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The big experiment

All experiments must have limits. By their nature, they don't go on indefinitely. At some point, the hypothesis is either proven or disproven.

Without a stated end in sight, I wonder:

At what point does this experiment get brought to a close on humanitarian grounds?
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Comments

  • edited September 2015
    What is the experiment exactly?

    Focus on the league because it is so important? Ok sure - we can do that, if we actually had a squad that didn't look like it was a youth side after a couple of injuries within 8 games of the season.

    We don't have the squad to be a promotion chasing side. So just take games like tonight head on and finish mid-table if thats what is meant to be. What else can we realistically do?! How did the management mess this one up so bad?!
  • LoOkOuT said:

    cafctom said:

    What is the experiment exactly?

    Don't kid yourself mate, we're not to know!

    All we know is what we can piece together. The Staprix Experiment seems to involve a network of clubs (now diminished) and the belief that value can be made by surfacing undervalued players from the continent (where "costs of productions" are lower). In and of itself, not a bad idea, but combined with an eccentric autocrat who seems to have not an emotional bone in his body, nor a care for anything that can't be represented on a spreadsheet, it seems merely designed to eradicate any pride we have in our own club, its history and traditions.
    Have to see what Katrien says about all of that.
    I sometimes think she's more in the dark than the rest of us!

  • We're 8 games into the season. Whilst 15th isn't great I wouldn't commence pants shitting just yet
  • 100% SUPPORT
  • For me it's about the risk involved with pumping in a lot of money. We know he just wants the club to be profitable. Of course it would be more profitable if we were in the PL but then the affects of pumping in a lot of money and not getting promoted would be pretty disastrous and we already know there's an element of chance involved.

    It's far from ideal but it's what we'll have to put up with. We're going to be a mid-table championship team for as long as RD is at the helm unless we stumble across a few absolute gems in the process.
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  • For me it's about the risk involved with pumping in a lot of money. We know he just wants the club to be profitable. Of course it would be more profitable if we were in the PL but then the affects of pumping in a lot of money and not getting promoted would be pretty disastrous and we already know there's an element of chance involved.

    It's far from ideal but it's what we'll have to put up with. We're going to be a mid-table championship team for as long as RD is at the helm unless we stumble across a few absolute gems in the process.

    The club will never be profitable outside of the PL...
    Well that's what 'the experiment' is about right? That's what he's trying to achieve?
  • edited September 2015
    MrLargo said:

    Addicted said:

    We're 8 games into the season. Whilst 15th isn't great I wouldn't commence pants shitting just yet

    Don't think there's any pants shitting going on. Just the boring, tedious realisation, very early in the season, that we're not going to achieve anything this season and that Roland has once again left us short on the playing front.

    Not going down, not going up. Flirt with the play-offs for about half an hour during the first couple of weeks of the season. Flirt with mid-table mediocrity for a month or two, flirt with relegation for a couple of months. Then rise, gloriously, magnificently, like the Titanic being brought back to the surface from the ocean bed, out of the relegation zone, climbing majestically, all the way up to 15th. Flirt with mid-table mediocrity for the remainder of the season.
    Sadly this is the case for a lot of clubs in the league. Us, Reading, Cardiff, Forest, Leeds, Huddersfield, Wednesday, Fulham, Brentford, Wolves, Blackburn. Sticking money on those teams being between 7th and 21st would be a pretty good bet imo. Aside from Brentford and Wolves, they all had pretty similar seasons last year too.
  • For me it's about the risk involved with pumping in a lot of money. We know he just wants the club to be profitable. Of course it would be more profitable if we were in the PL but then the affects of pumping in a lot of money and not getting promoted would be pretty disastrous and we already know there's an element of chance involved.

    It's far from ideal but it's what we'll have to put up with. We're going to be a mid-table championship team for as long as RD is at the helm unless we stumble across a few absolute gems in the process.

    The mad thing is, if you don't pump in enough money you may as well not pump in any. Let's say Roland has invested heavily this season - and as far as we know he has, we're certainly over budget, without knowing what the budget is. For the sake of argument let's say he's spent £6m on the team. It's not enough. Our squad is still too thin and we can't cover even the most light number of injuries to first team players. We could fill out our squad better with three or four more signings, so that could maybe be an extra £2m. Going by the quality of players unearthed this season that would really sort us out. We'd be competitive, we wouldn't have to worry about relegation and we could think about the play offs. Perfect. Roland doesn't want to because he's set the budget and he doesn't want to go above it, but he's wasted his money if he doesn't invest enough for us to have a go. He'd be better of investing nothing at all and letting us slide down like Blackpool. It's just bad value if he doesn't give Luzon a proper squad.
    He needs good relevant advice ... sadly he doesn't appear to be receiving it ...either that or he refuses to listen.
  • stonemuse said:

    For me it's about the risk involved with pumping in a lot of money. We know he just wants the club to be profitable. Of course it would be more profitable if we were in the PL but then the affects of pumping in a lot of money and not getting promoted would be pretty disastrous and we already know there's an element of chance involved.

    It's far from ideal but it's what we'll have to put up with. We're going to be a mid-table championship team for as long as RD is at the helm unless we stumble across a few absolute gems in the process.

