Beckford

[Burmesefox]

Ttfn, I have faith that he will do well next season. For now, I would retain his services.

[Guest Col city fan]

Let me ask you all this.

If Beckford stays at the club and goes on this season to fire in 25 goals, majorly helping us to get promotion, will you all think he's not value for money then?

It's a risk keeping him, given last season's league goals tally and the wages he is allegedly on. But it could be a risk worth taking.

We can all speculate but NONE of us know whether keeping him could be one of the best bits of business the club would have taken in recent years.

Let's see whether Pearson wants him to stay at the club, and if so, then see if the gamble pays off.

That's my take on Beckford.

[Mark_w]

Let me ask you all this.

If Beckford stays at the club and goes on this season to fire in 25 goals, majorly helping us to get promotion, will you all think he's not value for money then?

It's a risk keeping him, given last season's league goals tally and the wages he is allegedly on. But it could be a risk worth taking.

We can all speculate but NONE of us know whether keeping him could be one of the best bits of business the club would have taken in recent years.

Let's see whether Pearson wants him to stay at the club, and if so, then see if the gamble pays off.

That's my take on Beckford.

If he scores 25 goals and we go up, he'll be a legend in my eyes, and I'll be delighted we kept him. But I don't think it's a risk worth taking at all, he doesn't guarantee promotion, we have yet to see any prolonged form that suggests he is capable of those 25 goals a year. Keeping him could be a great bit of business, but equally it could be one of the worst the club has ever taken if the owners end up pulling out, I don't think it's worth the risk. Still as you've eliminated my posts I guess you don't care too much what I think.

[Guest Col city fan]

If he scores 25 goals and we go up, he'll be a legend in my eyes, and I'll be delighted we kept him. But I don't think it's a risk worth taking at all, he doesn't guarantee promotion, we have yet to see any prolonged form that suggests he is capable of those 25 goals a year. Keeping him could be a great bit of business, but equally it could be one of the worst the club has ever taken if the owners end up pulling out, I don't think it's worth the risk. Still as you've eliminated my posts I guess you don't care too much what I think.

Bloody Hell Mark.. Ok I'll reply.

Life is about taking risks.

You mentioned MON earlier. I was an established City fan when he came.

Do you not think that MON took risks? When we signed Claridge I'm sure we paid a million for him, which was a big fee for the time. He'd fallen out with Fry at Brum and came to us under a bit of a cloud of publicity. Clagger wasn't an instant hit but once he got his shooting boots on he became a club legend.

Lennon, Muzzy, Guppy were all relative unknowns and were seen by the majority of the fans as 'risky' signings basically because we didn't know anything much about them.

I guess even introducing Heskey was a risk as he was so young when he came into the team.

What is the point of playing football at a pro level and being a fan if you don't want to improve yourself? In this case, getting into the Premiership.

Who knows whether Beckford will finally come good or not. But unless you are really so unsure on the player that you absolutely want him gone, then give him a chance to replicate what he did at Leeds. He could have a storming season, he could have a stinker, but your willingness to get rid 'just in case' is highly defeative mate.

Life don't work like that.

If it is a risk that the club can afford, take it and live with the decision.

[marty78]

Let me ask you all this.

If Beckford stays at the club and goes on this season to fire in 25 goals, majorly helping us to get promotion, will you all think he's not value for money then?

It's a risk keeping him, given last season's league goals tally and the wages he is allegedly on. But it could be a risk worth taking.

We can all speculate but NONE of us know whether keeping him could be one of the best bits of business the club would have taken in recent years.

Let's see whether Pearson wants him to stay at the club, and if so, then see if the gamble pays off.

That's my take on Beckford.

It's a big decision and intriguing to see what happens. If we have to sell him because of wages being too high then fair enough. If the money is not a problem then I'd like to think he would stay.

[Filbert_Ross]

Either way,no one seems to be coming in for him anyway.

[Mark_w]

Bloody Hell Mark.. Ok I'll reply.

Life is about taking risks.

You mentioned MON earlier. I was an established City fan when he came.

Do you not think that MON took risks? When we signed Claridge I'm sure we paid a million for him, which was a big fee for the time. He'd fallen out with Fry at Brum and came to us under a bit of a cloud of publicity. Clagger wasn't an instant hit but once he got his shooting boots on he became a club legend.

