[Archived] WBA

[SoldierMo]

Anybody read the following article? Same John Williams that was at rovers? i would still have him back

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bbc.co.uk/sport/amp/football/43543439

[tomphil]

He was always a bit too generous to some players wages wise although he had the mantra that what you pay should reflect in your league position more often than not. Trouble is I think he liked parity between players which didn't always work out well, Keith Andrews three pay rises sliding up the scale on appearances to put him on 33 grand per week on the back of a gentleman John handshake being a prime example.

[Bigdoggsteel]

2 hours ago, tomphil said:

He was always a bit too generous to some players wages wise although he had the mantra that what you pay should reflect in your league position more often than not. Trouble is I think he liked parity between players which didn't always work out well, Keith Andrews three pay rises sliding up the scale on appearances to put him on 33 grand per week on the back of a gentleman John handshake being a prime example.

A good honest pro who was making the starting 11. Why shouldn't he receive equal pay? 

[Mattyblue]

So all 11 players should receive equal pay regardless of ability or value?

[blueboy3333]

Just now, Mattyblue said:

So all 11 players should receive equal pay regardless of ability or value?

Andrews played for Ireland. BDS loses all perspective because of that.

[Exiled in Toronto]

3 hours ago, SoldierMo said:

Anybody read the following article? Same John Williams that was at rovers? i would still have him back

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bbc.co.uk/sport/amp/football/43543439

That is actually quite a shocking state of affairs, spending record sums to fail so miserably. 

[tomphil]

1 hour ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

A good honest pro who was making the starting 11. Why shouldn't he receive equal pay? 

He came from league 1 on relative peanuts then in no time at all he was earning the same as Benni McCarthy. 

The man, like Jason Lowe after him should have been paid more in line with his own worth not other players worth.

[Bigdoggsteel]

1 hour ago, blueboy3333 said:

Andrews played for Ireland. BDS loses all perspective because of that.

No. It's just Andrews gets picked on completely unfairly. If what you claim was the case I would stand up for Best and Duffy, no? Stop talking nonsense 

[Mike E]

1 hour ago, tomphil said:

He came from league 1 on relative peanuts then in no time at all he was earning the same as Benni McCarthy. 

The man, like Jason Lowe after him should have been paid more in line with his own worth not other players worth.

If I remember rightly, he'd only just been promoted from L2 prior to signing for us, without playing a L1 game.

[RevidgeBlue]

7 hours ago, Exiled in Toronto said:

That is actually quite a shocking state of affairs, spending record sums to fail so miserably. 

To play devil's advocate in defence of John Williams and Martin Goodman i suspect the incoming guy is exaggerating the situation somewhat to make it look like he is doing a miraculous job when he gets things back on the straight and narrow. John Williams has always been steadfast in his belief that your final League position more or less corresponds with your relative wage budget and on that basis he was content to run the wage budget here at ostensibly a very unhealthy looking ratio of around 90% to turnover and also to run an overdraft of around £20 m which he felt was serviceable for a Premier League Club.

Likewise he was probably prepared to push the boat out a bit in terms of wages at West Brom and utilise an overdraft if necessary although again to be fair when budgets were drawn up pre season they probably didn't anticipate things going quite so pear shaped and attendances and revenue dropping off quite so sharply without which revenues would probably have been sufficient to meet the wages for the season etc.

Where they did go wrong seemingly however was with all the major footballing decisions: hanging onto Pullis far too long (shades of Souness) appointing a terrible replacement in Pardew and generally recruiting really badly in the transfer market.

When John was here as well we apparently had a suicidal policy whereby ageing players were guaranteed a new contract as soon as they'd completed a relatively small number of appearances per  season so that policy if left unchecked would probably have caused massive problems here a bit further down the line had the Walker Trust remained in control. So he's by no means infallible.

[chaddyrovers]

It appears to be massive mess there..

They backed Pulis last summer instead of sacking him and appoint a new manager. Then sacked Pulis and replace him with Pardew. Such a poor choice. 

Expect Pardew gone in the summer with Pearson or Appleton to take over

[K-Hod]

Re Andrews, I gave him stick because he was rubbish at football. nothing more.

There was a myth that he used to work hard, when I can remember him ducking out of tackles on numerous occasions. One in particular against Chelsea where Anelka pulled it back for Drogba who then scored....

[Bigdoggsteel]

11 hours ago, tomphil said:

He came from league 1 on relative peanuts then in no time at all he was earning the same as Benni McCarthy. 

