Paweł Brożek
We have been linked with Polish striker Pawel Brozek this week. In the last two seasons Brozek has scored 23 in 27 and 19 in 27 (30 game seasons) as Wisla Krakow have dominated the Polish league.
2007-08
| 1 | Wisła Kraków (C) | 30 | 24 | 5 | 1 | 68 | 18 | +50 | 77 |
2008-9
| 1 | Wisła Kraków (C) | 30 | 19 | 7 | 4 | 53 | 21 | +32 | 64 |
Top scorers 07-08
- 23 goals
- 16 goals
Top scorers 08-09
- 19 goals
- 14 goals
In short he’s been top scorer in the league and scored a third of his team’s goals. And the thing that interests me is that his team have only conceded 18 and 21 goals along the way, which gives their goal difference a Man Utd/Chelsea/Liverpool type shape:
| 1 | Manchester United (C) | 38 | 28 | 6 | 4 | 68 | 24 | +44 | 90 | UEFA Champions League 2009–10 Group stage |
| 2 | Liverpool | 38 | 25 | 11 | 2 | 77 | 27 | +50 | 86 | |
| 3 | Chelsea | 38 | 25 | 8 | 5 | 68 | 24 | +44 | 83 |
From this we can see that Wisla are a very good side I think, neither emphasising attack nor defence. Further to all this, the Polish league doesn’t appear especially “open”, with most teams quite tight in defence and nobody conceding more than 46 goals and plenty of teams a lot less than that.
P |
Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD | Pts |
Qualification or relegation | Head-to-head |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wisła Kraków (C) | 30 | 19 | 7 | 4 | 53 | 21 | +32 | 64 | UEFA Champions League 2009–10 Second qualifying round | |
| 2 | Legia Warsaw | 30 | 18 | 7 | 5 | 52 | 17 | +35 | 61 | UEFA Europa League 2009–10 Second qualifying round | |
| 3 | Lech Poznań | 30 | 16 | 11 | 3 | 51 | 24 | +27 | 59 | UEFA Europa League 2009–10 Third qualifying round 1 | |
| 4 | Polonia Warsaw | 30 | 15 | 9 | 6 | 40 | 23 | +17 | 54 | UEFA Europa League 2009–10 First qualifying round | GKS 1–2 PWA PWA 1–0 GKS |
| 5 | GKS Bełchatów | 30 | 17 | 3 | 10 | 40 | 28 | +12 | 54 | ||
| 6 | Śląsk Wrocław | 30 | 11 | 12 | 7 | 40 | 34 | +6 | 45 | ||
| 7 | Polonia Bytom | 30 | 10 | 5 | 15 | 30 | 46 | −16 | 35 | ||
| 8 | Jagiellonia Białystok | 30 | 9 | 7 | 14 | 28 | 34 | −6 | 34 | JAG 1–0 RUC RUC 0–0 JAG |
|
| 9 | Ruch Chorzów | 30 | 9 | 7 | 14 | 22 | 32 | −10 | 34 | ||
| 10 | Piast Gliwice | 30 | 9 | 6 | 15 | 17 | 26 | −9 | 33 | ||
| 11 | Lechia Gdańsk | 30 | 9 | 5 | 16 | 30 | 44 | −14 | 32 | ODR 1–0 LGD LGD 3–1 ODR |
|
| 12 | Odra Wodzisław | 30 | 8 | 8 | 14 | 23 | 40 | −17 | 32 | ||
| 13 | Arka Gdynia | 30 | 7 | 9 | 14 | 27 | 39 | −12 | 30 | ARK 2–1 CRA CRA 0–0 ARK |
|
| 14 | Cracovia Kraków | 30 | 7 | 9 | 14 | 24 | 40 | −16 | 30 | Relegation play-offs | |
| 15 | Górnik Zabrze | 30 | 7 | 8 | 15 | 20 | 33 | −13 | 29 | Relegation to First League 2009-10 |
|
| 16 | ŁKS Łódź | 30 | 10 | 5 | 15 | 27 | 43 | −16 | 352 |
Paweł Brożek
So what we appear to have is a player who is top scorer in a league where scoring isn’t that easy, is delivering the goods for the best team in the league, and has done this twice in a row. Intriguing.
