Takeover

[Derek Hardballs]

I don’t see how you can build a squad of any note with this arbitrary wage cap. Any decent player who comes through our ranks and proves themselves is not going to meekly accept low wages when they can move to a club that pays more. We imo are setting ourselves up if this the plan for decades in the Championship unless we have one lucky Luton-esque season where the stars align and we go up.

You’re missing the key point that all clubs around us would be subject to similar wage restrictions.  Nobody in this division (other than those with parachute payments) will be able to pay any more. The Championship is unsustainable with the status quo.  Something has to change.

I’m not missing the point, the point is to build a squad capable of promotion AND then competing in the Prem with a core group of players like we did before will be impossible under this way of operating. Brunt, Morrison, Foster etc would have all gone and we would just start the rebuilding cycle over and over. Sure we might do a Luton but more likely we will just stagnate and go backwards over time. The amount of investment to play money ball is expensive and cannot happen as a self sustaining club at least not at the outset.

Also when we were doing well in the Prem and Championship our wage bill was very high compared to our income. It wasn’t our genius system it was the fact we offered competitive wages in the Prem and outstripped our competitors in the Championship that made us competitive. We may not have spent millions on transfer fees but our wages were very good. Now we are suggesting we can compete with low wage and low transfer fees it’s fantasy football imo.

You moaned about the club kicking the can down the road, by taking out the MSD loans.  Now the club are trying to reduce losses, by reducing wages, you’re moaning again.  

You can’t have your cake and eat it Derek 

No I didn’t I have barely mentioned the loans. I said that selling our better players solves nothing and simply meant we prolonged the inevitable administration if we were not sold to a new owner. The idea under the current owners that we can become self sufficient and do anything but cling to Championship survival is naive to say the least.

Our club whether it risks breaking FFP rules or not needs investment to move forward as Blues owners are doing and discovering. At present we are competing well due to the quality of players we have and the manager if they leave we have very little to fall back on. No DoF with any track record, a depleted scouting network, an academy that is doing well but at the mercy of players loyalty as Villa and others look to pick off our best youngsters. Self sufficiency is at least two or three seasons away if a new owner has genuine ambitions of getting us back up if we fail to this year.

This isn’t moaning it’s just a hypothetical discussion about what may or may not happen. I’m not looking for an argument just a conversation about it. Feel free to disagree but it’s not moaning to put an alternative point of view on where we are as a club.