Retained list

[twosheds]

Does anyone have an idea how much Adams has at his disposal to buy new players?

[CityShrimp]

DA has been ruthless, but to be fair most of the squad is probably not of league one standard so no surprises really to see so many released/transfer listed.

I don't really understand the number of people who are bothered about Bennett leaving... he did ok in a few games but I'd hope we can easily find a couple of centre backs better than him.

My main worry is that most of the transfer listed players will only attract interest from clubs at a very low level - who the players themselves won't want to sign for - and we'll end up spending money on paying up their contracts to get rid of them.

[Redalert1970]

Yes we stayed up which was fantastic but we did lose 24 games and concede 88 goals

Derek has done what most managers would have done with that record

[Screenster]

Sad to see Bennett go. He was a bit of an unsung hero for me at times and hardly put a foot wrong.

The fact that 10 contracted players have been made available for transfer shows how much Derek disapproves of the rat's recruitment. Not sure we'll be able to shift all 10, Cooney and McLoughlin could be useful backup players in my opinion.

[jbc.shrimp]

The loan players we had were naturally going back to parent clubs, but I'd like to see D.A. try and get deals for Carson and Bedeau back on loan or full contracts.

[marky No.1]

Excited is an understatement, just shows you how far we have come releasing some of these players, just wish we could have a 27 year old Toums back.

Hope this is a sign of us building a squad to compete higher up the table, we have learnt a lot on and off the field.
2 more new ex Premiership Clubs next season, making 10 in total depending who wins the play offs, just Wow

[red shrimp]

Not surprised at all with the retained list. Most of the players haven't been good enough this season, albeit our safety by the skin of our nose. I highly doubt 42 points will be enough to keep us in League 1 next season so we need to revamp the squad and bring higher quality players in who can guide us to 15th placed onward. Sad to see the legend that is Toums go, but understandable at his age. He will still be a great player in League 2, but sadly he hasn't got the legs for L1 anymore but what a privilege to have seen him in a shrimps shirt. The greatest we have had imo.

Buzzing for Azza, and I hope he signs the new deal, for me when fit he is huge for us and a key player in the center of park , he has to be captain for me.

I think Smith will be number 1 this season, I can't see Carson coming back as much as I would love him to, but I was impressed with Smith in his 1 game against Bolton, so for me that position sorts itself , he looked more than capable at this level.

All in all very exciting times ahead to be a shrimp!

[Little Shrimp]

Blimey, where to start! A lot of it feels surprising, but when having a bit more of a think it feels a bit less so.

Firstly a huge thank you to Toums, been incredible and a vital part of our promotion and consequent survival. One of the best ever to pull on a Morecambe shirt for sure. Thought there was a chance DA might want to keep him around in the squad, but I guess we don't have the budget to be able to do that kind of thing.

Leigh's a fantastic player but seems like he doesn't quite fit what DA wants, in which case there's no point in spending a wage. Don't think he'll have any trouble finding another club at this level. Bennett's departure surprises me a little as I thought he fitted the mould for a DA style defender and I enjoyed some of his performances, but again working in a budget DA may feel he'd rather go for other options.

Cooney is a bit of a surprise - it's a shame he doesn't quite appeared to have kicked on as much as we all had hoped. Both SR and DA seemed to prefer the 'steadier' option of McLaughlin, with DA even preferring Leigh at RB, so I guess when you think about it it's not too much of a surprise. AOC's been great for most of the season, but I imagine he's a high earner and seems he doesn't quite fit DA's mould. Bit disappointed to see Ayunga listed. He needs a bit more developing on his decision making etc, but he's got bags of raw ability - was almost unplayable at times during Jan/Feb.

On a brighter note, great to see Gnahoua offered a deal! Think he does loads of neat stuff that sometimes goes under the radar, and DA seems to have worked a bit of magic on him to coax out some more end product. Smith seems a smart move - looked competent against Bolton and it's unclear how likely we are to get Carson. Brilliant to see Wildig offered a deal, although it's not too surprising!

[Redalert1970]

Just heard Derek on Radio Lancs

He said the 10 players put on the transfer list is purely down to finances ...Which is very worrying

Sounds like the previous manager either overspent or wasted money on dross

[Screenster]

Just heard Derek on Radio Lancs

He said the 10 players put on the transfer list is purely down to finances ...Which is very worrying

Sounds like the previous manager either overspent or wasted money on dross

I would take that with a pinch of salt. It's a case of raising money and moving on players who he believes justify their wage to rebuild the squad. I doubt the club is in significant financial trouble given that attendances have more than doubled and that we're effectively able to continue freeze season ticket prices for another year.

