The Ballpark Guide to Promoted teams' spending

When writing a piece for the Montreal Gazette concerning how much each promoted side had paid to assemble their roster, it was interesting to note the circumstances of each team. Queens Park Rangers, though ostensibly backed by the capacious pockets of Bernie Ecclestone and perhaps Lakshmi Mittal, have spent a miserly ₤1.25 million on striker D.J. Campbell while both Swansea City and Norwich City have repeatedly raided the Football League for standouts and bargains.

courtesy: thecomet.net

To praecy, both Norwich and Swansea Cities have spent record transfer fees this year on strikers from the Championship; the Swans captured Watford's Danny Graham, while the East Anglian avian cousins grabbed Welsh International Steve Morison from Millwall. Both clubs have also re-tooled with stars of the lower-tiers like Wayne Routledge, Leroy Lita, Anthony Pilkington and Elliott Bennett.

Though both are spending - both appear to have spent nearly nine million pounds - it seems both are following the WBA and Blackpool approach to the Premiership: survival would be nice, but not worth overextending the club's finances. With sound investment and a keen eye on the wage bill, the parachute payments should see a club in contention for promotion again within a year or two.

Prudence has been the order of the day in both far East and West. Not only do lower-leaguers cost less, but they also demand smaller wage packets as they seek a chance for Premier League success. Like the global economy, we could see these clubs prepared to "double-dip" to avoid mimicking the harrowing fortunes of Hull City or Portsmouth.

courtesy: goal.com

These sudden wodges of cash burning holes in the pockets of Paul Lambert and Brendan Rodgers aren't dissimilar to those spent by Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion before last season. QPR's meagre investment is dwarfed even by Blackpool's last season, who spent less than four million pounds. Both have preferred to bring in free transfers. The difference between the two, however, is that the Rs spent mostly in 2007-08-09, bringing in the likes of Heidar Helguson, Hogan Ephraim, Alejandro Faurlin and Matthew Connolly.

Newcastle United are perhaps the most atypical promoted side in recent history. Rather than being a long-term Championship heavyweight such as WBA, Birmingham or (to a lesser extent) Wolves, they easily won the Championship after years of bringing in players who fit a Tyneside lust for power. Like perhaps West Ham United will be this term, Newcastle were a Premier League squad playing in the Championship.

The table below is designed to give ballpark figures of how much each club spent in their promotion year. Please note that these figures were assembled using a variety of websites such as SkySports, transfermarkt.co.uk, soccerbase.com and news reports. When transfer fees were not disclosed, the last known rumoured price was used (often preceding the actual deal by only hours). This means it's unlikely the figures are 100% accurate; however, they are as close to accurate as can be found online or without detailed knowledge of a club's inner workings. Loans are not included.

Key: K = thousand, M = million.  All figures in pounds.  "Accurate" to 5th August 2011.  Players not given a squad number (eg. Lee Cook, Rowan Vine & Martin Rowlands) not included.

	Championship Winner		Automatic Promotion		Playoffs Winner
Year	2010	2011	2010	2011	2010	2011
Team	Newcastle	QPR	West Brom	Norwich	Blackpool	Swansea
Years in Champ'ship	1	7	1	1	3	3
Plyrs in on Promotion:	5	4	7	5	10	4
Spent when Promoted	9.5M	1.25M	7.6M	8.6M	3.85M*	8.75M
Spent Year before	5.15M	4.05M	3.1M	3.025M	500K	1.75M
Squad Academy Graduates	5	4	Nil	3	1	3
Highest fee paid for current plyr:	10.3M (Coloccini)	3.5M (Faurlin)	3M (Brunt)	2.8M (Morison)	1.2M (Campbell)	3.5M (Graham)
Squad FTs:	5	9	6	5	12	9
GK Spend	0	750 000	3.25M	100 000	0	1.5M
DF Spend	19.35M	2.45M	11.1M	2.125M	1.675M	400K
MID Spend	29.2M	8.3M	6.55M	3.35 M	2.325M	3.985M
Fwd Spend	11.2M	3.4M	9.2M	8.4M	1.29M	6.7M
Total:	59.75M	14.9M	30.1M	13.98M	5.29M	12.185M
Avg p/plyr:	2.39M	596K	1.2M	559K	211.6K	487.4K

*Includes estimates of price paid for David Carney and Neal Eardley.

Where to now for Blackpool?

The third in a three-part series detailing possible next steps for the relegated Premier League teams.

Blackpool's one-season jaunt in the Premiership, perhaps likely always to be record-setting, has come to a close. The Tangerines did set records, but not the ones that many predicted at the start of their top flight campaign. Blackpool boasted the smallest wage bill seen in the EPL for several years as well, capping their players' deals at a (comparatively meagre) ₤10,000 per week. They also scored a Premier League record number of goals by a relegated team and may have had one of the better records in league history of any relegated side against the division's elite.

As expected, Blackpool were eventually relegated. But they brought a spirit to the Premiership which is going to be missed and English fans are hoping that Swansea City can bring some of the same verve in their Premier League bow next year. It's arguable that while Blackpool expected this and prepared for life back in the Championship by banking much of their TV revenues and are likely to do so again with their parachute payments.

Let's take a look at how Blackpool can bounce back into the Premier League:

Blow the whole thing up and start again

Sheffield United went down this year after three years of trying to replace their Premiership squad on a bit-by-bit basis. They came out of EPL relegation in reasonable financial shape, given their West Ham settlement and reinvested part of those monies in an attempt to recapture EPL status. The gamble - like many of their signings - didn't pay off and League One now hosts Steel City derbies. With Blackpool unlikely to be able to retain their better players (Adam, Campbell, Gilks and Crainey), perhaps it's best to bid a fond farewell to the team that overachieved the last two years. Chalk them down to a beautiful, happy memory and move on.

