 A Lack of Spending Will Curtail ProgressWritten by Nuggets on Sunday, 20th Jul 2014 13:48 At a time when Fulham have just spent £11m on a striker with no Premiership experience, it's a little disconcerting to see Mick McCarthy announce that the club are relying on freebies and borrowed players once again this term. Despite last season's refreshingly impressive campaign, and the multi-million pound sale of Aaron Cresswell to West Ham United, the lack of investment in a squad that, by this division's standards is fairly thin, does not exactly bode well for 2014/15. Between the disappointing and often-divisive tenures of Jim Magilton, Roy Keane and Paul Jewell, where many supporters turned on one another, parts of Portman Road resembled a Transformers film; empty, lacking emotion and devoid of purpose. Yet our promotion bid, ambitious though it was, reinvigorated the support and gave us optimism for the future. That is why the board's failure to grant McCarthy the means to influence the transfer market with cold, hard cash strikes me as a decision that could see us curtail any progress we have made since McCarthy's arrival. The crux of the matter is FFP. At least that's the reason Marcus Evans has given Mick as he hopes to reduce spending and enable the club to 'break even'. It's an idealistic notion in this division because 11 of the 12 clubs who have been promoted over the past four seasons have spent money in the transfer window and, usually, a lot of it. While I don't condone big-spending and running clubs at massive losses, I don't think Ipswich are in as much trouble as the board make out, certainly not as bad as some of our fellow league rivals. Of course I don't have full access to all the statistics, which may undermine my point, but looking at the previous release of accounts, we made a loss of £9.8m. However, that number was factored before the sale of Aaron Cresswell. In terms of net spend in the transfer market over the past five years; we made more money than spent, by a margin over £11m. Also, the best way of making a lot of money, and more than breaking even, would be to secure promotion. Mick didn't have a transfer budget last season and improved the club dramatically, surely now is the time, when other clubs are becoming slightly more conservative, to spend some cash on players that Mick wants to bring in, but cannot because of this stubborn refusal to splash out? After all, in its simplest equation, promotion equals a lot of money. Looking back over the past few seasons, spending money in the summer usually equates to promotion. I know it sounds odd as a statement but it almost needs reiterating because this division has the perception of being a notoriously unpredictable league where money does not guarantee success. While I agree the division is tough, much more so than the Premier League, the Championship can be easily navigated by throwing millions of quid at a club. Look at the figures. Last season, Leicester City spent money, mostly undisclosed transfer dealings, to top the Championship. Yes, they also spent a lot of money in the previous few years, and that has led to promotion and the spending has given them a strong squad, capable of staying up. QPR, last season's favourites for the second division title, achieved promotion through the courtesy of the play offs, and some fortuitous performances. But an overhaul of their squad and some big signings in Charlie Austin and Matt Phillips did lead to an instant return to the top flight. The summer before that produced a big outlay for Cardiff City, spending big to clinch the title. Hull City, who finished runners-up that year, spent over £2.5m alone on Nick Proschwitz and even Crystal Palace spent north of £1m to gain promotion, admittedly not as much as some of their other competitors, yet they still spent cash. Needless to say the pattern continues. In 2011/12, Reading topped the table and splashed out on four permanent signings. Even Southampton, with their lauded academy, had to spend money to get back into the Premier League, securing the services of James Cork, Danny Fox and Steve de Ridder. Don't forget West Ham either. The heavily-fancied Hammers spent a fair amount to reclaim their Premier League position, an ambition helped realised by bringing in the likes of Kevin Nolan and Gary O'Neill. Let's go back one more season to when QPR, Norwich City and Swansea went up and, yes, all three clubs spent cash to get there (and a lot of it). So the logic that spending less would mean improvement is flawed. Of course it would be naive of me to state that spending money guarantees promotion, as there are of course several other factors to consider. Evans would testify to that. He handed Roy Keane £11m over the course of a couple of years, with the remit to achieve promotion and Keane couldn't even manage a top-half finish. While that alone could serve a warning against big-spending, it also goes some way to prove that Roy Keane just isn't a very good football manager. McCarthy, one would assume, can spend money better. Of course, the budget is set to allow more generous wages, enticing players without a club to join ours. Yet remember, these are players without a club, and that usually means they didn't impress their former employers. While moulding a team out of freebies and loanees can sometimes lead to promotion, this is not a reliable method. Of the 12 clubs that went up over the past four seasons, only Burnley failed to spend big money on transfers. One argument against spending is that why spend cash when we have some talented youngsters in the academy? We've recently increased our spending to secure a Category 1 rating, so why not make use of our young players? It's always nice to see a club giving youth a chance, and our club has relied upon that ideology more prevalently than neutrals probably think. I don't see Mick as one of those managers who completely ignore the young players; he is willing to give them a chance. My fear is that our young players have a tendency to be sold off for a big fee at the first indication the player could have potential in the game and so, with the likes of Jack Marriott, Bryon Lawrence, Alex Henshall and others tipped for impressive careers, how long will they remain at the club if they're any good? By failing to give McCarthy another transfer budget, Evans is forcing the manager to field youngsters and hope to make a quick, big sale on them after they've played for the club. This way of thinking is, for me, one of the main reasons why we're still in this division after 12-odd years. We seem content in treading water with a status of feeder club, and when Evans says he wants to cut spending and run at a profit, something that will take years to achieve and will likely end in relegation than promotion, it's the sales of our best and young players that is going to get us to this ideal model. Results and performances will naturally be affected as a result. The recent free signings of Cameron Stewart, Bartosz Bialkowski and Jonathan Parr will not raise many eyebrows from our rivals, but they all offer a degree of experience. Purchasing quality, which often costs money, seems less of a gamble and more of a necessity as we already possess a good, experienced manager and a team that, while containing a strong team spirit and some talented individuals, desperately needs an injection of creativity and some much-needed cover in crucial areas of the pitch. As aforementioned, we're making more money through transfers than losing it, and with Cresswell now leaving, this summer strikes me as the best opportunity to reinvest some of that money on a transfer budget so Mick can pursue players of a high enough calibre to improve on last season's standings because, without spending, this club is going to regress. Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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