General Wolves News

[PuntsWolf]

Literally didn't even mention building a new stand. Firstly, perhaps stop throwing the word "stupid" around. Secondly, if you're going to quote people - do it honestly/properly - as the type of stuff above does you no favours.

My post here #29526 tackled your points directly and in a reasonable manner.

Post in thread 'General Wolves News'
https://www.wolvesforum.co.uk/threads/general-wolves-news.26036/post-1800617

I may have subsequently been a dick, and I apologise for that

 

[Alan]

You have to consider all aspects of the customer (urgh) though. I'd imagine someone who has been to molineux is more likely to engage (urgh) with other commercial opportunities

I'm surprised the club haven't got a service where you can get a player to wish someone happy birthday, anniversary etc in a video

We’re still talking pennies in the grand scheme. Broadcasting has become the lynchpin holding everything up.

 

[YoungWolf]

Jeff saying we were lucky to finish 7th two years running is actually incredible (and offensive). And acts like it’s a bad thing because it set unrealistic expectations.

He’s a proper dickhead.

 

[Squeak]

Hypothetical costs but…

A new stand at £50m giving an extra 9k of capacity on a 10 year loan at 5% interest - year one loan repayment - £5m + £2.5m loan interest = £7.5m
£7.5m divided by 9000 divided by 19 games = £44 a ticket to break even on a cash flow basis.

We aren’t selling 9000 extra tickets a game to make it worthwhile.

I'd say iif any new stand was built in such a way as to allow multiple price points, there is a good chance it would. Obviously it would have to be large enough to do so but I have long been impressed how some baseball stadiums in the US have 25+ different price points starting at $5 and upwards. Hospitality is on top of that and many different levels.

In regard to this, what does everyone think would be a realistic lowest price point and highest price point that someone would pay if not part of a corporate or hospitality package?

I don't know if the club canvasses opinion on this to help future planning but it seems to me that consulting fans in this way would be helpful to assess any new building.

 

[Kenny]

Jeff saying we were lucky to finish 7th two years running is actually incredible (and offensive). And acts like it’s a bad thing because it set unrealistic expectations.

He’s a proper dickhead.

Easily the worst thing he said.
Along side "things went to shit when I left others in charge...back now though, so all good again"

Its clear he fell out with Nuno and the style of play thing is old news. It was the reason he accepted Lage as his Benfica team had scored for fun (note: no further discussion on Lage and his tactics required).
That said....show the man the respect he earned. If he did that all on his own, then fair fucking play. He would have been fired if he failed but he didn't. Back in your box Jeff.

I do agree with Jeff that 40k is the max we need at Molineux.

 

[Sniffer]

In reply to @Squeak

We struggled to replace those who gave up their season tickets over the last two summers. Where are the extra 9000 coming from? If you make it £10 a ticket for the extra 8000 and it works (8k x £10 x 19 =£1.5m who are the 1000 who are going to be paying £320 a ticket every week for hospitality. I got emails for nearly every game last season asking me to buy hospitality packages.

For what it’s worth I think it’s an investment for future generations and should be done but am arguing that a club that wants to be self sufficient will never see it that way.

 

[Squeak]

In reply to @Squeak

We struggled to replace those who gave up their season tickets over the last two summers. Where are the extra 9000 coming from? If you make it £10 a ticket for the extra 8000 and it works (8k x £10 x 19 =£1.5m who are the 1000 who are going to be paying £320 a ticket every week for hospitality. I got emails for nearly every game last season asking me to buy hospitality packages.

For what it’s worth I think it’s an investment for future generations and should be done but am arguing that a club that wants to be self sufficient will never see it that way.

What I'm saying is that if you increase capacity it gives more options for pricing if done well. I'm not saying we could attract 9,000 more based on current levels and pricing but I'm pretty sure you could attract a lot more if there were limited tickets at different lower price points. It is about driving revenue both short term and long term. Life time value is something that most Prem clubs don't consider because they have it very easy in selling out games as it stands.

