[Archived] Nicko's January Rumour Mill

[Bazzanotsogreat]

Spurs average ticket price = £55

Average attendance = 35,918

Revenue from 19 Prem games = £38m

...throw in match day extras and cup games and they easily surpass £40m in ticket sales. Besides why would they be willing to spend millions and millions of a new stadium if they didn't think the extra revenue was worth it.

Whether you like it or not; TV money is by far & away the largest source of revunue for premiership football- perhaps barring manure & arsenal ( although this will be very close)

TV Deal

Having checked their Website the average price of a ticket is around £35-40, so your £40 million needs to be seriously downgraded.

Acording to Nicko Bolton were willing to spend over 12 m on Velosountil Sporting moved the goalposts- their income is virtually the same as Rovers.

[LDRover]

Players wages cost nothing then do they? When will Rovers fans realise that as long as we can't fill our stadium, large portions of transfer fee profis will have to go and cover player wages. Assuming all the money that comes in through fees like Bentley should go straight back into buying players in a little naive and short sighted....

The fact is, our board want to sell so I can understand why they wouldn't want to pump millions in they won't see again. We are NOT a popular team with a huge fan base which makes selling us harder and our empty stadium means we can't cover wages so until we get a rich Arab to buy us or we get 30k every week at Ewwod, the fact is we will always have to buy cheap and sell high....

But Bentley's wages would have been budgeted for wouldn't they?

That being the case the money gained for him could have been spent on a replacement and the wages paid using his budgeted wages over the period of the remainder of his contract. Unless the money was syphoned off elsewhere... but according to the powers that be , we didn't need to sell!!

So, do we need to sell to survive? Someone from the club needs to set the record straight because it sure as hell looks like that.

[nicko]

Nicko, can you confirm we didnt sign anyone?

Sad to say, not a soul.

Zoro - work permit problem.

Poggy - was waiting to be done, not needed.

Kuranyi - agent talk...stupid agent at that.

So Ooijer stays [out of contract in summer], Mokoena [no takers], Vogel [doesn't want to go].

It's a very flimsy squad, weakened by Emerton's injury. Diouf is NOT a real right winger as anyone who saw him at Bolton will tell you.

The only consolation is that no-one else is stronger. Some consolation that.

Lots of trialists, lots of scouting missions, some failed bids...and already the PR spin about what a triumph it is to keep the prolific Roque.

PS - I wonder if anyone told that poor Egyptian lad that he wasn't coming.

[tony gale's mic]

Whether you like it or not; TV money is by far & away the largest source of revunue for premiership football- perhaps barring manure & arsenal ( although this will be very close)

TV Deal

Having checked their Website the average price of a ticket is around £35-40, so your £40 million needs to be seriously downgraded.

Acording to Nicko Bolton were willing to spend over 12 m on Velosountil Sporting moved the goalposts- their income is virtually the same as Rovers.

The TV money just ends up causing wage inflation anyway if all the teams recieve equal. Clubs need to offer more money to be able to compete with each others' wealth etc and so just gets sucked into pushing up wages and to an extent transfer fees. It's things like gate receipts where there's a marked difference between clubs, and outside investment...both of which we're severely lacking in.

[alexanders]

The Egyptian might be for the summer ?

It's an okey squad, but need some strengthening.

4-3-3

[nicko]

Acording to Nicko Bolton were willing to spend over 12 m on Velosountil Sporting moved the goalposts- their income is virtually the same as Rovers.

All you can say about Bolton is that they have one money man - Rovers have a committee somewhere.

But Wanderers are in no better shape than you after the window.

Skipper gone, slow centre half signed, slower striker signed and a kid from Wolves reserves.

Oh, and a profit and some happy agents.

Don't beat yourself up about comparisons with them...

[hawkiiz]

i think its very unfair to blame JW and the board for not signing anyone. bert got injured on saturday. you cant just turn around and sign whoever just because we need more midfielders. in reality we already signed his replacement in diouf. players are very very expencieve, and in january we need someone that would walk straight into the team. who would that be at a price of <£5m?

[philipl]

Bazza, the difference between clubs is primarily match day income.

I recently had a good look at Hammers and their numbers before the Icelanders bumped their wages up by £20m were virtually the same as our's. In fact astonishingly their commercial revenue was less.

Remember WHam are delaying the publication of their accounts so what I was looking at was two seasons ago.

The HUGE difference was their matchday income was £10m per year more than our's.

