I've just seen a player and I mean a player for Chelsea he's 19 in Sept, there academy player of the season, can play LB or WB or midfield very skillful Louis Hall , get in there Boro 

Len, we were lightweight last season and did not have sufficient physicality within the team against a number of clubs.

We missed a golden opportunity last season to go up and even if we came straight back down, we could of improved the squad overall give us a good chance of promotion once more.

The projects we have brought in date are lightweight as has been said. Rogers cost City 4 mil I believe. They may have technical ability, but the Championship is a League on its own. 

Of the half dozen or so brought in, I doubt that no more than one or two with make it in the longer term. I am with Malcolm, Mr Scott does not fill me will confidence. I did perhaps expect possibly a couple of decent loans from United.. Maybe that could happen?

Does anyone recall Michael Carrick's priority for recruitment as reported by Craig Johns in the Gazette at the end of May?

"Teesside Live understands that the goal is to be ambitious with recruitment this summer, and there is a strong leaning towards quality over quantity with regard to the targets they have agreed upon, with an emphasis on first-team-ready players as opposed to squad depth focus"

Less than a week to go now and I have to say I am not at all sure how our season is going to go. There has been a lot of chat here about how well we feel the transfer window has gone and, fair to say, a general uneasiness about how (relatively) weak we are looking going into the first game. So, when it comes to forecasting how well we think we will do overall this year, let alone how all the movers and shakers will do this season, the picture is not so obvious. All the same 9 of you so far have shared your predictions.

There is a general trend  that most people think the relegated teams (especially The Foxes and The Saints) will show up well and only Jarkko among us so far is wearing his heart on his sleeve predicting BORO to be champions!

For everyone that is still mulling over how they think things will pan out this season, there is plenty of time left to get your entry in. If anyone who has entered already is having some second thoughts, I won’t be fixing the entries until just before kick off on Friday evening, so feel free to post any changes you might want to make and I will capture them into my spreadsheet.

While I was coding and testing a spreadsheet to generate a random selection to enter on behalf of Forever Dormo, I discovered I had a bug in my point scoring spreadsheet. It was to do with overachievers and underachievers. When I was originally working up the scoring system I intended to make an over/under achiever a team that finished 12 places higher/lower than the previous season. So that is what I coded. I subsequently changed my mind and changed the difference to be higher/lower only 10 places. I have corrected that now, so in the table below, those who already had entries shown might notice their points total on the start of season table has changed.

I have copied the table of entries so far below, (including the example sets of prediction to demonstrate how points allocation works). Will everyone that has entered just check that I have captured your entry correctly and let me know either that I have made a mistake, or that you want to change your entry.

For everybody out there still to make an entry, I've copied the link to full details below, but when you are ready to enter I've also copied the format for you to follow to save you having to read the details.

https://diasboro.club/forum/members-lounge/the-diasboro-cots-challenge-2023-24/

1. TOP 6 = Team1, Team2, Team3, Team4, Team5, Team6, Optional1, Optional2, Optional3
2. BOTTOM 3 = Team1, Team2, Team3, Optional1, Optional2, Optional3
3. AUTOMATIC PROMOTION = Team1, Team2, Optional1, Optional2
4. CHAMPIONS = Team1, Optional1
5. OVER ACHIEVER = Team1, Optional1
6. UNDER ACHIEVER = Team1, Optional1
7. BORO = 1st

A quick reminder:

• a team will be an over-achiever if it is one of the promoted teams finishing in the top 9, otherwise any team finishing 10 places higher than last season.
• A team will be an under-achiever if it is one of the relegated teams finishing outside the top 9, otherwise any team finishing 10 places lower than last season.

@lenmasterman 

Len

you asked the question well if it was me I’d stay with the Boro knowing that the fans love me and that the team will get better and better

OFB

@clive-hurren 

Silk purse out of a sow’s ear? I think we’ve got the whole pig haven’t we?

