Andyhsufc
Director
Firstly let me apologise for last week’s “void”. It was my intention to answer the questions raised over a period of two to three weeks and at the end of that period to review whether supporters generally thought it was a good idea to continue with a blog – be it weekly, fortnightly or not at all.
Last week Scrivs (David Scriven from our Media Department) was on holiday and to some degree I rely on him to coordinate the questions by combining, if need be, the most commonly asked points. However I cannot blame Scrivs for being on holiday for whilst that was an issue my time available is very limited at present and I was away unexpectedly overnight on the preceding Thursday and Tuesday which did not help either.
In answering questions I must say that I am not going to go over old ground if I have dealt with the principal points raised in the weekly blogs over the past seven or eight weeks. The purpose of inviting questions was to deal with points not dealt with by the blog and that is where I have asked the Media Department to focus their attention in selecting items for me to answer, and as follows:
One area that concerns the fans is the manner in which we approach contracts. There is the feeling that we are often too late in discussing contract extensions. We have been better recently though it does tend to be left until the end of the season approaches with a number of players out of contract. An example of this was with Gower who was considered by most fans as an integral part of our team. Where we have a player who is performing well and has 18 months left we should start negotiating an extension at that point. It shows the player that he is valued and generally they are less likely to have alternative offers. This also helps in providing the continuity which Ron (correctly) advocates. We are clearly not averse to this as we showed last year when offering Barrett a 5 year contract, though I wonder if that upset a few players who felt that they were not valued as highly.
I would be very interested to hear from Ron the club’s approach to contract negotiation, particularly the timing of extensions. Similarly it would be informative to see for how long each player is contracted.
It seems that we start off by getting a 2 year deal signed and then it is left towards the end of the second year before we consider what to do.
Tony Crewdson
Unfortunately it is not in our gift to extend the players’ contracts as we would wish. Firstly it the judgement of the Manager to decide whether he would like to extend a player’s contract and also WHEN. The Manager also has to decide whether that player is likely to continue to perform way beyond the expiry of a contract that has, say, 18 months left to run. At this level not only is his age a consideration but also which league we are in as we are always looking to progress.
As I previously said I do regard it important to have continuity and I suspect we have suffered this season through a lack of continuity with so many players being released, leaving or sold in the summer. I have said previously we did not want Mark Gower to go but short of chaining him to the goal post that was not something we could influence.
For the record Adam Barratts contract extension was three and a half years not five.
I think one of the biggest issues surrounding players’ contracts is that whilst we are not in the Championship there is far less value attributed to a player than if the Club is in the Championship – even though the player has not materially changed. It is a fact of life that if a player can maintain his position in a team in the Championship – having been n a promoted League 1 team – he is far more likely to have a value attributed to him when in the previous league that may not be the case.
The upshot of this is that if the Club is able to sustain a position in the next league we are more likely to either issue longer contracts (subject to performance criteria) and also initiate negotiations to extend those contracts earlier so as to maintain our investment knowing that we could capitalise the position.
However we also have to be cautious (and this comes down to the selection process) not to sign a player for an extended contract who ends up on the sidelines. I have already highlighted Richie Foran at half a million pounds as one such example.
In short there is no science , moreover a manager’s judgement and constructing the contracts to give the club as much flexibility as possible, which the agents do their best to undermine!
Will the management team be given significant funds to strengthen the squad this summer?
James Quinn
I am sorry James, I do not know what significant funds means. If the questions was phrased
“do I want Southend United to compete at the top end of the division they are in during any given year”
The answer is yes. And
“do I think that possibility is enhanced through a development of a new stadium”
The answer is again yes. I should also add that as previously stated it is not necessarily the capital cost but often the level of wages that can be afforded to attract the player because a capital sum has not been paid. For instance I doubt Swansea would have offered Mark Gower so much in wages had they needed to pay us £200,000 - £300,000 to secure him.
What do you think can be done to limit the activity of agents and to reduce the sums that they are taking out of the game?