Lennon, Muzzy, Guppy were all relative unknowns and were seen by the majority of the fans as 'risky' signings basically because we didn't know anything much about them.

I guess even introducing Heskey was a risk as he was so young when he came into the team.

What is the point of playing football at a pro level and being a fan if you don't want to improve yourself? In this case, getting into the Premiership.

Who knows whether Beckford will finally come good or not. But unless you are really so unsure on the player that you absolutely want him gone, then give him a chance to replicate what he did at Leeds. He could have a storming season, he could have a stinker, but your willingness to get rid 'just in case' is highly defeative mate.

Life don't work like that.

If it is a risk that the club can afford, take it and live with the decision.

Well I did say that I wasn't around for most of the MON era, and certainly I didn't take it all in as I say, so I can't really talk with any authority at all on those matters, However I would suggest, playing Heskey and making signings like Guppy, Muzzy, Lennon etc. are risks on the playing side, the kind of thing that effects whether a manager stays or goes. However paying the amount in wages we have on players like Mills, Beckford (And others) are not just risks from that perspective but they're risking the future of the club. That's why it's a risk I wouldn't want us to take. Selling Beckford, and giving a young striker like Schlupp or Waghorn more playing time would be more of a risk on the playing side of things (One that could also be an inspired decision), would be better for us financially and is the kind of risk I could get behind. Paying £30,000 a week for an average Championship player isn't. And my comment was probably kind of cheap, sorry.

[flowwolf]

If he is such a risk why the fvck would anyone else want to buy him off us ? Would you as another club want to fork out those sort of wages for a player with the kind of stats and alleged attitude he displayed for us last year ? I think not. So it's all very well for people on here saying " get rid " I think his agent would say " no one is going to pay you what these suckers are paying you stay put " It won't be that easy to " get rid "

[Guest Col city fan]

Well I did say that I wasn't around for most of the MON era, and certainly I didn't take it all in as I say, so I can't really talk with any authority at all on those matters, However I would suggest, playing Heskey and making signings like Guppy, Muzzy, Lennon etc. are risks on the playing side, the kind of thing that effects whether a manager stays or goes. However paying the amount in wages we have on players like Mills, Beckford (And others) are not just risks from that perspective but they're risking the future of the club. That's why it's a risk I wouldn't want us to take. Selling Beckford, and giving a young striker like Schlupp or Waghorn more playing time would be more of a risk on the playing side of things (One that could also be an inspired decision), would be better for us financially and is the kind of risk I could get behind. Paying £30,000 a week for an average Championship player isn't. And my comment was probably kind of cheap, sorry.

No probs mate.

It's all relative. Claridge commanded a big salary for those times. I'm sure we paid something like 500k for Lennon, there were other players who were allegedly earning decent money for the second tier at that time.

We now have one player, if the rumours are correct, earning around 30k per week at the club.

That doesn't suggest to me anyway, that this is going to break the bank? And that one player could make a huge difference to the fortunes of the club.

Couple that with the relative wealth that promotion brings (just look at West Ham, reportedly now willing to offer Andy Carroll 90k a week!) and it's actually small potatoes.

It's a risk, yes maybe a slight financial one too, but is it worth taking?

You be the judge given what I've just said.

If you still think no, get rid, then fair enough.

I'd personally keep him on and play to his strengths.

[Mark_w]

We now have one player, if the rumours are correct, earning around 30k per week at the club.

That doesn't suggest to me anyway, that this is going to break the bank? And that one player could make a huge difference to the fortunes of the club.

Couple that with the relative wealth that promotion brings (just look at West Ham, reportedly now willing to offer Andy Carroll 90k a week!) and it's actually small potatoes.

That's fair enough but I'm not just saying one player, I want all the players who didn't prove value for money to go (A lot have already) including players like Mills, Beckford is one of the few whose wages have become (Although a rumoured figure I admit) public knowledge. But Mills for instance also had to go because he didn't prove to be value for money (Irrespective of his falling out with Pearson). Maybe I am going a little over the top, but I don't want us to end up like Portsmouth, in League One with someone on over £30,000 a week on our books. That is the worst case scenario, but it is possible. I also don't think it's fair to bring in the amount of money in the Premier League, because quite frankly, we aren't a Premier League Club and there is no guarantee we will be, I think it's a dangerous game to be paying money for players and wages that can only be supported by the owners. Personally my ideal situation would be them continuing to pump money into training facilities, the academy, technology at the club, and letting Nigel get on with managing the club like he was 2/3 years ago. Which to be fair is what they are doing now, I think if Nigel is confident that keeping Beckford will not put the club in danger, then I will trust him and hope for the best. It'll be interesting to see what happens anyway.

