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41  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Oxford United A Now 20.02.24, not 20.01.24 on: February 23, 2024, 14:20:05 pm
The as always, interesting Fans View from Oxford Utd fan Paul Beasley. Chap from Bicester who for away games includes his pub stop offs too. For their game at ours, it was the Malt Shovel!

Also, very interesting - and telling (what many of us believe) an in depth analysis of NTFC's financial side...and erm, ambitions!

https://rageonline.co.uk/fans-view-23-24-no-38-northampton-at-home/

Not really sure about the exciting Oxford rollercoaster ride. This century they’ve had two promotions and two relegations and half of those were their trip to the conference which they’re welcome to, no thanks. Ok they had their ride to the top funded by the pension thief but so did we earlier and football was a completely different landscape and less about finances.
The area financially we can learn from Oxford (which isn’t even mentioned) is their success in the transfer market. While we’ve brought in 1.1m in player sales in the last eight years they’ve raked in 19.5m. I would love to see us use are reputation for bringing on young players to try and bring in some up and coming talent, maybe a Chillvers from Colchester or Watt from Salford who are both out on contract at the end of the season.
42  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Play-off watch on: February 22, 2024, 10:45:18 am
So 7 out of 44 weren’t. Not bad odds on our chances again one day. Without the likes of non-league Luton dipping in/out of the Prem and Leicester winning the title. It’s what makes football unpredictable and great.

I love that Chelsea continue to keep pillaging Brighton but remain below them.
43  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Progression on: February 22, 2024, 10:40:47 am
So while we all dream of life in the Championship, treading water is far better than non-league.
I guess it’s just one of those things why we’ve been so relatively stable, yet Luton have gone from the premier league into non-league and now back in the premier league while Yeovil and Sc***horpe who I can remember making the Championship are now both one tier below the conference.
44  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Play-off watch on: February 22, 2024, 09:33:31 am
The ONLY way these things change are massive investment.
Luton?
45  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Armchair supporter? on: February 22, 2024, 09:10:28 am
Now football is the global behemoth it has become the way it’s consumed has changed in so many different ways. The days of a football fan solely being the person who turns up to watch their local team had long gone. You just need to look at the Inter Miami friendly in Hong Kong where most people came for one player and cared little for either team or the rest of the players. Football tourists is now a thing and there is a myriad of other ways too, as to make the term ‘armchair supporter’ almost redundant. I wonder whether the proposed 39th game in the premier league will come back at some stage in the same way regular season NFL games are increasingly played outside of the USA.
46  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Play-off watch on: February 22, 2024, 08:15:31 am
It will be a great achievement I agree and all anyone realistically expected.
Is it the limit of our expectations though?
As fans can we not hope for investment to keep us progressing in the right direction?
If we fail to invest and follow the same old story of not being a sustainable league one club with ambitions of progress , what then?
We know what happens
It’s happened before and David bower hasn’t come out with a rallying call telling the fans that things will be different this time and we will show ambition rather than have our usual relegation.
Mind you they haven’t asked for the season ticket money yet.
I’m certainly not getting carried away by staying up as it’s usually the lack of further investment needed (as detailed by KT) that leads us to go in ever decreasing circles.
Il stand by my opinion that if David bower fails to invest in his club or fails to get outside investment and/or business partners to help we will be relegated within the next two campaigns.
Can anyone disagree and if so why?

Firstly when we have been relegated back to league 2 in the recent past it hasn’t been down to finances making it impossible for us to be competitive. The likes of Accrington, Crewe, Morecambe and Roachdale who we have a significant advantage over managed to stay up at our expense.

In relative terms this season has been a harder campaign as there are none of those very small teams in the league, we are part of a large group of about probably 8-10 teams that have in around the same level of resources. Probably to the extent that potential transfers are as much about location and how the club is sold to the player as finance between this group.

As we proved in the past with the Chinese money, spending significantly beyond our income is still no guarantee of anything as we were relegated anyway. You just need to look at the league table this season with Charlton struggling to survive and Fleetwood bottom of the table despite having/had players including Marriott, Stockley, Broom, Mayor, Vela and Tshimanga, the sort of bigger name, bigger wage, ‘league 1 players’ that many of our fans were envious of and would have wanted us to sign.