    The mad thing is, if you don't pump in enough money you may as well not pump in any. Let's say Roland has invested heavily this season - and as far as we know he has, we're certainly over budget, without knowing what the budget is. For the sake of argument let's say he's spent £6m on the team. It's not enough. Our squad is still too thin and we can't cover even the most light number of injuries to first team players. We could fill out our squad better with three or four more signings, so that could maybe be an extra £2m. Going by the quality of players unearthed this season that would really sort us out. We'd be competitive, we wouldn't have to worry about relegation and we could think about the play offs. Perfect. Roland doesn't want to because he's set the budget and he doesn't want to go above it, but he's wasted his money if he doesn't invest enough for us to have a go. He'd be better of investing nothing at all and letting us slide down like Blackpool. It's just bad value if he doesn't give Luzon a proper squad.
    He needs good relevant advice ... sadly he doesn't appear to be receiving it ...either that or he refuses to listen.
    I suspect it is the latter.
  • For me it's about the risk involved with pumping in a lot of money. We know he just wants the club to be profitable. Of course it would be more profitable if we were in the PL but then the affects of pumping in a lot of money and not getting promoted would be pretty disastrous and we already know there's an element of chance involved.

    It's far from ideal but it's what we'll have to put up with. We're going to be a mid-table championship team for as long as RD is at the helm unless we stumble across a few absolute gems in the process.

    The mad thing is, if you don't pump in enough money you may as well not pump in any. Let's say Roland has invested heavily this season - and as far as we know he has, we're certainly over budget, without knowing what the budget is. For the sake of argument let's say he's spent £6m on the team. It's not enough. Our squad is still too thin and we can't cover even the most light number of injuries to first team players. We could fill out our squad better with three or four more signings, so that could maybe be an extra £2m. Going by the quality of players unearthed this season that would really sort us out. We'd be competitive, we wouldn't have to worry about relegation and we could think about the play offs. Perfect. Roland doesn't want to because he's set the budget and he doesn't want to go above it, but he's wasted his money if he doesn't invest enough for us to have a go. He'd be better of investing nothing at all and letting us slide down like Blackpool. It's just bad value if he doesn't give Luzon a proper squad.
    I highly doubt we'd get relegated this year so maybe this 'budget' is an amount set that if we can spend only this and avoid relegation then that would make us profitable. Obviously I don't know enough to say this but for me this can be the only logical thing that RD is doing.
  • Maybe that's why he is ploughing all that money into the academy, because he thinks over time it will produce more Joe Gomez types? That way he could flog all our best youngsters for a profit whilst spending as little as possible on cut price unknown foreign players to enable us to keep our heads above water in the Championship. He might even make a few quid on some of those cut-price players too if he's lucky.
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  • edited September 2015

    Maybe that's why he is ploughing all that money into the academy, because he thinks over time it will produce more Joe Gomez types? That way he could flog all our best youngsters for a profit whilst spending as little as possible on cut price unknown foreign players to enable us to keep our heads above water in the Championship. He might even make a few quid on some of those cut-price players too if he's lucky.

    Who knows what he is trying to do, but in the meantime he's building a debt mountain that will heavily outweigh the resale value of the club. That would only change in the Premier League.
  • How long was he at standard liege for? Just wondering/hoping he gets bored quickly.
  • Is the debt mountain that relevant if its to the owner?
  • razil said:

    Is the debt mountain that relevant if its to the owner?

    Yes if he wants to get it back.
    If he cannot make any money out of the club and he does not want to invest enough to get in the PL it is hard to see now why he hangs on to it.
    In my business experience sometimes owners hang on to loss-making businesses for too long hoping that something will happen to allow them to get their money back. That seldom happens and in the end they go bust or sell at a big loss.
    These two options look favourite for us sadly.
  • edited September 2015
    Southbank said:

    razil said:

    Is the debt mountain that relevant if its to the owner?

    Yes if he wants to get it back.
    If he cannot make any money out of the club and he does not want to invest enough to get in the PL it is hard to see now why he hangs on to it.
    In my business experience sometimes owners hang on to loss-making businesses for too long hoping that something will happen to allow them to get their money back. That seldom happens and in the end they go bust or sell at a big loss.
    These two options look favourite for us sadly.
    Indeed - you can see what the 90s/Premier League directors got out of their involvement because they were Charlton fans, even though I'm sure they didn't intend to forfeit as much as they did - but it's hard to see what RD gets out of burning his money.

    He probably overpaid for the club in the first place, but there is only one way he can add sufficient value to have any chance of getting his money back.
  • Southbank said:

    razil said:

    Is the debt mountain that relevant if its to the owner?

    Yes if he wants to get it back.
    If he cannot make any money out of the club and he does not want to invest enough to get in the PL it is hard to see now why he hangs on to it.
    In my business experience sometimes owners hang on to loss-making businesses for too long hoping that something will happen to allow them to get their money back. That seldom happens and in the end they go bust or sell at a big loss.
    These two options look favourite for us sadly.
    He will not go bust, but will get fed up of putting money in with no return
  • He will not go bust,but the club might
  • DRAddick said:

    A big part of the experiment went out the window with the FFP cave in by the spineless FA/FL. Now who knows what RD's plans are. Maybe not even him yet.

    yup, agree with that
  • Sure but not in his interest to wreck it as he'd never be able sell it, and don't forget we have ACV on the Valley.. Perhaps we should also apply for the training ground
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Roland Out Forever!