Whereas this season even the bottom team have managed it. Everyone bar Widnes has beaten us this year.

And the flip side in 2013, of course, was that there was only Hudds we didn't take points from.

It would be rose-tinted to suggest that everything was rosy under Gentle, when it wasn't. Whether or not we are better/worse/the same now as we were then is open to valid debate IMO.

The next 7 games will tell us if we are on par which Gentle. If we can finish 6th would it be a better finish than under Gentle as we have a tougher set of fixtures than he had?

I still think the Hudds game was players giving up and wanting rid of their coach. As for sacking Gentle, I think it was perhaps another example of Pearson's personality/manner. I suspect his thinking that Gentle had done him over regarding player contracts had Gentle on his sh*t list irredeemably, and he was always going to take the earliest possible justifiable opportunity to pull the trigger. He then did so, but unfortunately in his seemingly impulsive way didn't actually plan through the next step.

Exactly. He himself went on record as saying that it was the run of 5 SL losses in June/July that made up his mind, so he knew at least 2 months beforehand that he needed to have a look at potential coaches.

It's one of those things that can never truly be settled, as it's not comparing like with like. You could just as strongly make the case that holding on to 7th with 2/3rd of the season being against the top 8 is better than 6th against the whole league, as you could say that this year's SL is weaker than 2013's overall, so 6th is less impressive.

I'd have thought it was common sense that the top 4's income will be higher than ours.

Higher gates brings in roughly £150k per season for every extra 1000. (No wonder AP keeps mentioning attendances.)

Prize money - Leeds get £100k this year for coming top. Then there's Wembley, Grand Finals, Club Challenge.

And I'm only guessing, but I suspect their ground overheads don't have to include an "Allam Factor".

I don't think appointing Radford was impulsive or a lack of planning. It's clear that Pearson puts great store on personal relationships and the idea that people emotionally invested in the club will perform better. He didn't have a close personal relationship with Gentle but apparently does with Radford. I think Radford was a deliberate choice based on these factors. Pearson's mistake was allowing his personal feelings to direct his choice rather than stepping back and making a dispassionate assessment of our needs and the best person to fulfil them.

I fully expect that the top clubs have more coming in than us. I'm not convinced it's quite as doomsday and 'unassailable' as Mrs B seems to think, though. If it is, then spending the full cap (or over, apparently) is a grossly irresponsible way to use the limited funds we have. It also begs the question of how quickly things have changed for us to go from refusing to play players we are paying, recruiting further players to replace said players we won't play, paying people off left, right and centre, and paying out a 6-figure transfer fee. All of this was still going on within the last year. Still, all of this reckless spending when a short while later we're apparently on the bones of our a**e will most likely be either McRae & Gentle's fault, or down to us fans. It's also a very strange idea to respond to a limited budget by cutting costs in what should already be the cheapest and most sustainable source of players, whilst still pushing funds towards chasing big name imports.

I personally think how we are choosing to spend our money is more of a problem than how much we have to spend.

Agreed. In fact I think this has been at the core of our problems for years, starting well before Pearson took over. He's simply carried on the same trend.

Quote: carl_spackler "Can you put any numbers to this rather than just speculation based upon costs being cut? What are the turnover & fixed cost comparisons between us, Leeds, Wigan and Saints? I only ask because you keep saying that we don't have even close to the same level of funds to compete with the spending of the big 3, but (maybe I've missed it) I've not seen any reasons how you've come to this conclusion other than the observation that Pearson has started cutting costs and selling players.'" m.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/spo ... -1-5517372 www.skysports.com/rugby-league/n ... -st-helens m.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-war ... -1-4061300 We file small company abbreviated accounts - our small size from a turnover/assets/employees perspective gives us exemptions from filing a P&L. These three don't qualify to do so because they are bigger financially.

Quote: carl_spackler "Can you put any numbers to this rather than just speculation based upon costs being cut? What are the turnover & fixed cost comparisons between us, Leeds, Wigan and Saints? I only ask because you keep saying that we don't have even close to the same level of funds to compete with the spending of the big 3, but (maybe I've missed it) I've not seen any reasons how you've come to this conclusion other than the observation that Pearson has started cutting costs and selling players.'" m.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/spo ... -1-5517372 www.skysports.com/rugby-league/n ... -st-helens m.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-war ... -1-4061300 We file small company abbreviated accounts - our small size from a turnover/assets/employees perspective gives us exemptions from filing a P&L. These three don't qualify to do so because they are bigger financially.

I'm not sure. Ever since he bought the club he seems to have looked around at others to see which strategy to copy. At first it seemed to be Leeds' long-term youth core with a bit of Warrington spending to catch up (some plug-the-gap signings and bring in the available coach lots are talking about). When Gentle was sacked I think he saw Wane winning trophies at Wigan, Anderson having a great first season at Hudds with their first silverware in decades, and Catalan following suit with Frayssinous, so it looked like the way forward was appointing ex-players from within.

FWIW I think his first approach was right, it just should have been done a bit better, was taking longer than anticipated, and he got impatient.

Geoff Toovey would suit us down to the ground and bring the fans back and there would be little need to cut cloth and ambition would return. Ambition is a beautiful thing and we are drunk on mediocrity.

Agree. The frustrating thing being that Pearson seemed to start with a different idea, but now seems to be reverting to doing exactly what the previous owners did; run it as cheaply as possible and excite the fans to buy tickets and shirts with a big name.

I think that this is spot on. I said on another post that for someone supposedly single minded he is can be easily and quickly influenced by something/someone. He then entrenches himself in that opinion and the more challenged he gets the more entrenched he becomes until someone else gets into his ear. Can we get Phil Gould out for a few beers with him?!