This would allow the Seasiders to maintain their business model of not overpaying wages or transfer fees, which in turn would give manager Ian Holloway the chance to build again from the ground up around a combination of Matt Phillips, Elliot Grandin, Gary Taylor-Fletcher, perhaps Luke Varney and the everpresent Ian Evatt. This would again be a long process, but with responsible use of their parachute payments they could raise their wage ceiling by ₤3-5K from their current ₤10,000 ceiling and employ better quality players. This challenge is one of building the club from a small-scale Championship one to a middle-tier team capable of challenging year-in, year-out yet still with the finances to retain their best players.

In essence, this would keep to Karl Oyston's original plan of building a club, not a team.

but for instant gratification:

Sell Charlie Adam and replace him

Adam was crucial to everything Blackpool has done over the past two years. His scoring in the Championship (18 goals and 8 assists) allowed the Tangerines the chance to cream Cardiff in the Playoffs and he followed that dose with 12 EPL goals and 8 assists. Sir Alex Ferguson, Kenny Dalglish and Harry Redknapp are all admirers - even if only two of those three are actually interested in bringing him in. He'll go this Summer. The man 'Olly signed in January to replace him, Andy Reid, ex of Sunderland has already departed.

Chances are Adam will fetch somewhere between ₤5-10 million, significantly below the rumoured ₤14 million asking price in January. Reinvesting some of that money in a potential replacement - the first names that stream to mind are Joe Ledley, Kris Commons and Lewis McGugan, all potentially interested in a move but hard to get - in Adam's central role could go some way towards ensuring another Tangerine top-10 finish. Likely though, as DJ Campbell, Stephen Crainey and Matt Gilks will follow Adam out the door, it's possible Holloway decides to revamp the entire Blackpool squad and with it, alter the way they play their game.

Try to keep DJ Campbell

For so long, Dudley Campbell has been earmarked "Championship Only - Leave behind when promoted". After thirteen EPL goals, his publicist has tagged him available and he could move if the price is right. He - and his services - are needed in the Northwest, so Chairman Oyston should try and retain him. If they can't, the recently released Kevin Phillips could prove a bargain-basement type replacement for his fox-in-the-box role and Marlon King has been good for Coventry City since his mid-season arrival.

Reinforce the defense, however, whenever, with whatever. Use 4x2s if needed.

Blackpool leaked goals partly because of their up-and-down style of play, and partly because their defence simply wasn't up to Premiership standards. Ian Evatt, wholehearted trier that he is, just doesn't cut the mustard as a EPL centre-back. How about testing Burnley's resolve for Clark Carlisle? Perhaps ask a few pointed questions of promoted QPR's spare central defenders as well. As for full-backs, see what Cardiff are doing with the disposable Paul Quinn or how much Coventry City really wants to keep Richard Wood.

The task is harder for Blackpool than for West Ham or Birmingham simply because they don't have the same foundations for growth as their relegated comrades. On the bright side, however, they don't have any of the crippling debt which is likely to play a key role in the future fortunes of the other two clubs, meaning that they are in a prime position to build a lasting entity rather than embark on a short-term "Premiership or (literally) bust" campaign.

Blackpool, Premiership strugglers, stick to their (pop) guns

Though Ian Holloway has earned plaudits for his attacking play and forthright press conferences as well as Charlie Adam for his "wonderful left peg", it could be that their Blackpool team are doomed to relegation from the Premiership this season. Holloway's philosophy, which he said came about after a period out of the game where he watched too much boring football, is to attack at all costs - a vast difference from the dour style he favoured as manager of Bristol Rovers, QPR, Plymouth and Leicester.

Adam and a mildly-surprising DJ Campbell helped the Tangerines into the top half early this term with an flurry of goals, but the club has won only twice this year in the Premiership and now sits seventeenth, out of the drop zone only on goal difference. But the offensive style so favoured by the Seasiders has come at a cost - Blackpool have conceded seventy goals already this season, one of the worst totals in the Premier League over the past ten years. There are still three matches to go.

Only seven other times has a team shopped over seventy goals. Three of those times occurred last year as Wigan (79 goals conceded), Burnley (82 conceded) and Hull (75) got pounded repeatedly by larger clubs. Over the past decade, of all the teams that conceded more than Blackpool have this year, only last year's Wigan escaped relegation; a fact due probably more to other club's incompetence rather than any particular Latic resolve. So does a promoted team playing expansive football have any benefit - other than aesthetic - in the Premier League?

Holloway's men have a goal difference of -22, meaning they've conceded 22 more goals than they've scored. Since 2001-02, every other club who's conceded more than seventy goals in a season boasts a goal difference in excess of -35. His fast-paced tactics mean their scoring balanced (somewhat) the ineptitude of their defence leaving them better placed (for now and without them taking a disastrous thumping in their last three games) than every other porous club this decade. Perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way: while 'Olly likes attacking football and instructs his club to play that way, he's probably correctly surmised that with the defence at his disposal, their best chance to avoid the drop is to attack.

However, football is more than stats. The Blackpool boss could have (again) correctly judged his club didn't have the mettle to compete against giants like United and Chelsea and thought it best to go out playing the style that got them to the Big Dance in the first place. As with Owen Coyle at Burnley and now Bolton, there's something to be said for sticking to one's principles. If Blackpool were to survive to fight again next year, many would celebrate: another year of Olly's sound-bites, more fluid football and the joy of supporting an underdog in the top flight.

Image courtesy http://live4liverpool.com