OFB

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/i-would-have-concerns-efl-pundit-shares-middlesbrough-league-finish-prediction-ahead-of-millwall-clash/

I really do not understand the negativity before a ball is kicked, yes we haven’t got any marquee signings in but the loan aspect of the window will not kick off until the Premiership clubs finalise their 25 man squads. Remember last season, we had played 13 matches before Michael Carrick join MFC, then he lost his first game, and we were languishing near the relegation zone.

Before the “doom and gloom merchants” complain we have lost Archer and Ramsey, remember we didn’t get them until the end of January. Who is to say we haven’t got irons in the fire to bring in similar players before this window closes in nearly 5 weeks. Giles has gone but it is not the end of the world and I for one, noticed how suspect his defending was, a number of contributors on here, blamed him for conceding some goals last season.

Yes, we have got injuries but hopefully they will be back in the not too distant future, as for Akpom, if we get a bid around £10-15m for him, I would accept it and move on, if he stays, let’s hope he can get at least half of his goal tally of last season. As far as being injured, if I remember correctly he featured in the pictures of when the team first returned for pre season and yes it included pictures of out on the grass, people have got to remember players still pick up knocks/injuries or aggravate previous injuries/strains during preseason,ditto for Howson.

As for our recruitment team I am happy with the business so far (I have faith there is more to come) looking at who we have brought in so far:

Seny Dieng, a confident keeper who can play the ball out from the back, yes there can be errors but even the top keepers make mistakes.

Tom Glover, a good back up to Dieng.

Jamie Jones, an experienced keeper who will be needed in the early part of the new year, when we lose at least one of the above for the African Nations etc.

Rav Van Den Berg, an excellent centre back who I believe will make a big profit when the big clubs come calling, from what I have seen in the pre season friendlies (3) I have attended, he is calm, confident, good in the air and can pass the ball. I think he will become a better player than Fry.

Alex Gilbert, only seen a couple of times (as he had a slight knock) but looks a very tricky player and not afraid to have a shot.

Samuel Silvera, I really like this player, can be a game changer as we saw against Auxerre, will cause defences lots of problems, another who is not afraid to find the net.

Morgan Rogers, certainly doesn’t look like a striker, should have had 4 or more before the Auxerre game in the friendlies I attended, in saying that, now he has got his first goal, it could change.

We have 4 league games before the window closes and there is no easy games in the championship but I am happy with what Scott and his team have done so far, none of us know what is going on in the background.

Malcolm, it’s funny that you have “plugged” Dave Roberts new station “The Red Today” as I was at a BBQ with him and his family at my partners son’s house yesterday, he is a very nice guy and nearly loves the Boro as much as me.

Come on BORO.

@exmil 

Good and positive (as usual) post Exmil.

I agree we shouldn't complain while there is still a month of wheeling and dealing to go.

Better not to over impress us with performances pre season and then fail to deliver when it matters (and we have all seen that before) and then surprisecus all with positive performances and results when it matters.

I still don't know what to expect on Saturday,  but I am hopeful we will surprise a few people.

CoB

Great post exmil, and congratulations on having seen so many of the pre-season games.

I have gone backwards and forwards on seeing the highlights. Underwhelmed after Pools and York. Delighted after Rotherham and Betis. Back to some degree of pessimism after Auxerre, which is where I am now.

I am more optimistic that Carrick and Danks can use their contacts to bring home the bacon in the next few weeks rather than having to rely on what the recruiting team's computer manages to come up with.

Seems we have missed out on one of our striker targets:

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/west-brom-set-to-pip-middlesbrough-and-sheffield-wednesday-to-17-goal-striker/

Come on BORO.

The above just goes to show people outside the club have no idea what is going on in the background, regarding transfer activity, yet they still whinge that the club is inactive, try keeping the faith.

Come on BORO.

Two things must improve this season , defending in wide areas this will help the central defenders mark forwards coming in, also set pieces ,we have been poor for a long time,

@exmil    Not one I would have been excited about.

@exmil.  Surely the article is pure speculation as far as MFC is concerned until such time as the club confirm or deny they were actually interested in the player or are we now to believe everything that is published.

