The St. Mirren FC 2023/24 thread

[Billy_Gunn]

21 minutes ago, SS77 said:

Main, Tanser, Millar, covering %’s of Jones/Ronan wages, Kiltie and Power would’ve all came a high cost I think. 
 

I’d like to think we’ve been smart and got these guys in on decent deals (think Aberdeen are paying a lot of Gallagher’s wage as one example) rather than us bursting the bank for it but we’ll need to see what the script is when the accounts are out.

Brophy would not have been cheap either. He'll be costing us a fortune.

[djchapsticks]

3 minutes ago, Lex said:

As a result we now have five senior pros in Dunne, Shaughnessy, Fraser, Gallagher and Gogic competing for three centre back places, so two of them are on the bench every week. I’ve never known us to have squad depth like it. Which is great, if we can afford it. I hope we can.

 

You've not included Brophy who would have certainly been a realtively large outlay from 2021/22.

I think we would probably have much preferred to get a couple of bodies off the wage bill this season and of course, didn't manage to.

It's an important and vital distinction to be made between 'overspending' and 'in financial trouble'. As Div pointed out, £2.7m in the bank is relatively healthy. If that has suddenly become £0 in the bank then there are real problems. If it becomes say, £1.7m then of course you dig in and find out what that spend has gone towards. That million quid could be a good spend or a bad spend depending on what it went towards but it's wilfully problematic to instantly frame that as the financial meltdown that a few have deigned it to be over the last few months.

[McG]

5 minutes ago, Billy_Gunn said:

Brophy would not have been cheap either. He'll be costing us a fortune.

Ayunga will be on a fraction of what brophy is on, hopefully we can ship him out in January. 
 

Robinson is a shrewd operator.

[djchapsticks]

1 minute ago, McG said:

Ayunga will be on a fraction of what brophy is on, hopefully we can ship him out in January. 
 

Robinson is a shrewd operator.

Ayunga will be on less but not sure it will be a massive amount less.

Grieve will be on a relatively small wage though and his return this season has far outstripped that of Brophy.

[FTOF]

50 minutes ago, Lex said:

 

Tanser was a free from St Johnstone and Kiltie and Powers were frees from Killie. Like O’Hara they’re just players who shuffle around clubs at our level. Main and Millar were just squad padding, nothing high profile or eyebrow raising about any of those signings.
I thought Gallagher was mutually consented by Aberdeen before he joined us, are they still paying him? Wonder why we got him permanently and not on loan if that was the case.
If we did overspend last summer we certainly never cut back this year. That’s our ins and outs.

We’ve went for it big style with more coming in than leaving. When we signed Gallagher assumed the Gogic deal was dead, we then went and signed him too. As a result we now have five senior pros in Dunne, Shaughnessy, Fraser, Gallagher and Gogic competing for three centre back places, so two of them are on the bench every week. I’ve never known us to have squad depth like it. Which is great, if we can afford it. I hope we can.

 

I can assure you that the likes of Main, Tanser, Kiltie and Brophy have contributed hugely to our large wage bill.

[Div]

1 hour ago, ZingaliMan said:

I see our chairman has made a statement regarding accounts to Graham Spears . Sounds like the government loan has been used up. Not disastrous given 0% interest loan over 20 years.  That by next season we should be back on track on a financial sense. . That is good enough for me I don't see the SMISA chairman coming out with bull. As for Kibble I support it especially on moral grounds helping young people on the straight and narrow learning new skills that is a good thing.  A bit of wheeling and dealing in the January window to bring down the player budget comes as no surprise we have a good manager so no worries there for me . 

All depends on what we've spent the loan on I suppose. 20 years interest free or not that is still a shit ton of money for a club of our size to have burned through inside 18 months.

 

[Div]

Brophy is he big ticket passenger. He'll be on a whopping wage but hard to believe there will be a queue of clubs lining up to take him off our hands in January.

Reid and Joe probably the two to go in January I'd have thought.

[McG]

22 minutes ago, FTOF said:

I can assure you that the likes of Main, Tanser, Kiltie and Brophy have contributed hugely to our large wage bill.

You are correct mate, last manager blew a massive wage on Brophy. The rest you mention are all on cracking wages too.

