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Time for action - An open letter to Preston North End FC (Meeting & responses added).

Time for action - An open letter to Preston North End FC (Meeting & responses added).

TheWarehouse said:
I keep looking at the OOC list, I expect the club are in negotiations with several of them, but have to question whether it’s worth offering new contracts to those over 30 as they will have no resale value, if they take one year extensions at the same wage maybe fair enough, also I wonder how many of them are thinking about Alan Browne getting a worse deal than he was offered here, the club is bound to be asking the manager if he thinks we can get better in those positions for similar money, and therefore is it worth offering new contracts to player who would only be on the bench, there are a lot of variables here.
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Exactly, the priority should be signing up Greenwood (22 and top scorer).
 
Yeti said:
No Moyes sees himself as a manager and has always had a director of football doing the non football side of things so he can concentrate on the football
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I was reading today's 'Lancashire Post' ( LEP ) - and on page 5 read that the gentleman ( who currently doesn't manage a Club ) - is in Town this Wednesday (4th) - at UCLan , as a panel member of the Uni's 'Alzheimer's Academic Group, called "In Contact", to discuss the links between head injuries in sport , and Dementia.
I'm informing people about this, because it may give the Organisers of the 'Open Letter' an opportunity to schedule a meeting between him & them.
Also the fact that D.M. is involved in such a footballing matter , could - could be a bit of a pointer that maybe he has reached the stage in his career where he might wish to do something different, - as we know he's managed top Premier League Clubs & even gained European trophy success with West Ham .
 
northender2 said:
Finances released in time for the meeting, on the face of it, things look better, higher turnover and lower losses, im sure someone with better financial knowledge than me will be able to dig deeper into it

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A lot of Ridsdale speak in that rushed out statement.
How did we manage to get 55 applicants in the few hours that Lowe left and Heck was installed, not withstanding that i thought we approached him (one outstanding candidate from those that applied according to that).
 
northender2 said:
Finances released in time for the meeting, on the face of it, things look better, higher turnover and lower losses, im sure someone with better financial knowledge than me will be able to dig deeper into it

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Spinny Hendrix in action I see

"Though the 2023/24 season ended with us finishing a creditable 10th, our third successive year of improvement"

Not if you go by points. Points are in our control, the table isn't.

"Our streamlined organisational and decision-making infrastructure gives us a fighting chance in the ever complex and data-driven world of scouting new football talent. Layers of infrastructure inevitably leads to layers of bureaucracy and costs which then leads to a slower decision-making process. To compete, PNE has to be a lean and focused operation. We have to get more bang for our buck."

It can also lead to more mistakes. If you don't have people with specialist knowledge doing specialist roles, you get uninformed decision making. Quicker decisions aren't always better ones.

Will be interesting to dig deeper into the finances though, especially considering this comment:

“As I have mentioned in the past, because we recognise the net income and not the turnover achieved from our commercial and retail divisions, it is often assumed, incorrectly, that our income from these activities is inferior to our close competitors. This is not the case. If we were to recognise revenue rather than net income our turnover would increase by about £3m more per annum which would take the income generated by our commercial team in line with or above clubs with similar sized fanbases. Notwithstanding this, we continue to drive our commercial revenues forward.”

It stands out to me for two reasons:
1) "It is often assumed, incorrectly, that our income from these activities is inferior to our close competitors".

Then why are we always pleading poverty and pointing to how small our budget is? You can't talk about Premier League Ambitions and improving position in the table in one breath, small budgets and FFP in another, and being similar to close competitors in another. What's the narrative here? Where are you expecting us to be?

2) It's interesting that distinction has been highlighted. I wonder what story that is telling.
 
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"Our streamlined organisational and decision-making infrastructure gives us a fighting chance in the ever complex and data-driven world of scouting new football talent. Layers of infrastructure inevitably leads to layers of bureaucracy and costs which then leads to a slower decision-making process. To compete, PNE has to be a lean and focused operation. We have to get more bang for our buck."​

"Streamlined" is obviously the spin they're giving for the rank bad company governance of having one 72-year-old man in charge of multiple key club functions, despite him being unqualified for them, leading to zero accountability when things go wrong.

We are being asked to make the mental contortions necessary to imagine Ridsdale is "a lean and focused operation".
 
Thracia said:
"Our streamlined organisational and decision-making infrastructure gives us a fighting chance in the ever complex and data-driven world of scouting new football talent. Layers of infrastructure inevitably leads to layers of bureaucracy and costs which then leads to a slower decision-making process. To compete, PNE has to be a lean and focused operation. We have to get more bang for our buck."​

"Streamlined" is obviously the spin they're giving for the rank bad company governance of having one 72-year-old man in charge of multiple key club functions, despite him being unqualified for them, leading to zero accountability when things go wrong.

We are being asked to make the mental contortions necessary to imagine Ridsdale is "a lean and focused operation".
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It completely misses the point that the reason teams do this is to get more "bang for their buck". In software development, the more money you spend on analysis and design, the more money you save further down the line.

It's surely the same in recruitment? The more money you spend on data analysis and scouting, the more money you save as you aren't blowing money on players who don't play for the rest of their contracts (Jamie Thomas, Izzy Brown etc) and you aren't blowing transfer fees on players who don't fit a team (Tom Bayliss) or on a downward spiral (Scott Sinclair).

A data analyst and a scout aren't going to cost as much as a footballer, even just on wages alone. A decent analyst and scout saves you the money on those wages and maybe improves your income if the player moves on. One Clive Middlemass is far better value for money than Jamie Thomas, Izzy Brown, Connor Wickham etc
 
Jürgen Krapp (aka S&R) said:
Spinny Hendrix in action I see

"Though the 2023/24 season ended with us finishing a creditable 10th, our third successive year of improvement"

Not if you go by points. Points are in our control, the table isn't.

"Our streamlined organisational and decision-making infrastructure gives us a fighting chance in the ever complex and data-driven world of scouting new football talent. Layers of infrastructure inevitably leads to layers of bureaucracy and costs which then leads to a slower decision-making process. To compete, PNE has to be a lean and focused operation. We have to get more bang for our buck."

It can also lead to more mistakes. If you don't have people with specialist knowledge doing specialist roles, you get uninformed decision making. Quicker decisions aren't always better ones.

Will be interesting to dig deeper into the finances though, especially considering this comment:

“As I have mentioned in the past, because we recognise the net income and not the turnover achieved from our commercial and retail divisions, it is often assumed, incorrectly, that our income from these activities is inferior to our close competitors. This is not the case. If we were to recognise revenue rather than net income our turnover would increase by about £3m more per annum which would take the income generated by our commercial team in line with or above clubs with similar sized fanbases. Notwithstanding this, we continue to drive our commercial revenues forward.”

It stands out to me for two reasons:
1) "It is often assumed, incorrectly, that our income from these activities is inferior to our close competitors".

Then why are we always pleading poverty and pointing to how small our budget is? You can't talk about Premier League Ambitions and improving position in the table in one breath, small budgets and FFP in another, and being similar to close competitors in another. What's the narrative here? Where are you expecting us to be?

2) It's interesting that distinction has been highlighted. I wonder what story that is telling.
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I've never understood the defence that "our commercial income isn't that bad, we just report it differently to everyone else". If this is the case, why are we reporting it differently to everyone else? Are we gaining anything by making us look worse than everyone else?
 
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