jonnyfive wrote:
Oh Andy, I know you are a bit of a johnny-come-lately, but don't be silly.750k is a king's ransom for TUFC. Two of our best players, I grant you, but let's get real. We aren't playing Championship Manager.
You're not alone, but you are missing the point completely.
Andy is saying that these players, given identical circumstances of their performances etc if going from Peterborough to Manchester United (the names of the clubs aren't important, ignore the fact that Man Utd are a richer club etc, just go with it) they would be selling for £5,000,000 each because that is their true market worth. We are getting shafted (in real terms) because we are 'only' Torquay United and we have to accept a paltry bid because we cannot afford not to.
For me, we must not slip into the Crewe mentality of producing or developing brilliant youngsters only to sell them to keep afloat. Dave (and others) know more about this than I do, but I suspect that we don't actually NEED to sell anyone to balance the books. Our financial planning is such that we know this year is likely to be a loss (massive new stand and all that), and the board have planned for that accordingly. For a club like TUFC, financial planning which includes significant transfer fees is madness, that's like basing your budget on getting to the QF of the FA cup, it's simply too risky. Any money we get for anyone will be bonus on top of whatever we have in the kitty already, it won't have been budgeted such that, say, £750,000 came in for these two, because it simply is not sufficiently likely to happen.
As to the idea that, if the figure is £750,000, we should rip their hands off; this number is meaningless with no context. Without these two (Bobby especially), it's unlikely that we are going up (it's pretty unlikely as it is). How much will that cost us, sitting in mid table all year, reduced attendances, no playoff sellouts, no FA Cup third round, no nothing? Once that amount has been taken away from the £750,000, then you get the true value to TUFC of selling the players. I suspect we would be looking at a net value of around £500,000. If we lose out on promotion because of selling them (no one can say for sure, but go with it) then there's that half a million pounds gone too, so we have had a dull season, and lost our two superstars, all for a net gain of sod all. No, I'm afraid that unless someone comes in with genuinely stupid money (£2,000,000 perhaps), the sort of money which will revolutionise the club entirely, then it's a no from me.
Oh, and F'rev, if you're making possessive the object of the sentence, then you need an apostrophe: John's apple.
If you are pluralising the object, you don't: John has many apples.
Very simple.
Matt.
