What budget did Ryan Lowe have? | PASOTI
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What budget did Ryan Lowe have?

IJN

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Nov 29, 2012
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When DA was around, a lot was made of he had a a mid table budget, he had a top ten budget etc etc.

Do we know, have any of us read, what sort of budget as pertaining to others in this league have?

For example, if RL had a top ten budget, then this season could be considered 'very bad', however if he has a bottom ten budget then perhaps it's only to be expected.

Thoughts?
 
Jan 27, 2012
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I think Lowe has benefited from a more competitive budget than Adams ever had. Players like Mayor, Hardie, Ennis and Cooper would not have come cheap and there were some transfer fees involved. I think Simon Hallett can take credit for funding that. And for keeping things going at a time when the club’s income has been decimated.

Argyle are clearly not paying what the likes of Hull, Sunderland or Peterborough can, but I would speculate that they have a better playing budget than the average team in this division.
 

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I've no idea what this seasons budget is but for last season Lowe said it was around the tenth highest budget in League Two.

Looking at the teams in League One and knowing the budget from last season I would guess the budget for this season is lower half, probably right about where we are in 16th place.
When setting budgets owners or directors would hope the manager over achieves, as Lowe did last season.

"My wage budget was probably tenth in League Two and we finished third and probably should have finished first.”

We have spent out on transfer fees this season, something we don't usually do, buying George Cooper, Hardie and Ennis.
 

Cobi Budge

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Apr 8, 2011
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The budget gulf between the top 6 clubs (plus a couple who are underachieving) and the rest of League 1 this season is quite frightening, that is for sure.
 
Mar 14, 2009
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You know what the worrying thing is. Argyle want to develop their own players.

Well apart from Cooper, everyone’s form has gone in reverse.

If we take our youthful back line. Can you honestly say Watts and Opoku are better now than when they first arrived here? I mean they are still making the same mistakes as they did when they arrived here.

We talk on here about budget. At this level though it’s about taking a player and making them better. It effectively was why DA failed. As the players he had progressively got worse, even our best ones like Carey who had a terrible final season with us.

The best managers at this level make your average league one player, better. They make them effective. Sturrock managed to do this with a number of his squad. Holloway managed to do this with a number of his squad (at an even higher level).

There is one excuse for Lowe. Covid-19. Simply the players might be well and truly burnt out in what has been a congested season. However, if he can’t develop players next season (and they get better as the season progresses and not worse) then it doesn’t matter about a budget of any level.
 
Dec 30, 2020
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The Swiss Ramble blog on football finance ranked League 1 clubs in order of their spend on wages here (based on figures in the club's accounts) in a twitter thread on the impact of covid.

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 2287997952

It's from March last year, and relates to League 1 as constituted for the 2018/19 season because that corresponds with the most recent set of accounts. So the list actually includes Argyle, but they just seem to have given us and a few other teams the league average - I think the abbreviated accounts that some clubs publish, including Argyle prior to this year, don't enable a calculation of wage costs.

Our subsequently reported wage bill of £4.8m in our most recent (more detailed) accounts (covering last season in League 2) equates to a weekly wage bill of 92k.

This suggests our (2019/20 League 2) wage bill would have ranked 13th out of 19 League 1 teams (in 2018/19), according to Swiss Ramble.

So pretty imprecise, and doesn't account for spend on transfers which is another component of the budget. But it suggests we're financially lower mid table in League 1 terms, which passes the sniff test of feeling about right.
 
Nov 16, 2006
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Metal_Green_Mickey":38yx6bqp said:
You know what the worrying thing is. Argyle want to develop their own players.

Well apart from Cooper, everyone’s form has gone in reverse.

If we take our youthful back line. Can you honestly say Watts and Opoku are better now than when they first arrived here? I mean they are still making the same mistakes as they did when they arrived here.

We talk on here about budget. At this level though it’s about taking a player and making them better. It effectively was why DA failed. As the players he had progressively got worse, even our best ones like Carey who had a terrible final season with us.

The best managers at this level make your average league one player, better. They make them effective. Sturrock managed to do this with a number of his squad. Holloway managed to do this with a number of his squad (at an even higher level).

There is one excuse for Lowe. Covid-19. Simply the players might be well and truly burnt out in what has been a congested season. However, if he can’t develop players next season (and they get better as the season progresses and not worse) then it doesn’t matter about a budget of any level.

Definitely agree with the "player development" need of a League 1 manager.

I think you could say though that along with M.Cooper, Jephcott (did anyone see a 20+ goals in a calendar year striker just 18 months ago?), along with maybe Hardie & Ennis, who weren't particularly used or rated at their previous clubs, and especially Conor Grant have all improved under Lowe.

All subjective of course, but not true to say that RL hasn't developed & improved some players, in my opinion.
 
Jul 28, 2020
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It’s a very interesting thread - but without information from the club ( which I’d be interested to read) is purely speculation...

But I’ll speculate- the signings of Camara, Cooper, Mayor, Mccleod, Hardie and Ennis won’t have come cheap.... which leads me to assume that Lowes budget for this season is competitive....

It’s more interesting to look at the gaps in the squad at DM and CB,( and the departure of Canavan), and the way this budget has been used....

What interests me more is the change in budget during Adams reign... For example, I’m sure many people would agree that the team and squad for the 2-0 win against Blackburn at Home Park in February 2018, was the best we’ve seen at the club for the last five years ( particularly if you add in Diagouraga, who had just left). But players like Bradley, The excellent Vyner and Oscar Threlkald were allowed to leave.....

During the closed season the Aberdeen job vacancy came up - did Adams get distracted by this ?