The truth is next season is likely to be even harder. Does that mean we should be demanding the owners spunk away a load of their own money so the club runs beyond it means, pay wages that can’t be covered by income, even though this guarantees nothing. We know this isn’t going to happen anyway and the owners are going nowhere until the development is complete so people can constantly whine about it as much as they like and call out anyone who doesn’t agree as lacking ambition but it’s all pointless.

We are where we are this season because the club has done a lot of things right. We have assembled a hard working team with good character. For once we kept a promotion team together with the club being proactive with contracts and developed a reputation for bringing on loan players. We have kept faith with a manager when at various times there have been odd calls for his head. There have been way too many teams throwing money at things and just expecting success but that’s when the focus goes away from being a well run club and making those numerous small gains. My focus now would be on why we are getting so many injuries and how we can bring through more youth players.

We might go down in the next two seasons, it won’t be easy but there is no reason it should be inevitable and the more things we continue do right the less likely it is.
47  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Play-off watch on: February 21, 2024, 07:13:55 am
Sometimes when you take a girl out for the first time you're hoping if you're lucky you might get a goodnight kiss. It's only as the night develops you'd wish you'd bought some condoms.
So the first date is going really well and better than you could have expected, you pop into the toilets and ‘invest’ in some condoms. She sees them, thinks you’re very presumptuous and the whole date is derailed!.
48  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Play-off watch on: February 20, 2024, 21:22:36 pm
I know people don't agree but I look at tonight's game against a side expecting to finish in the play-offs and I do wonder had we gambled and bolstered the side early in the January whether we might have made it. We got well beaten by Pompey but other than that we've been in every other game. Omitting the Portsmouth match, the 12 pts we've dropped since the beginning of January would have us sitting in the play-offs.
Pointless speculation, having bolstered the side we might have got less points than what we do now.
49  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Oxford United A Now 20.02.24, not 20.01.24 on: February 20, 2024, 20:44:01 pm
Good result
50  The Hotel End / Other Football & Sport / Re: England Cricket on: February 20, 2024, 18:48:17 pm
India is one of the hardest places to go and we are going there with an attack including two rookies, Anderson who I’m afraid is well past it now and a shadow of the player he was and Root as a frontline bowler which is laughable.
51  The Hotel End / Other Football & Sport / Re: England Cricket on: February 18, 2024, 21:27:52 pm
Would it really matter how they play?, the current squad is mediocre at best. A mixture of average players and those either out of form or over the hill.
52  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Relegation Watch on: February 18, 2024, 19:21:27 pm
That’s a good point
I think our problems always start when we fail to build the next team to try to stay up
We never seem to and we never invest to try to

Surely we ‘invested’ when the Chinese money came in and how did that work out, shows there’s more to football than just money.
53  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Relegation Watch on: February 18, 2024, 18:02:29 pm
I would guess that many fans thought, as I did, that we would stay up but would be hovering around 17-20th place for most of the season. To see us sitting 11th is just brilliant.UTC

Interestingly this has been achieved by a squad which by all intents and purposes is that which finished third in league 2 last year. There were plenty on here calling this group of players not up to league 1 standard at the start of the season and calling for signings.
I love how the club have gone about this campaign, we have a group of hardworking players with great spirit who play for each other and are better than the sun of their parts. There are teams below us that have gone for the big name big wage signings but this shows there more to football than just money.
54  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Play-off watch on: February 13, 2024, 21:14:34 pm
Watching the Orient stream, they are talking about how they are now just 7 pts off the play-offs. Funny, they were behind us in the table when our supporters had already written us off. Goes to show doesn't it, anything can happen in football.
They can talk all they like but Orient won’t make the playoffs.
55  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Jon Brady, the future on: February 11, 2024, 12:32:39 pm
It’s our money or do you get in free? Your not the brightest lamp are you.

It would be if you wanted the club to run on a break even basis, you seem to advocate the Bury model of the club spending beyond the money it brings in.
56  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: End of season predictions. on: February 08, 2024, 14:21:13 pm
You have to try (not easy) to look at things as a general football fan not a Cobblers supporter. We ALL want us to do well.

So Dav, just try divorcing yourself for one moment for being  a Cobblers fan and imagine the season ended NOW and the team in the first play-off place was promoted. This would be the line-up in League 1 next season.