[Buttocks Brown]

 

[kingjoey]

1 hour ago, Lex said:

 

Tanser was a free from St Johnstone and Kiltie and Powers were frees from Killie. Like O’Hara they’re just players who shuffle around clubs at our level. Main and Millar were just squad padding, nothing high profile or eyebrow raising about any of those signings.
I thought Gallagher was mutually consented by Aberdeen before he joined us, are they still paying him? Wonder why we got him permanently and not on loan if that was the case.
If we did overspend last summer we certainly never cut back this year. That’s our ins and outs.

We’ve went for it big style with more coming in than leaving. When we signed Gallagher assumed the Gogic deal was dead, we then went and signed him too. As a result we now have five senior pros in Dunne, Shaughnessy, Fraser, Gallagher and Gogic competing for three centre back places, so two of them are on the bench every week. I’ve never known us to have squad depth like it. Which is great, if we can afford it. I hope we can.

 

Given that he tried his damnedest to crock a couple of our players earlier this season, I certainly hope we're not paying Gallagher. 

[djchapsticks]

6 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

Given that he tried his damnedest to crock a couple of our players earlier this season, I certainly hope we're not paying Gallagher. 

Thing is, if he was mutually consented and there was a pay off, it stands to reason that this wouldn't be paid up in a lump sum so he would still be getting a regular payment of some sort from Aberdeen if it was the case of an agreement on his remaining contract being reached, no?

[sergie's no1 fan]

23 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

Given that he tried his damnedest to crock a couple of our players earlier this season, I certainly hope we're not paying Gallagher. 

If I remember right he did crock a player for a few weeks . 

[SS77]

17 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

Thing is, if he was mutually consented and there was a pay off, it stands to reason that this wouldn't be paid up in a lump sum so he would still be getting a regular payment of some sort from Aberdeen if it was the case of an agreement on his remaining contract being reached, no?

Yeah I think that’s the arrangement in place!

[Buttocks Brown]

39 minutes ago, Div said:

All depends on what we've spent the loan on I suppose. 20 years interest free or not that is still a shit ton of money for a club of our size to have burned through inside 18 months.

Aside from season ticket sales, we had no gate receipts from March 20 to August 21 and most of our other means of generating income disappeared. I would imagine that much of the loan went towards helping us cope with those losses.

Worth remembering too that 8 of the 11 other clubs in the league took out bigger loans than us. Motherwell, St Johnstone and Dundee Utd £1,000,000 more: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202100215652/

Our repayments amount to £85,000 a year.

Is this government loan really an issue or just another stick to beat the board with?

[FTOF]

1 minute ago, Buttocks Brown said:

Aside from season ticket sales, we had no gate receipts from March 20 to August 21 and most of our other means of generating income disappeared. I would imagine that much of the loan went towards helping us cope with those losses.

Worth remembering too that 8 of the 11 other clubs in the league took out bigger loans than us. Motherwell, St Johnstone and Dundee Utd £1,000,000 more: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202100215652/

Our repayments amount to £85,000 a year.

Is this government loan really an issue or just another stick to beat the board with?

Absolutely this.

If people think that we haven't needed to use a significant proportion of the government money, just to exist on a day today basis, then they must be living in the land of rainbows, unicorns and magic money trees.

We may well have used some of it for players wages too.

I'd imagine that the only clubs that have broken even after Covid have sold players for decent sums of money.

 

[Div]

8 minutes ago, FTOF said:

Absolutely this.

If people think that we haven't needed to use a significant proportion of the government money, just to exist on a day today basis, then they must be living in the land of rainbows, unicorns and magic money trees.

We may well have used some of it for players wages too.

I'd imagine that the only clubs that have broken even after Covid have sold players for decent sums of money.

 

The impact of COVID on season 21-22 was fairly minimal. If memory serves I think we lost out on gate revenue from 1, maybe 2 home games before things returned by and large to normal.

The accounts already published for year ending May 2021 dealt with the full COVID season with no fans in the stadium, and we reported a fairly modest loss which was entirely understandable and was offset partly by the prize money from reaching the two semi finals and finishing in 7th place in the division.

I'm sure there will still have been lingering effects of that but I'm staggered that folk are just shrugging their shoulders at the prospect of us burning through a million quid since last Summer.