[redrobo]

Just heard Derek on Radio Lancs

He said the 10 players put on the transfer list is purely down to finances ...Which is very worrying

Sounds like the previous manager either overspent or wasted money on dross

I would take that with a pinch of salt. It's a case of raising money and moving on players who he believes justify their wage to rebuild the squad. I doubt the club is in significant financial trouble given that attendances have more than doubled and that we're effectively able to continue freeze season ticket prices for another year.

I tend to go with your assessment of the situation. We all felt that some of the players Judas brought in were not up to EFL1 standard so DA is doing what any manger worth his salt would do and that is to make availalbe players that do no fit his style.

Financially looking in from the outside the income from gates, cup runs and transfers has probably been the highest for a number of years and I would like to think that the club is now nearing a point where we are living within our means.

DA's budget for next season will have already been discussed and DA will know what he has to work with. I suspect we will still be near the bottom in terms of playing budget but we all know that some clubs with huge budgets have not set the league on fire. DA will develop a squad that will improve on this seasons performance but he will do it within the finances available to him. That is the art of good management and we know that DA has delivered for our club before. There is nothing to suggest that he will not do it once again.

I did and still do have issues about DAs style of football but its all about results and anything is surely better than what Judas served up.....defeat after defeat...a horrendous goals against record....and a manager who didn't communicate with the fans.

[SEASIDECLARET]

What we don’t currently know is, and until accounts are published we won’t, is if the investors who are part of Bond Investments have been withdrawing any of their investment whilst the times are “good”. I would agree with Redrobo that operationally the monies coming in should exceed the outgoings. However this seasons accounts, aren’t due at companies house until March 2023. I think everyone was allowed to defer lodging accounts for the year 2020-21 for 2 months due to covid, so they should be lodged by end of May

[Phoenix Shrimp 2017]

What we don’t currently know is, and until accounts are published we won’t, is if the investors who are part of Bond Investments have been withdrawing any of their investment whilst the times are “good”. I would agree with Redrobo that operationally the monies coming in should exceed the outgoings. However this seasons accounts, aren’t due at companies house until March 2023. I think everyone was allowed to defer lodging accounts for the year 2020-21 for 2 months due to covid, so they should be lodged by end of May

Bond Investments are an interesting part of the future of the club. I often wonder about this dynamic. So we have Directors and proper fans Graham, Rod, James and Charlie who we would all no doubt trust running the club till the end of time. But how do the actual owners, the guys behind Bond Investments actually fit in to the jigsaw and do they provide or take out from the success of the club? For instance, hypothetically speaking if Cole, (or any other player for that matter), was sold for a large sum could the guys behind Bond Investments withdraw funds for their own benefit rather than the club in general?

I guess it's something we all ponder on but may never know the full picture of what goes on behind the scenes.

The only clue I can derive from goings on is that when Stephen Robinson took over he was 'pleasantly surprised' at the size of the budget he was given. Tends to suggest we are funding the team to the best of our ability and if I were the actual owners I would certainly trust the day to day running of the club to the aforementioned four who all do a remarkable job on top of their other busy professional careers!

[P/T Indie]

It could mean anything like they are all on big wages which he thinks could be averaged out better over the squad, or to raise funds so we can actually pay transfer fees for people.

[redrobo]

Really surprised that Connor Pye has been made available for transfer as he was the outstanding junior player under DA last time although he never featured in a match day squad.

For me young talent such as Connor are the future of our club.....

[KenH]

What we don’t currently know is, and until accounts are published we won’t, is if the investors who are part of Bond Investments have been withdrawing any of their investment whilst the times are “good”. I would agree with Redrobo that operationally the monies coming in should exceed the outgoings. However this seasons accounts, aren’t due at companies house until March 2023. I think everyone was allowed to defer lodging accounts for the year 2020-21 for 2 months due to covid, so they should be lodged by end of May

Not too sure we'd have made a surplus this last season to be honest. Losses were averaging half a million per year. A lot of the "new" fans are cheap season tickets and the club's overheads must be a lot more with the new admin/management staff taken on, plus extra security, policing costs, etc and that's before the increased players' wages budget. I'd expect it to be more of a break-even position, meaning that the owners won't have had to pay more loans in to cover losses. Of course, I don't know how much extra revenue from advertising, sponsorshop, hospitality, etc., but those revenues also have corresponding costs against them too.

[P/T Indie]

Freeze was on about doing a final podcast this week maybe he could ask which ever director is on to clear up Derek's comment.

[BerlinWaller]

Derek is just moving out contracted players so he can replace them with new. He can't have a squad of 30 with 10 ten of them sat at home. The more he moves on the more he can bring in.

