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Last Match Forum - 06/04 Stoke City (A) / 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.

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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.

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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.

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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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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Action For Albion/ Potential Takeover

« on: February 16, 2024, 08:50:02 AM »

I wonder what (if anything) is being done with the non-Lai holders.  I always felt they were particularly shoddily treated in the JP/ Lai deal.   JP could have forced Lai to offer to buy minority shareholders out as part of that deal if he’d wanted to, even if it meant sweetening the deal in some way for Lai.   It looks like the minorities are going to remain stuck in this latest deal and effectively they have a valuable asset (much less valuable than when the JP/ Lai deal was done) but practically worthless if it can never be monetised.  I’m sure there will be some holders that just like to know they are shareholders and don’t care about ever getting the money but it would be nice for some offer to be made for those who do want to cash in.  There’s no reason why any new owner (either Patel or any new owner in the future) must do so. With 88% they have all the control and an extra 1% makes no difference to control but if they believe we will be a premiership team one day and worth £200m, they may want to mop up the small holders and potentially make a nice uplift if/when we are back in the big time.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Action For Albion/ Potential Takeover

« on: February 15, 2024, 11:25:32 PM »

That’s interesting.  I didn’t know that.  That pays something like 4-5 first team wages and makes a big difference.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Action For Albion/ Potential Takeover

« on: February 15, 2024, 11:03:17 PM »

Whilst I’m glad to see Lai gone, I remain nervous.  Yes, removing the debt takes a big weight off the P&L but we will still be making large losses and even if the new owner wants to bankroll the fees and wages for a big push next year (assuming we don’t get promoted), he and we will still be subject to FFP.   We have a few big earners coming off the payroll in the summer but some of those we will want to offer new deals to.   We may be turning the corner but it’s going to be a slow grind.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Albion Tackle Crowd Behaviour

« on: February 03, 2024, 06:43:58 PM »

Or have them repeat what they said to Brendan Batson, Darren Moore etc in the centre circle in front of a home crowd before a match.  Let them see what their  fellow Albion fans think of them.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: February 03, 2024, 04:01:54 PM »

Remember when we used to say “a corner is nearly as good as a penalty for West Brom”. Under Pulis we always looked like scoring from corners but now we never do.  I know we had Brunt and some bigger CHs but we still have players who should be capable of delivering a great dead ball.   Swift and Wallace are both accurate and can put proper whip on a ball and Kipre/ Bartley should be able to get a head to a ball.  You don’t even have to be that accurate from 10 yards out.  Do we just not practice them anymore??

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: January 28, 2024, 02:23:51 PM »

Utterly mindless.   How can anyone think that they are in someway “fighting on behalf of their club”???  The only answer is frighteningly long prison sentences.  Sorry, Daddy won’t be coming home for 10 years because he decided to punch someone wearing an orange shirt.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Random signings of the last 10-15 years

« on: January 18, 2024, 08:18:46 AM »

Blimey we've had some disasters 

There’s no way of objectively measuring this but I wonder where we would be in a league table of winners and losers in the transfer market?

My day job is fund management, buying and selling shares for pension funds.  That’s a zero-sum game.  For everyone who makes a good decision to sell there is a bad decision on the other side when someone buys.    We all try very hard using data and forecasting to pick winners but everyone else in the market is doing the same.  It must be similar in football.   When we uncover a hidden gem it means that someone else on the other side has probably done a bad job in either developing that player’s talent or properly managing their career to get proper value for them in a sale.  In short, all clubs can’t “win”.  Everyone is trying to play their own version of Money Ball- looking for undiscovered potential or older players with plenty left in the tank but all can’t be successful.  When I look at the players we released on free transfers, I can imagine fans of other clubs saying “why the bloody hell did we pick them up??”

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Action For Albion/ Potential Takeover

« on: November 27, 2023, 11:34:02 PM »

Because we went straight back down I didn’t think we got the third year of parachute problems ?

Ah.  Didn’t realise that.  Thanks.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Action For Albion/ Potential Takeover

« on: November 27, 2023, 11:33:29 PM »

This is where I got the figures for the salaries.  No guarantee that any individual contract is correct but I couldn’t see any obvious players missing.

https://www.capology.com/club/west-bromwich/salaries/

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Action For Albion/ Potential Takeover

« on: November 27, 2023, 04:33:23 PM »

It’s interesting that you say that the wage bill is far too high.  The last figures I saw suggested that the 23/4 player salaries were £23.4m.  They’ve taken out Livermore/ O’Shea etc and brought in Kipre/ Maja etc so it looks up to date. I doubt that they will all be accurate but with a few over and a few under, it probably balances out. Against that we have gate receipts of about £6m (£5m last year), merchandise of £3m, £6m of other commercial income and £5m of non-parachute TV money.  That’s  about £22m (with a bit of rounding).   So our total income covers the player salaries.  Of course, I’ve not considered all of the other costs of the business including non playing staff (which could include Adam Reach…), maintenance of the Hawthorns, travel, rates, tax etc but I’d be surprised if that added up to the £20m shortfall we needed to cover using MSD.  What’s most shocking is that the third year parachute is about £15m I believe and if we’ve managed to spend that and still be -£20m just in operating P&L, that’s astonishing.