[Poakey]

Ha ha, is this still going on? I've never seen so much debate on 1 player, its taking over FT.

[Guest Col city fan]

Ha ha, is this still going on? I've never seen so much debate on 1 player, its taking over FT.

It's 'taken' over...

[Bilbo]

Bloody Hell Mark.. Ok I'll reply.

Life is about taking risks.

You mentioned MON earlier. I was an established City fan when he came.

Do you not think that MON took risks? When we signed Claridge I'm sure we paid a million for him, which was a big fee for the time. He'd fallen out with Fry at Brum and came to us under a bit of a cloud of publicity. Clagger wasn't an instant hit but once he got his shooting boots on he became a club legend.

Lennon, Muzzy, Guppy were all relative unknowns and were seen by the majority of the fans as 'risky' signings basically because we didn't know anything much about them.

I guess even introducing Heskey was a risk as he was so young when he came into the team.

What is the point of playing football at a pro level and being a fan if you don't want to improve yourself? In this case, getting into the Premiership.

Who knows whether Beckford will finally come good or not. But unless you are really so unsure on the player that you absolutely want him gone, then give him a chance to replicate what he did at Leeds. He could have a storming season, he could have a stinker, but your willingness to get rid 'just in case' is highly defeative mate.

Life don't work like that.

If it is a risk that the club can afford, take it and live with the decision.

Agree with pretty much all of this. Gone are the days in football where you are given a couple of season to prove yourself. One thing is for sure this one season then you're gone policy isn't working for us.

[Legend_in_blue]

Beckford doesnt appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. That's the gist of it from what was said by NP on the radio tonight.

[Bilbo]

Beckford doesnt appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. That's the gist of it from what was said by NP on the radio tonight.

I don't suppose anyone has the link do they?

[orangecity23]

Depends on whether they provide value for money.

ASSUMING a £30k per week wage and amortising his £2.5 million transfer fee over the 4-year length of his contract, in his 11 months at Leicester, Beckford has cost us £228k per league goal.

That is not value for money.

I do appreciate the point that others have horribly under-performed relative to their alleged wages (Mills, Pantsil, Johnson) but these players have been shipped out.

Also, as mentioned above, even if we forget FFP, this level of spending is unsustainable for a Chamionship club.

I know you're very gung ho about cup goals not counting for anything, but if you're going to evaluate Beckford's 'value for money', there is a very decent case for including them. Beckford's cup goals were a major part of us making the quarter finals, and a decent cup run like that brings in increased revenue, in the form of FA cup prize money, gate receipts (especially considering away teams get half the ticket money) and TV appearance cash.

And whilst Beckford is probably our highest earner, I don't buy into this assumption that he's being paid that much more than all our other strikers. Nugent joined Portsmouth when they were in the Prem, so he must have been on a sizeable wedge there, and coupled to the fact that he joined us on a free, meaning that with no transfer fee paid, there is more money available for his wages, I can't seriously see him being more than a few (less than 5) grand a week worse off than Beckford.

Any player with a sizeable fee will look like poor value when evaluated on a £ per goal/clean sheet/whatever basis after one season. Even if Beckford had bagged 18 goals (which would have been a very good return by anyones standards), by your calculations he still would have cost 114k per league goal, which still sounds rubbish. If you are to get any kind of value out of a player signed on a large fee, it is to be made by keeping them for several seasons to get the best out of them, and selling them at a point when they are in good form to recoup as much of the fee as possible, possibly even making a profit. Selling Beckford now may reduce the wage bill, but we are unlikely to receieve anyway near the fee we paid, which means we lose an asset at an unfavourable price.

Also to bear in mind would be that we would be left with Nugent, Vardy, Futacs Schlupp & Waghorn as our striking options. Vardy is in his first season at this level so is an unknown quantity, Futacs was not a first choice striker at Portsmouth, and Schlupp and Waghorn both had injury issues last season that kept them out for months. Keeping Beckford gives us a healthier number of strikers for a long season, and I like the blend of strikers we now have, as all of them arguably has something different to offer in terms of style, which gives us a number of options off the bench and the ability to change our approach up front depending on the opponents.