Incidentally, note the contrast with the above and the 2006-07 Heerenveen/Alfonso Alves season:
Heerenveen finished fifth:
| 5 | Heerenveen | 34 | 16 | 7 | 11 | 60 | 43 | +17 | 55 |
Their defence wasn’t great, their attack nothing out of the ordinary (not when you’re conceding over a goal a game), and that year the Eredivisie featured 2.99 goals per game, the most in Europe. To be fair to Alves, his 34 goals is impressive, but then again, people have always scored goals in Holland:
There are some big names on that list, but not every player has turned out to be the success their goals would suggest they might be. Clearly this is second guessing of the worst kind, picking an obvious example while showing why it might not have been a good idea, but hopefully the general thrust of what I’m saying has a bit of substance. I’m not saying for a minute that you could look at the above and say that Alves was doomed to be a bad buy and that Brozek will work out, but it’s all this kind of stuff that needs to be factored in.
(The French league intrigues me, incidentally, having traditionally been the hardest to score in in Europe.)
So anyway I’d be curious about Brozek. When I initially heard his name I assumed he’d been filling his boots in a wide open league, but having had a rummage around I don’t think that’s necessarily the case (although we must note that the standard of opposition is relatively low).
The angel and the one
Over the years you get attached to various bands. One of mine is Weezer. There’s not a great deal to Weezer, quite funny lyrics for the most part and some decent guitar work, but the attachment goes beyond the surface and I’m not sure why that is. I have a Weezer sticker on my (acoustic) guitar:
“If it’s too loud, turn it down” – wise words indeed!
Weezer’s eponymous debut was out in 1994. It opens with “My name is Jonas”, goes through the famous “Buddy Holly”, the excellent “Say it Ain’t So” and ends with “Only in Dreams”, which is over 7 minutes long. It’s a top album, and we listened to it a lot on an ill-chosen Club 18-30 holiday in Faliraki back in 1996 (at which my mate Wilf was reprimanded for climbing a tree, to which he rightly replied that the reps’ priorities were a bit off given what they were encouraging their guests to do every night). We spent two weeks playing an improvisational cricket game on the roof of one of those white square Greek holiday villas, a sponge ball and a tennis racket the equipment of choice, cheap vodka the refreshment. Meanwhile all the streetwise people were up to everything you’d expect on such a holiday: boys from Newcastle, girls from Basildon…. stereotypes? Well, you should’ve been there.
But I’m getting away from myself. Weezer regularly veer between the funny and the serious: “Pink Triangle” being a good example of funny (”I’m dumb she’s a lesbian, I thought I had found the one” – I’m sure we’ve all experienced something along these lines. No?)
More recently (in the serious department) we’ve had “The angel and the one”, which ends The Red Album. Here are the lyrics:
It’s not my destiny to be the one that you will lay with
So many reasons why I have to go but want to stay here
Sometimes I want a taste but then I don’t know what I’m saying
You are the angel and I am the one who is praying
There is another love that I would rather be obeying
I see the ecstasy and already I’m anticipating
I feel a deeper peace and that deeper peace is penetrating
I’ve got the magic in me, I am complete is what I’m saying
I’m flying up so high, my purple majesty displaying
I’ve reached a higher place that no one else can make a claim in
I’ll take you there, my friend
I’m reaching out my hand, so take it
We are the angels, and we are the ones that are praying
Peace, shalom, peace, shalom
Peace, peace
Peace, shalom, peace, shalom
Peace, peace
Nothing out of the ordinary there. Have a listen though. It might not do anything for you, but for overly sensitive, half-witted emotional wrecks like me these type of songs can get you. It’s about the delivery: I could sing those lyrics and it would be rubbish. Rivers Cuomo sings them, with the soaring guitars and cheesy eighties pomp and… well, whatever else they’re up to. And on a sad day I listen to this and feel alrighter. It’s quality stuff, and it’s all about the people, Weezer. Coldplay couldn’t do this.
