Ollie Palmer

Quoted from HertsGTFC

I’m not sure how that’s sustainable even if they go up.

What is promotion worth? Wasn't it estimated that relegation last time cost us £500k per year so you can assume promotion is worth at least that.

If they go up Mullen alone has cost them at least half of that (£5k per week is the "sensible" estimate of his wages) then £300k for Palmer plus £100k in wages and any signing on fee either of them have.

Not even mentioned goal bonuses or promotion bonuses but them 2 alone are probably setting them back close to £1m this season.

I would not have paid 300k for Palmer, but I would have paid £250k for Tshimanga - a red hot striker in demand, a good age with bags of sell-on potential, but as I said before we didn't want to pay the going rate for an in-demand player. £250k is not a lot in the great scheme of things. Yes he would have demanded better wages because he was in demand, but that is always going to be the case if we want to progress.

I bet they are regretting it now. He must be worth a lot more than Chesterfield paid.    

Quoted from mimma

People point to Harrogate and Sutton that went up without spending money. They built promotion sides slowly, giving the manager time to build their squads. Their teams were put together when the right players became available instead of spending a fortune in one or two transfer windows. Halifax would appear to be doing the same this year, biding their time and picking up players when they are available to them.

Not entirely true. Harrogate had a benefactor ploughing in money to boost their playing budget way beyond their income level and Sutton had a massive FA Cup windfall to boost their coffers.

With the amount of loans and short term deals and huge numbers of senior players out of contract in the summer, we aren't even squad building never mind finding out ways to compete with the biggest spenders in the division who have all got around the same matchday income as us.

We've got to find a way to properly squad build and also compete wages wise or else this club is going to die on its arsse, new owners or not..

We gonna sit down here season after season pointing at (insert here four or five different club names) every season who we can't compete with wages wise while we pootle about with the likes of Solihull, Bromley, Woking etc? We need to approach getting out of this league in a different way like bringing in new investors through fresh additional share issues specifically to boost the playing budget as getting out of non-league asap has got to be priority number one by a very long way. We can still improve our infrastructure at the same time as planned as the fresh investment will be unplanned new money. It would be up to the board to work out ways for the new ownership dynamic to work..

Whatever we are doing is not working and it didn't last time. We were a Monkhouse injury away from being still down here imho..

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

I would not have paid 300k for Palmer, but I would have paid £250k for Tshimanga - a red hot striker in demand, a good age with bags of sell-on potential, but as I said before we didn't want to pay the going rate for an in-demand player. £250k is not a lot in the great scheme of things. Yes he would have demanded better wages because he was in demand, but that is always going to be the case if we want to progress.

I bet they are regretting it now. He must be worth a lot more than Chesterfield paid.    

Boreham Wood played a blinder with Tshimanga, didn’t they? I’m really concerned that we will find ourselves in this league for a long time as I don’t see us being able to compete financially with more ambitious clubs and teams coming down.

I’m all for improving the club, the facilities, the infrastructure, the ethos and whatever else needs to happen but the one thing we can’t do is make ourselves geographically more attractive. Amazing, in retrospect, to think we could attract the likes of Birtles and Whymark in years gone by.

Quoted from Bigdog

Not entirely true. Harrogate had a benefactor ploughing in money to boost their playing budget way beyond their income level and Sutton had a massive FA Cup windfall to boost their coffers.

With the amount of loans and short term deals and huge numbers of senior players out of contract in the summer, we aren't even squad building never mind finding out ways to compete with the biggest spenders in the division who have all got around the same matchday income as us.

We've got to find a way to properly squad build and also compete wages wise or else this club is going to die on its arsse, new owners or not..

We gonna sit down here season after season pointing at (insert here four or five different club names) every season who we can't compete with wages wise while we pootle about with the likes of Solihull, Bromley, Woking etc season after season? We need to approach getting out of this league in a different way like bringing in new investors to boost the playing budget as getting out of non-league asap has got to be priority number one by a very long way. We can still improve our infrastructure at the same time as planned as the fresh investment will be unplanned new money. It would be up to the board to work out ways for the new ownership dynamic to work..

Whatever we are doing is not working and it didn't last time. We were a Monkhouse injury away from being still down here imho..

I agree that there will always be another club with a windfall, a benefactor, new investment that will want to spend big, so it is no use at all gleefully predicting that next season will be more equal. With our crowds, and seemingly ideal owners in terms of their wealth accrued through genuine business acumen, we should be able to compete in this division. Not talking about silly money, but certainly investing to accumulate.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Boreham Wood played a blinder with Tshimanga, didn’t they? I’m really concerned that we will find ourselves in this league for a long time as I don’t see us being able to compete financially with more ambitious clubs and teams coming down.

I’m all for improving the club, the facilities, the infrastructure, the ethos and whatever else needs to happen but the one thing we can’t do is make ourselves geographically more attractive. Amazing, in retrospect, to think we could attract the likes of Birtles and Whymark in years gone by.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think the geography thing is a red herring. Good players have come here all the time over all the decades I have been watching as long as it is a manager they believe in and the wages are right. Even in our darkest hour, we have had some good players come from all over the country. Connell Hearn Bogle Disley Amond etc. etc. The list is endless.

Lots of talk on here about we should have paid this 6 figure sum or that 6 figure sum and pay sill wages for a striker, can anyone tell me the last time we actually did that?

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think the geography thing is a red herring. Good players have come here all the time over all the decades I have been watching as long as it is a manager they believe in and the wages are right. Even in our darkest hour, we have had some good players come from all over the country. Connell Hearn Bogle Disley Amond etc. etc. The list is endless.

Even the players you list were either hungry and on the way up (Hearn and Bogle) or were older and had been replaced.

Connell and Amond had decent track records before they came to us but probably still had a point to prove. However long the list of players is, the list of players committed to the club for next season is remarkably short for a club that said it was aiming for continuity.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Lots of talk on here about we should have paid this 6 figure sum or that 6 figure sum and pay sill wages for a striker, can anyone tell me the last time we actually did that?

No but that is one of many reasons we find ourselves mid table in tier 5.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

I’m not sure how that’s sustainable even if they go up.

It's the Amazon deal which makes it at least vaguely sustainable. Whilst ordinarily a documentary about Wrexham AFC would generate very little interest outside of hardcore football fans in the UK, the variable of being owned by to world famous Hollywood stars massively increases the scope for interest on a global scale.

It has other knock-on effects, too. The TikTok shirt deal, compounded by the fact that they're on FIFA 22 and have become a novelty club for millions of players around the world. There's the 8,000 season ticket holders too, though that probably pales into insignificance in reality. It all stems from the who their owners are.

Whether they're having to go a little overboard now in order to try and guarantee a successful ending to the first season, I don't know. But long-term, Reynolds and McElhenney will make plenty of money on from this project (which I think, in this case, is a reasonable thing to call it).

It's a very clever model. Do I like it? Not particularly, though at least it's a concept which has short-to-medium sustainability at the very least. But the reality is, they can probably justify spending £300k on a player probably worth a third of that at best, because they're simply not operating within football and financial norms. They are a very different beast.