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Outside View

I can only assume you’ve Googled my name from my login details and discovered I’m a qualified accountant and work for a Business Turnaround company?

I completely fail to see the relevance.

I am a Wednesday fan and have no association with any other football club in a business or personal perspective.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there because I don’t like the thought of an over enthusiastic moderator leaking my details which would no doubt result in overly passionate football fans bombarding my email.
Doubt anyone would want to know your details; more importantly, doubt mods would even think of leaking them and why on earth have you not tried to 'turn around' the mighty SW ?
 
I can only assume you’ve Googled my name from my login details and discovered I’m a qualified accountant and work for a Business Turnaround company?

I completely fail to see the relevance.

I am a Wednesday fan and have no association with any other football club in a business or personal perspective.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there because I don’t like the thought of an over enthusiastic moderator leaking my details which would no doubt result in overly passionate football fans bombarding my email.

Tbh mate, out mods are pretty sound on here. Shit like that just doesn't go on.
 
Can you imagine what bell ends they will drag up on Talksport when we do fire Ryan to spout the usual 'got em punching above their weight'/'played the game in the right way'/'hard done by/typical of the modern day over ambition from fans'.

He's just crap. We know it. Every metric you apply shows it. Leeds has really dragged this out. Chelsea will be a compo gathering exercise then chop.
 
I can only assume you’ve Googled my name from my login details and discovered I’m a qualified accountant and work for a Business Turnaround company?

I completely fail to see the relevance.

I am a Wednesday fan and have no association with any other football club in a business or personal perspective.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there because I don’t like the thought of an over enthusiastic moderator leaking my details which would no doubt result in overly passionate football fans bombarding my email.
We have never and will never leak any users personal details.

We always of course do our due diligence on new users who raise suspicions by many of our users.

Folk had been accusing you of being someone from within PNE - we have actually done you a favour 😉
 
I can only assume you’ve Googled my name from my login details and discovered I’m a qualified accountant and work for a Business Turnaround company?

I completely fail to see the relevance.

I am a Wednesday fan and have no association with any other football club in a business or personal perspective.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there because I don’t like the thought of an over enthusiastic moderator leaking my details which would no doubt result in overly passionate football fans bombarding my email.
As someone who works for a business turnaround company surely the way you work is to apply management talent, new ideas, a new plan and forward thinking to a business which is struggling?

I doubt the plan involves throwing huge amounts of cash at it.

I'm surprised at your attitude towards what we PNE fans have been asking for, which is namely some new management talent, new ideas, a new plan and some forward thinking.

Not necessarily more cash.

As you're from a business background how do you account for Aldi making Tesco crap themselves?

I would suggest the same way Brentford and Luton have embarrassed the big clubs in our division by thinking and acting differently.
 
Well after reading this I am going to sing and clap wildly until every last player has left the field.
Sorry in advance to those sat around me.
 
I’m a SWFC fan and as I usually do when we have a match, I take a look at how the opposing fans are feeling about things.

Hopefully, I’m not breaking any rules by posting this thread and it’ll be taken in the spirit it’s intended.

I’ve not felt the desire to open an account on another teams forum for many years, but the opinions I’ve read on here are so far removed from what I expected that I felt compelled.

According to the poll on this forum, nearly 80% of you think Lowe should be sacked - which massively surprised me.

Looking at it from the outside, it seems he is exceeding or at the very least meeting what should be expected.

You’ve got the 18th largest average attendance in the division. You are only averaging a few hundred more than QPR, Plymouth, Millwall and Swansea - all of whom have considerably less away fans through the door than you. Therefore, in terms of home supporter base, you are currently 22nd in the division, only ahead of Blackburn and Rotherham.

Every single one of the six teams with smaller averages is below you in the league table.

You don’t have a rich benefactor, so it is reasonable to assume that the teams above you in the league average attendance all have bigger budgets than you. Especially, since most of those teams are backed by wealthy owners and many have parachute payments.

This is backed up by your latest accounts (for 2022) which show your wage bill to be under £22m, comparatively small in the division. However, when you take into account of player amortisation, you are running at an operating loss of circa £20m. Obviously, for FFP purposes, some of these losses wouldn’t count towards the permitted losses of £39m over three seasons. However, maybe I was wrong when earlier I said you didn’t have a rich benefactor as it appears your owners must be basically losing very close to the permitted FFP amount every year.

The reason you can’t spend more is your modest turnover of £13.8m. For comparable purposes, Sheffield Wednesday had turnover of £16.3m in League One, therefore in The Championship their turnover is likely to be £10m higher than yours with the extra solidarity and TV payments.

Not only are your crowds small for the division, but the ticket prices you pay are also far below average. This can be evidenced by even a club like Luton (in 2022 so the year before they got promoted), had turnover of £17.7m.

Blackburn are one of the two clubs getting lower home support in numbers than you, but their turnover was £16.6m in 2022 - over 20% higher than yours.

