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Messages - stoxman

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1
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Adam Armstrong signs on loan
« on: Yesterday at 05:42:37 PM »
That finish from Armstrong was ridiculous. It doesn’t look glamorous but it’s a hell of a touch

My biggest compliment about that goal is that if he hadn’t scored it, I wouldn’t have even described it as a chance.  It arrived on him quickly, at an awkward height, on his wrong foot. 

2
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Josh Griffiths
« on: February 05, 2025, 07:02:26 AM »
The responses to Rover's official announcement were very encouraging. Almost universally their player of the season and one of the best loans, if not best they've had in years. Not a single bad word to say about him as far as I could tell.

For those who want to take a look at the Rovers view.  Most are already voting for him as player of the year:

https://gaschat.co.uk/thread/23301/josh-griffiths?page=2

3
West Bromwich Albion FC / How many other deals were close?
« on: February 04, 2025, 02:20:36 PM »
Every transfer window we spend weeks debating players that might be coming and going and at the end, there’s almost no correlation between players we suggest and those we get.  Did ANYONE think of Bany/ Price/ Armstrong/ Lanshear?  I’d only heard of Armstrong but never even considered him as someone we might get.  Of the players who might be going, we all debated Fellows/ Grant/ Wallace/ Swift and none of them transpired.  I only had AP down a possible, not a probable.

It would be absolutely fascinating to know whether any of “our” deals were even considered or how close they got.  Was a deal for Grady something that was being actively brokered with a dozen clubs or was it something that wasn’t even mentioned?  Are any of our players only still here because other dominoes didn’t fall the right way in the last few hours of the window.  We will never know for sure and I don’t blame the management for keeping quiet. It wouldn’t benefit us at all to announce that a player is only here because no one wanted them.  But it would be really, really interesting to have been a fly on the wall…

4
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Carlos Corberan
« on: December 24, 2024, 09:32:12 AM »
Very disappointed if he does go
Why cant theze people just be honest with the fans, thats all i ask
Why are these managers so fickle, i thought he was interested in our long term project, seems not eh?
He's done a great job for us though taking us from bottom of the pile into top 6,lets hope the players have learned from him
I can see Fellows and possibly Palmer being sold in January to clear debts and put money in the bank, say £20million?
Who knows we could get a hungry fella to manage us, with Dike back in January, we could get into the playoffs by season ends
Not a happy bunny atm.

Everyone in football is fickle.  Including (and especially) the fans.  We have all wanted to see the back of plenty of honest, hard working, loyal managers and players who we seem not good enough.   Loyalty counts for nothing in football and never will because fans and chairmen only care about results, not people. And players and managers know it’s a short career and they could soon be ousted by the very people who once sang their name.

5
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Set Pieces
« on: October 07, 2024, 08:13:41 AM »
Remember a few years ago when commentators said “A corner is almost as good as a penalty for West Brom”? We scored something like 40% of our goals from set pieces under Pulis.  We genuinely thought we would score from every one.  I just can’t see where that threat has gone.  Yes, Brunt had a great left foot but as others have said, we have players at least as capable of a great delivery (I personally think Mowatt and Swift are every bit as good with a dead ball. Yes, we had Dawson/ Evans/ Gmac running in on those balls but our current crop are as big and scary and should be capable of hitting the target from 6-10 yards.  And yet the threat has gone.  I don’t get even remotely excited when we get a corner now…

6
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: RIP Mark Townsend
« on: September 30, 2024, 09:53:47 PM »

The Lord’s my Shepherd. RIP.

7
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: How long is too long?
« on: September 25, 2024, 09:15:54 PM »
I guess it also depends on individual mental and physical differences.  Not all players react the same and therefore we shouldn’t have a blanket policy of “don’t change a winning team” that applies equally to all.  There are some players whose bodies react better to playing more often. They have greater match sharpness if they are playing 3x per week.  There may be other players who are completely unable to train for a couple of days after a tough match.  Then there’s the mental side- I’m sure we have players who are fragile and would really become despondent and slighted if they were rotated when playing well despite what the manager may say to them.   I remember Giggs saying that Ferguson had completely different management of each of them because he knew that Giggs would be fired up by being dropped or criticised whereas Cantona would hardly ever be dropped or rested because of how he might react.

