This Time Last Year

55% of income might be all that clubs are allowed to spend on wages but that doesn't mean that all clubs will use the whole 55%. Whether that includes us or not I really don't know, and of course there are still ways of fudging it so that your 55% is a lot more than maybe it ought to be.

I'm actually quietly optimistic about on field events this coming season. Reid got better the more games he played for us last season and nowhe's here for the whole year, Lewis was a regular in a promotion winning League 1 club, so what if it's only Yeovil, they reached the play-offs and won them so I doubt that Lewis is a complete dummy if he played 30 games for them.

Then there's the Banton/Parsons rumour which certainly looks like it has legs and if you read the Palace forums they're on the whole disappointed in these two going to lowly Argyle for a year because they're both rated so highly, so if this does happen that's 2 quality players for the season.

Bhasera hasn't even got the good grace to show up for training and telling the boss he's leaving so he can feck off and divide opinion at another League 2 side as far as I'm concerned, Parsons sounds like a more than adequate replacement.

My views on McCormick are well known, I don't think he can be anywhere near as good as he was before he fecked his and others lives up, so I'm not overly excited by this but he can't be as bad as Gilmartin.

So another striker and confirmation that Chadwick and Feeney have left would do for now and that's quite a step up in terms of quality for the squad on what we started last season with.

I won't be getting the bunting out for a mid-table finish, but it would be good not to be biting my nails so much I suppose. I still think it shouldn't take much to get out of this shitty league and Sheridan turned around the team who had been sinking fast under Fletcher so I wouldn't be surprised if we do ok this season.

A good brief synopsis.

Sheridan (a la Sturrock) could be the right man in the right place at the right time.

I don't buy the line that says this is a diffcult league to get out of. Most of the teams and games I saw last year were woeful and of a very low standard. In fact the worse over a season that I had ever seen (though I admit the memory dims). And Sheridan being able to pull together a dog sh*t fag end of a Fletcher squad into playoff form so easily kind of proves that the League last was terrible.

I have hopes beyond a relegation scrap and though I feel cantankerous saying it even promotion (welcome though it would be) would be nothing more than the club should be able to achieve.

I like Sheridan, he seems to have some spine. 

The budget will have probably been dictated by the financial accounts which may make interesting reading next week. I doubt the accounts will look all that brilliant so I think it's a safe bet that the budget won't be all that brilliant. We all know what happens when the budget is allowed off its leash without a healthy bank account to support it.

I don't think we'll find out anything with the publication of the financial accounts - I think (only think) that JB will only publish October 2011 - May/June 2012 accounts, using the cost of admin as reasons for the poor performance. The losses incurred last season (again best estimate around £1.5million covered by loans) will be hidden until this time next year, when hopefully better news on the pitch will push the significance of these losses down the priority list of many.

I estimate that our budget this year will be around the £1million mark which will be just above the average (Pompey set £1.1 million). I think Shezza is a shrewd operator, able to use this money as well as anyone in this dogshite League. Fitness will be absolutely key to this year's campaign. By the time Shezza has finished in the market I reckon our first 11 will be as good as most but we won't go as deep. Injuries and ill discipline could leave us lower half, but with an instilled discipline and a little luck we could (and should) be Top 10 and in with a shout.

Yup fair point Damon, from Brent's point of view a dodgy set of accounts wouldn't do him any favors at the moment.

The timing of Brent's development is quite crucial, start it too late and he will have to continue to bail out the Club and the amount of borrowing the Club has taken from Brent will be shown in the accounts. It could possibly be a debt that would place the Club back in the position that it was a few years ago but less the land asset which would have been stripped used for Brents development.

Argyle as a club should not be where it is. Obviously the league tables never lie and it is true that Argyle has been a staggeringly poor team, and getting worse, for each and every one of the last 5 years but it would take completely inept management of the club to replicate the bad luck, poor decision-making, short-termism, profligacy, greed, dishonesty, double-crossing, back-stabbing, negligence and naievety that created those poor teams. You'd have to be a particularly peculiar breed of sociopath/idiot/bungler to keep such a run going.

In short if you sink low enough down the divisions you will start to rise again. And we have sunk more than low enough. Luckily we have dodged the bullet, twice, and have lived to fight another day.