Wolves could attract a lot more people because we have a large following all over the world. Marketing opportunities in terms of fan packages become easier when you have more capacity. Then there's all the local people who have become disenfranchised by the antics of the last few seasons. However, if the club starts doing well on the field, then people will come and will want to see the games. At present, the opportunity at an affordable price for a family is unrealistic for many. We've seen here how we have folks who want to take their kids to games but can't justify the expenditure at this point in time.

Clubs need to be more proactive. And, if you build a stadium with bigger capacity, then you can do more to encourage future generations to come. I'd say a capacity of 38,000 to 40,000 would be achievable for a club our size and stature. If Shi wants to compare us to Palace, who just won their first ever trophy, then he still clearly has no grasp on what our club is and means in the game.

I accept Fosun don't have the ambitions they once did. They know full well they can't invest the type of money the big 6 do although they once thought it might be possible. Things change but it seems they have settled on a business plan of mid table mediocrity, bringing through new talent and then flogging it. It's better than we had prior to their arrival but not enough for some folks who enjoyed the successes under Nuno. The club is self sufficient now and they don't want to take risks to jeopardize that. The trick to that will be keeping an ambitious manager who wants to win trophies happy because that really isn't going to happen.

 

[YoungWolf]

Easily the worst thing he said.

It’s actually incredible. If anything we were unlucky - we slightly under performed our xG in both years and statistically were in the top 6 both occasions. Obviously we were massively affected by the pandemic too as no way Tottenham finish where they did without Kane and Son which they wouldn’t have had.

Along side "things went to shit when I left others in charge...back now though, so all good again"

I found it really odd how he basically kept admitting he just fucks off for a while every now and then.

Its clear he fell out with Nuno

In Johnny Phillips book (I recommend reading the bit about this period of time) Jeff actually says they fought more in the years before that then Nuno would be pushing for things (signings, training ground updates) but says that year was the least conflict they had but I can’t tell or not if he realises Nuno had largely had enough at that point. Both due to Covid and probably Jeff himself.

I do agree with Jeff that 40k is the max we need at Molineux.

Yeah that bit I don’t necessarily disagree with. It just needs to be brought into the 21st century really too.

 

[Jinky]

He said we were lucky to finish 7th twice and have the run to the Europa QF, and then blamed Nuno for the sale of Jota because he “wanted to keep Adama”.

It’s clear he has an issue with Nuno and this extends back to Nuno getting the majority of the credit for those successes rather than Jeff.

The interviewer also mentioned the success Nuno had gone on to have at Forest and Jeff sort of rolled his eyes and took a drink from his water. I’m no body language expert, but it’s very, very clear he dislikes Nuno & flat out refuses to give him any credit - because that’s the kind of man Jeff Shi is.

Edit; ffs, YW - I promised myself I wouldn’t get annoyed by the gimp today

 

[Kenny]

He said we were lucky to finish 7th twice and have the run to the Europa QF, and then blamed Nuno for the sale of Jota because he “wanted to keep Adama”.

It’s clear he has an issue with Nuno and this extends back to Nuno getting the majority of the credit for those successes rather than Jeff.

The interviewer also mentioned the success Nuno had gone on to have at Forest and Jeff sort of rolled his eyes and took a drink from his water. I’m no body language expert, but it’s very, very clear he dislikes Nuno & flat out refuses to give him any credit - because that’s the kind of man Jeff Shi is.

We all hold grudges i suppose.

 

[Stan Hullis]

He also said it is impossible to have success with that kind of football today, again completely ignoring the fact that Nuno has done pretty much that last season with Forest.

I also enjoyed the bit whereby he said that he loves playing football manager and (paraphrasing) it is frustrating that in "real life" football, that players don't develop as you would expect them to, or basically in a linear fashion like they would do on FM.

