloryeze said:
Tbf, i think we/Poch always did have certain 'standards' then but budget (or even board 'interventions') meant we ended up with who we did.

It has to be remembered that Poch seemed to want Schneiderlin (we ended up with Benjamin Stambouli), seemed to want Mateo Musacchio (we ended up with Federico Fazio), seemed to want Gini Wijnaldum (we ended up with Moussa Sissoko), seemed to want Sadio Mane (we ended up with Georges-Kevin NKoudou)...
Click to expand...
Poch also wanted GLC & Ndombele and unfortunately we ended up with GLC & Ndombele
 
Raziel said:
Poch also wanted GLC & Ndombele and unfortunately we ended up with GLC & Ndombele
Click to expand...

Yes, probably a year too late and once we had more money to action a transfer or two compared to the previous years. Sadly, rot had set in before then and the rest is history.

Imagine Ndombele being able to play alongside the Real Mouss before he started to wane, or GLC playing/competing alongside a more fit and motivated Eriksen to learn the ropes as it were?

Anyway, i think the point still stands, Poch did have 'standards' in who he wanted we shouldn't try and make out he ddn't
 
Muttley said:
To be fair, I think Poch's wanted Bruno Fernandez. Didn't we almost have him as well?
Click to expand...

We were in for him and lots of people will explain how/why the club fudged up but reality is once United threw their hat in, it was over

glorygloryeze said:
Yes, probably a year too late and once we had more money to action a transfer or two compared to the previous years. Sadly, rot had set in before then and the rest is history.

Imagine Ndombele being able to play alongside the Real Mouss before he started to wane, or GLC playing/competing alongside a more fit and motivated Eriksen to learn the ropes as it were?

Anyway, i think the point still stands, Poch did have 'standards' in who he wanted we shouldn't try and make out he ddn't
Click to expand...

I think Poch could have done something with GLC, I think there is a player there, nobody would have saved Ndombele
 
It's not even about the money available to spend, can you imagine Hitchen with a blank chequebook? You could just buy the Championship Player of the Year, and Championship Young Player of the Year, each season and have a better hit rate.
 
Lemonade Money said:
It's not even about the money available to spend, can you imagine Hitchen with a blank chequebook? You could just buy the Championship Player of the Year, and Championship Young Player of the Year, each season and have a better hit rate.
Click to expand...

Think we have tried that one - Sess, Johnson, Gray
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back