I, too, have every confidence in Sheridan and as long as he isn't actually hampered by more bad luck, poor decision-making, short-termism, profligacy, greed, dishonesty, double-crossing, back-stabbing, negligence and naïvety I expect him to build a successful team. We may not get promoted this season, although you never know and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we were, but I fully expect us to be promoted within the next three years. This promotion when it comes will obviously be used to proclaim Brent's business savvy in certain quarters but, in fact, it will only represent the natural order of things re-asserting itself. Success for us means rather more than League 1 status but it would be a welcome start.

Whether we ever get to go any higher than League 1, given the paucity of ambition shown by Brent's inadequate and muddled development plan, remains to be seen.

It's obvious we will have less money to spend than a team with a similar fanbase, don't forget that it is Argyle who are really buying the club for the reluctant owner by way of paying all the staff debt, add to that the money JB so generously loaned the club to tide over his mismanagement of the club in his first two seasons (I wonder what he was so busy doing?)and that must in real terms half the amount of ticket money available to spend on the team, I would guess we are on a par with Torquay or Exeter budget wise, sensible ostrich will disagree, but that's how I see it.
Ps. Unless of course JB has decided to have the loan repayed in a few years time when he doesn't need the club any more.

How much did sturrock spend to put together the squad that won this league in 02 ?

Ah a new name Iggy. Thanks I'll put it on my list with all the rest.

I'm a bit curious why Ostrich though. If that is meant to say I'm burying my head in the sand over the budget then I think I've already said it won't be the best and won't be the worst. Actually I haven't given an opinion on a figure so I don't think anything I've said above is ignoring reality. If it's just generally then I'm not sure I've done that either. The "it will get built" is just my opinion not a vote of approval. Lack of protest numbers is just a guess also as anyone's would be without figures released. Judging stuff on it's individual merits isn't burying my head either rather than just condemning everything out of hand. Just because people want it to be doesn't make everything bad.

Your question above sums it up Dane. Who knows what it was he had to spend because I don't. Who knows how it compared to others because again I don't. What's that old expression, it's not what you've got it's what you do with it that counts.

SG ..I'll make an educated wankers guess.The crowds pre-Sturrock were as low as 4000 with around 2000 season ticket holders,,, on present day figures probably a budget of around £750k.So a lot less than Sheridan has at his disposal one would imagine. Sturrock made a silk purse out of a sow's ear and the directors at the time were extremely grateful.Whether Sheridan can repeat the trick remains to be seen.

The thing is that it is possible to do well and even very well on a lesser budget than others may have in the football league. Not so sure that's true in the premiership however. We did it before and other teams have done it as well. Yeovil are a pretty good example close to home. Blackpool are another. As I said it isn't always what you've got.

Team spirit & organisation are almost all you need.
Sturrock proved that, not sure sheridan will be able to do the same with the ageing Branston & Wotton.

greensleeves wrote:

SG ..I'll make an educated wankers guess.The crowds pre-Sturrock were as low as 4000 with around 2000 season ticket holders,,, on present day figures probably a budget of around £750k.So a lot less than Sheridan has at his disposal one would imagine. Sturrock made a silk purse out of a sow's ear and the directors at the time were extremely grateful.Whether Sheridan can repeat the trick remains to be seen.

The gates were not the only factor in determining Sturrock's budget,there was Nick Warren's wallet as well.There is no way that players such as Coughlan,Worrell,Hodges,Evans,Keith etc,who were all playing at a higher level [significantly higher in some cases], would have come to Argyle for peanuts, no matter how persuasive Sturrock's negotiating skills and reputation were.Certainly there weren't any major transfer fees paid but the wage bill? It would be very interesting to see the accounts for that year and then a comparative league table with the other clubs in the division-i would say that Argyle would definitely have been among the higher payers in the league.

Elias wrote:

Team spirit & organisation are almost all you need.
Sturrock proved that, not sure sheridan will be able to do the same with the ageing Branston & Wotton.

A bit of quality helps too.

For me, Sturrock did so well the first time as he had a small club, a fit squad and didn't have players out injured or facing suspensions. The fact we played 33 different players last season is insane. Loanees come in and I understand that but they shouldn't be what you base your hopes for the season upon. I'd prefer a small, settled squad who remain fit.