The finances of Wednesday's squad building
Laying the final pieces of the jigsaw, but how is it shaping up - and how good does the picture it forms look? Profiles of players - but also a hitherto unseen frugality in our spending on them.
With Colombian ‘keeper Devis Vásquez joining as the eight signing of the transfer window Xisco Muñoz’ Wednesday squad is taking shape. That signing won’t be the last, and while the goalkeeper and four defensive positions are done1 , Muñoz clearly wants more2. Xisco Muñoz has also reiterated his plan to have a 25-man squad: Three goalkeepers and 22 outfield players3.
Squad overview
He currently considers the squad to have 21 (outfield) players4 and while he wants his players to be tactically flexible - able to play two to three positions5 - there does seem to be a shortage in the central midfield area:
Central midfield a problem area
Liam Palmer came on to play as a central (defensive) midfielder against Southampton, but that was his only third appearance (albeit in succession) in the position for Wednesday in nigh on eight years. There was no other option on the bench, who could be considered a central midfielder after a tight muscle kept Byers out as a precaution.
Recruitment will likely focus on that central midfield area.
Bannan’s limitations as a Championship footballer (and as captain, but that’s another story) was on show against Southampton, where he often seemed at odds with the tactical plan both in (not moving to the inside left position) and out of possession (the single man pressing sprints were, alas, back).
The same can be said for Will Vaulks, whose lack of mobility and struggle to stay at the pace of the game became evident a lot on Friday albeit against EPL quality footballers.
Bakinson had his, arguably, best game as a Wednesday player against Southampton and showed glimpses of being the passing link that makes those transitions click we thought he would be when Darren Moore signed him.
Stationary central midfielders
All three - Bannan, Vaulks, Bakinson - are mostly stationary midfielders focused mostly on receiving the ball. Byers is the most accomplished player for Muñoz’ desired playing style of moving the ball quickly with passes and going for transitions when the ball is won, but his absence Friday reminded us that he is yet to complete more than 20 full matches a season as a Wednesday player.
There’s a reason Darren Moore persisted with Dele-Bashiru and also signed Dennis Adeniran and (in part) Lewis Wing too: He wanted more energy, ‘more legs’, in that central midfield area and players able to not just receive the ball, but also carry the ball. That made sense as a lock-picker in League One, where we faced a lot of rigid, stationary defensive organisation. But it also makes a lot of sense in the Championship with a tactical focus on quick transitions. I imagine Muñoz would’ve loved to have kept Dele-Bashiru around and it’s likely he’d want to add someone of that ilk as our ninth signing.
Questions over Byers’ long term fitness call for cover
The other signing for that central midfield area should be someone to compete with and cover for George Byers. As the late season collapse last year showed, we simply cannot live and die by his fitness to that extent. The profile for both could be young EPL loanees, but with one slot for a foreign player (that won’t qualify via GBE) left, I’m sure there will be more outlandish and creative targets on the notepad of Wednesday’s transfer committee.
Attacking positions primed for a one out, one in revamp?
In the four attacking positions we have the numbers - eight - right now. But I’d still argue there are a lot of ill-fitting players when you consider the vast shift in playing style.
Others recognise that too as evidenced by Paul Warne’s cheeky loan bid for Michael Smith. Gregory, despite his trademark poacher’s goal from a flicked corner, didn’t audition brilliantly as a starter for the lone striker role on Friday either.
Ashley Fletcher is clearly not up to match speed yet and it could take some weeks before he is, but his profile is clearly what Muñoz wants in that lone striker role: A target but with ‘velocity to go into space’.
Both Smith and Gregory do the target bit well (although Smith’s form was on the wane towards the end of last season and he hasn’t looked sharp pre-season either), but alas struggle with both the ‘velocity’ and ‘going into space’ bits. Again, not an issue if you’re playing a more stationary and rigid 3-5-2 against inferior opponents in League One, but the opportune moments to play one or either this season will not be numerous.
Josh Windass kept coming inside on Friday from his outside left position and could be someone who does the lone striker role’s ‘velocity’ and especially ‘going into space’ bits very well, yet would struggle to perform as a target under pressure.
Will Muñoz look for a striker in the mould of Fletcher - a rich man’s Elias Kachunga, more pronounced for his work and movement than his goals (just 2 non-penalty goals, from 2.6 xG, in a poor Wigan side in last season’s Championship) - or someone with a more creative profile?
Despite having proven marksmen in Gregory (1 non-penalty goal in every 3 career games) and Smith (just short of 1 non-penalty goal in every 3 career games) big question marks remain about who will get the goals to keep Wednesday up.
Realistically, then, we could be looking at both a marksman striker and more of a creative forward, which would more than likely involve one or either of Gregory and Smith moving to pastures new.