That £10m per year or £100m per decade is what in time will tell against Rovers and it is to the massive credit of the Rovers management and the Trust that we appointed a cretin like Ince and are still in with a decent shout of the club's accumulated playing staff keeping us up.

The Spurs numbers are in the ballpark. Their new stadium has a per matchday revenue assumption of £3m from the 55,000 seats.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Quite right, playing Russian roulette with the very future of the club at this level.

Very disappointing.

Agreed. I think that Sam's good start has convinced them that the current squad plus Spit will keep us up, which might just be true.

We have been treading water with this squad for 2 years now; RSC being the last signing who made us stronger.

Everyone else is 2 years older or has declined for other reasons. Who out of the current squad will be dependably good enough in 12 months time? I get as far as Benni, Grella, Samba, Nelsen and Warnock. RSC/Ooijer will be gone; Tugay will be playing in a bathchair; Dunn/Reid/Emerton all knackered; MGP/Andrews/Robinson all dodgy at best. No young players coming up We are just putting off squad building to the point where we will be hit by a tsunami of replacement needs all at once. No doubt the Trust are hoping to have sold by then.

Very depressed.

[Tris]

Very depressed.

Welcome back!

I gave up alcohol for January - did you give up BRFCS?!

[Stuart]

Poggy - was waiting to be done, not needed.

Got to disagree with that. Although I'll admit I'm taking you out of context.

Suggests that we were only in the market for a striker if Roque left - yet we still let Derbs go. The mind boggles.

Diouf must be unbelievably versatile, he's got to cover right-back, right-wing and be a striking option as well!

[Ewood and I Would]

Whether you like it or not; TV money is by far & away the largest source of revunue for premiership football- perhaps barring manure & arsenal ( although this will be very close)

TV Deal

Having checked their Website the average price of a ticket is around £35-40, so your £40 million needs to be seriously downgraded.

Acording to Nicko Bolton were willing to spend over 12 m on Velosountil Sporting moved the goalposts- their income is virtually the same as Rovers.

It's not whether I like it or not, it is whether you are factually correct or not. I think that merhcandising alone would exceed TV money for many clubs with big support (the industry is worth £200m a year just in the UK), then add ticket sales, sponsorship deals (which are also worth a hell of a lot) and combined TV money comes no where near. At most the TV money might make up almost half of a budget (although only us, Hull, Bolton, Pompey would fall into that bracket)....

[philipl]

It is probably fair to say that anybody who wanted to move today and whose club were willing to let him move probably did.

So add Arshavin which is a done deal I understand, this is today's Premier League achievement:

PREMIER LEAGUE TRANSFER TRACKER:

In: Chelsea (Quaresma), Everton (Jo), Fulham (Dacourt, Gray), Newcastle (Taylor), Portsmouth (Basinas), Stoke (Camara), Sunderland (Davenport), Tottenham (Keane), West Brom (Menseguez, Mulumbu), Wigan (N'Zogbia)

Out: Chelsea (Smith), Fulham (Leijer,Teymourian), Liverpool (Gulacsi, Hamill, Keane), Man City (Jo), Man Utd (Chester), Newcastle (N'Zogbia), Portsmouth (Hyland), Sunderland (Chopra), West Ham (Davenport), Wigan (Camara, Taylor)

13 players in of whom 6 are intra-Prem transfers. 11 clubs acquiring.

OK which of those 13 players above could we reasonably have been expected (or wanted) to divert to Rovers since knowledge of Bert's injury came out?

[Stuart]

i think its very unfair to blame JW and the board for not signing anyone. bert got injured on saturday. you cant just turn around and sign whoever just because we need more midfielders. in reality we already signed his replacement in diouf. players are very very expencieve, and in january we need someone that would walk straight into the team. who would that be at a price of <£5m?

Sorry Hawkiiz, we needed another midfielder long before Emo got injured.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

Aside from N'Zogbia i wouldnt have wanted anyone from that list, and that only happened due to Ryan Taylor going the other way.

Although this window hasnt been great what is the point in compaining about it if there are no players out there to buy? Im sure if Sam was confident that a player was going to add significantly to the squad then he would have been purchased.

[blue/white]

I've a feeling the next 4 months will see many of us suffering from 'squeaky bum' syndrome.

the squad looks thin and starved of midfield quality (i know i've' hardly invented the wheel here).

[alexanders]

I agree with Hawkiz who said you can't blame JW or the board.

The January window is a bad thing.

You have only TWO possibilities to get somebody in;

1. Out-of-favour players in other clubs (Normally not the best players)

2. Overprized.

It only gives the big spenders advantages.