[Bob Weasel Fox]

Ha ha, is this still going on? I've never seen so much debate on 1 player, its taking over FT.

It only because "panto villain" Wellens is injured at present, as he normally gets blamed for everything on here including world debt . . . . . . .

[orangecity23]

To be facetious, I calculated Waghorn's £ per (league) goal ratio over the last 2 seasons.

Assuming he cost 2.5 million, and is on a wage of 15k a week. I subtracted 3 months of wages due to being on loan at Hull, assuming that they paid his full wages whilst he was there. Waghorn has scored a total of 5 league goals since joining permanently, in 34 appearances. I have also spread the cost of the transfer fee across a 4 year contract.

In the 2 years, under this calculation, Waghorn has cost 1.25 million in transfer fee and 1.365 million in wages, leading to a 'cost per league goal' of 523k per goal, more than double the calculated amount for Beckford. (I used a full 2 years of wages, then subtracted the 3 months at Hull to get 91 weeks. To be strictly fiar, if you bump Beckford up to count a full 52 weeks of wages his "cost" is more like 250k per league goal)

(all goals stats from Wikipedia, possibly subject to being absolute bollocks)

Yet no-one is shitting themselves about Waghorn financially ruining us single handedly. The point is, 'goals per game' is a rather crude and simplistic metric for evaluating the usefulness of a player, the overall picture is much more complex.

[Mark_w]

To be facitious, I calculated Waghorn's £ per (league) goal ratio over the last 2 seasons.

Assuming he cost 2.5 million, and is on a wage of 15k a week. I subtracted 3 months of wages due to being on loan at Hull, assuming that they paid his full wages whilst he was there. Waghorn has scored a total of 5 league goals since joining permanently, in 34 appearances. I have also spread the cost of the transfer fee across a 4 year contract.

In the 2 years, under this calculation, Waghorn has cost 1.25 million in transfer fee and 1.365 million in wages, leading to a 'cost per league goal' of 523k per goal, more than double the calculated amount for Beckford.

(all goals stats from Wikipedia, possibly subject to being absolute bollocks)

a) Convenient that you would ignore his first season here.

b) It obviously isn't a fair method for judging Waghorn, his appearances were infrequent generally coming on off the bench for the last ten minutes of games or being shoved out onto the wing. Unlike Beckford who started regularly as a striker. Scale is also important here, Waghorn's wages aren't likely to damage the club in the long term if anything goes wrong because his wages are barely above average.

I thought the post you made at the top of the page was one of the best arguments I've read for keeping Beckford (Although it hasn't won me over because the owners didn't buy him to get to the Quarter Final of the FA Cup and the financial benefits are nowhere near comparable, the point is that Beckford shouldn't be earning any more than Nugent certainly, and selling Beckford gets him off the wage bill and is therefor a financial gain, we overspent to get him. Plus I think 5 players competing for the two striker positions isn't a great idea (Excluding Schlupp who also could and potentially should be involved)), but your Beckford/Waghorn comparison is grossly unfair.

[orangecity23]

I was being facetious, so of course I deliberately omitted Waghorn's first season, to intentionally make the figures look horrendous. It was more to make a point about the simplistic stats distorting the argument. I wasn't seriously suggesting we start a 50 page Waghorn out topic.

Beckford's wages are a burden, but we have been keeping a whole bunch of players around during the last 2 season also, like Howard, Oakley, Moussa, Ball, Johnson, Berner (barely made any appearances once Sven rocked up), Pantsil and co about, who weren't really playing but were all drawing thousands of pounds a week out for no tangible benefit whatsoever. Now that Pearson has reduced the squad to a more managable number, keeping Beckford, whilst still a burden, is not as bad as what we were wasting before. I don't think it's disasterous to have one or two well paid players by Championship standards, its when you fill the entire team with them that you get in trouble. I don't think anyone here has enough of the financial information needed to make a proper evaluation of the squad's financial worth, so its all abit moot anyway.

[Bluetintedspecs]

Depends on whether they provide value for money.

ASSUMING a £30k per week wage and amortising his £2.5 million transfer fee over the 4-year length of his contract, in his 11 months at Leicester, Beckford has cost us £228k per league goal.

That is not value for money.

