Light hearted discussion, how much to establish us as..............

............a Premiership club?

Just musing in the shower this morning. Now, this is by no means meant to be a wholly serious discussion since in all likelihood we are on current form heading in the opposite direction.

How much money would it take to establish us in the Premiership by 2020? This was sparked by Sheikh Mansour spending gazillions on Man City. How would you go about it?

Here we are rock bottom of the football league and five points adrift. What's the first thing you do? Manager? Players? How long a contract do you hand out? Do you get a few decent players in to steady the ship on say, two year deals? Or do you do what happened at Notts County and get Sven and Heskey in - I know that was all a con, and didn't really work. I don't think you can get Prem/CCC decent players to perform at their best in the lower leagues, no matter how much you pay them.

Me, I'd put in a decent manager and give him a generous, but not stupidly so, budget to keep us up. After that, I guess more of the same each year until we are mid table mediocrity in the Premiership. How many millions though?

I agree get in a proven lower league manager, if you have gazilleons try to lure olly back, ask him what budget he needs.

Cerbera wrote:

............a Premiership club?

Just musing in the shower this morning. Now, this is by no means meant to be a wholly serious discussion since in all likelihood we are on current form heading in the opposite direction.

How much money would it take to establish us in the Premiership by 2020? This was sparked by Sheikh Mansour spending gazillions on Man City. How would you go about it?

Here we are rock bottom of the football league and five points adrift. What's the first thing you do? Manager? Players? How long a contract do you hand out? Do you get a few decent players in to steady the ship on say, two year deals? Or do you do what happened at Notts County and get Sven and Heskey in - I know that was all a con, and didn't really work. I don't think you can get Prem/CCC decent players to perform at their best in the lower leagues, no matter how much you pay them.

Me, I'd put in a decent manager and give him a generous, but not stupidly so, budget to keep us up. After that, I guess more of the same each year until we are mid table mediocrity in the Premiership. How many millions though?

The QPR story I think. We will have a lot further to travel now but with cash backed ambition, PAFC may not be a sleeping giant but it sure as hell would be bigger than the current bottom 5 in the PL, plus a few others.

Olly?

No. He's seen the big time and wouldn't want a 'backward step' to do it all again.

I reckon putting someone from the conference in charge might work, along the lines of Nigel Clough moving from Burton back in the day. The secret would be not getting all Toon Army and expecting instant results and having too many managers and throwing the money away for no gain.

Choose wisely! Choose once!

Warnock........... he has a retirement home here already and has a few years left in him.

Warnock?

He's having the time of his life where he is. Just like The Blades all over again.

He'd not want to come back to HP.

Nope, realistically no well known 'name' would want to come down, even with the relative unlimited funds. Imagine having loads of spare cash and still being relegated? It would take someone who can work magic with not a great deal to start with, then bring in a few choice (but not necessarily bargain basement) players to get us moving upwards again.

The man we require is currently available.

Gary Johnson.

Fantastic record in the lower leagues as good as Sturrock and came within a whisker of taking Bristol City to the promise land.

Cerbera wrote:

It would take someone who can work magic with not a great deal to start with, then bring in a few choice (but not necessarily bargain basement) players to get us moving upwards again.

Step forward ... Tony Waiters!

Peggy wrote:

Cerbera wrote:

It would take someone who can work magic with not a great deal to start with, then bring in a few choice (but not necessarily bargain basement) players to get us moving upwards again.

Step forward ... Tony Waiters!

pepsipete wrote:

I agree get in a proven lower league manager, if you have gazilleons try to lure olly back, ask him what budget he needs.

If we had gazilleons, olly would be the last person i would want spending it, very good manager, and motivator, full of shit at times but aint we all, but i dont think he would be great with an open chq book, ala leicester.

Arch Stanton wrote:

The man we require is currently available.

Gary Johnson.

Fantastic record in the lower leagues as good as Sturrock and came within a whisker of taking Bristol City to the promise land.