And so it is with football. You know I have to bend these things around. Players are players and they do what they do, but in many ways it’s how they do it that matters. John Paintsil seems to be all over this year’s Fulham Review, with both Jamie and myself independently transfixed by the joy and spirit in his game. John Paintsil brings feeling to his football. Clint Dempsey… if you’ve read Adam Spangler’s piece on Dempsey you know what the game means to him. Everything. And yet he says himself: “the game don’t care”. Ouch. Dempsey and Rivers Cuomo are singing from the same sheet, one way or another. Dempsey has soul, his game has soul, to watch him is to savour something special about football. The titanic struggle of one man against himself, the world, and half a dozen other demons.
Have we enough transcendental players, players whose ability is only part of why we enjoy them? Brede Hangeland can inspire when he’s dominating a game. Danny Murphy’s neat excellence is impressive but not awesome, and while I like Simon Davies’ nimbleness and quick mind his style is not so far out of the ordinary.
A few times last season we worried that this Fulham side was somewhat mundane, nearer to Oasis than Blur, to Kenny Gee than Ornette Coleman. Which is fine – more people listen to Kenny Gee than Ornette Coleman – but you need a bit extra too, don’t you? You need struggle, majesty, dispair. And while Weezer’s conjuring of those emotions in me is calculated, the emotions themselves are not necessarily. You feel what you feel.
Where is our next hero coming from? Is there a player on Roy’s shopping list who brings heart, style and substance to the team, allied to the excellence that makes these peripheral gifts into something worthwhile? Without excellence we’re not interested in the back story, not really. Who’s next? This is the joy of sport. The team, but also the stories within the stories. Who’s going to move us? Who’s going to flip the ball up into the air and volley it past Edwin van der Saar? Who’s going to endure all kinds of grief, go to his old club and his younger brother and belt the ball so hard that the most expensive keeper in the league can’t get near it? Who’s going to take us away, make us forget ourselves and our floundering lives, make us scream with joy until we’re hoarse and we don’t know what day it is anymore?
I’m flying up so high, my purple majesty displaying
I’ve reached a higher place that no one else can make a claim in
Ahem.
It’s time for the season to begin already.
Out of time
Moritz Volz is out of contract and leaving. Sad this, he brought a lot of pleasure to a lot of people. In many ways a victim of Chris Coleman’s square pegs policy, Volzy went from being a decent looking right back to a rampaging midfielder to a man without a position to a loan player at Ipswich.
In his honour, here is my post from Chelsea 2-2 Fulham way back when:
Chelsea 2-2 Fulham
We could’ve taken Stamford Bridge. Fulham’s injury hit heroes stormed the rival Chelsea turf, first inhibiting this most expensive of sides, then leaving them wheezing on the ropes, gasping and praying for the final whistle. And if it wasn’t quite that one sided in real life I’m having a lot of fun remembering it that way.
We sang and sang and sang, and the lads responded. The irrepressible Moritz Volz, rapidly becoming the complete footballer (I know) surged in to give us an early lead. It was the 15,000th goal scored on the Premiership gravy train, and came somewhat as a shock; Chelsea had previously fired 4-5 balls all the way across our six yard box and were sniffing blood at that point. Then came a huge moment, as a handy move ended with Wayne Routledge in a position to make it two. He was moving across the ball and it wasn’t an easy chance, but a hard and low finish into either corner would’ve given Halario no chance. Instead his side-footed strike missed the target high.
Chelsea started to muscle in on our fun, and if anyone had said “Frank Lampard will equalise with a deflected shot” I would not have disagreed. The ball fell to the edge of the D, which is exactly where Lampard does his damage, and bang his strike whizzed into the bottom corner via Liam’s heel. It was unlucky, but a fair reflection on how the game was developing.
In the second half Noah’s own rain joined us, falling down in a mass of water then curving under the East stand roof in the wind, thereby drenching many Chelsea fans. Ho ho ho.
