Surely the club have been totally vindicated in the decision not to sack him? We don't need to wait until next season, as we already know it was the right decision. Yes, most other clubs would have, but we didn't.
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Caldwell out?
- Thread starter rooecfc
- Start date
DawlishBouy
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Unless the clubs give the EFL inaccurate information the table will be correct. The only motivation for a club to give the EFL false information would be to avoid breaching financial fair play rules. I think any club doing that would face severe consequences if found out.
Grecian Max
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Have to say I agree
edwin_price
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I'm not saying it would be incorrect, I'm saying things tend to be more complicated than this can capture... I doubt this kind of ranking would tell the full story.
I think it's probably a lot more complicated than it appears on the surface. How do you factor in things like signing-on fees, and the plethora of bonuses players could be entitled to (playing, win, goal, promotion etc)? Is Perk's salary included in the playing budget as he's registered to play? What about Jake Richards, who is an academy player? The amount paid for loanees can vary depending on appearances. There's loads of possible variables that muddy the waters.
Rosencrantz
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If we have the same performance/consistency as the first six and last ten games we would be promoted sometime in February! I think that is a tadge unrealistic. Our form since Boxing Day, with the greater understanding of play, growing confidence, additions in January, although still areas to improve in, give an example of what might be achievable given a good recruitment period over the summer. Over those 25 games, more than half the season, we were fifth in the form table. Orient played a game less and were two points worse off, but it would still have us in play offs. That doesn't point to being largely awful for most of the season. We had an extended awful spell of results for 13 games that we would all have wished had not have happened where deficiencies in the squad were highlighted. The form after showed that these were, at least partly, fixed.
Next season will be a different challenge with different clubs to compete with. We are still in a building phase (rather than rebuilding as last summer) and will have to see how that recruitment goes. Regardless of where we sit in the budget table, we know it will be below where we all and GC will want to finish. We will more likely than not go through some more difficult spells, just hopefully not as difficult as that last one. I think GC has proved that he deserves the challenge he faces and actually sets himself and the team. He is probably the most ambitious manager we have had in terms of what he expects and what he thinks we can achieve. He is also realistic, and so must we be, of the time frame that might take.
Red Bill
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I would absolutely agree that there is a ceiling and I think upper L1 is probably it. I don't believe we could sustain championship football without some very create thinking on revenue generation. Upper L1 does create the possibility of occasional forays into the championship though, no matter how brief these stay might be and that would be very different to my experience of being a City fan over the last 50 years. The 90's and early 00's were a time when I had least connection to the club as I'd moved to London and didn't have much opportunity to keep up with what was going on at City, so can't comment on what fans from that period were thinking.
I don't really go along with your theory on us being under-achievers. Exeter has seen population growth but its still a very small city and other places have also seen their towns and cities grow too. I do find the population growth an interesting one though. You made some comments about this a while a go and that got me looking into how we might have expected gates to grow as a result. Having had an afternoon with nothing to do, I tried nerdily to work it out. So I tried to work out the percentage of population that goes to football for L1 clubs and found that this varied wildly. Fans attending their local clubs as a percentage of population through threw up some unexpected results. Fleetwood scoring by far the highest with bout 13% of the population going to matches, and Burton with 2.2% the lowest. So I tried to work out and average, which came to 5.9% for L1. We had 5%. Anyway some how I worked out that given Exeters population growth over the last 30 years we could expect our gates to be about 1400 higher than 30 years ago. Given our most recent crowds (maybe at the time of my workings) we were averaging 6686, I'd say we'd more than realised the increases expected from population growth.
However, in doing this highly nerdy exercise, I realised my figures were absolute nonsense, as there are so many other factors at play in looking at crowd numbers. Stature and prestige of the club, club history, current form, form over the last few seasons, are they resurgent clubs or are they in decline to name but a few. But equally important is the demographics, who live in the area and are they typical football goers? If there has been population growth, who has moved in? Are they likely to be football fans and in what proportion. Whilst there are millions of middle class people who like football and attend matches, they are still less likely than working class people to do so based on my experience. From what I've seen, admittedly in Devons more rural areas, the vast majority of incomers, have been middle class. So Just because people have move to Exeter or its catchment area, there's no way of finding a proportional increase likely on those attending SJP.
But none of that really has anything to do with the point I was making, which was that if getting private ownership/investment is the answer as many appear to have suggested it is, and all the "small and average clubs" you refer to already have that, why would our budget be better than theirs when we don't?
Mid Devon Grecian
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I think our model allows us to compete despite less resource. We know we can’t overspend so we’re more imaginative and thoughtful about how we spend our money. We don’t waste anywhere near as much as other clubs (Muskwe & Scott excepted
)Fleetwood and FGR are great examples of having moneybags owners but no end result. Think Cheltenham are owned through a BVI or Caymans company!
Super Ronnie Jepson
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I don't think it matters if the budget is 23rd largest or 16th largest or whatever in the league does it?
What matters most is a) what we do with it b) are we able to supplement it sufficiently with home-grown players and c) whether or not the club remains sustainable.
On point a) you've got to say GC has played a blinder in the main. To bring in players of the quality of Mitchell, Aitchison, Aimson, Cole, Carroll, Jules on permanent and Sinisalo, Ryan Woods and Rankine on loans within our meagre budget is impressive. Added to that, the younger players like Harper and Alli are promising. Obviously there's been some mis-steps along the way but that's to be expected.
On point b) we're still producing young players capable of playing League One football. We've had numerous discussions here about a perceived reduction recently but with Diabate, Cox, Richards, Borges and maybe a couple more waiting in the wings I think academy-produced players still enable GC to allocate a bigger percentage of playing budget to attracting external players than he would otherwise
Finally, on point c) in comparison to almost our entire history we're better placed than ever to be flexible with budgets (for example spend a little more if we have less academy products). This, for me is where the extra expectation comes from. You only have to look at those figures Kieran Maguire issued - yes there are many clubs in this league that have a bigger budget than us, but not many seem to have a long-term vision or stability. On this, retaining GC was clearly a good decision and I was wrong in wanting him gone and the board deserves huge credit for sticking to their principles. But I still think we can finish higher in this league.
What matters most is a) what we do with it b) are we able to supplement it sufficiently with home-grown players and c) whether or not the club remains sustainable.
On point a) you've got to say GC has played a blinder in the main. To bring in players of the quality of Mitchell, Aitchison, Aimson, Cole, Carroll, Jules on permanent and Sinisalo, Ryan Woods and Rankine on loans within our meagre budget is impressive. Added to that, the younger players like Harper and Alli are promising. Obviously there's been some mis-steps along the way but that's to be expected.
On point b) we're still producing young players capable of playing League One football. We've had numerous discussions here about a perceived reduction recently but with Diabate, Cox, Richards, Borges and maybe a couple more waiting in the wings I think academy-produced players still enable GC to allocate a bigger percentage of playing budget to attracting external players than he would otherwise
Finally, on point c) in comparison to almost our entire history we're better placed than ever to be flexible with budgets (for example spend a little more if we have less academy products). This, for me is where the extra expectation comes from. You only have to look at those figures Kieran Maguire issued - yes there are many clubs in this league that have a bigger budget than us, but not many seem to have a long-term vision or stability. On this, retaining GC was clearly a good decision and I was wrong in wanting him gone and the board deserves huge credit for sticking to their principles. But I still think we can finish higher in this league.
Grecian Max
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Big fan of posts like this
Exeter is the 10th fastest growing city in the country over the last 10 years and we should be taking advantage of that as well as adapting to a new normal (hopefully) where our core fanbase is permanently raised