8
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: What has happened
« on: September 22, 2024, 05:00:53 PM »
Attempting 30 yard free kicks is very wasteful.  We can all remember screaming free kicks because they stick in our minds but the percentages are awful.  I remember reading somewhere that less than 2% of those are successful.  Even Ronaldo (who’s obviously better than anyone we have…) has a pretty dire conversion record recently.  At the Euros it was painful to watch as he sailed free kick after free kick over the bar without looking remotely threatening.  If I was a manager, I wouldn’t allow them. I’d rather have the possession.

9
Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat
« on: August 24, 2024, 04:39:25 PM »
It’s strange that Fellows never seems fit enough to play 90 mins.  He puts a massive shift in during his 70 mins though…

10
Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat
« on: August 24, 2024, 04:33:15 PM »
Koumas really does look like some player…

11
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: THE ALBION ASSEMBLY - PLEASE READ
« on: August 15, 2024, 10:42:05 AM »
I wonder if anyone would mind this being live streamed on zoom or similar?  I’m sure a lot of people would love to listen to our new owner and he seems to be very open to engaging with fans.

12
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Amortisation costs
« on: August 06, 2024, 12:05:03 AM »
The £5m wouldn’t be “released to the P&L”, it would be charged to the P&L as an accelerated loss on the player

Yep, that’s what I meant.  Been a long day driving to Sweden!

13
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Amortisation costs
« on: August 05, 2024, 08:54:48 PM »
I wonder how much flexibility the EFL panel has over these rules?  The very fact that there’s a panel suggests that there is some subjectivity and that they are trying to police the spirit of the rules as well as the letter.  If we could sell eg Grant for £0, the £5m released immediately to the P&L would seem nonsensical when judged against the stated aims of FFP.   The amortisation is non cash and doesn’t in anyway risk or viability (the removal of his wages improves that) and it can’t be argued that losing a player is giving us an sort of advantage over other teams.

14
West Bromwich Albion FC / Amortisation costs
« on: August 05, 2024, 06:33:49 PM »
Dear all,

I’ve not looked at the accounts recently (partly because I wasn’t sure which part of the Group I should be looking at) but I’d imagine that a large part of recent losses must be due to the amortising of contracts and that these will rapidly fall off in the near future.  If Diangana was £18m over a 5 year contract, Grant £15m over 6 years (plus agent fees etc), that’s £3.6m and £2.5m pa respectively that comes off our P&L each year for FFP purposes.   Even though it’s not a cash cost in these years, it’s tying up a lot of potential FFP wiggle room.  As these drop out of the P&L (either by waiting for the contracts to expire or selling them), we will be able to add several reasonable earners.   Getting their remaining non amortised values off the balance sheet (and thus off the P&L each year) is probably more important than getting their wages off the books…

15
Loved his attitude.  Gave his very best.  Sometimes that wasn’t good enough but no-one can ask more than 100% effort and he always gave that.

16
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Cedric Kipre
« on: June 03, 2024, 04:52:59 PM »
Nowhere near good enough for the Seals.  Sadly, they regard themselves as as Top 10 (or probably higher…) and Europa/ CL chasing team.  Kipre is great in the Championship and may be ok at the bottom end of the PL but he’s not even as good as Olsson/ GMac/ Moore and they would have been regarded as not good enough for a Top 10 team to poach.

17
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Carlos Corberan
« on: June 03, 2024, 04:48:22 PM »
Why doesnt CC just state to the football world, I'm staying at WBA end of.

How many fans would do the same?  Even if someone offered to double or treble your salary, you’d guarantee to stay come what may….

18
Last season was this squads last hurrah. That is as good as it gets and in truth the decline from here might be quite rapid and steep. Keeping the squad together does not get promotion.

There are hardly any of squad under contract that I wouldn't at least consider selling. In most cases there is no good reason for not doing so. However there are two bad reasons for not doing so

1. We haven't got the recruitment infrastructure in place to manage a major rebuild and even if the right staff walked through the door today they really need a season to bed in.

2. If their next club had to match their current wages most of squad couldn't be moved on a free so they can't be sold for the most part.

The default position is the squad that is under contract is still going to be around next season and unless some of the half baked riumours turn into offers that will be the case.