If Lampard’s strike was familiar then so was Drogba’s, heading home from close in to give his side the lead. A lead that at first seemed unlikely to be clawed back, but once more Fulham found another gear. McBride’s header was well-saved by Hilario, and we drove on and on. Half-chances came and went, but inside the last ten minutes Hilario again denied McBride and the ball came back into open play. This was one of those car-crash moments, where the whole world suddenly moves really slowly. It took forever to fall to Carlos Bocanegra, whose body language was that of a man who was about to score an important goal. It was not in doubt. Ball rolled on, Carlos shaped, steered, and yep, in she went. Two-two!
The rest of the match was spent shouting the goalscorer’s name to the tune of the conga. It was magnificent stuff, and Fulham’s heroes continued to pile on the pressure to the last. When Howard Webb finally blew it felt strange; we had held Chelsea at the Bridge, but will there ever be a better chance to beat them there? Ah, I’m being silly, it was terrific, and the players were brilliant.
There was a world class German central midfielder on display today… and he was wearing white. There was an industrious, effective but skillful English central midfielder on display today, and so was he. Whatever happens in the transfer window, the Brown and Volz midfield pairing is a joy to behold. These two can do a bit of everything, and like the Terminator, they will not be stopped in their mission. Behind them Christenval is showing that he’s probably our best passer, and can still defend as well as he needs to, while Bocanegra handled everything Chelsea threw at him then scored that vital, vital goal. With Niemi this back 5 is a terrific spine on which everything else can build and flourish.
Radzinski was as good as he has been for us, Liam did his bit, and McBride and John made themselves known. Franck’s injury induced radar failure still remains a problem, but his tackling and his heart make up for this. Routledge flattered to deceive for much of the game, but we’re better with him out there and he’s our most reliable dead-ball kicker.
Whew. We nearly beat Chelsea on their own patch. How about that?
_________________________________________________________________________
Happy days, eh? Good luck, Moritz.
Collins John is a funny one and in some ways I’m reluctant to theorise too much about him. It’s all too easy to label him a lazy waste of talent (everyone else has) but these things are rarely so black and white. For all we know he may have been depressed, injured, anything. His star shone brightly, then not at all. Oh well.
Leon Andreasen has been gone some time anyway.
Olivier Dacourt may have brought some experience to the club last season but, it has to be said, largely disappointed on the field.
Giles Barnes will be interesting to watch over time. We know how Roy prefers team players, but what if he could have harnessed the Barnes gifts into a team role? Perhaps Roy saw Giles Barnes as a very expensive leather jacket: no doubting the quality, but quality for someone else, quality he could get by without.
Julian Gray never did get a portrait pun on this site, and for that I am sorry.
Karim Laribi is an interesting one. I saw him for the age group side and he looked a hell of a player, playing in a sort of Dani Alves style, rampaging forward, those short legs swerving in and out of tackles, hitting long shots and free kicks, all sorts. He looked like Kenny Sansom on speed. But now he’s gone. Not sure why, he and Luca Moscatiello were much talked about youth coups, but you never know with youngsters and perhaps he didn’t develop, or perhaps he’s leaving of his own volition and has a better offer somewhere else. Who knows?
All orders processed
I’ve caught up. Apologies for lack of content here lately, but I’ve been hard at work on the day job and stuffing, addressing and posting Fulham Review envelopes in the evenings. And we’ve finally caught up. All orders are in envelopes and either in the post or about to be.
If you haven’t got one yet, please think about ordering now… the more we sell the more chance there is of breaking even and the more chance of doing all this again. Cheers!
Broken dreams
Close but no cigar.
The US gave it everything against a talented Brazil side and almost walked away with the glory, but a devastating second half saw Brazil to a 3-2 win. Our boy Clint had a decent game, scoring again to make it three for the tournament and securing him third place in the individual player awards. He was in tears as he picked up his bronze ball. Still, he can be proud of his and his teammates’ performances. Just shows what an amazing, unpredictable game football is, eh?
Here’s friend of CCN Bruce DuNord and the crew watching the game.
