Looks a bitwet there hope there’s not another sink hole happening

Player agents would love the idea of a club having £5m extra...

As an example, if we (or any other club) suddenly found a source of £5m per annum extra income would we (a) leave spending on the team as it is, make a profit and pay a small dividend to the shareholders or (b) use the extra to increase our playing budget ?

JG- we could definitely increase our revenues (though mainly from changes which supporters won’t like- basically increasing ticket prices) but if we do so to the extent that we stop making losses we will come under increasing pressure to spend more on the team to maintain or improve our league position, so I don’t think that we would ever be profitable. For a normal business you look at what revenue and costs you have and the rest is profit. In football you look at revenue and the loss that you can make because the owners will fund it and that gives the amount that you can spend on the team. Only in the unlikely event that you have more cash to spend on the team than you need to spend to maintain your target league place would the club be profitable.

Was going to pop along tonight,but seeing Reeves in the starting line up has changed my mind:-)

From OS Dons: McDonnell, Asiimwe, Seddon, Reeves, Maycock, Stevens, Bauer, Hackford, Hippolyte, Nkeng, Lewis. Subs: Bishop, Hutchinson, Johnson, Tilley, Bugiel, Foyo, Ogundere.

NW: We'll have to disagree. But I'm quite sure we are both agreed, from reading your posts, that we could as a bare minimum significantly reduce our losses.

TM - would rest Maycock for Saturday if poss.

Think the trophy organisers wanted to remove as many reasons as possible for managers to rest players.

Cup tied rule doesn’t apply in EFL Trophy apparently

JG- it seems that you think that the club can be run profitably if we were just more efficient/ massively increased ticket prices/ got everyone to spend a fortune on food and drink at the ground... I don’t think that there is really any evidence to support that and the Deloitte report which you quote says that the average loss for league 1 clubs is £5.2m, whatever Grimsby may have done. While I would love you to be right that we could be profitable if we just tried harder, I am afraid that I simply don’t believe that to be the case.

How many allowed on the bench anyway ? Maybe Hutch over Johnson & only one of Foyo or Stewart

Nelson is cup tied for the Vertu Trophy having played in the last round, so Tilley over Nkeng on the left for me, Lewis over Seddon if he's fit and probably Maycock not Nelson in the middle 3. Stevens & Hackford to start as a 2 please

OI - quite difficult to undertake a comparative analysis because most League 2 Clubs only publish exempted accounts which don't include a P&L and are in any case unaudited. That said I can see from a brief look at their balance sheets that a number of clubs have made minimal losses or profits over the last couple of years. Grimsby as an example made a £200K+profit in the year ending 2023. But look lets not make excuses to avoid starting the process of losing a few pounds because we are 5 stone over weight!!

6m$ - we know Hutch is good enough, provided he was cheap enough, was a worthwhile gamble that he would recover and get fit. Sadly, thus far not the case.

Hutchinson has been the most pointless resigning since we resigned Darius Charles. If he could get fit we could play him instead of Smith in the holding midfield role.

CW - give him 20 mins at the end?

Hutchison is in the squad apparently, as he never plays he won’t ever be match fit

New blog on Marcus Browne: [Link]

OK - Hackford in for Browne and Sutcliffe in for Seddon?

Yes, what CW says 👏

DO - strong, but I’m not sure I’d want to risk Browne or Seddon picking up any sort of injury - they’re likely to be key for Saturday…

I wouldn’t play Browne, needs a rest, imagine if he got injured in a game like that we would face a proper relegation battle without him

My team for Tonight; Mcdonnell; Asiimwe, Bauer, Ogs, Seddon, Nkeng; Nelson, Reeves, Hippo; Browne, Stewart, Stevens. Foyo on bench if fit.

Don’t forget 7pm kick off tonight for the lucky few who are going