There have been numerous articles recently that the club were interested in Ross Stewart but Craig Johns from the EG says that he was not on the club’s radar.

Information and misinformation abounds.  I prefer to hear/believe reports from MFC and take other reports with a pinch of salt. 😎

Tl;dr? We have no money.

Something that's relevant to transfers is, of course, money. Specifically, how much do we have. Though I'm by no means a football financial expert, I am a self-taught book-keeper who looks after the finances for my wife's 3 companies so I know the basics.

To put it into context, for a company, how much money it has is based on two things.

• Profit and loss. In a year how much do make from sales and how much do you pay out in costs. Make a profit and you have more cash in the bank, make a loss and you have less.
• Assets. How much stuff do you own and how much is it worth.

In football terms, sales includes matchday and season tickets, broadcast income, merchandise and so on. Costs consists of wages, electricity bills, paying the police and so on. Looking at our accounts and trying to factor out the effect of Covid and so on, it looks like we have a standard operating loss of around £10-£15 million per year.

The other half of football finance is transfers. For a football club, its main assets are its players and the stadium. The way accounting works is that everything you own loses value each year. For a football club, say we buy a player for £10m with a 4 year contract then the accounting says that his value decreases to zero by the end of his contract so he loses 1/4 of his value per year ("depreciation"). End of year 1 he is worth £7.5 million. This doesn't affect how much money you have in your bank, but it is counted towards your annual profit and loss. Important for FFP which only allows you to lose a certain amount of money per year.

Last season we made transfer profit of around £15-£18m (Spence and Tav out, whole bunch in). We are likely to have made our usual trading loss of around £15m. So if we put the transfer money into it we presumably broke even or made a small profit. As people know, transfers are usually paid in instalments these days and we "factored" the Tav transfer fee so that we could get it all paid up front. You only do that when you need the money in the bank immediately. 

In short, the money from Tav and Spence has already gone on keeping us afloat. In June 2021, the last filed accounts, we had around £500,000 in the bank. I suspect that we're in roughly the same position right now.

Basically, unless we sell someone we have no money to spend. Of course, Gibson could loan more money into the club if we needed to buy someone but we seem to have to have started a new model (relaunch 5 since relegation) where we look to minimise the need for loans from the owner. 

Our transfer dealings make a lot more sense if you realise that, for all intents and purposes, we have no money and that the first £10-£15m of transfers out are used to pay our bills. It doesn't mean that we can't afford any transfers but that we have to manage our finances really carefully or, Bausor & Scott have to go cap in hand to Gibson and say "please sir."

According to Reports in Turkey.

Boro Are Looking To Sign Fenerbahçe Forward Joshua King.

OFB

@original-fat-bob King started at Vålerenga in Norway and went to Man Utd U18 in 2008. He has been to Bournemouth, Everton and Watford before going to Turkey last summer on a free transfer.

He is 31 now and his current market value is €5.0 m. His highest market value was €20.0 m in Jun  2019.

His has 62 full caps for Norway. Up the Boro!

Hull City have completed the signing of Brighton striker Aaron Connolly.

The 23-year-old, who spent time on loan at the Boro, has joined the club on a permanent basis.

Well we certainly didn’t see the best of this lad and he didn’t seem to have his heart in it. Hope he goes on to prove he is a good player.

OFB

We have had problems to bring in a striker. But there is still lot of time left.

And it has not been easy for others. If someone thinks it is better at Wearside, think again.

Sunderland have added two strikers to their ranks this summer but Eliezer Mayenda, who was brought in as long term project in any case, suffered an injury in his first training session. And Hemir - who is only 19 - is the only fit frontman on the club's books with Ross Stewart not expected to be ready to return until the end of next month.

So at least we have Forss, Rogers and Gilbert to choose from. And sure we will buy a more experienced striker soon.

And for the 10 shirt we have Akpom who should be back before before the end of August.

I am sure there are other clubs with similar problems. I think the Championship clubs rely too much on loan transfers from the EPL, and have the same problem when a season starts.