I do appreciate the point that others have horribly under-performed relative to their alleged wages (Mills, Pantsil, Johnson) but these players have been shipped out.

Also, as mentioned above, even if we forget FFP, this level of spending is unsustainable for a Chamionship club.

Very valid points and anyone who says" why should we care it's not our money" should think back not too far in our history and think about the plight of Pompey and Rangers. Putting aside poor performance, safeguarding the financial future of our club is good enough reason to get him off the books. For the JB lovers I fully understand the dream of realising his potential is appealing, however I think lloking at pot odds I'm not getting enough return on my money and it's time to fold.

[Guest ttfn]

OrangeCity - good post, but got a couple of points:

1) given that we were guaranteed a third round game, Beckford's performances got us a home game and 2 away games (generously assuming we can attribute all of our cup progress to him).

Again, using a generous approximation, we might have got £10 a ticket profit on the day for Swindon. At c. 20,000 crowd, this is £200k. We are entitled to 1/3 of the gate receipts for Norwich and Chelsea (c. 70,000 tickets at £30). So that's another £200k ish.

So if we deduct that from his wages (as money he has earned us), we are still at over £200k per goal.

Basically, the money earned from cup runs is nothing anymore, such is the stranglehold of TV money on clubs' income, as well as the increasing dependence on club owners to top up that income with their benevolence.

2) Even if Nugent earns the same as Beckford, he is costing us £625k a year less in amortized transfer value, and his value to the team is demonstrably higher than Beckford's. Further his value on the open market is at least comparable to Beckford's now.

3) (I'll have a third) - im sorry to disparage Beckford's achievements in the cup - you can only score against what's in front of you and he's been excellent in the FA Cup for years. But there is no room for inclusion of his goals in one-off games against teams of vastly differing qualities in a sensible discussion about whether he can cut it at Championship level. That is all I'm trying to say.

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

Couple of (budding) economists on here then!?

[Raw Dykes]

I know you're very gung ho about cup goals not counting for anything, but if you're going to evaluate Beckford's 'value for money', there is a very decent case for including them. Beckford's cup goals were a major part of us making the quarter finals, and a decent cup run like that brings in increased revenue, in the form of FA cup prize money, gate receipts (especially considering away teams get half the ticket money) and TV appearance cash.

And whilst Beckford is probably our highest earner, I don't buy into this assumption that he's being paid that much more than all our other strikers. Nugent joined Portsmouth when they were in the Prem, so he must have been on a sizeable wedge there, and coupled to the fact that he joined us on a free, meaning that with no transfer fee paid, there is more money available for his wages, I can't seriously see him being more than a few (less than 5) grand a week worse off than Beckford.

Any player with a sizeable fee will look like poor value when evaluated on a £ per goal/clean sheet/whatever basis after one season. Even if Beckford had bagged 18 goals (which would have been a very good return by anyones standards), by your calculations he still would have cost 114k per league goal, which still sounds rubbish. If you are to get any kind of value out of a player signed on a large fee, it is to be made by keeping them for several seasons to get the best out of them, and selling them at a point when they are in good form to recoup as much of the fee as possible, possibly even making a profit. Selling Beckford now may reduce the wage bill, but we are unlikely to receieve anyway near the fee we paid, which means we lose an asset at an unfavourable price.

Also to bear in mind would be that we would be left with Nugent, Vardy, Futacs Schlupp & Waghorn as our striking options. Vardy is in his first season at this level so is an unknown quantity, Futacs was not a first choice striker at Portsmouth, and Schlupp and Waghorn both had injury issues last season that kept them out for months. Keeping Beckford gives us a healthier number of strikers for a long season, and I like the blend of strikers we now have, as all of them arguably has something different to offer in terms of style, which gives us a number of options off the bench and the ability to change our approach up front depending on the opponents.

That is the most persuasive argument for keeping Beckford I've ever read or heard, which is really saying something.

I still have my doubts about him, and I certainly wouldn't be upset if he was sold, but you've definitely talked me round a bit.

Come on, new season, let's wipe the slate clean, JB. Prove us doubters wrong. (That is, if he stays, of course. If he goes to another Champ club, I hope he carries on doing what he did last season.)

[ozleicester]

Ha ha, is this still going on? I've never seen so much debate on 1 player, its taking over FT.

Pah!! this isnt taking over... have you forgotten the Maynard thread(s), now thats some quality topic takeovers