Contracts and Wages

[villasjf]

How much is Pires on ? Is it true he's chauffered up from London each day ?

Yes he is driven 250 miles each day for training i would be supprised if he played more than 30 minutes once our injured players return, another Ireland but at least he has done it in the past and won things, a very strange short term signing though.

[WikiVilla]

Pires was an awful signing, it makes you nervous as to what Houllier will do in Jan

[PaulTheVillan]

Pires was an awful signing, it makes you nervous as to what Houllier will do in Jan

Sign players?

Not just free agents like he could in November?

[Phil from the upper holte]

I think at the time he was trying to strengthen I know some of those figures are alarming but if you don't pay the money you don't get the player. I suppose in Heskey's, Beye's & Sidwell's case not getting them may not have been such a bad thing

[Phil from the upper holte]

Pires was an awful signing, it makes you nervous as to what Houllier will do in Jan

I think the general consensus at the time was that he was a low risk signing. If he doesn't work out you can't use him as a stickto beat the manager with

[WikiVilla]

How much are we paying Pires though ?

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Pires was an awful signing, it makes you nervous as to what Houllier will do in Jan

I think the general consensus at the time was that he was a low risk signing. If he doesn't work out you can't use him as a stickto beat the manager with

It would help if he occasionaly touched the ball, rather than staring in wonderment at it, like it's just rolled out of Kylie Minogue's arse.

[dicedlam]

Giving Habib Beye 40k a week until he reaches 35 is fucking insane.

What kind of service did he think we'd be getting out of Beye at age 35?

It beggars belief...it really does.

[jembob]

Pires was an awful signing, it makes you nervous as to what Houllier will do in Jan

Sign players?

Not just free agents like he could in November?

Indeed. With an ever increasing injury list his options were limited and he needed to draft a bit of experience into the squad. I don't really think that anybody believed Pires would make a major contribution this season, particularly when the injury crisis has receded, but at the time it was a sensible move. Outside of matches, it's useful to have somebody like Pires in the squad as he will clearly be an example for some of the younger players to look up to and learn from.

[TheSandman]

How much are we paying Pires though ?

Do you know? Have you seen his payslip? No. He could be on £10K per week for all you know and considering that he was a free agent looking poised to sign for championship sides I'd doubt he would be on anything like as much as Beye or Shorey who hardly ever played. Using Pires as a stick to beat the manager with is very strange indeed. Not the best signing in the world mind but considering the zero fee and probably low wages he wasn't exactly wastage in the O'Neill league.

[not3bad]

so the Board are at fault for giving Mon the control he demands as at Celtic and Leicester.
The Board are at fault for telling him to curb the spending and wage bill, just as at Celtic and thus forcing him to quit.
No wonder General K reckoned his ego was bigger than the club, the guy seemingly is always blameless.

Which person on this thread has said MON is blameless?

[Concrete John]

We seem to be paying the type of wages expected if we were in the CL.

I think in order to do that we need to compare ourselves to the regular CL clubs, which are Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal.  I'd imagine we're below the first three and maybe above Arsenal, but then the way Wenger runs their transfer policy that should be accepted and understood.

In the whole 'Martin v the board' argument in relaton to the high wages, I do recall a debate on here last year (or may have been earlier this year?) about whether 'arry was to blame for the financial meltdown at Southampton and Portsmouth after he left them.  The argument against was that any manger will spend what he's given/allowed to like a kid in a sweetie shop, but it's the board who should be acting like the parents and controlling him.  Now, our situation is somewhat different, but similarly in the manager is operating within the boundaries he's permitted to and it goes wrong, then whoever set those boundaries is at least partially to blame.   

When Martin left I asked a question of the General that never really got answered, which was whether it was the total wages or the portion paid to those not featuring that caused concern?  I hope it was the latter as I don't think our wages is totally out of sync with where it needs to be with where we want to be, but we have become less efficient in our spend with too high a proportion going to aging and non-playing players.

[Villa'Zawg]

We seem to be paying the type of wages expected if we were in the CL.

I think in order to do that we need to compare ourselves to the regular CL clubs, which are Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal.  I'd imagine we're below the first three and maybe above Arsenal, but then the way Wenger runs their transfer policy that should be accepted and understood.

In the whole 'Martin v the board' argument in relaton to the high wages, I do recall a debate on here last year (or may have been earlier this year?) about whether 'arry was to blame for the financial meltdown at Southampton and Portsmouth after he left them.  The argument against was that any manger will spend what he's given/allowed to like a kid in a sweetie shop, but it's the board who should be acting like the parents and controlling him.  Now, our situation is somewhat different, but similarly in the manager is operating within the boundaries he's permitted to and it goes wrong, then whoever set those boundaries is at least partially to blame.   

When Martin left I asked a question of the General that never really got answered, which was whether it was the total wages or the portion paid to those not featuring that caused concern?  I hope it was the latter as I don't think our wages is totally out of sync with where it needs to be with where we want to be, but we have become less efficient in our spend with too high a proportion going to aging and non-playing players.

Arsenal's wage bill is £110m.

[dave.woodhall]

Pires was an awful signing, it makes you nervous as to what Houllier will do in Jan

What did you think of Sutton and Agathe? Awful and past it, or the best we could do outside the transfer window?

[garyshawsknee]

Pires was an awful signing, it makes you nervous as to what Houllier will do in Jan

What did you think of Sutton and Agathe? Awful and past it, or the best we could do outside the transfer window?

I thought most of us on here thought it wasn't too bad considering the timing of it.