Dear Clint Dempsey

Preach it, VJ!!! I'm drinkin' what you're sellin! Totally agree...Let's go for it, dangit, I know it's naive but it makes sense! We're not that far away from being a top tier club..

 

Uh, yeah, we are. Take a look at any of the tables from the past 5 years. Then look at our top 3 Prem finishes. Look at GF and GA. We are miles from Champions League contention. You can't win 2-3 road games a year or score as infrequently as we do and be in that mix.

Financially, we're not there either. We have one of the smaller stadiums in the Prem. If I recall, it's about 32nd or so in capacity in all of England. So even if we can sell it out, we're chasing teams who can almost double our home match attendance. On the plus side, 33-50% of the teams with bigger stadiums than us are in the lower leagues in any given season. So we have the Prem $$ to gain an advantage over them and stay in the league. Perhaps we can continue to grow it and expand over time, but that is a slow and arduous climb.

With our infrastructure and the new rules that don't let you spend your way into oblivion in order to make Europe, Europa qualification is about as good as it can get for us. 10th is an achievement, even if it doesn't necessarily feel like it some years. There was a report that came out a few years ago about economics in English football and in running the numbers I figured we should be good for 14th-16th each year, depending on who is in the Prem. Anything over that is overachieving (and/or other clubs underachieving). We've been very fortunate to witness so much success from the club these past 4 seasons.

Selling Clint, regardless of the fee is a slippery slope. He's responsible for almost 50% of our goals via scoring or assist this year and replacing those goals is going to be a big ask. Just look how many players we've had score double digit goals in the Prem in the last 5 years. Now look how many we have that aren't named Dempsey. Right, zero. We're probably looking at a sum of the parts type deal if Dempsey, Dembele and some older players go. I just hope Jol is up to the task, b/c so far he hasn't been. Without Clint, we'll be unable to afford to wait a year for another 10M pound player to "adjust" to the Prem & figure out how to score. And that's assuming the one we have actually figures it out (2 goals to date and holding).

 

Good points, Aggie. Still, I'd hope if Clint was sold, it wouldn't be a foreigner that was purchased in replacement but, instead, somebody with Prem experience - because such a player could be afforded dependent upon Dempsey's value. But, as you say, where the @#$% will the goals come from if he's sold? Nobody else has stepped up in the past three seasons, so what leads us to believe somebody will now?

It's all Fulhamish.

COYW

 

We are not that far away. If we hadn't been so shit in the last ten minutes of games, we would be where Newcastle is right now. With what we have on the field, we are only a couple of player from establishing ourselves as a top 7 team. We established ourselves as a Premier League team in the first eight years in this league and we are now a team that should be in the top ten every year. Now is the time to take the next step and aim for Europe every year.

And this does not mean we have to spend lots of money. I know we don't have £50m to spend on players. However, if you build the academy like we have been doing, then that won't matter. All that matters at that point is spending money to keep the players at reasonable wages. If you do that and spend where necessary in the summer windows, then the club can compete with everybody else.


This is probably a long process and I don't care that it is. What I care about is that we start climbing Mt. Everest and try and reach the top. The club can't do that if you sell your best players and constantly change managers. We are a team on the rise and we shouldn't accept where we are, we should continue that rise.

 

A BIG :text-+1:

 

Or, as Herman Edwards succinctly put it, "YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME!"

 

I don't disagree. I'm just saying it'll take a long time and there's still a big gulf between us and the top 4. The next step is to expand the Cottage so we can bring in more revenue and it sounds like that is being worked on. We've already done the academy work and that's starting to pay dividends.

 

Would love him to...don't think he will.

 

Yes, definitely a Browns fan, my ignorant optimism over the future gives me away? And wouldnt it be great if Aston Villa went down? They've only got 35