In the run up, the football finance expect has been giving his thoughts to Second Tier Podcast’s Ryan Dilks, and Benjamin Bloom.

They talk about the best run club in the Championship, then clubs he has concerns for, the relegated and well run sides.

There are mentions for notable owners, reaction to what the fans are saying, talk on Hull City and Acun Ilicali, Birmingham City and Wrexham and a general insights from Maguire.

: We’ll finish off, Kieran, with a couple of questions which I ask you every single year, and it’s always fascinating to see how your answers change in a a matter of twelve months. So the first question, who’s the best run club in the Championship in your opinion?

: I’m going for one which I probably wouldn’t have said a few years ago, and and this one has given me a lot of consideration. I’m gonna go for Queen’s Park Rangers.

: Oh.

: And the reason why I say that is that on a player recruitment budget of the square root of fuck all, that’s an accounting term a piece of terminology. They’ve managed to survive. They’ve managed to get control of their wages. They did have legacy issues. Their wage bill is bottom six. The total squad cost that’s the total cost of the squad, £2million. And yet QPR, they they did okay, last season. So, yeah, I gave that one a lot of thought. And Derby County, you know, I like a lot because of David Clowes. Watford, strange club, they make profits through selling players, but at the same time, there’s other issues with Watford, which are less, less positive, which I’m not prepared to say on air given that the buggers tried to sue me a couple of months ago. But, yeah. I’ve gone for QPR. I like what I see at Coventry as well. I’ll be honest. Again, under a new owner, that they seem to have done very well in terms of season ticket sales and so on. But, yeah, I’ve given the crown to QPR.

: Wow. I wonder what odds they would have been at the start of the show for them to be there. And they were one of the last clubs, I would have expected you to say. And finally, Kieran, who’s the club who’s in your naughty books? Who do you have a bit of concern for going forwards? Name a club which doesn’t have the suffix Wednesday.

: There are two clubs where I’m a little bit concerned about. I mean, Cardiff City would have been there, but they were relegated. Hull City and Watford, which I’ve already mentioned. Watford

: Probably avoid Watford for the lawyers.

: No. But I’m, you know, Watford don’t like me. That’s that’s fine. I have no issue with that. The fact that they’ve sacked not only the manager, but sort of management staff, you know, back office, senior management team staff. Yeah. And they’re selling this as the the owner wants to have a more of a hands on role. That an unusual approach to take.

: “Kieran, let’s round this out like we always do, and we’ll do some, slaps on the wrist and some slaps on the backs for some Championship owners. Obviously, you’ve mentioned Knighthead Capital and the gorgeous Ryan and Rob, joining the division to give us A little bit of a Hollywood sprinkle. Let me just start out by this, though, Kieran, that you, probably like me, were very interested in the Championship relegation zone last year because two of our gold star, Plymouth and Luton, were relegated. Okay. Mr Tan at Cardiff. He was down the other end there. But, well run clubs get relegated, don’t they, Kieran?

: Yeah. I mean, Plymouth Argyle had I think they had the second lowest losses in the Championship season 23/24. And it now looks as if there’s going to be new external investments as far as the club is concerned. There therein lies the paradox of football. A well run business doesn’t necessarily transform into a successful football club. Newcastle United under Mike Ashby was a well run business. It made profits most years. Didn’t touch the sides as far as challenging for trophies is concerned. And and everybody saw the excitement and joy, that was, that was on Tyneside, when Newcastle United won the Carabao Cup. Okay. Well, yeah, there’s me going, they’ve lost a lot of money. Yeah. Look here. The accountancy are saying things aren’t as good as they used to be, and the Geordie nation are going, yeah stuff that Kieran, we’re we’re having a party. And to be fair to them, they did say, and you’re invited too. So they’re very kind. So that there is that inbuilt tension as far as the industry is concerned, and that causes problems. Plymouth ran a tight ship off the field, but they made mistakes in terms of recruiting coaches. Wayne Rooney experiment apparently didn’t work. Yet he could’ve turned it around in another four games for all we know. Anybody that’s that’s ever dealt with Wayne will say that he’s a pretty astute guy. He’s gets really bad press because he is the last street footballer of England, and people assess him on that. And, also, yeah, management said it’s 95% luck, 5% ability, and that comes from Pep Guardiola. The luck comes from having the biggest budget in football. The ability is making those marginal gains to players. So Plymouth Argyle had one of the lowest budgets. They were relegated as far as Luton Town is concerned, and I know some fairly high profile Luton Town fans, I think it’s fair to say there has been a breakdown in the relationship between the board and the fan base.