Mick Bailey
In short, not a lot. The Football League have promoted initiatives to help “restrict” the amount clubs spend on agents in an attempt, I suspect, to raise public awareness of the money going out of the game. Additionally agents now have to be registered but, in my view, that has made little difference thus far.
What I would like to see is more stringent codes of conduct and increased disclosure but in my view it would be difficult to eradicate the conflictions which arise with agents irrespective of more professionalism.
I am certain that the Football League will continue to do all it can to improve the position for clubs in contract negotiations. For the moment I suspect that agents are here to stay, albeit in a diluted capacity from that which existed a few years ago.
Given that the UK and much of the world is in the worst recession since the end of the Second World War, do you think it is prudent to be going ahead with a major development that relies on our football teams’ success?
Paul Houghton
I do not agree this is the worst recession since the end of the Second World War. I think there has been a fundamental change in the financial structure of the world coupled with more scrutiny and the implications make this the worst recession in the modern era.
Notwithstanding whether it is the worst recession for 100 years or the last 60, the fact remains that if we are able to coordinate the finances to undertake this major development then it can only improve the prospects of the football team’s success.
We are significantly advanced in the coordination of the financial structure and whilst some may suggest in the current climate such a task is nigh on impossible, it does require the risk profile to be re-examined and closed. Whilst this cannot necessarily take account of tenant default it does mean that the focus, by necessity, reduces the overall risk.
If the financial equation works in this market, then you can be assured it will work in any market. And better.
We have been lacking players in three/four key positions all season centre half, creative midfielder, left winger and left back. Why was this not addressed last summer or more recently in the January transfer window?
Joe Fitzgerald
This, actually, is an area that has been touched on previously and whilst I do not wish to repeat myself, the identification and selection of players whilst on loan has been uppermost on mine and the Manager’s mind all season. You have to remember that we did not expect Mark Gower to leave us or the eleventh hour approach for Nicky Bailey, or for that matter Macca to be injured almost from day one.
Steve was unable to find a left back in the August window other than Charlie Mulgrew which unfortunately we missed out on and we were also looking seriously at Zakuani in the August transfer window from Fulham, who eventually went to Peterborough. I suppose if we had been successful in getting those two, Gower had not left and Macca had not been injured I would not be answering this question.
It is simply not possible to dive into the transfer market and pick up a player who fits the bill at a moments notice. In any event, I would not want to. I want the Manager to identify a player having watched him several times and understand his character fully before we, as a Club, commit.
You have all heard the phrase “marry at haste, repent at leisure” and that is not for us.
What are the chances these days of having a terrace rather than seats behind one goal for home fans at the new stadium?
At the new ground will there be secure covered areas to park motorbikes and push bikes?
Sean Pearce
Following the Taylor Report in the early 1990s stadia have to be all seater. There is a move in Europe to reintroduce terracing with, I believe, collapsible seats. If this was ever introduced into the UK – which I doubt – I would welcome it and do my best to accommodate this in the new stadium
However there is no chance of that coming to fruition before 22,000 seats will be installed at the new ground. There will howerver be covered areas to park motor bikes and push bikes.
Two out of three ain’t bad!
You have mentioned many times glowingly how you stood by the management team during 17 winless games in the championship. You may have forgotten this loyalty got us relegated and a change may have kept us in with far greater revenues. Very few management teams would have survived nearly half a season without a win.
Brian Green
I do not think I referred to it “glowingly” – it is just a fact. I did stand by Steve Tilson and Paul Brush when we were losing in the Championship. Maybe our combined efforts got us relegated. That was my judgement and I do not regret it.
Similarly I stood by Steve when we lost a number of matches leading up to and over the Christmas period but truly hoped we could turn it around.
I certainly do not expect every decision made in a football club to be favourable or accepted by everyone but I hope the majority can see that I am fair and even handed whilst certainly not jeopardising the future prosperity or ambition. Let’s face it, I was the one who picked up the bill for being relegated so maybe I am a mug and should have changed the management half way through the season. I do not think so.