The man, like Jason Lowe after him should have been paid more in line with his own worth not other players worth.

He was making the starting 11, so I don't see the issue. In fact you could say McCarthy was being underpaid compared to other players in the league. 

Andrews does nothing but speak highly of the club when on the radio or TV over here. I always find it weird when he is held up as an example of something bad. He was a good honest, hard working pro. Not a superstar ,but when you compare him to the wages we were paying the shower of shit that came after him, Andrews was pretty good value. 

Now if we were paying him those wages in the Championship, a la Mr Lowe, I would completely agree. 

[Norbert Rassragr]

Andrews was like Emile Heskey, he tried hard to play football but was not very good. Unlike players like Best or Murphy who, in a Rovers shirt couldn't play football and really did not bother to try.

[tomphil]

37 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

He was making the starting 11, so I don't see the issue. In fact you could say McCarthy was being underpaid compared to other players in the league. 

Andrews does nothing but speak highly of the club when on the radio or TV over here. I always find it weird when he is held up as an example of something bad. He was a good honest, hard working pro. Not a superstar ,but when you compare him to the wages we were paying the shower of shit that came after him, Andrews was pretty good value. 

Now if we were paying him those wages in the Championship, a la Mr Lowe, I would completely agree. 

He's not being held up as a bad example and there is a myth around Andrews time at Ewood that sounds like he was a pantomime villain or something, he wasn't. He got a few cat calls now and then and the usual Ewood grumbles in fact I can recall him getting hearty rounds of applause like other players when he came off the bench to warm up as a sub.

Similar with Jason Lowe, just because these guys get panned across social media doesn't mean there was a lynch mob in the ground every game, most people just vent their spleens when they get home.

On the wages thing again it was an example of how Mr Williams tended to operate and he was over generous at times it seems but he had his reasons, squad harmony, wages reflecting league position etc.  However in the case of Andrews coming in because he was Inces pal at 29 years old and probably at least doubling his wages straight off anyway I think it was very generous and a bit misguided to then propel him onto a contract of proven top ten Premier League players when in truth it was fairly obvious his limited abilities meant he was never going to be anything other than a squad man.

I'm sure there were others who got treated similar but that was just the one that got mentioned in the press at the time, can't remember if it was in the LT or Nixon, who was well in back then. I think it went something like 25k to 29k to 33k quite quickly and all done on a handshake, a man of his word which is great credit to him but another example of how football is bonkers.

I doubt he's to blame for the West Brom mess totally though it looks like some buck passing going on there - again standard stuff in the football industry.

 

[Bigdoggsteel]

5 minutes ago, tomphil said:

He's not being held up as a bad example and there is a myth around Andrews time at Ewood that sounds like he was a pantomime villain or something, he wasn't. He got a few cat calls now and then and the usual Ewood grumbles in fact I can recall him getting hearty rounds of applause like other players when he came off the bench to warm up as a sub.

Similar with Jason Lowe, just because these guys get panned across social media doesn't mean there was a lynch mob in the ground every game, most people just vent their spleens when they get home.

On the wages thing again it was an example of how Mr Williams tended to operate and he was over generous at times it seems but he had his reasons, squad harmony, wages reflecting league position etc.  However in the case of Andrews coming in because he was Inces pal at 29 years old and probably at least doubling his wages straight off anyway I think it was very generous and a bit misguided to then propel him onto a contract of proven top ten Premier League players when in truth it was fairly obvious his limited abilities meant he was never going to be anything other than a squad man.

I'm sure there were others who got treated similar but that was just the one that got mentioned in the press at the time, can't remember if it was in the LT or Nixon, who was well in back then. I think it went something like 25k to 29k to 33k quite quickly and all done on a handshake, a man of his word which is great credit to him but another example of how football is bonkers.

I doubt he's to blame for the West Brom mess totally though it looks like some buck passing going on there - again standard stuff in the football industry.

 

Good points, well made  

In general Williams was good here, but in hindsight he should have looked to push us on more under Hughes. Everything was in place for us to have a real go at the top 4 or to win a cup. Hughes had assembled a class squad. A huge missed opportunity. 

Not being a supporter, it is hard to know where exactly things went wrong at West Brom. I thought they made some decent signings during the summer. My guess would be that it may be due to the fact they stuck with Pulis too long. I could imagine him being toxic if things aren't going his way. He isn't a ray of sunshine at the best of times. 