U.S. midfielder and Golden Ball Winner Clint Dempsey
On the match:
“Everything doesn’t always work out how you want it to, but no matter what I’m proud of what these guys accomplished and it was great to be a part of it.”On how they shut down Brazil in the first half:
“We picked our moments of when to get forward, did a good job of hitting them on the counter with Landon’s goal. Second half we still had some good chances, but they were the better team.”On the goal he scored in the tenth minute:
“Spector hit a good ball in, I just wanted to get it towards goal and try to hit it to the far post, and lucky enough it trickled in.”On the performance of the team:
“I’m proud of this team, proud of the effort everyone put in. Nobody can take away what we accomplished. I thought we played well today and gave them a tough fight, would have been nice if we could have kept the lead but they were the better team and had more chances, and eventually you knew a goal would come.”
and:
“You know we were out of it in the Egypt game and showed a lot of character to come back.
“We got a result against them and a result against Spain and in the first half here we thought we’d get a result in the final.
“But that’s what people come to see and watch, it was exciting.”
Too right.
Updated chart
This adds Dempsey and Kamara to the chart. Good discussion below for those who missed it.
Tour Stamford Bridge
Why?
This ad’s at either end of my commute now. Here’s the fish and chip shop, here’s the big soulless grey walls, here’s some stairs… if you’ve ever gone into a warehouse or a grain silo then surely this tour will be nothing new.
Detective work from White Lines
Here. The Johnny Haynes Stand being built on?
I wonder what they’re doing.
Fulham Review – really coming soon
Thanks for all the pre-orders. I’ve cleaned out every pound shop in Tooting buying jiffy bags to post them in.
There was a hiccup at the printer’s this week so the books will either arrive with me tomorrow, in which case I’ll post them Saturday, or Monday, in which case they’ll go on Monday.
Thanks for your patience, and if you haven’t ordered yet, please do! There’s a load of good stuff in there (I’ll do a proper spiel next week) and at £5 it’s top value.
http://www.godsfoot.com to order.
Last seasons’s Great Escape book is now sold out, but there are plenty of 06/07 books remaining.
cheers
Rich
Dempsey v Spain
Shared via AddThis
(hmmm. Someone’s scoring important goals in high profile matches… quieten down there, Clint)
It’s the system
I am, I know, something of a broken record on this subject, but I’ve found more proof so bear with me.
It has been my contention that Bobby Zamora, while not playing as well as we might hope, has not been as bad as people say. He has played in a team that does not emphasise attacking play, does not commit numbers to attack, which makes it easier for defenders to close down chances.
People don’t seem to accept this, so perhaps the following graph will help:
These are the percentage of shots on target for the Fulham players who have played for the last four years in England and shot a bit. Here are the raw numbers, for completeness:
| Zamora | Johnson | Gera | Davies | Murphy | |
| 05/06 | 60% | 54% | 41% | 63% | 38% |
| 06/07 | 47% | 68% | 43% | 46% | 83% |
| 07/08 | 45% | 77% | 53% | 54% | 60% |
| 08/09 | 27% | 40% | 27% | 24% | 14% |
How about that then? Every single one of them lost their shooting mojo this year, often quite considerably. I concede that some will simply blame this on Zamora (!) but if this isn’t a clear pattern I don’t know what is. So I repeat, this is a very hard team to play up front in. Unless you believe that all five of them just got bad at shooting just like that. And if you don’t believe that and you still want to blame Zamora for being terrible you have to make exceptions for the four other players but not him, and I don’t think you can do that. So… what do you think? Convinced anyone?
Arresting stuff
Still nothing tangible to talk about transfer-wise, so here are the 2007-08 arrest figures for Premier League clubs:
Weren’t we well behaved? There is some overlap. While no Spurs fans were arrested for violent disorder, four did throw missiles. Most racists: Spurs and Chelsea. Most offensive weapons: Chelsea and Arsenal. Strangely Manchester United dominated the alcohol league table. Birmingham were top of the non-missile violence category. And so on. Fulham? Did bugger all wrong really. No one dislikes us, we are nice.
20-20
Pakistan are victorious! And all Pakistan fans’ cars seem to have working horns. Tooting is ablaze with noise.
