Which Championship club/model should we aspire to?

[Montybulldog]

They don't spend a huge amount, they build gradually and are very consistent in around top 9/10 clubs in Championship

 

[Tamargreen]

While on the basis of the above they might be comparable, Norwich City FC are part-owned by a group of American investors headed by the club Director, Michael Attanasio, who alone is worth $700m.

So it's not just the logistics that impact a football club. The wealth spread that ripples out from London isn't simply underpinned by logistics and, as Norwich is about as far from London by crow as we are from Bristol, the commercial appeal of Norwich City FC is proven as greater than that of Plymouth Argyle FC.
This commercial difference is further strengthened by our lack of airport while Norwich has it's own which, to an extent, circumvents some of the logistical pressures presented by location.
I mean, that's what - 30-40mins to London. It takes us longer to get to an airport.

Failing something remarkable, simple economics will always dictate our prospects and simple economics are the stark factors that separate Argyle from Norwich in the modern game.

Norwich are also not realistically comparable to Argyle.

Makes you wonder why Colchester, Gillingham and Southend have been less successful than Bristol City or Argyle if London money and airport accessibility is that important a criteria in a football clubs fortunes.

 

[The Unseen Green]

I think this is a very pessimistic outlook. I agree that our geographical location can be a struggle to attract some players. However this will be a huge ADVANTAGE when he get Brickfields up and running. We should then be in a positikn to have the best academy in the south west, and have a vast catchment area to develop talent and sell on at profit.

Not pessimism mate, just realism.
While the future investment in the academy does, on paper, offer great scope for the club, the appeal needs to stretch to getting the right people in at the right levels of coaching and development, then comes the prospect of them being poached by other clubs.
As for the youth prospects themselves - our academy could well develop a production line of great talent, but the modern urgency of the big clubs to meet the homegrown quota in the most cost-effective manner will be the reason that every single academy respective to clubs without the benefits of vast wealth and/or greater commercial value will see only modest return for that investment.

I'm not dismissing the idea of further investment in our academy - I absolutely want it, but the return will be dictated by market conditions.
These conditions will subsequently dictate any influence upon all other factors at the club and will have no impact on the premise that any club in the country can really be compared to Argyle.

I'm not saying I don't dream of seeing the Green Machine in the PL, in Europe - of course I do, but my reality is tailored by tangible factors.

Maybe I'm just a boring bugger. 😂

 

[memory man]

The obvious choice - to me at least - is to look (relatively) close to home amongst the other Championship clubs: Bristol City. Next season will mark a decade spent in this league, almost always solidly mid-table, occasionally threatening the playoffs. In that time they've had peaks and troughs in spending: £8m for Han-Noah Massengo in 2019 was the biggest known outlay in that time, as far as I can see, but that was in a transfer window where they received over £40m in fees so it hardly seems like reckless spending. Some years they relied on free transfers and players costing six figures rather than seven. To me that seems the exact model we want to be emulating for the next few seasons. You could perhaps say that's not ambitious enough, but we all saw how Roy Gardner's five year plan went.

I've not made a study of other clubs' finances - or Argyle's for that matter - but my impression is that Bristol City is a basket-case. I read somewhere, or maybe heard on a Kevin Maguire podcast that for a decade they have been losing £400k+ a week. Landsdowne has pumped £240M of his own money into the club - to achieve no more than your "almost always solidly mid-table". I think (but cannot be sure) that only the Covid closure of the stadium stopped them falling foul of the FFP regulations and that their recent accounts just avoided a points deduction. They were patting themselves on the back for getting the wage bill down from £35M to £30M.

I don't know enough to be certain, but the bits I do understand indicate to me that they are not what we want to aspire to.

 

[Biggs]

While on the basis of the above they might be comparable, Norwich City FC are part-owned by a group of American investors headed by the club Director, Michael Attanasio, who alone is worth $700m.

Only in the last year or so, but their recent times in the Premier League were under Delia.

It seems silly to be saying the Premier League is totally unrealistic, when you’re in the division directly below it and finishing in the top quarter of it gives you a play-off lottery ticket.

 

[The Unseen Green]

Only in the last year or so, but their recent times in the Premier League were under Delia.

It seems silly to be saying the Premier League is totally unrealistic, when you’re in the division directly below it and finishing in the top quarter of it gives you a play-off lottery ticket.

Do you not think the commercial draw of Delia carried weight?

Ultimately, my underlying point is that, irrespective of what was before for any club in the country, there isn't a single one that, in it's current condition, compares to Argyle - there just isn't, not Norwich or anyone else.

I know we have a project with a trajectory that needs the ticks in the right boxes at the right time - a delicate path, but it's not something that can or ever will compare comfortably with any other club, simply because the delivery must be conditioned by the initial stage of it's own approach.

There are similarities that can be drawn from many clubs, but they do not build enough support for sensible comparison - they just don't.

 

[Montybulldog]

Not pessimism mate, just realism.
While the future investment in the academy does, on paper, offer great scope for the club, the appeal needs to stretch to getting the right people in at the right levels of coaching and development, then comes the prospect of them being poached by other clubs.
As for the youth prospects themselves - our academy could well develop a production line of great talent, but the modern urgency of the big clubs to meet the homegrown quota in the most cost-effective manner will be the reason that every single academy respective to clubs without the benefits of vast wealth and/or greater commercial value will see only modest return for that investment.

I'm not dismissing the idea of further investment in our academy - I absolutely want it, but the return will be dictated by market conditions.
These conditions will subsequently dictate any influence upon all other factors at the club and will have no impact on the premise that any club in the country can really be compared to Argyle.

I'm not saying I don't dream of seeing the Green Machine in the PL, in Europe - of course I do, but my reality is tailored by tangible factors.

Maybe I'm just a boring bugger. 😂

No your not boaring just live in the real world,