Up the Boro!

@original-fat-bob.  I would be surprised if MFC are truly interested given his age and value as quoted by Jarkko.

Deleriad has put together a very good post on our finances above, with which I agree.  We need to sell before we can buy or we are just waiting to tap the loan market once PL clubs have finalised their squads.  

I think if we had cash to spare then we should have recruited a LB by now given Luton recruiting Ryan Giles. 😎

@deleriad 

a good summary of where we are at - I would add from my career in finance that cash is king!

My motto for any business was that turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality.

so as you say, our ability to trade is dependent on how much cash there is available and that is very reliant on Mr Gibson - as at June 22 there was £142m owed to other group undertakings.

there was a trading gross loss of £8.4m and a loss of £15m.

I need to look at the accounts in more detail to see what impact the transfers had when I have more time

If BBC Tees are correct in that Boro were expecting to sign Ryan Giles this summer, then I would assume that there is at least circa £5m to spend that has now been freed up by Giles not joining us.

The major difference will be in the wage bill though. I would guess that we were paying around £80k -£90k/week on the loanees wages, assuming we were paying full wages for all of them bar Steffen (50%). That would equate to around £5m/year, of which maybe around half has been taken up by the new recruits.

Posted by: @jarkko

↑

...And for the 10 shirt we have Akpom who should be back before before the end of August....

...

Apkom has the No29 shirt Jarkko, and quite right too!

Hoppe has gone on a season long loan to MLS side San Jose Earthquakes.

Come on BORO.

From the EG and MC.......in my opinion he is hiding what he really thinks 😀

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/michael-carrick-middlesbrough-transfer-update-27452863?utm_source=teesside_live_newsletter&utm_campaign=boro_fc_newsletter2&utm_medium=email&pure360.trackingid=618820b6-d155-4e77-9f06-e09c89644bbc  

@malcolm 

certainly being diplomatic!

The gaps are fairly obvious and we all know that money will dictate both on fees and wages and as already mentioned, our finances are restricted.

I remain of the view that SG doesn’t wish to spend the required amounts needed to gain promotion since the numbers involved are quite frankly ridiculous. He could splash the cash and still wouldn’t be guaranteed a place at the top table - as we have seen before.

I think a comment in  the June 22 accounts is quite telling

“The club continues to compete in the EFL Championship on the 22/23 season.It will continue to keep control of operating costs and make as much income as possible to invest in the football team. The club will continue to strive for progression and promotion to the Premier League.”

I think that any money we have will be kept for the payment of two loan players of decent quality, hopefully.

Left back is a concern though and playing McGree there appears a stop gap, given that Coulson is not good enough. Paper talk of potential number nines, to date, are hopefully just that. None to inspire us?

Then strong paper talk now of Sheff Utd and Akpom at less that 10 mil.

Well we will know by the end of August.

Posted by: @exmil

↑

Hoppe has gone on a season long loan to MLS side San Jose Earthquakes.

Come on BORO.

Sensible option. Get him off the payroll for a year with an option to cash in or take him back. Not every player can work out. 

Posted by: @boro-beckys-dad

↑

@malcolm 

 

certainly being diplomatic!

The gaps are fairly obvious and we all know that money will dictate both on fees and wages and as already mentioned, our finances are restricted.

I remain of the view that SG doesn’t wish to spend the required amounts needed to gain promotion since the numbers involved are quite frankly ridiculous. He could splash the cash and still wouldn’t be guaranteed a place at the top table - as we have seen before.

I think a comment in  the June 22 accounts is quite telling

“The club continues to compete in the EFL Championship on the 22/23 season.It will continue to keep control of operating costs and make as much income as possible to invest in the football team. The club will continue to strive for progression and promotion to the Premier League.”

Can one  expect more from Steve Gibson. I'd prefer us to strive for the Premier League whilst also operating with some financial logic - as evidenced by this year's acquisitions to date with a few good loans to come - and remain under local control rather than have some outsider take over the club with no ties to the community. 

UTB