I used to think 20-20 was an abomination. I was very wrong. What a great game they’ve come up with. (Of course, it’s exactly the game many of us played every summer Wednesday while growing up, but it’s nice to see the old midweek slogs being played by experts. Great fun.)
Digression
Just throwing this up for consideration.
Clearly baseball and football are very different sports, but I was curious about the rate at which athleticism might decline. So yes, footballers require very different skills, but the human body is the human body and you can only do so much to slow things down. To whit:
This is by a professional baseball analyst called MGL, whose work I’ve followed (if not entirely understood). It was instructive that for a long time he was ahead of the game of baseball – he really did know more about aspects of the game than those ‘inside’ the game – but eventually he was hired by the St Louis Cardinals. He’s not infallible but he is very clever. Anyway, the above looks at a few things over time.
GDP is grounded into a double play. This happens with a man on first base and a batter hitting the ball on the floor. It effectively becomes a race down the line, so raw speed is everything here. Hitters might get smarter about avoiding double plays with age, which is perhaps why there’s no dropoff after 22-23. It’s clear that speed as it’s measured here is maintained through the mid twenties and drops off considerably at 29/30. I see no reason why this should be different for footballers.
UZR is a fielding measure. This is a decent proxy for a footballer too because now it’s not just about raw speed, but about positioning and even thinking. In this case the decline is at about 32, at which point the player will lack the basic athleticism required of his role.
SB/CS is interesting too. A player tries to steal a base when they’re on first. This is about speed, but again, that won’t do it. You need deception, smarts, and an ability to read the game around you. So the Stolen Base to CAught Stealing ratio is a measure of how successful they are at pilfering bases. You can see players getting better with age as they get more used to the game, then again things go awry at 32.
SLWTs is an overall rating for everything a player does, and here we see a peak at 26 or so and a decline past 30. This fits with football too.
Through all of this we must consider the sample, so the results could be more dramatic than they look. Only those players with the skills to keep playing are in the game at 32, so by definition you have a lot of 30-31 year olds who have dropped out of the test group because they’re not up to it anymore.
What does this prove for football? Not a lot, but as I say, I think the proxies for athletic ability are relevant. It suggests a red flag for players reaching their 31-32 year old seasons (we don’t have too many of those) and reinforces Roy’s apparant interest in players who are in the mid to late twenties, by which their athleticism is still okay and their ‘mental’ approach is probably about where it ought to be too. Again, this is not a new idea, but I liked the quantification. (I should probably caveat this by saying that baseball players mainly train for strength and endurance so perhaps footballer-specific training regimes could extend peak years).
Rumours
‘The toilets at a local police station have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on.’
(Ronnie Barker)
It’s a bit like this for Fulham fans isn’t it? In the past there were leaks here and there, and if the press got hold of a story there was reason to think they might know something. Now? Well we really don’t get much do we? The newspapers like to recycle stories from the January transfer window, or sometimes from before that, but rarely do we hear anything concrete.
I still think the Gary O’Neil (with potential for Adam Johnson too) move will happen, but as we’ve seen with Stephen Kelly, it’s likely that any moves we do make will be a surprise to everyone.
Agents can, of course, complicate things. Paul Scharner’s agent is being loud about our interest, but notes that a move to Hamburg is still a possibility. To me that says “Fulham asked but really we want Hamburg, so I shall attempt to drum up interest by the usual means”.
Scharner might be an alright player, but where would he play? He can play in defence and midfield, but something tells me Roy’s not a big fan the old Chris Coleman Square Peg Theory of Team Selection and would prefer specialists to generalists if at all possible. You can hardly see 6′3′ Scharner playing anywhere but centre-back or in Dickson’s role, and in either case he would be a spare part/alternative, which would be fine for us but not what he wants and probably not worth spending money on. So I’m suspicious of this one.
UPDATE: IGNORE ALL THIS: RAY LEWINGTON’S POSTING ON TiFF:
scharner – well up on the hit list,, plays anywhere , good defender , if either c/h get injured, kelly and scharner ? read pants and dickson african nations , europa cup, injuries etc. RH rates scharner big time
So there we have it. He has another post saying “hence signing Kelly and Scharner” which implies that this is what we’re doing. Cool.