We paid a fee for Jonah and wasn't it in excess of 60k on agents? The Snake had the clubs biggest ever budget and messed it up.

[vvm]

500k for CMG, 200k for Lavelle. More than doubled our average attendance over a season in our highest ever league and throw in a healthy cup run and you would hope the finances are as good as they've ever been.

I think I'm guilty of being far too sentimental with this team and hoping a good number of them stay on but like others have pointed out, we probably established ourselves as one of the worst league one teams to ever stay up so the current squad just isn't up to standard. Derek needs to be ruthless in moving a few on and improving the squad dramatically because I don't think we'll be as lucky next year to have so many teams poorer than us.

[black morse]

500k for CMG, 200k for Lavelle. More than doubled our average attendance over a season in our highest ever league and throw in a healthy cup run and you would hope the finances are as good as they've ever been.

I think I'm guilty of being far too sentimental with this team and hoping a good number of them stay on but like others have pointed out, we probably established ourselves as one of the worst league one teams to ever stay up so the current squad just isn't up to standard. Derek needs to be ruthless in moving a few on and improving the squad dramatically because I don't think we'll be as lucky next year to have so many teams poorer than us.

The worse thing about this league is that it is the only one where 4 teams drop. Why is that?

[Keith]

The worse thing about this league is that it is the only one where 4 teams drop.

The BEST thing about this league is that it is the only one where 4 teams drop, otherwise we'd still be League Two (assuming Horwich were still one of the three that went up).

[Little Shrimp]

The worse thing about this league is that it is the only one where 4 teams drop.

The BEST thing about this league is that it is the only one where 4 teams drop, otherwise we'd still be League Two (assuming Horwich were still one of the three that went up).

Not necessarily, we'd have still been in the playoffs - just with Bolton in the mix instead of Tranmere. We'd have had Newport in the semi-final.

On the low points total to stay up this season - it's easy to assume that we were the best of a particularly bad lot, but it's worth putting into perspective that it took 83 points to get into the playoffs this season, and 90 for the autos. They're both incredibly high totals. Think it says more about the wealth gap in the division rather than how good/bad teams at the bottom end have been compared to previous seasons.

[KenH]

Bond Investments are an interesting part of the future of the club. I often wonder about this dynamic. So we have Directors and proper fans Graham, Rod, James and Charlie who we would all no doubt trust running the club till the end of time. But how do the actual owners, the guys behind Bond Investments actually fit in to the jigsaw and do they provide or take out from the success of the club? For instance, hypothetically speaking if Cole, (or any other player for that matter), was sold for a large sum could the guys behind Bond Investments withdraw funds for their own benefit rather than the club in general?

The monies from Bond are split in two ways, being the purchase of the share capital and then the loans advances. Share capital is semi-permanent in that it can't easily/readily be withdrawn again, so that's pretty much secure. The loans are a different matter as repayment depends on the terms of the loans - they're usually for the shorter term, so could well be repaid from "surplus" funds either according to a repayment schedule which was part of the loan agreements, or by agreement between the directors/owners.

We'll never know how much Bond paid to PMG to buy his shares as that's not public knowledge, but share capital increased by £700k in 2018/19, so that would be the shareholders paying £700k into the club to buy more shares, so that's a long term investment which the shareholders will basically only recover if they sell the club (there are other ways but that's beyond a simplistic discussion).

There are also £2m of loans which we can only assume are from Bond, so in theory, maybe they could claim some of that back depending upon the terms of the loans.

Funnily enough the Bond published accounts show a very different picture of assets costing £1.2m being 80% of the club, so that would suggest that they got 80% of the share capital (£4.7m) for just £1.2m which is quite a discount and would indicate PMG made a whopping loss. Bond accounts show £1.8m of debtors which could be most of the £2m of loans given to MFC (balance of loans could be from other debtors maybe such as Rod, Graham, etc). What is apparent is that Bond itself has received £2m of loans, so it's basically borrowed money to lend to MFC! Bond will almost certainly be needing repayments from MFC loans to service repayments of Bond's loan(s) wherever that money came from!

Basically Bond borrowed £3.7m to buy the shares of MFC and advance loans to MFC, so somewhere there'll be money owed by Bond to someone and that will need repayments in some form.

[Shrimp Girl]

Scottish Daily Record have tweeted that Jonah has gone to St Mirren.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/foo ... t-26929937

[Gone_Shrimping]

Scottish Daily Record have tweeted that Jonah has gone to St Mirren.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/foo ... t-26929937

Maybe St Mirren could be the destination for some of the others made available for transfer.