Im with you on that, rough time at northampton, but most mangers go through blips. Will be far more productive than fletcher. The club just doesnt seem to learn from their mistakes, a rookie manager cost us the championship status, dont let a rookie cost us league status.

Peggy wrote:

Cerbera wrote:

It would take someone who can work magic with not a great deal to start with, then bring in a few choice (but not necessarily bargain basement) players to get us moving upwards again.

Step forward ... Tony Waiters!

Best manager in my time as a supporter,would have taken us to the first division if it hadn't been for that two faced prat Daniel and his prat of a board.He's still involved in football,albeit still in Canada-a loss to English football,IMHO.

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Greenskin wrote:

Peggy wrote:

Cerbera wrote:

It would take someone who can work magic with not a great deal to start with, then bring in a few choice (but not necessarily bargain basement) players to get us moving upwards again.

Step forward ... Tony Waiters!

Best manager in my time as a supporter,would have taken us to the first division if it hadn't been for that two faced prat Daniel and his prat of a board.He's still involved in football,albeit still in Canada-a loss to English football,IMHO.

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Yup!

Has he retired yet?

A team can probably get to the Championship fairly cheaply. Look at Stevenage for example. BSP, League 2 and now 7th in League 1, in two and a half seasons.

As far as I know, they haven't spent a fortune getting there. To push on though, they will need to invest a bit come January.

The real problem is the Championship. There are a lot of big clubs there, many with parachute payments. I reckon 7 to 10 million investment to give you a chance of reaching the Premier League?

Once in the Premier League though the stakes are raised. Invest another 10 million and hope you can avoid the drop or become a yo-yo side and build from there with the aid of parachute payments (ala Blackpool and Hull?).

On another note, the teams promoted from the BSP usually do well in their first season in League 2: they are decent League 2 standard. That's why we cannot afford to go down this season as unless we get lucky, as we could be there for quite a few seasons!

As JV says, and was indeed born out by Sturrock MK1, you don't need a massive player budget to hoist a club up to Championship level.

If we had a big pile of cash lying about to spend on the club, I'd want it invested in the set-up more than getting in a load of expensive players - at least initially. An experienced back room staff in all areas pertinent to getting the most out of the players, proper training, fitness and medical facilities and so on should come first as they, to me, would appear to be the solid foundations upon which to build. The Grandstand/Mayflower/offices may be an eyesore but arguably they play second fiddle to facilities and staff around the playing staff.

To use a ridiculous baking analogy, we need a master baker to come in and sort us out with a top notch sponge cake (the foundations as per the above) and then layer it up with some tasty icing (fit-for-purpose players). With that done we can think about adding some decoration as we prise ourselves away from the bottom division, and then once League One is conquered think about adding some extra layers to the cake (in the form of those more expensive players).

I think it must be dinner time...

I've no idea if Johnson fits the bill for the above - perhaps others might know what he's done for club infrastructures? Whatever, I shiver at thinking about Ridsdale sorting it out.

I don't think you can purely base this on players and managers alone. One of Argyle's failings in the Championship was that the facilities were absolutely disgraceful. As well as the team, the infrastructure would need serious investment to ensure longevity as an Upper Championship/Lower prem club.This would range from practice pitches, gyms, indoor venues through to the youth set up.

The Argyle youth set up has been forgotten recently (for obvious reasons) so perhaps once the new Trust is established (after elections etc) this should be one of the main areas of focus (as in the past).

Chemical Ali wrote:

The Argyle youth set up has been forgotten recently (for obvious reasons) so perhaps once the new Trust is established (after elections etc) this should be one of the main areas of focus (as in the past).

Unfortunately, and not just for Argyle, I think the Premiershit's Elite Player Performance Plan, which Football League clubs somehow voted in favour of, means youth development will become less of a priority. Under the plan it seems to me that serious investment in proper youth set-ups just won't make financial sense in the future. Very sad indeed.

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