Otherwise the rumours have been few and far between. It’s encouraging, I suppose, that there are few stories about players leaving the club. This makes sense in that Fulham is one of the game’s hot tickets at the moment, a good club on the up, but still you’d expect a little more sniffing around. Perhaps it’s that team ethos again: people realise that this team is stronger than the sum of its parts, so dragging one of these parts elsewhere might not be the best idea.
So there we are. Things will surely move along as we hit July, but in the meantime we may sit back and enjoy the fact that we still have a good team, a team that should get better as well.
Thanks for all the Fulham Review interest. We’ve got over 100 pre-orders so far, which is tremendous news and (if sales continue) means that we should be able to break even, which is all we ask really. You can, of course, still order at www.godsfoot.com. (Last year’s book is now sold out and won’t be reprinted. So there you go, a collector’s edition or something.)
Fulham Finances update
b+w_geezer has sent a Fulham Finances update through. Things really may be looking up for the club:
I never planned to update my efforts of two years ago on Fulham’s finances. However, David Conn did it all in the Guardian on 3 June 09. His article is well worth studying in full, but here are some highlights concerning FFC and selected clubs in our ballpark.
All these figures, in millions of pounds, relate to Season 2007-8. Afterwards I extrapolate to the one just ended.
TURNOVER
114.7 Tottenham
76.0 Everton
75.6 Aston Villa
59.1 Bolton (includes 8.7 from hotel)
56.4 Blackburn
53.7 Fulham
43.0 Wigan (Why so much lower than FFC?)
TV/BROADCASTING (incl. 0.75m per final place)
46.6 Everton
46.0 Aston Villa
41.2 Blackburn
40.3 Tottenham
34.2 Bolton
34.0 Fulham (finished 17th)
[Wigan unspecified]
GATE AND MATCHDAY
28.6 Tottenham (plus estimated >18m from corporate hospitality)
20.5 Everton (seems to include corporate hospitality)
18.5 Aston Villa (seems to include corporate hospitality)
9.6 Fulham (seems to include corporate hospitality)
6.8 Bolton (plus 2.4 from corporate hospitality)
6.2 Blackburn (plus unknown amount from corporate hospitality)
[Wigan unspecified]
TOTAL WAGE BILL
50.4 Aston Villa (67% of turnover)
44.5 Everton (59% of turnover)
39.7 Blackburn (70% of turnover)
39.3 Fulham (73% of turnover)
39.0 Bolton (66% of turnover)
38.4 Wigan (89% of turnover)
INTEREST PAYABLE
5.8 Aston Villa
3.9 Everton
3.0 Bolton
1.8 Fulham
1.7 Wigan
1.5 Blackburn
PROFIT/LOSS BEFORE TAX
+3.2 Fulham
+3.0 Blackburn
0 Everton (26k profit to be precise)
-8.4 Bolton
-7.6 Aston Villa
-11.2 Wigan
Notes:
Almost everything taken or inferred from David Conn at:
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jun/03/english-premier-league-debt
Additional info: Spurs’ sponsorship deal with Mansion is for a minimum 34m over 4 years. So if (per Conn) `Sponsorship and corporate hospitality’ totalled £27.8m for the season, hospitality would have been >18m. (Compare Everton…)
Extrapolation:
If these were the figures from Fulham’s great escape season, what can be expected from our best-ever one?
Our 7th place, plus FA Cup run will have added >8m to TV/broadcasting income. With some extra matchday income too, turnover ought to be >62m.
Wages bill? With a less bloated squad, there’s a chance it’ll have returned to more like the 35.2m of season 2006/7. The officially `healthy’ ratio of 60% of turnover would be achieved at around 37m.
If everything else is in line with Conn’s reports above, then pre-tax profits from our best-ever season will exceed 10m and may approach 15m.
…..But, so far as one can tell, none of this includes transfer fees paid/received.
Latest Fulham Review available soon!
It’s finally done!