I look at the teams immediately above you in the table and then compare their 2022 revenue figures and those of Sunderland, Bristol City, Boro’s and Watfords (due to parachute payments) dwarf yours.

Therefore, I’m struggling to see who is above you that you realistically think you should be above?

I then look at the teams below you. Coventry City had a turnover of £18m in 2022 and spent a fortune this Summer. Norwich have parachute payments, Stoke, Birmingham and Wednesday have far bigger budgets. Therefore, it appears lots of clubs would expect to be above you but aren’t.

Certainly in terms of budgets, Lowe has you punching well above your weight.

Then I’ve seen various comments that other clubs without big budgets have managed to get promotion to the PL. But unless I’m missing one, I don’t think a club with as smaller budget as yours has managed it for very many years!

Luton are perhaps the closest but I showed above that their revenue was still 30% higher than yours in 2022.

Bournemouth and Brentford are definitely historically smaller clubs but they had owners that backed them heavily and at the right time. There’s no way Bournemouth would get away nowadays (under heavier FFP legislation) with the losses they originally incurred to get into the EPL for the first time. Once they were in they then got locked into the parachute payment merry go round.

Brentford’s model allowed them to make huge profits on player sales (something no other club has managed to successfully replicate) but even then their turnover from day to day activities was £15.2m back in 18/19.

Therefore, and I guess in summary, to an outsider like me it appears that you are punching well above your weight.

You don’t get enough fans through the gate to achieve any more. And the fans you do get, don’t pay enough for your tickets. You would buck every trend going, if you managed to get to the PL and you are currently achieving pretty much the ceiling of what can reasonably be expected.

Your owner appears to be chucking in cash to the limit of what is permitted under FFP rules.

I totally accept that this post probably my won’t make me popular. But come on guys, what am I missing? It appears that your budget should probably make you are club that yo-yo’s between League One and The Championship but you are an established Championship club that is never in the conversations about relegation.

At the moment you just look like Charlton fans did whinging about coming mid table in the PL every year.
I actually found this quite an interesting read tbh. I don't like the facts, but they are hard to deny if your research is correct. Others have pointed out that it's not solely about money, but budgets and financial support are indicators of success in football, so as much as I don't like it, it's sadly a factor that our chances at reaching the EPL are reduced by not having the same budgets and financial backing of clubs around us.

In my opinion, that leaves us with the option of buying wisely and getting the most out of our collective players and their abilities in the hope we can defy the odds. The issue is that RL isn't an effective manager despite being backed and provided with a capable squad. A proven and credible manager would be doing much more with this squad. (which is my personal gripe and the answer to your question). I could potentially accept our current position and mid-table mediocrity with the squad before the recent investment and backing, but not now.

I also think the frustration lies in knowing that RL's incessant style and approach is going to plummet us into a relegation battle, whilst also pushing our better players to look to leave for better clubs. The latter is the biggest concern because we have a fairly strong squad, but losing good players not only sets us back, it makes us a less attractive club for the up and coming talent we would need to get us to the EPL without the budgets and finances of the better clubs that rely on more proven players that they can attract with higher signing fees and wages!

Can you see why there are so many despondent fans at this moment in time?
 
I can only assume you’ve Googled my name from my login details and discovered I’m a qualified accountant and work for a Business Turnaround company?

I completely fail to see the relevance.

I am a Wednesday fan and have no association with any other football club in a business or personal perspective.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there because I don’t like the thought of an over enthusiastic moderator leaking my details which would no doubt result in overly passionate football fans bombarding my email.
You're obviously new here so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but that would never happen on this forum.
 
According to the poll on this forum, nearly 80% of you think Lowe should be sacked - which massively surprised me.
That's because you haven't been watching us play. We have. He's the second longest serving manager in the league so we've seen enough of him for us to feel like we've got a full grasp of his capabilities. He isn't capable of getting us promoted. You could make the argument that he could with more money but as you point out, we're not the club for significant investment. As such you're expecting us to be happy having a manager not capable of taking us anywhere further than midtable despite our owners investing more than we've seen in recent years.

Plus, most issues fans have with him is that he hasn't been delivering on his promises, demonstrates significant tactical naivety, and his personality pisses off a significant number of people every few press conferences. Many people consider him dislikeable and he hasn't demonstrated enough of anything to make the argument that he should be kept. Oh wow he's got us midtable, we're so happy. Grayson could never do that, oh wait he did. Alex Neil could never do that, oh wait he did. Frankie McAvoy could never do that, oh wait he did.
Looking at it from the outside, it seems he is exceeding or at the very least meeting what should be expected.
Well from the inside, we've been told that our aim is to fight for promotion and 2 years down the line, we're no closer. 8 years if you want to include Ridsdale in the mix.
You’ve got the 18th largest average attendance in the division. You are only averaging a few hundred more than QPR, Plymouth, Millwall and Swansea
Also more than Luton and Bournemouth. Not much less than Watford despite them being a Premier League yoyo side in recent years.
All of whom have considerably less away fans through the door than you. Therefore, in terms of home supporter base, you are currently 22nd in the division, only ahead of Blackburn and Rotherham.