The legacy of our previous short term approaches is what we are dealing with now it is important that we don't repeat the same mistakes

Sadly, I fully agree.   When we look at the players we are considering selling (which is most of them if rumours are to be believed), some fans will believe that “It’s good that Diangana/ Swift/ Furlong/ Okay/ BTA is going, we can replace them with someone better or more consistent”.  The reality is, if you replace someone on £25k pw with someone on £5k pw, they are very likely to be worse, not better.  Football isn’t a perfect market and sometimes players can exceed expectations or fail to live up to them (we’ve plenty examples of both) but on average, you get what you pay for because every club at our level is looking for similar things, great players on the cheap.  If we find a right back on half of Furlong’s wages, chances are that he won’t be as good and that applies across the team.  We are going to need a great scouting set up (which is better than other scouting set ups in other championship clubs who are also trying hard) or be luckier in order to have a team as good as 23/24 again next year.

19
A couple of points.  I believe FFP is assessed over three years and therefore our £2m per month current (and historic) losses over the last year or so very relevant.  It won’t be enough for us to just get our losses down to £15m a year as we will have the losses over previous years weighing on our average.   Our owners can inject equity and that will help but the averaging point is still relevant.  Basically, we have to overcompensate for previous losses.

With regards to your question on P&L v balance sheet, it is the P&L that’s relevant as that’s effectively the “flow” of annual losses.  The balance sheet shows debtors and creditors and is basically a snapshot of our net assets or debt.   If our owners invest equity it will go into the balance sheet and boost our cash position but adding equity to a balance sheet doesn’t mean profits.

20
Some of you may have read Soccernomics- if not, it’s an interesting read.  They found that the only consistently strong statistical relationship was between player wages and success.  Even things such as managerial track record were poor predictors of success.  Depending on the source (they will all be wrong because of the confidential nature of contracts), we were the 5th biggest wage bill last year and came 5th.  The teams that finished around and above us had a very close correlation between wages and finishing place.  The same for the relegation places.  There were a few anomalies such as Ipswich and I guess that’s what we all hope for, a manager and DOF who can beat the odds and pinch above our wage-bill weight.   Ironically, we were also a massive anomaly under Bruce when we were heading for relegation despite one of the biggest wage bills so it’s possible to defy the odds both ways.   

However, if you just follow the odds and say where we should expect (rather than hope) to finish, then if we become an 8-10th biggest wage bill which we would be if we made the cuts that are suggested, then that should be our expected finishing position…

21
Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate
« on: May 12, 2024, 06:19:15 PM »
Interesting, please tell us all how so?

Terrible?  Not once but three times?

Each to their own opinion but I disagree.  We played very well against a superior team and could easily have left with a lead but whatever happens in the next leg, we have a team that we can be rightly proud of.  The fact that half the team went down with cramp shows the incredible effort they put in.   I can’t ask more of my team than they showed today.

22
Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate
« on: April 06, 2024, 11:30:02 PM »
Didn't really watch it with full concentration but what i saw was poor.

No subs until the 70th minute? Come on.  Not as if we what we were all witnessing was great,

Back to work just before the introduction of Reach and M'Vila.

Sounds like Weimann missed a sitter at the end, legs gone and now his scoring boots gone too potentially.

It wasn’t a sitter.  It came at him very sharply and he still had lots to do.  It would have been a very good goal if he’d taken it but I think it’s the sort of opportunity that would be a goal maybe 2/10 times.

23
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Play off Points Target
« on: March 17, 2024, 06:19:52 PM »
Hopefully we can get ourselves to the near (if not mathematical) certainty over the 4 matches so we are able to bring back some injured players such as Philips/ Maja, give M’Villa some game time and protect key players from fresh injuries.  It would be great to be able to give the likes of Yokuslu/ Bartley a breather.

24
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Alex Palmer
« on: March 07, 2024, 08:30:22 PM »
All players make mistakes looking at our defensive record it's clear Palmer must be doing something right . Only Leeds by one game have more clean sheets than the Albion. A lot of people moan for the sake of it for some people that's all they do they never post anything positive.

The old adage about “when a keeper makes a mistake it’s a goal” is true.  All of our outfield players make a dozen mistakes a game, Palmer goes through entire games without any mistakes and I can only think of half a dozen proper mistakes that Palmer has made this season.  There are a few “he might have done better at the near post” at well but he’s certainly not a liability in my view.

25
West Bromwich Albion FC / Player insurance
« on: March 05, 2024, 08:40:44 PM »
Hi all,

Does anyone have any insight into how player insurance works in practice?  We’ve had our more than fair share of injuries this year.  I assume we aren’t insured for minor knocks that keep players out for a few weeks.  If we did that, the premiums would be enormous.  But what are we insured for?  If a player is out all season?  If a player never plays again?

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