: That’s a shame.

: The balance of what they were going to do with the monies that had been generated from the Premier League. Because they didn’t spend money within the Premier League. The average, Luton Town wage, and, you know, let’s get out the world’s smallest violin here. They were only averaging £25,000 a week. It’s not worth getting out of bed for that, but that that reflects upon the ability or the talent of the players that they’re recruiting. They only spent £28million signing players in season 23/24, which was by far the lowest of any club in the Premier League. And if you’re coming from League One, Championship, Premier League, and you’re not investing in players, then, I think they did well to avoid being further down than the Premier League. But last season was an absolute disaster. They they were in receipt of £45million worth of parachute payments. I expect Luton will have made substantial profits last season. This season, they will be in receipt of £36million worth of parachute payments. The average club in League One will earn 1.8million from TV. So left so Luton Town will get 20 times as much TV money as yeah, Rotherham, Bolton, whoever it may be.

: Wow. Let’s go through some other names before we get to Wrexham and Birmingham. Are we giving our normal slaps on the back to, I don’t know, Doug King, the Berylson family at Millwall, Mr Gibson at Middlesborough? They’re normally on our thumbs up radar, aren’t they?

: Yeah. And Steve at Bristol City as well. Yeah. These people that put in somewhere between 10 to £20million a year, effectively running clubs as glorified hobbies. Not it is run as a business, but, you know, I don’t know what your hobbies are, Ben, but mine all cost me money. But, you know, that’s that’s just part of it. You accept that. And the rewards are intangible rather than financial. So, yes, Steve Gibson, every year, he he finds that 300 grand a week because he’s a Boro boy, and he’s been a very generous owner. Preston, Millwall, Bristol City, they’ve all put their hands in their pockets on a regular basis during the season. The reaction of fans is mixed. I think fans these days are a little bit more street savvy, and aware that their club is losing money. The comment I get most of always is that they spent the money badly. Nope. Nobody, intends to sign useless centre forwards. That’s all I would say. And what you perceive to be talent, there’s a 100 different factors that go into making a footballer a success at a individual football club and the transfer fee is one of those 100 and the 99 that is critical. I’m very that’s critical.

: I’m very interested. We will get to Birmingham and Wrexham. I’m very interested in, Acun Ilicali at Hull because we can look at owners, a, does the club win? B, like you’ve just said, are they benevolent? C, do they make a profit? And I’m sure nobody ticks all those, three boxes across the whole 92. And Mr Ilicali has removed managers, and, obviously, Liam Rosenior went out and is doing better. And the guy replaced him with completely bombed, and then he replaced him with someone else. And, now he’s gone as well, and he’s got the job at Sheffield United, etc. And we’ve got another guy I’ve not heard of, but seems to be pretty aggressive, in the transfer market every season. Is the guy just gonna get it right at one point, get the right manager, and or are you are you a little bit where where are you placing Acun Ilicali and Hull?

: Right. But this then becomes sort of a football answer, not necessarily a football finance answer. There is a belief in society, and it’s not one that I necessarily hold myself that changes the same as improvement. And I think we fall into that trap, that mantra as football fans, and sometimes club owners do as well. If I change the manager, things will improve. No. If you change the manager, things will change.

: I used to work with a producer in my musician days who used to say, Ben, it’s not better. It’s just different. You can you can turn the guitars up another two D B. Well, it’s not it’s no better. Carry on.

: And in my view, that’s the position that we have as far as Hull City are concerned. Yes. He has put the money in. Hull City were losing 350 grand a week, he did have a wave of goodwill because the previous owners were very unpopular. To put it mildly. And I’m just looking at my numbers here and you know, Hull were paying a £139 in wages for every £100 that came through the door. They certainly had spent they’d spent decent money by Championship standards. You know, they’d spent 8 or £9million and that’s, you know, certainly higher than the median spend. I was a bit disappointed with the sacking of Liam, mainly because I’ve had the privilege of meeting Liam, and he’s come across as one of the most smart thinking coaches that I’ve met. And, yeah, this sounds glib. He and I were doing a show together at Sky, and he was just chatting in the canteen beforehand. And I’ll be honest, Ben, I learned more about football tactically and technically in that forty five minutes than I have from watching football for forty five years. As a fan. And he he was sacked. And and there was a viewpoint taken by the whole fan base that he was well backed by the owner, and he was.

