Danny Mills - Under The Cosh

[parmoboy]

The thing is the club were actually being sensible. Mills had signed a big 5 year deal at Leeds and they actually did want him off the wage bill.

He signed on a free for Man City.

I guess there was no guarantee that Leeds would have been relegated at that stage though.

Had they stayed up they may have felt they were in a position to ask for a fee, meaning we may have pulled out.

 

[MickaelDebevePhenomenal]

I remember watching the season highlights again, after being gutted we didn't sign him!! I felt immediately better after noticing how many goals we conceded by teams exploiting the gab between tue right aided centre back and Mills, was defineatly a defensive weak point the opposition exploited. Poor fb play not playing inside the lines

 

[Emmersons_BrazillianDong]

I think it was just a personality clash to be honest.

He's a pro whose been promised something that didn't come to fruition, probably felt let down, probably felt Boro were being 'skintflints' trying to save that money. Maybe being a bit self-centred in his approach.

The club, clearly didn't respect the original gentlemans agreement with him, then kept him in the dark too much.

He isn't the first or the last ex-player to be a bit annoyed at how we do business.

Is he a bit of a bell? Maybe a bit, but not an outrageous one, it was a shame as he was a key part of that strong defence. 3 england internationals in our defence, will that ever happen again? Propped up with the best australa-asian goalkeeper ever, a cult French B leftback and one of the top ten CDMs ever to play in the premier league. Will we see days like that again? and will fans appreciate it next time we get something like that?

It does my absolute head in the way that our fans go on as if people should be grateful. Would they feel the same if their bosses started d1cking them about at work and going against agreements to save what would have been a pittance?

I'm no particular fan of Mills to be honest, I also don't think he comes across that well and wasn't that upset he went. But wanting to ensure that you get paid and not to be left in the dark isn't unreasonable. It might be a very well paid job, but it's still a job.

We've seen it many times from the club and I suppose it's part of the business, but like you say Mart - sticks in the craw when its people like The Big Aussie.

 

[Blf]

Couldn't care less what happened that stopped him signing for us. He was one of the legends that gave us our only trophy.
Also that photo of him squeezing the life out of Robbie Savage was excellent.
Nothing but respect for him and Skippy.

 

[Big_Nothing]

Who's our best right back? I thought Young was superb.

 

[equaliser]

One thing about that period under McClaren is how well we spent much of our money. We had some big-name players but we packed the quality rather than quantity. I think the club could learn a lot from that now. We spread the bulk of our cash across a very, very talented core of senior players and supplemented it with youth team graduates and the odd cheap deal here and there. We built an absolutely brilliant group and got absolute value for money across the whole piece imo.

Very good point. Top players give confidence to those around them, though they have to be committed. I think the difference with the Robson era was that some of the top players we brought in clearly weren't committed. By the time McLaren came along, we were more established, more professional. And we'd learned our lesson just buying mercenaries.

And as for mercenaries, Mills wasn't. He was just someone who suspected, rightly as it turned out, that the massive contract he'd signed at Leeds possibly wouldn't honored. We were sneaky in trying to leverage that millstone and use it against Leeds as they slipped into trouble. We told him we'd do a deal then reneged. I don't blame him. Who's to say if he had waited we then wouldn't have tried to stiff him on wages also - or looked to sign a cheaper younger up-and-coming right back? Let's be fair, he was an England player at the time. Why should he have taken a pay cut or been messed about like he was?
As Sheriff JB said, we've had a succession of shocking right-backs since. Only Nsue bucked the trend that I can think of.

 

[Sergio]

I feel like Luke Young was a bigger 'one that got away' than Mills

 

[indeedido]

The wage-bill under McClaren was surprisingly low.

The year we finished 7th we had the 11th highest wages in the league. We finished above Spurs, Villa, Newcastle, Blackburn, Manchester City, Fulham. They all spent more on wages than Boro.

The wage-bill that season was exactly the same as it was the season before, £29m, when we finished 11th and won a League Cup with the 11th highest wage bill in the league.

The year before that, 2002/03, finished 11th with the 14th highest wages.

The year before that, McClaren’s first season, we finished 12th with the 11th highest wages, though it was pretty much Robson’s squad at that time.

In his last season, we finished 14th with the joint 11th highest wages. The context there is that we reached a UEFA Cup final and an FA Cup semi-final so played 64 games.

Further to Viv's excellent post re comparative wage bills under McLaren:

In the year to June 2005, wages were just 55% of turnover, then 74% in the 6 months to December 2005.
Then 80% of turnover in the year to Dec 2006, before dropping back to 73% in year to Dec 2007 on static turnover of £48m.

The £38.3m wage bill in the year to Dec 2006 was the highest single year of wages in the clubs history and the club lost £13m before tax (£10m after tax). The reported year covered half of Euro season 2005-06 and half of Southgate's first season 2006-07.

In the year to Dec 2008 (half each of Southgate's 2nd and relegation seasons), turnover soared by £10m with a new TV deal, while wages reduced slightly to £34m. Wages were just 59% of turnover.
It was a really really bad time to go down and miss out on the inflated revenues.

As a contrast in the year to July 1997 - the double cup final and relegation season, turnover was £22.5m (+£ 8.5m or 60%) and wages £11.3m (+£4.8m or 75%) at 50% of turnover. The club halved losses after tax to just over £5m.

It was not until 2011 that the published accounts revert back to being reflective of a single full season.