Looking through the list of transfers it is very evident to all supporters just how good the transfer trading of defenders and midfield players is, however it creates a huge question mark on the majority of transfers involving strikers. I just wonder if Tilson (Ex midfielder) and Brush (Ex defender) need a specialist striker (freedman??) in evaluating strikers and in turn getting the best out of them. This season seeing Hooper and McDonald getting over 40 goals between them at a time when our top 'strikers' are struggling to get 6 has to make you wonder what was missed for this two. As a supporter of over 40 years what we would give to find a young Billy Best or Bill Garner.
Lawrie Stobbs
Lawrie you may be right but if there are any failings in that department then they are substantially compensated by other attributes.
No one needs to remind Steve and Paul that some of our strikers have not worked out and one or two have gone on to achieve success elsewhere. However, Freddy Eastwood is not one of them.
I know Steve would say Matt Harrold is performing at a lower level and equally he has no regrets about Gary Hooper leaving. I am sure he is as fed up as I am that Gary keeps scoring and I hope Gary proves not to be our nemesis.
I was very impressed by this idea and have read every instalment of the blog. A lot of emphasis has been placed on the youth teams and how good the youth is at our club. I agreed with this but when youth is so important why have hot prospects like Fredrik Ljungstrom not been offered new contracts?
Sam Leveridge
Simply Ricky Duncan and Steve Tilson do not agree with your assessment. I remember meeting Fredrik and hoped he would make it with us. Fredrick is a really nice lad and it is a shame it did not work out.
I understand he has now returned to a club in Sweden.
As always, I hope you continue to find the answers to these questions constructive. As I said above it is not possible to keep all the people happy all the time but I trust by this sharing there is a greater understanding and together we can continue Southend United’s success.
You all have such a major part to play in the on field performance and I hope as many of you as possible turn up on Friday to help maintain the recent momentum. We all know it is a big ask to win the next five games but when has the team ever achieved 79 points and not been in the playoffs?!!
Last week Scrivs (David Scriven from our Media Department) was on holiday and to some degree I rely on him to coordinate the questions by combining, if need be, the most commonly asked points. However I cannot blame Scrivs for being on holiday for whilst that was an issue my time available is very limited at present and I was away unexpectedly overnight on the preceding Thursday and Tuesday which did not help either.
In answering questions I must say that I am not going to go over old ground if I have dealt with the principal points raised in the weekly blogs over the past seven or eight weeks. The purpose of inviting questions was to deal with points not dealt with by the blog and that is where I have asked the Media Department to focus their attention in selecting items for me to answer, and as follows:
One area that concerns the fans is the manner in which we approach contracts. There is the feeling that we are often too late in discussing contract extensions. We have been better recently though it does tend to be left until the end of the season approaches with a number of players out of contract. An example of this was with Gower who was considered by most fans as an integral part of our team. Where we have a player who is performing well and has 18 months left we should start negotiating an extension at that point. It shows the player that he is valued and generally they are less likely to have alternative offers. This also helps in providing the continuity which Ron (correctly) advocates. We are clearly not averse to this as we showed last year when offering Barrett a 5 year contract, though I wonder if that upset a few players who felt that they were not valued as highly.
I would be very interested to hear from Ron the club’s approach to contract negotiation, particularly the timing of extensions. Similarly it would be informative to see for how long each player is contracted.
It seems that we start off by getting a 2 year deal signed and then it is left towards the end of the second year before we consider what to do.
Tony Crewdson
Unfortunately it is not in our gift to extend the players’ contracts as we would wish. Firstly it the judgement of the Manager to decide whether he would like to extend a player’s contract and also WHEN. The Manager also has to decide whether that player is likely to continue to perform way beyond the expiry of a contract that has, say, 18 months left to run. At this level not only is his age a consideration but also which league we are in as we are always looking to progress.