: Yeah. He was.

: That, you know, not just transfers, but also the loan market, and he was. Was it too little too late? You know, how long does it take to turn around a tanker? And that’s what you are dealing with in the football club. And you’ve only got to look at his success this season. I think he’s a very good man manager. But, again, it goes back to the one man that you need to manage most of all in a football club. It’s not your centre forward. It’s your owner.

: Right. Let’s round this out because we’re coming out of the hour. Again, the owners, everyone’s gonna be looking at Birmingham and Wrexham. It’s gonna be a lot of fun, isn’t it?

: Yes. It’s going to be box office. I think the new series of Welcome to Wrexham is just about to come out on…

: I was on the last one predicting they weren’t gonna finish in the top six last year, so they mugged me good and proper.

: I feel duty bound to say that I’m followed by Ryan on Twitter, which for somebody that teaches accounting for a living, is about as surreal as it can be. So they will be very competitive. We’ve seen Paul Mullin already, you know, a player. I think he’s a hero to to many Wrexham fans and certainly a central part to Welcome to Wrexham. Well, he’s been shown the door. They’ve been linked with every Premier League football

: They’ve been linked with ever famous player in the world.

: If you’re over 32 and you’ve appeared on Sky Sports on a Sunday afternoon, we’ve probably got your number. So I think it will be a fascinating season. I think it will be a really tough job for the manager because now you are having to deal with football clubs who last season spent over £100million on players. And this is not a criticism of your club, Ben, at all. I looked at the players Ipswich Town signed, and I said, that squad’s being put together in terms of a promotion push in 25/26 more than a survival squad for 24/25. And so therefore, they’re in a strong position. Southampton, yeah, they’ve had some tough times. Southampton are still pretty sizeable. You look at some of the players still there. They’ve they’ve got some… so it is going to be that much tougher. You’re up against Derby County, you get 30,000. You’re up against the two Sheffield teams. You’re up against Boro, and so on. So, you know, Wrexham have been the biggest fish in the pond for certainly, you know, National League and League Two. And then they were the second biggest fish in the pond in terms of following Birmingham City in League One. Next year, clubs are really off. And I think it will be a fascinating season / series, as far as the club is concerned. You know, you’ve got to give the people there some credit, including Shaun Harvey and….

: I’ve never thought I’d hear you say that.

: I, you know, I always try to be as objective as I can, I’m still very proud that my Shaun Harvey appreciation thread, that’s what I put up on Twitter about five years ago, went viral at the time, as did the hashtag, just as well. It wasn’t the Shaun Harvey information thread, and it could have been worse, for those of you that love your acronyms. So, yeah, I think it will be intriguing. It will be tough. They are now dealing with a completely different beast.

: And just round it out, I’m an Ipswich fan. I’m not looking forward to going away to Birmingham in Round One. As you said, that club is united, and I don’t think anyone would be that surprised if they were pretty, pretty high up the league next season with Knighthead behind them.

: Yes. They do have Knighthead behind them, but they also have the the intricacies of PSR. Birmingham City will have lost a fortune in League One I’ve seen…

: But the rules are the rules are different in League One than in the Championship, aren’t they?

: Yes. But in the Championship, you are assessed over your last three seasons. Yeah. Regardless of the division. So Birmingham will be limited in terms of of their allowable losses. I anticipate if you’re signing players for for £15million in the third tier of English football, you’re paying them accordingly. I I fully anticipate Birmingham City’s wage bill to be the highest wage bill in the history of League One, and it will be causing a ripple effect in terms of their ability to spend money this season. Having said that

: You’ve got a 111 points, Kieran.

: Yeah. And if they hadn’t, that would have been that would have been a pretty poor show.

: Maybe. Yeah.

: You know, it was a bit like the success of Celtic when when Rangers had been booted out of the the Scottish Premiership. If if they didn’t win that league by at least 30 points, then then really they weren’t trying hard enough.

You can also have a watch of the INSANE COST of constantly sacking managers!

And also, Birmingham’s BOLD STATEMENT in the Championship transfer window!

Will Leicester face a DOUBLE POINTS DEDUCTION next season?

Does Sheff Weds owner chaos GUARANTEE RELEGATION?

Should football clubs say NO to gambling sponsors?