To use my own explanation from FriendsofFulham.com last night:
For those of you new to the book, we have a match report from every game and a load of essays from fans. This year’s book has 112 pages, up from 96 last year and 80some the year before that. Contents are:
- Loads of match reports (we had someone [usually me or JamieR] at just about every game) featuring teams, attendance, etc.
- Chopper’’s Departing Heroes, a terrific annual feature where he reviews the careers of all players leaving the club
- American journalist Adam Spangler’s 17 page special on Clint Dempsey. Adam spent a couple of days with Clint a while back and wrote up his story. Amazing stuff.
- A few pages of stats from Colin at Championship at Best – cutting edge stuff, this
- The Times Top 50 Fulham Players feature I did earlier in the year
- Various other essays from Dan Crawford, Rob Griffin and myself
- And a few of Ormondroyd’s pics!
Last year’s book (also available from http://www.godsfoot.com) was much the same but detailed the Sanchez/Hodgson/Great Escape season (we’ve less than ten of this book left I fear that we may have sold out…).
The year before that was the Coleman/Sanchez/Dempsey season and we’ve a fair few of those!
All of them are a fiver, which is mad value considering the work that’s gone into them (oh, the hours…) and (we hope) the quality you’ll find within. We got amazing feedback after both of the first two books so hopefully the third will be just as well received. (We’ll happily post to the US or anywhere in the world.)
Some comments I have lifted from various sites already:
Will defiantly be buying, loved last years one. — A.L
Cheers for the heads-up. As Rich says, a fiver is insane VFM. Thanks to all involved in anticipation (NT) — The Doctor
looking forward to this years one – cracking read (NT) — NicW2
Loved last year’s, so this one should be a cracker. — Mike H
This is MUST reading. I’ll be ordering mine soon! — HatterDon
I got the one from the “great escape” season (didn’t know they existed before then) – its a GREAT read! — Burt
I wouldn’t lie to you, it’s a really good book (I finally believe this!) so if you want to buy one, please go to www.godsfoot.com and follow your nose.
One final thing: I’m a terrible salesman, so the more copies I can sell online the better. Word of mouth is vital on this, so please do spread the word and tell people if you like it. It makes a huge difference.
Thanks!
Fixtures out
Fixtures. It’s one of those football words that really adds to the richness of the game. I remember when I was about nine and our Cub Scouts pack joined a league. We couldn’t believe it. A league! With fixtures and a league table and everything! It was like real football. I remember after a few games I came home and said to mum that if anything our league seemed a bit faster than the professional game. We didn’t have many fouls or throw ins, so the action could go on uninterrupted for ages, I reasoned. Mum gently suggested that the professional game was also quite fast. But that didn’t matter to me, I was in the thick of things, a real football league.
Anyway, it’s always exciting to see the fixture list for the new season, especially when you have weddings to attend. We have one in Darlington on 6th September. I was hoping for Sunderland away on the 5th, but joy oh joy, there’s no game! So I can get on with the weekend without worrying about football.
There is another wedding, this one in Leeds, but I can’t remember when that is. I think it’s November, which means I’m probably not missing much then either. So hurray.
The list is here. We aren’t allowed to reproduce the list (read this if you want to see just how daft modern football is) but a quick analysis won’t do any harm:
Portsmouth away – cracking start and should be a grand day out
Blackburn home (likely to be moved for European reasons)
Chelsea home – early season fun
Then it gets messy, with Villa away, Everton home, Wolves away and Arsenal at home, then West Ham away, Hull at home, City away, Liverpool home, Wigan and B’ham away then Bolton at home. We might go through that lot without winning a thing.
Of course thing have moved on and Roy’s made us good, but still a run of hard home games and (well, any) away games is a troublesome prospect.
December gets easier for a time, and January and February look okay, then we have a half-tricky run in (away to Liverpool, home to Wolves, away to Everton, home to West Ham, away to Arsenal). So it’s all about the middle of the season. There seem to be some fairly poor sides in the division this year so hopefully no need to worry, but I am concerned that fixture related issues can lead to hard runs of games which can lead to a loss of perspective (I kept telling people last year that even if we had a great season we’d lose a third of our games and all the misery this would entail) and therefore a bit of unecessary negativity. We shall see.