Essentially explaining why we spunked a load of money on Fabio Silva (one of the hottest prospects on FM at the time) and why Jeff was so smug when we signed him, and called him a generational talent.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

He is a stupid man.

 

[GoldFlagFlyingHigh]

Jeff saying we were lucky to finish 7th two years running is actually incredible (and offensive). And acts like it’s a bad thing because it set unrealistic expectations.

He’s a proper dickhead.

It’s right though. He’s referring to luck as having no injuries on our climb to Europe. One or two bad ones and our squad limitations would’ve had us a lot lower.

Foundations for sustained success weren’t in place, and we couldn’t expect them to be considering we’d a desperate championship squad only three years previously. Add in FFP/PSR and revamping Nuno’s team expensive team and trying to recruit a whole new squad capable of playing more front foot football is a task that would always take a long time.

Lots of things wrong in that time and lessons learnt but we’re still here competing in an amazingly difficult league.
I think they’ve found our level in the league and have more realistic ambitions. Referring to Brighton and the way they go about it said a lot.

 

[Kenny]

JeffShiFlyingHigh?

 

[sycophantia]

Not buying we were lucky. The squad was assembled to play in a certain way, which was fairly low impact on fitness. We probably did have less injuries than some but I don't think that had the major impact that Jeff insists. Someone who had no experience of football let alone top class football telling Nuno his playing style wasn't sustainable is an absolute joke, the guys a true bellend.
With the right recruitment, I truly believe we could have continued our good form under Nuno. Not saying we wouldn't have dropped a little in our levels but we wouldn't have had such poor form for the last 3 seasons.
The Jota thing is also laughable, we clearly wanted to sell a player for profit and a club like Liverpool coming in with a decent offer for a particular player was only ever going to end one way.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I can definitely buy that the club told Nuno we had to sell one of Jota or Adama and he backed the wrong horse.

But a large majority of our fans at the time would also have backed the wrong horse. Plenty had started to gripe at Jota for perceived wastefulness and for the majority (not on TWF), Adama could do no wrong in 2019 and 2020.

 

[Quirkafleeg]

JeffShiFlyingHigh?

 

[Kenny]

You are never forgiving that are you

 

[YoungWolf]

It’s right though. He’s referring to luck as having no injuries on our climb to Europe. One or two bad ones and our squad limitations would’ve had us a lot lower.

He’s not though. Don’t know why people have started to allow this myth to go on. Shi shows a really poor understanding of how strong our sports science department was integrated into the coaching.

the only time in four seasons we had any injury issues was… during the pandemic.

Oh look, Forest were joint third for least injuries last season too.

He also said we had lots of luck on the pitch which is just bollocks and I’ve no idea why you’d defend him on that.

Foundations for sustained success weren’t in place, and we couldn’t expect them to be considering we’d a desperate championship squad only three years previously. Add in FFP/PSR and revamping Nuno’s team expensive team and trying to recruit a whole new squad capable of playing more front foot football is a task that would always take a long time.

Lots of things wrong in that time and lessons learnt but we’re still here competing in an amazingly difficult league.

None of this reflects well on Fosun or Jeff imo. Mendes/Nuno did that in spite of him basically. And they’ve botched the rebuild in and often in a very costly way. If they really thought that why did that change tack twice.

I think they’ve found our level in the league and have more realistic ambitions. Referring to Brighton and the way they go about it said a lot.

This I mostly agree with. I’d love us to be run by Brighton’s board (I’d say Brentford but let’s see how this summer reflects on that..)

 

[YoungWolf]

I can definitely buy that the club told Nuno we had to sell one of Jota or Adama and he backed the wrong horse.

But a large majority of our fans at the time would also have backed the wrong horse. Plenty had started to gripe at Jota for perceived wastefulness and for the majority (not on TWF), Adama could do no wrong in 2019 and 2020.

This is true but also as you’ve said many times before, that assumes there was a buyer for Adama. In fact, the only time we came close to selling him was to Nuno!