BARNSLEY, BARROW, BLACKPOOL, BRISTOL ROVERS, BURTON ALBION, CAMBRIDGE UNITED, CHARLTON ATHLETIC, EXETER CITY, LEYTON ORIENT, LINCOLN CITY, MANSFIELD TOWN, NORTHAMPTON TOWN, OXFORD UNITED, ROTHERHAM UNITED, PETERBOROUGH UNITED, QPR, READING, SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY, SHREWSBURY TOWN, STEVENAGE BOROUGH, STOCKPORT COUNTY, WIGAN ATHLETIC, WREXHAM & WYCOMBE WANDERERS.

Taking into account financial clout, history, ambition, support, etc, where would you place Northampton in that list of clubs?


The best way to do this is put the other 23 in a list as how you think they'll finish, then put the Cobblers into that table. Like Nigel, its just a bit of fun.
1. QPR
2. Sheffield W
3. Barnsley
4. Rotherham
5. Peterborough
6. Blackpool
7. Oxford
8. Charlton
9. Reading
10. Wrexham
11. Bristol R
12. Wigan
13. Stockport
14. Stevenage
15. Wycombe
16. Orient
17. Lincoln
18. Shrewsbury
19. Northampton
20. Burton
21. Mansfield
22. Cambridge
23. Exeter
24. Barrow
Right now you can pretty much pick the bottom half teams out of a hat, the summer window will be key.
57  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: January 2024 Transfer Window on: February 02, 2024, 20:12:40 pm
Thought the whole league 1 January transfer window was pretty underwhelming. Other than Bolton signing Collins from Bristol Rovers and they had to pay pretty much a million for him, I didn’t notice that many quality signings let alone the kind of marquee incoming likely to really push a team forward.
58  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: January 2024 Transfer Window on: February 01, 2024, 11:55:49 am
Wrexham have signed Jack Marriott.
I think this is another reason why people (rightly or wrongly) are getting frustrated at the lack of significant investment. The feeling of being left behind by all these similar clubs with big owners and big money, Carlisle/Wrexham/Stockport. It just pushes us further down the ladder. All I'll say is what happens if they don't become successful and they leave? With huge wage bills, I wouldn't like to be looking at the drop when another owner takes over. Is it worth the gamble...

Whether we like it or not I can’t see there being any change of ownership until the East stand is finished and any deal is just the club and not any related land deal. They are choosing to run the club at break even/minimal loses so as ntfclad has said chucking a load of money now at a big long shot of promotion now (probably needing well over 2 points a game) will come out of next seasons budget and goes against any plan to try and stabilise in league 1.

When we talk about ‘investment’ what we are saying is we want an owner to spunk away a load of their own money on the club with little to no hope of any return, running the club at big loses. Don’t get me wrong i enjoyed the big spend when we signed the likes of Smith and Gabbiadini and then again when the Chinese money gave us a very decent league 1 budget. These had varying levels of success and both ended in a sour note. When we do change owner I’d be happy if we get that sugar daddy although it’s not something I’d demand, even though we all know it’s not good for football if there’s this clamour for all clubs to run up relatively big loses.

I think there’s a lot to be happy about this year, we’ve punched well above our weight in terms of income and budget. For once we have kept a promotion winning team together and proactive with contracts. We are well managed with a professional attitude and players with a good work ethic, working well together, as opposed to a bunch of players just looking for a payday.

Whether not investing big now was the right way to go we will never know, maybe the big long shot would have happened, maybe if we stay up next season it could be because of the extra money in the budget not spent the season before.
59  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: January 2024 Transfer Window on: January 30, 2024, 21:53:22 pm
Marriot was s*** when he played against us. No thanks.
His minutes per goal this season (376) is roughly twice as high as Appere (193) and I’d imagine his wages are many multiple times higher. Though strikers on huge wages who once scored a load of goals but are now a bit sh1t seem to be like catnip to many supporters. You’d think we’d have been warned with the lucky escape with Nugent and signing Hylton but many still seem envious of Fleetwood’s huge money frontline despite their league position.
60  The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: January 2024 Transfer Window on: January 30, 2024, 20:00:02 pm
Maybe we just don’t pay HMRC and invest in a big name striker instead for the promotion push, worry about it later. Running a football club within its means just shows a complete lack of ambition. Imagine a league where everyone is spending way more than they earn, that’s the dream, all the clubs showing so much intent what could possibly go wrong.
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