The way you punch above your weight is to be more efficient.
Most teams are incredibly inefficient. Look at the way most teams change managers every 18 months (or less). Regularly changing managers is inefficient. You pay off the old guy and his staff and get in a whole new lot of staff. The new manager then wants a different style of football so you need a different set of players for it so you end up paying up contracts and paying new signing on fees for players to replace them. That’s inefficient to be doing every year.
You then need to recruit better. This is usually less to do with talent identification and more to do with fit - are they the right character, are you recruiting them to play to their strengths etc. Putting them in the best position to succeed will raise their value.
You then need to sell at the right time. When you have promising youngsters let them get a good amount of first team experience to maximise their value and sell them when teams meet your valuation not when you need to pay the gas bill. You then want to ensure you get sell-ons and don’t just accept the bid that has the most cash up front.
With the proceeds you want to invest in ascending players. My preference is usually the best players from the division or two below. There’s less risk IMO with a player who has starred in NLS than a youth player dropping down from higher divisions. Players who have starred in the division below have established their floor and should be confident. Players released from higher up you don’t know how far they will need to fall. Plus being released is a knock to their confidence. Moving to a new club, a new area, is a bad time to be dealing with doubts.
Cup runs then bring in extra revenue and can put players in the spotlight to bring in more transfer revenue. Eastwood’s goal v Man U increased his value and let us bring in Nicky Bailey the following season. We were then able to sell Bailey for a big profit. Collymore took us to the fifth round of the FA Cup and that increased his value. We used that money to bring in Tommy Mooney, Jason Lee, Jonathan Hunt etc who all went onto play Premiership (sadly we wasted their value selling early on all three - after a manager change) and Otto but we wasted the Otto money on a big name signing in Mike Marsh who was a terrific talent but clearly a descending player and went into a downward spiral that took to the return of Tilly to emerge from.
If we can get the management structure right, get the recruitment more right than wrong and get some cup runs we can get to L1 and hang around there. I think we’re on the right path but it won’t necessarily all come at once.
Hence the structure that Stan was pushing for when he was involved.
The idea being that the Club has an identity, a style of play, and a way to operate and we stay within those boundaries.
So the football we play, for example, is a decision that the club made, not necessarily the manager. So, when the time comes that Kev moves on, ideally he has been poached by higher up because he is doing superbly and not sacked as it’s all gone horribly wrong. When we look at a successor, we stick to a manager that plays the same type of football (amongst other things). So, we may overlook a manager with promotions like a Steve Evans and opt for a manager who plays how we like and his best finish is a failed play-off campaign for example.
That way, the players we have fit the philosophy of the club. So they are comfortable in possession, fit to operate a press, goalkeeper that can play and so forth. So, new manager doesn’t have to axe 7/8 players and bring in 7/8. They work with the coaching staff in place. So we don’t have a MM who brings in 7 members of staff, we replace 1/2.
Its all very simple, very basis stuff that Stan was campaigning at the start, none of what he said was reinventing the wheel, but was what a sensible football club does, how a proper club operates.
Then, cup runs, sell ons and turning RH into a 365 day operation instead of a 23 day one.
When I watched the Macclesfield documentary on the BBC, one thing they did was have a gym that was open to the public. I’d love for us to have something similar, so we can work out at Roots Hall. I don’t live in Southend, but I work there, so I’d be tempted to get a membership to workout before/after work.
Have a pub/bar that is open in the week for the public. One that does food too. Quick pint and a burger at Roots Hall after work would be excellent.
That’s the problem that COSU have with how they set their budgets. They spent over £4 million before having the keys, Roots Hall was run down and needs sorting for them to bring in additional revenue, creditors are still being paid and so forth. So much money has, and will be spent before they even get the chance to fork out on the playing side.
It’s a balancing act for them at the moment.
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