[John]

I think that Sam's good start

We have had a good start under Sam, but IMO we've had an easy run of fixtures. We are due to play some decent teams soon and then our weaknesses will be exposed.

[dj54nna]

No young players coming up We are just putting off squad building to the point where we will be hit by a tsunami of replacement needs all at once. No doubt the Trust are hoping to have sold by then.

We've got to get some of the chaff off the wage bill first, but who the bloody hell is going to pay money for Aaron Mokoena?

I think we've got a decent amount of young talent, but we're rarely in a safe enough winning situation to give them a run out in the first team, letting them cut their teeth as subs. Frank Fielding is an England U21, I don't see why he wasn't given the chance to move up instead of us signing Mark Bunn. More wages paid out on players who aren't completely necessary.

People seem to forget that our wage bill is 85% of our turnover, then ask where all the money goes from transfers.

[nicko]

Anichebe. Everton to Hull. Off. Couldn't agree the price of a loan deal.

Says it all really. Nobody can do deals any more.

Starting to think Rhys Williams to Burnley was the deal of the window.

[hawkiiz]

Sorry Hawkiiz, we needed another midfielder long before Emo got injured.

i agree, but because of that we got diouf - allowing bert to play either centre mid, right wing or right back depending on the situation. then he got injured and we are a bit screwed. i agree to that, but i dont think it's fair to blame sam or the board or the trust for that. i believe that if we wanted we could have had the egyptian, but i trust sam that he was not good enough. so what should we do? tried for zoro, but no work permit. all decent strikers were to expensieve. only deal i can see us doing is probably ben-haim who went to sunderland on loan.

i was pretty happy and confident untill bert got sidelined, and now i am gutted and scared to death that we might actually struggle for real.

then i think of pompey, barcodes, WBA, stoke, boro, hull and a few more, and get quite happy again. we might have a bad midfield, but we do have a pretty good defence, and a very strong strikeforce + IMO one of the very best managers you can dream of. we should be ok. lets just hope we have had our bad stint, and some of the others are just about to start on their.

[captainhaircut]

Nicko,

Can you confirm whats happening with Appiah at Spurs?

Now the window has closed, he's about the only signing out there with any quality.

I know he has dodgy knees, lungs etc, but a pay as you play contract could be useful. We could use him intermittently like we do Tugay.

[Tris]

I've a feeling the next 4 months will see many of us suffering from 'squeaky bum' syndrome.

the squad looks thin and starved of midfield quality (i know i've' hardly invented the wheel here).

The manager has been very very quick to come out and talk up his squad, live on SSN and now into the papers - this from the Guardian link posted earlier.

The most important thing was keeping a squad together that's a very good and tight-knit squad. I wanted to keep that unity and myself and [chairman] John Williams worked so hard in this window to make sure we resisted any bids from anybody. We're really pleased that we've managed to do that to help us secure, as quickly as possible, our Premier League status for another season."

It's his baby now and he has passed up the opportunity to get the baby some new toys. Time for the cynics to back the manager.

[nicko]

Nicko,

Can you confirm whats happening with Appiah at Spurs?

Now the window has closed, he's about the only signing out there with any quality.

I know he has dodgy knees, lungs etc, but a pay as you play contract could be useful. We could use him intermittently like we do Tugay.

Good name, fair point.

But he has been at Spurs for some time and they have not wanted to or been able to do a deal.

I am sure he will find a home...but is he fit?

Somebody will take a chance though. And there could be other drifters out there - with clubs short of players after a dire window and looking for them.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

We have had a good start under Sam, but IMO we've had an easy run of fixtures. We are due to play some decent teams soon and then our weaknesses will be exposed.

You could be right - but I think we should bare in mind that when Sam took over confidence was shot to pieces. So though they were easier matches - they weren't that easy considering the run we were on at the time.

Now confidence has, to an extent, been rebuilt - who knows how we will play against the more able teams. Sam has previously had a good record - so there is no reason to feel it may not be as bad as you are fearing.

I think Emo is a huge loss - a lot depends on how Diouf settles in - as Emo was usually the player that carried the ball out of defence more than most. We also need Simpson to step up as well - as I don't think Oiijer is the long term answer for right back.

Though the club didn't spend any money - they have effectively lost money on both t'Axe and Oiijer - as they will both potentially be out of contract in the summer. The board obviously felt it was as important to keep the squad together as it was to buy in new players. In many ways, though I would have liked to see a replacement for Emo - I think they should be applauded for not cashing in - something that they have previously been accused of.