We've got a team to be proud of on the park, which is brilliant but it's only brilliant if it's been recruited on sustainable terms.

[Buttocks Brown]

1 hour ago, Div said:

I'm sure there will still have been lingering effects of that but I'm staggered that folk are just shrugging their shoulders at the prospect of us burning through a million quid since last Summer.

We've got a team to be proud of on the park, which is brilliant but it's only brilliant if it's been recruited on sustainable terms.

It'll all come out in the wash but if the wage bill has gone from £3 million to £4 million then that would be unexpected and obviously not sustainable. 

Maybe some of the loan has been used to bolster the playing squad in the short term but well... damned if you do, damned if you don't. The terms of the loan are good: small repayments every year.

Do you just send it back to the government and re-sign Power instead of Baccus? Aim for 10th? Leave Ralston as it is?

Do you speculate a little in terms of players with future transfer fees in mind, hope we can increase attendances and end-of-season prize money? Upgrade the academy as an investment for the future?

Maybe we've gone for option 2 and I, personally, don't have an issue with that. If it turns out that we've gone from winning prizes for our financial aptitude to being a basketcase in the space of 12 months then I'll take it all back.

[FTOF]

1 hour ago, Div said:

The impact of COVID on season 21-22 was fairly minimal. If memory serves I think we lost out on gate revenue from 1, maybe 2 home games before things returned by and large to normal.

The accounts already published for year ending May 2021 dealt with the full COVID season with no fans in the stadium, and we reported a fairly modest loss which was entirely understandable and was offset partly by the prize money from reaching the two semi finals and finishing in 7th place in the division.

I'm sure there will still have been lingering effects of that but I'm staggered that folk are just shrugging their shoulders at the prospect of us burning through a million quid since last Summer.

We've got a team to be proud of on the park, which is brilliant but it's only brilliant if it's been recruited on sustainable terms.

I'm certainly not "shrugging my shoulders".

I happen to think that the truth lies somewhere between "financial Armageddon" and "nothing to see here".

I don't think it's any secret that we have overextended ourselves for whatever reason. The main thing is that those in charge appear to have a plan in place to offset the losses.

The plans seem to involve offloading high earners who are surplus to requirements and selling a couple of players. Hardly unheard of for a football team.

I'll also be big enough to admit that I was wrong, if we are in deep shit. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by FTOF

[Div]

5 minutes ago, FTOF said:

I'm certainly not "shrugging my shoulders".

I happen to think that the truth lies somewhere between "financial Armageddon" and "nothing to see here".

I don't think it's any secret that we have overextended ourselves for whatever reason. The main thing is that those in charge appear to have a plan in place to offset the losses.

The plans seem to involve offloading high earners who are surplus to requirements and selling a couple of players. Hardly unheard of for a football team.

I'll also be big enough to admit that I was wrong, if we are in deep shit. 

Yeah I'd agree with that, the financial position is not perilous, we will still have plenty money in the bank, relatively speaking, and the terms of the loan make it favourable.

I don't mean to come across as a knicker wetter, if the club decided to take a punt on the squad because we were flush at that point then fair enough I suppose.

I'm still a little concerned if that punt was as much as a million notes mind you but appreciate there were other cash drainers like Ralston and as you've said the lingering impacts of COVID.

The fact we signed Gogic well after the window closed gave me some comfort that things can't be "that bad".

The accounts won't make for pretty reading I'm sure but JN says they've got things under control so I guess we just need to believe that is indeed the case!

 

[djchapsticks]

17 minutes ago, Div said:

The fact we signed Gogic well after the window closed gave me some comfort that things can't be "that bad".

This is key.

We were already alleged to be over budget at the point after Gallagher signing. Most of us then accepted that unless folk were moved on, new faces weren't an option.

A club who is drowning in quicksand is most certainly not going out and adding to that by signing another player who will guaranteed be in the top 5 earners at the club. A club who is drowning in quicksand will also certainly not entertain the idea of moving the capacity of the OF back to 2014 levels for at least another season or two, regardless of fan feedback.

There's going to be questions to asked and the fans will need answers. This is fair enough but there's no chance were at the point were scratching our arse and I'd argue that the spending of several clubs who took the government loan out will see a significant upturn in the expenditure side of their balance sheet.

Edited October 27, 2022 by djchapsticks