As I previously said I do regard it important to have continuity and I suspect we have suffered this season through a lack of continuity with so many players being released, leaving or sold in the summer. I have said previously we did not want Mark Gower to go but short of chaining him to the goal post that was not something we could influence.
For the record Adam Barratts contract extension was three and a half years not five.
I think one of the biggest issues surrounding players’ contracts is that whilst we are not in the Championship there is far less value attributed to a player than if the Club is in the Championship – even though the player has not materially changed. It is a fact of life that if a player can maintain his position in a team in the Championship – having been n a promoted League 1 team – he is far more likely to have a value attributed to him when in the previous league that may not be the case.
The upshot of this is that if the Club is able to sustain a position in the next league we are more likely to either issue longer contracts (subject to performance criteria) and also initiate negotiations to extend those contracts earlier so as to maintain our investment knowing that we could capitalise the position.
However we also have to be cautious (and this comes down to the selection process) not to sign a player for an extended contract who ends up on the sidelines. I have already highlighted Richie Foran at half a million pounds as one such example.
In short there is no science , moreover a manager’s judgement and constructing the contracts to give the club as much flexibility as possible, which the agents do their best to undermine!
Will the management team be given significant funds to strengthen the squad this summer?
James Quinn
I am sorry James, I do not know what significant funds means. If the questions was phrased
“do I want Southend United to compete at the top end of the division they are in during any given year”
The answer is yes. And
“do I think that possibility is enhanced through a development of a new stadium”
The answer is again yes. I should also add that as previously stated it is not necessarily the capital cost but often the level of wages that can be afforded to attract the player because a capital sum has not been paid. For instance I doubt Swansea would have offered Mark Gower so much in wages had they needed to pay us £200,000 - £300,000 to secure him.
What do you think can be done to limit the activity of agents and to reduce the sums that they are taking out of the game?
Mick Bailey
In short, not a lot. The Football League have promoted initiatives to help “restrict” the amount clubs spend on agents in an attempt, I suspect, to raise public awareness of the money going out of the game. Additionally agents now have to be registered but, in my view, that has made little difference thus far.
What I would like to see is more stringent codes of conduct and increased disclosure but in my view it would be difficult to eradicate the conflictions which arise with agents irrespective of more professionalism.
I am certain that the Football League will continue to do all it can to improve the position for clubs in contract negotiations. For the moment I suspect that agents are here to stay, albeit in a diluted capacity from that which existed a few years ago.
Given that the UK and much of the world is in the worst recession since the end of the Second World War, do you think it is prudent to be going ahead with a major development that relies on our football teams’ success?
Paul Houghton
I do not agree this is the worst recession since the end of the Second World War. I think there has been a fundamental change in the financial structure of the world coupled with more scrutiny and the implications make this the worst recession in the modern era.
Notwithstanding whether it is the worst recession for 100 years or the last 60, the fact remains that if we are able to coordinate the finances to undertake this major development then it can only improve the prospects of the football team’s success.
We are significantly advanced in the coordination of the financial structure and whilst some may suggest in the current climate such a task is nigh on impossible, it does require the risk profile to be re-examined and closed. Whilst this cannot necessarily take account of tenant default it does mean that the focus, by necessity, reduces the overall risk.
If the financial equation works in this market, then you can be assured it will work in any market. And better.
We have been lacking players in three/four key positions all season centre half, creative midfielder, left winger and left back. Why was this not addressed last summer or more recently in the January transfer window?
Joe Fitzgerald
This, actually, is an area that has been touched on previously and whilst I do not wish to repeat myself, the identification and selection of players whilst on loan has been uppermost on mine and the Manager’s mind all season. You have to remember that we did not expect Mark Gower to leave us or the eleventh hour approach for Nicky Bailey, or for that matter Macca to be injured almost from day one.
