Tue Jul 02, 2019 12:12 pm
How the final Championship table would look for Leeds United, Stoke City, Cardiff City and Swansea City based on wage bills
By Paul Abbandonato
The wage bill of each club is a good indicator as to where teams often finish
The former Cardiff City chairman Peter Ridsdale once said 'Show me a club's annual wage bill and I will show you their final position in the league table.'
There will always be exceptions to the rule, he pointed out, citing Swansea City's march in the Premier League at the time.
But, by and large, Ridsdale was arguing money DOES buy success in football.
That being the case, where might each of the Championship clubs finish up in the 2019-20 campaign, based upon the most recent accounts for each of them?
Note: A rider here. The accounts in question cover up to and including the 2017-18 season.
This is perhaps significant for the Welsh clubs. Swansea's annual wage bill was just under £91million, a legacy of several years in the top flight.
Cardiff's wage bill was much lower at £48m.
However, in the intervening season the Swans will have reduced costs, given their relegation to the Championship, and the Bluebirds increased their wages following a season in the Premier League when they signed the likes of Bobby Reid and Josh Murphy.
We will only know the true current financial state of play when clubs produce their next set of accounts in 2020.
But it's a big ask to close a £40m gap wage gap between Swansea and Cardiff in just one year, particularly as the Swans still have a number of big earners on their books.
Whatever, Off The Pitch , a website that covers business and football, have compiled a predicted final Championship table for the coming campaign based upon the most recently published club wage bills.
It would spell good news for Stoke and West Brom, who would be in the top two. Swansea would marginally miss out, although they would be in the play-offs with Huddersfield, Fulham and Middlesbrough.
Cardiff would agonisingly miss out on the play-offs in seventh position, with Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds United languishing down in 10th place.
Predictably the newly-promoted trio of Luton, Charlton and Barnsley prop up the table.
However, of course, Ridsdale's 'There are always exceptions' assertion will come into play.
Cardiff have a brilliant manager in Warnock, who has pretty much patented the been there, done it promotion t-shirt, while Bielsa is expected to have Leeds challenging.
The bookmakers, supposedly the real people in the know, have a different interpretation of what could be about to unfold.
They make Leeds favourites to win the league at 4-1, followed by Fulham (8-1), Cardiff (10-1) and West Brom (12-1).
Stoke are down in sixth place, with Swansea no higher than 13th at 33-1 in some places.
Where the bookies do agree is that Barnsley and Charlton will be relegated, although they back Luton to stay up.
Tue Jul 02, 2019 12:27 pm
What absolute nonsense.
A well run club with good players will get you promoted.
A poorly ran club with over paid players will not.
If you get relegated from the premier league with a high wage bill your going to be stuffed for a good few years.
Wed Jul 03, 2019 10:40 am
I saw this story a couple of days ago and I thought it was an example of two things,
1. Unimaginative poor journalism by WOL trying to create copy.
2. The trend to replace intelligent thought with statistics.
I'm not sure whether there's a predicable association between what you spend and your league position, but even if there is, this whole article is bollocks because they're using figures which are over two years old.
If relative spend is a predictor of league position ,these figures could only at best predict likely positions two years ago, and since even an online journalist should be able to work that out, why are they wasting their time and everyone else's by even writing this crap L