Williams probably feels like he was shafted twice by foreign owners though 

[tomphil]

Impatient foreign owners who've been told chuck a few quid in and your team will be in the top five, all advised by advisors who stand to make a good living from any merry go round of managers and players etc probably

I'd have Williams back for sure but it would never happen now in fact I wouldn't be surprised if examples like Andrews were used to back stab him.

[DE.]

2 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Andrews does nothing but speak highly of the club when on the radio or TV over here.

Tbf he seemed to be quite obviously rooting for Wigan when he was a pundit for Sky a few weeks ago. Also, how and why did his hair go from this:

To this

[Bigdoggsteel]

5 minutes ago, DE. said:

Tbf he seemed to be quite obviously rooting for Wigan when he was a pundit for Sky a few weeks ago. Also, how and why did his hair go from this:

To this

I wouldn't say he was rooting for them from what I heard, he just though they would win. He wasn't the only one who thought that I would imagine

Ya, the hair is ridiculous. He said on the radio his missus is demeaning he get it cut, but that he likes it. Lucky he didn't have it while here, would have slowed him down a fair bit. 

[Norbert Rassragr]

To be honest, that's how my hair goes after a few months. Now, Dennis Wise on the other hand..........

[tomphil]

At least he didn't go down the beard route as well that would have been a right interesting combo

He's a decent pundit to be fair though.

[AllRoverAsia]

38 minutes ago, DE. said:

Tbf he seemed to be quite obviously rooting for Wigan when he was a pundit for Sky a few weeks ago. Also, how and why did his hair go from this:

To this

He looks like a mop, the sort Gran used to wash and wipe her floor with when I was a kid.

[Exiled in Toronto]

7 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

To play devil's advocate in defence of John Williams and Martin Goodman i suspect the incoming guy is exaggerating the situation somewhat to make it look like he is doing a miraculous job when he gets things back on the straight and narrow. John Williams has always been steadfast in his belief that your final League position more or less corresponds with your relative wage budget and on that basis he was content to run the wage budget here at ostensibly a very unhealthy looking ratio of around 90% to turnover and also to run an overdraft of around £20 m which he felt was serviceable for a Premier League Club.

Likewise he was probably prepared to push the boat out a bit in terms of wages at West Brom and utilise an overdraft if necessary although again to be fair when budgets were drawn up pre season they probably didn't anticipate things going quite so pear shaped and attendances and revenue dropping off quite so sharply without which revenues would probably have been sufficient to meet the wages for the season etc.

Where they did go wrong seemingly however was with all the major footballing decisions: hanging onto Pullis far too long (shades of Souness) appointing a terrible replacement in Pardew and generally recruiting really badly in the transfer market.

When John was here as well we apparently had a suicidal policy whereby ageing players were guaranteed a new contract as soon as they'd completed a relatively small number of appearances per  season so that policy if left unchecked would probably have caused massive problems here a bit further down the line had the Walker Trust remained in control. So he's by no means infallible.

All reasonable points but he gets paid a shed load of money and sits in the corner office, so has to be accountable for outcomes. Spending more than you have ever spent, and actually borrowing despite stratospheric Sky money, to be effectively relegated in March is a catastrophic outcome. Heads deservedly rolled.

[blueboy3333]

Just now, Exiled in Toronto said:

All reasonable points but he gets paid a shed load of money and sits in the corner office, so has to be accountable for outcomes. Spending more than you have ever spent, and actually borrowing despite stratospheric Sky money, to be effectively relegated in March is a catastrophic outcome. Heads deservedly rolled.

Excellent PR man was John Williams, but overrated as a football administrator. Theorizing that more wages = higher league placing and then appointing Ince to put the theory into practice was lunacy. Hughes was the opposite side of the coin, a fantastic appointment.

The Saint John stuff is nauseating.

[tomphil]

He certainly preferred directing any available funds into wages for players who could contribute to the first team squad straight away when the finances became tight. Shame because it worked buying young talent in Bentley after a trial period and it would have done again with the lad from Pompey Hughes wanted but an ambitious young manager was always going to test John to the limit in how far he'd go. In reality though his remit was simply to keep the club in the Prem.

That's why him and Sam were a great match up in many ways, Warnock sold and money straight into wages for Salgado and Chimbonda etc but that policy will always catch up pretty quickly if you don't unearth from your academy a player to sell every few years and just rely soley on the tv money to keep increasing to cover it.

Odd though the lack of investment when you consider he squeezed a loan out of the trust to buy the land outside Ewood that's now a car park !