Wages historically low - by the standards of us and others
One aspect not considered is the squad’s cost. Recruitment this summer has clearly been focused on what you could, uncharitably, characterise as ‘the bargain bin’ and more positively as ‘markets with untapped potential’.
Footballers’ wages are famously hard to estimate and with our club insisting on not even giving away the length of contracts for players signed, never mind the size of fees paid, it doesn’t get easier.
Estimation of 2021-2022 wages not far off being right
It’s worth noting, however, that if you used my preferred method for estimating the 2021-2022 wage costs - the wages listed in Football Manager for the 25 highest paid players and adding 25% on top (a rule of thumb used by football finance expert Kieran Maguire) - the estimate for that season would have been wages of £249,000 a week. The actual figure, as per the accounts, was £239,000, so the estimate was just £10,000 (4%) - or £520k over a full season - over the actual figure:
As imperfect as an estimation can be that is a pretty good gauge. It is obviously harder to gauge the wages of a player who have just signed for the club - and also for the existing players after a promotion is likely to have increased their wages as a part of their contracts.
2023-2024 wages estimated
But we can give it a go and get a better sense of the outlay involved for our squad for the 2023-2024 season:
Yes, those wage change assumptions are merely ballpark figures, and could be well off individually, but taken as a whole they represent a rise of 22% (£30k a week, £1.5m a year) on what those players were paid in League One and that seems, for all intents and purposes, to be a decent estimate of the change that has happened.
The seven of the new signings not here last season are harder to estimate.
I’ve taken what Football Manager listed as their wage in 2022-2023 for their previous club and assumed that the low wage earners (Valentin, Musaba, Bernard, Delgado) all saw a (in relative terms) significant increase in wages upon signing with Wednesday.
For Bambo Diaby I’ve asumed the same wages as at fellow Championship side Preston North End.
For the loan signings of Fletcher and Vasquez I’ve assumed we’re paying £8k a week of their wages, which is around 50% and 70% respectively of their 2022-2023 wage.
2023-2024 wages likely only slightly higher than 2021-2022’s
How does the total compare to the 2021-2022 wages of £239k a week then? Surprisingly well, actually:
At £254k, or £13.2m a year, wage levels are looking very low for this season even allowing for the fact the recruitment drive hasn’t yet ended. It’s just roughly £700k more in wages than we spent in our first season in League One.
Low wage spending by Championship standards
Was it a case of Wednesday ‘paying Championship wages in League One’ then? Not really, no. A £13m wage bill would’ve put us firmly joint second from bottom of the 2021-2022 Championship among the 20 clubs who have published their accounts:
It is worth noting, too, that two of those - Hull and Blackpool - who paid the least in wages survived in 19th and 16th respectively, although Blackpool were relegated a year later and the third team with a ~£13m wage bill, Barnsley, crashed into League One that season.
The model, then, is clearly the smart people at Coventry and Luton, the finalists of the 2022-2023 Play-Offs at Wembley in May with Luton a Play-Off entrant in that very season, 2021-2022, too.
Wage bill size isn’t destiny
Their wage bills of £18m and £16m, as well as Millwall’s of £22m and Blackburn’s of £24m - both on the fringes of the Play-Offs both that year and last season - shows you it’s not how much you spend, but simply how you spend.
And, as shown above, we are spending a lot more frugally than before at a little over half the £24m we paid in wages in 2020-2021 when were were relegated from the Championship as 24th.
Historically low wages to revenue ratio
With what I estimate to be a £24m turnover for 2023-2024 (£10m broadcast, £8m match day, £6m commercial) we’re currently only at just shy of 60% of turnover spent on wages and steering towards an estimated loss of just £2.5m. A lot lower than the £8.5m lost in 2021-2022 as per the accounts and a chasm away from the £28m lost in 2020-2021 when we were relegated from the Championship.
A 60% wages to revenue ratio is pretty much unheard of in the Championship: Of teams without the hefty EPL relegation of Parachute Payments only Rotherham (68% in 2020-2021) and Blackpool (76% in 2021-2022) come close in recent years. Among 281 teams from 2010 to 2022 only 13 would have a lower wages to revenue ratio than what Wednesday are currently at - and eight of them had Parachute Payments that artificially deflated their ratio. So you could say we’re being more frugal than 95% of Championship teams.
A far, far cry from the Wednesday of 2017-2021, where we recorded three entries in the top 40 of that list of 281 Championship teams’ wages to revenue ratios:
168% in 2017-2018 and 157% in 2018-2019 - and 209% in 2020-2021, the sixth highest recorded.
‘We have 21 players (in the squad)’ (Sheffield Star)