As pre- season emerged in 2018, I remember going to the pre- season matches at Tavistock and Yeovil. I’m sure I can’t have been the only one left thinking- “ How on earth is he going to make a team out of this lot ?”Of course he couldn’t and didn’t. But I’m sure that the likes of Tafari Moore, Ashley Smith Brown and Peter Grant were not Adams first choice signings, shall we say ? Add to that the fringes of fringe players Wilde and ainsworth and it was a pretty weak squad. The elephant in the room is what one assumes to be a pretty drastic budget cut between seasons 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.It’s something that I’ve not heard anybody talk about . It’s just a shame that the board at the time didn’t back Adams more generously in the summer of 2018. I can’t have been the only one, at that time to believe that the team and squad for that Blackburn match had one foot in the championship.....

Did you know ? Barring a dramatic change in fortune for the last three games of the season ( which we all hope for) the results sequence and point age ( if you adjust to three points for a win) for the last 15 games of this season will be the worst in living memory, for league 1 or equivalent ( going back to all known records- 1920 season.).See Greens on screen “ seasons”......
 
Dec 30, 2020
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greenpilled":1oexipgw said:
The Swiss Ramble blog on football finance ranked League 1 clubs in order of their spend on wages here (based on figures in the club's accounts) in a twitter thread on the impact of covid.

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 2287997952

It's from March last year, and relates to League 1 as constituted for the 2018/19 season because that corresponds with the most recent set of accounts. So the list actually includes Argyle, but they just seem to have given us and a few other teams the league average - I think the abbreviated accounts that some clubs publish, including Argyle prior to this year, don't enable a calculation of wage costs.

Our subsequently reported wage bill of £4.8m in our most recent (more detailed) accounts (covering last season in League 2) equates to a weekly wage bill of 92k.

This suggests our (2019/20 League 2) wage bill would have ranked 13th out of 19 League 1 teams (in 2018/19), according to Swiss Ramble.

So pretty imprecise, and doesn't account for spend on transfers which is another component of the budget. But it suggests we're financially lower mid table in League 1 terms, which passes the sniff test of feeling about right.

As I'm the kind of saddo who finds this sort of thing interesting (and it's vaguely related to my day job), I had a go at updating the figures for current League 1 teams.

Basically, if you rank all the clubs in League 1 that publish the figures in their accounts by their most recent annual wage bill you get the following table:

Sunderland 27m
Wigan 19.4m
Ipswich 19.2m
Hull 18m
Charlton 10.4m
Portsmouth 8m
Fleetwood 7m
Peterborough 6.2m
Burton Albion 6m
Lincoln 5.1m
Argyle 4.8m
Blackpool 4.7m
MK Dons 4.5m
Shrewsbury 4.1m
Rochdale 3.9m
Wimbledon 3.6m

The figures are for last season or the season before that in some cases but I don't think year-on-year changes would be enough to significantly alter the standings (Wigan might be a fair bit lower given their financial problems)

The other 8 clubs that don't publish wage bills tend to be amongst the smaller fry in the division, but they might have external backing? You could probably estimate their expenditure relative to Argyle by comparing the clubs' total running costs but I couldn't quite be bothered.

Basically, it seems like a fairly solid bet that in terms of League 1 budgets, we are lower mid table.
 
Mar 23, 2008
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Whilst we were pathetic against Charlton, when I looked at their team and squad is is very clearly much better, more experienced and expensive than ours.

I would hazard an educated guess and suggest Lowes budget is a smidge less than Adam's. Carey, Lamieras and Ladapo were all on strong money and rightly so. Likewise Taylor, Ness, Bradley, Threlkeld, Sarcevic, etc would all be good earners. Basically that team/squad had far more senior pros than this, so even with a slight fiscal rise that squad would be more expensive per month than this.
 
May 3, 2016
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So the answer to the original question is nobody barring the board and Ryan Lowe know what this seasons budget is.

I know one thing if the budget is not increased and the money spent wisely we will be lucky to stay in this league.
 
Jan 12, 2011
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Exiled in Cornwall
I'm pretty sure I remember it being mentioned at one of the virtual fans forums, that the wage cap did not affect us this season as we were below the threshold (£2.5m). I may of misheard though.

Edit: This may also explain why we had so many Loan players.
 
May 8, 2011
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Allanon":291z2gxj said:
I'm pretty sure I remember it being mentioned at one of the virtual fans forums, that the wage cap did not affect us this season as we were below the threshold (£2.5m). I may of misheard though.

Edit: This may also explain why we had so many Loan players.

The wage/salary cap that was introduced on the 7th August 2020 would not have impacted Argyle or other Clubs budgets very much this season, as the salary of all players whose contracts were signed before that date would be treated as the notional league average if above it.
If the salary cap had been kept it would be next season when the impact would start to be felt as players started to be out of contract and negotiated new ones.
 
May 8, 2011
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Deacster":1sq5b3y6 said:
Whilst we were pathetic against Charlton, when I looked at their team and squad is is very clearly much better, more experienced and expensive than ours.

I would hazard an educated guess and suggest Lowes budget is a smidge less than Adam's. Carey, Lamieras and Ladapo were all on strong money and rightly so. Likewise Taylor, Ness, Bradley, Threlkeld, Sarcevic, etc would all be good earners. Basically that team/squad had far more senior pros than this, so even with a slight fiscal rise that squad would be more expensive per month than this.

A bit wide of the mark in your assumption on that list of players being on strong money (in football terms).
 
Jul 11, 2006
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tiverton
Someone on Twitter told me he was "reliably informed" that we had the 7th lowest budget in league One and I kindly disagreed with him. I think we would have been top 12/13