Steve was unable to find a left back in the August window other than Charlie Mulgrew which unfortunately we missed out on and we were also looking seriously at Zakuani in the August transfer window from Fulham, who eventually went to Peterborough. I suppose if we had been successful in getting those two, Gower had not left and Macca had not been injured I would not be answering this question.
It is simply not possible to dive into the transfer market and pick up a player who fits the bill at a moments notice. In any event, I would not want to. I want the Manager to identify a player having watched him several times and understand his character fully before we, as a Club, commit.
You have all heard the phrase “marry at haste, repent at leisure” and that is not for us.
What are the chances these days of having a terrace rather than seats behind one goal for home fans at the new stadium?
At the new ground will there be secure covered areas to park motorbikes and push bikes?
Sean Pearce
Following the Taylor Report in the early 1990s stadia have to be all seater. There is a move in Europe to reintroduce terracing with, I believe, collapsible seats. If this was ever introduced into the UK – which I doubt – I would welcome it and do my best to accommodate this in the new stadium
However there is no chance of that coming to fruition before 22,000 seats will be installed at the new ground. There will howerver be covered areas to park motor bikes and push bikes.
Two out of three ain’t bad!
You have mentioned many times glowingly how you stood by the management team during 17 winless games in the championship. You may have forgotten this loyalty got us relegated and a change may have kept us in with far greater revenues. Very few management teams would have survived nearly half a season without a win.
Brian Green
I do not think I referred to it “glowingly” – it is just a fact. I did stand by Steve Tilson and Paul Brush when we were losing in the Championship. Maybe our combined efforts got us relegated. That was my judgement and I do not regret it.
Similarly I stood by Steve when we lost a number of matches leading up to and over the Christmas period but truly hoped we could turn it around.
I certainly do not expect every decision made in a football club to be favourable or accepted by everyone but I hope the majority can see that I am fair and even handed whilst certainly not jeopardising the future prosperity or ambition. Let’s face it, I was the one who picked up the bill for being relegated so maybe I am a mug and should have changed the management half way through the season. I do not think so.
Looking through the list of transfers it is very evident to all supporters just how good the transfer trading of defenders and midfield players is, however it creates a huge question mark on the majority of transfers involving strikers. I just wonder if Tilson (Ex midfielder) and Brush (Ex defender) need a specialist striker (freedman??) in evaluating strikers and in turn getting the best out of them. This season seeing Hooper and McDonald getting over 40 goals between them at a time when our top 'strikers' are struggling to get 6 has to make you wonder what was missed for this two. As a supporter of over 40 years what we would give to find a young Billy Best or Bill Garner.
Lawrie Stobbs
Lawrie you may be right but if there are any failings in that department then they are substantially compensated by other attributes.
No one needs to remind Steve and Paul that some of our strikers have not worked out and one or two have gone on to achieve success elsewhere. However, Freddy Eastwood is not one of them.
I know Steve would say Matt Harrold is performing at a lower level and equally he has no regrets about Gary Hooper leaving. I am sure he is as fed up as I am that Gary keeps scoring and I hope Gary proves not to be our nemesis.
I was very impressed by this idea and have read every instalment of the blog. A lot of emphasis has been placed on the youth teams and how good the youth is at our club. I agreed with this but when youth is so important why have hot prospects like Fredrik Ljungstrom not been offered new contracts?
Sam Leveridge
Simply Ricky Duncan and Steve Tilson do not agree with your assessment. I remember meeting Fredrik and hoped he would make it with us. Fredrick is a really nice lad and it is a shame it did not work out.
I understand he has now returned to a club in Sweden.
As always, I hope you continue to find the answers to these questions constructive. As I said above it is not possible to keep all the people happy all the time but I trust by this sharing there is a greater understanding and together we can continue Southend United’s success.
You all have such a major part to play in the on field performance and I hope as many of you as possible turn up on Friday to help maintain the recent momentum. We all know it is a big ask to win the next five games but when has the team ever achieved 79 points and not been in the playoffs?!!