Yes, there will be transfers that have to go through the P&L in this period but I’d hope that the sale of OShea would roughly offset what’s still owing on Grant etc.  if this is a true operating loss of that size then it’s really remarkable.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Action For Albion/ Potential Takeover

« on: November 27, 2023, 02:56:57 PM »

There’s a big loan company called CorPay.

For a Black Country club in our position, they sound perfect.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: September 17, 2023, 03:30:20 PM »

The charged down shot was even more clear cut in my view.  Hit both arms and was clearly on its way to goal…

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Daryl Dike

« on: September 17, 2023, 08:46:00 AM »

I’m not sure whether it’s just his type that are prone to injury.  Yes, the likes of Emile Heskey and Micah Richards were forever injured and our Ishmael Miller.  But then you’ve got Michael Owen, Jack Wilshere, Daniel Sturridge etc that don’t carry massive builds but we’re forever out.   I think some people are just genuinely unlucky and get unrelated injuries one after another.   Dike may be one of those…

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Jed Wallace

« on: September 17, 2023, 08:35:22 AM »

Feels like CC had a load of team sheets pre-printed with Jed’s name on and won’t change until he’s used them all up.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Ian Hamilton

« on: September 06, 2023, 02:42:00 PM »

RIP Ian,  you have us all such lovely memories from a simpler age of football.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Summer transfer window 2023 review

« on: September 02, 2023, 08:04:36 AM »

It could have been worse.  With the exception of O’Shea, we haven’t lost any regular first team value-add.  In Grant/ Livermore/ Albrighton / Rogic/ Bryan we lost a load of wages but no real game changing ability.   We’ve brought in 3 players in weak areas so well done for that until they prove differently.  We could easily have lost Palmer/ Molumby/ BTA/ Swift/ Okay/ Diangana if the rumours are true.   It’s a shame we’ve lost TGH but the views of us supporters and successive managers are different on him.  I’m also a bit surprised at loaning out some of the youngsters that would have given us a bit of depth.

This was never going to be a great window given our financial situation after the full 9” that Lai has given us.  I think the management and coaching staff have actually done surprisingly well to have limited the damage (probably aided by the lack of offers for some sellable assets) and actually improve in some areas.

The long term continues to look grim.  Who do we sell next year and the year after??  That’s one to worry about next year, hopefully under new owners.

I’m the meantime, Come on You Baggies!!!!!

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: The demise of West Bromwich Albion fc

« on: September 01, 2023, 06:45:05 PM »

We are loaning out anyone who’s on a salary.

I’ve heard it on good authority that Gladys the tea lady is in talks about a season long loan to Wetherspoons…

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General Football & Sports / Re: Ben Foster

« on: August 31, 2023, 09:35:59 PM »

Really intersting listen about his West Brom contract.  Full version available on Spotify.

https://www.theringer.com/2023/8/31/23854008/deep-dive-ben-foster-west-bromwich-albion-contract

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Fax machine

« on: August 31, 2023, 11:19:51 AM »

If anyone from the club is reading this, now might be a good time to check that the fax machine is plugged in and has plenty of ink and paper.  Let’s not have the same pantomime as last year…

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Carlos Corberan

« on: August 08, 2023, 11:49:56 PM »

. A serious club would have kept Bilic & Pereira and looked to build,

As my old man would have said theres the rub

Pereira signed for Al Hilal with a reputed £5.5m pa deal + sign on bonus.  There’s no way we could have matched that.   And he wanted to leave…

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Carlos Corberan

« on: June 01, 2023, 10:41:58 PM »

If he is thinking of his CV, he leaves us.   At the moment, Albion are a success on his CV.  He can say that he took over when we were bottom and took us to the last day in a play off spot despite corporate turmoil and a horrible injury list.  That’s all very credible.  Next year he may be responsible for taking us from play off contenders to relegation fodder.  That leaves a stain.   If I were his agent, I’d be suggesting a change ..,