Every single one of the six teams with smaller averages is below you in the league table.
If the league was just based on attendances, you'd be a top half team, West Brom wouldn't be in the playoffs, Watford wouldn't be a Premier League yoyo team, Sunderland would be top of the table.
You don’t have a rich benefactor
They're billionaires
This is backed up by your latest accounts (for 2022) which show your wage bill to be under £22m, comparatively small in the division. However, when you take into account of player amortisation, you are running at an operating loss of circa £20m. Obviously, for FFP purposes, some of these losses wouldn’t count towards the permitted losses of £39m over three seasons. However, maybe I was wrong when earlier I said you didn’t have a rich benefactor as it appears your owners must be basically losing very close to the permitted FFP amount every year.

The reason you can’t spend more is your modest turnover of £13.8m. For comparable purposes, Sheffield Wednesday had turnover of £16.3m in League One, therefore in The Championship their turnover is likely to be £10m higher than yours with the extra solidarity and TV payments.
A big problem at our club is our lack of effort in improving our revenue. Ridsdale likes to outsource all of our potential revenue streams. Plus we've been wasting contracts on players who won't earn us any money.
Therefore, I’m struggling to see who is above you that you realistically think you should be above?
If the league was just based on financial power, Luton wouldn't have got into the Premier League, Coventry wouldn't have reached the playoffs last season, Huddersfield too a couple years ago, etc etc

There's more to football than just financial power and number of bums on seats. Our team isn't significantly worse than the teams around us, the problem is we aren't coached well. It's got nothing to do with thinking we're better than the teams around us, it's about the sheer number of poor performances we've watched, the complete tactical ineptitude on display every week, the wasting of the talent we do have.
I then look at the teams below you. Coventry City had a turnover of £18m in 2022 and spent a fortune this Summer.
Fantastic example. They've been among the smaller budgeted sides each season. This year they've actually managed to spend money because they've sold Gyokeres and Hamer. We were linked with Gyokeres a while back before he'd joined Coventry. Imagine if we'd bought him and then sold him on for profit. That could've been us. We've had a problem with the way we're run for years because we've missed out on potentially valuable players like Gyokeres and instead been extending contracts of players like Ledson and Woodburn who we won't sell on for money.

Now you could say that's not Lowe's fault but this year we've actually been investing in players like that (e.g. Osmaijic and Frokjaer). Even then, we're still not performing and Lowe doesn't seem to have a clue how to improve those players. So it doesn't look like we could do a Coventry with Lowe in charge. Plus Ledson and Woodburn both had their contracts extended under Lowe's reign.
Wednesday have far bigger budgets.
Do you? Pretty sure you've spent less than us this season.
Certainly in terms of budgets, Lowe has you punching well above your weight.
We've been in the Championship for 8 seasons now. We're well established as a midtable side. We've stayed exactly where we already were.
Then I’ve seen various comments that other clubs without big budgets have managed to get promotion to the PL. But unless I’m missing one, I don’t think a club with as smaller budget as yours has managed it for very many years!
Literally last year
Luton are perhaps the closest but I showed above that their revenue was still 30% higher than yours in 2022.
Revenue doesn't equal budget
Brentford’s model allowed them to make huge profits on player sales (something no other club has managed to successfully replicate) but even then their turnover from day to day activities was £15.2m back in 18/19.
Exactly, they're well run. We've not been well run but as I pointed out earlier, Lowe isn't the man for us to do the buy cheaper and sell big. He hasn't been improving our most valuable assets.
At the moment you just look like Charlton fans did whinging about coming mid table in the PL every year.
With the greatest respect, it doesn't really matter how we look to you. You're never going to understand our situation because you're an outsider and you've come on here to tell us that there's no point competing (even though that's bollocks). It's almost like you think we don't read our own clubs accounts and don't have issues with our ownership. The poll against Lowe isn't even as one-sided as the one against Ridsdale. More people have a problem with Ridsdale and the way our club operates under him. The thing is we have to watch Lowe's football too. We've seen better football with smaller budgets and more likeable managers at the helm. But no we should just accept our lot because we're just little Preston.
 
I could only see Wednesday having a bigger budget than us if they're spending half of it on Barry Bannan's wages. At that point you don't really have a bigger budget if so much of it is going on just one player. Everyone else would be on significantly lower wages and so worse quality. It'd be like operating on one of the smallest budgets in the league just to keep hold of Bannan (who wouldn't be worth it)
 
I can only assume you’ve Googled my name from my login details and discovered I’m a qualified accountant and work for a Business Turnaround company?
There just had to be a connection with our Robert somewhere, given the number of failed business/football club ventures he’s had that needed turning around. 😜😜😜
 
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