...is we have no money at all...we have a manger who has done well to a point...at the moment we have to accept staying in this division or have a mid-table finish...I think in my opinion we are miles away from being a play-off team but in this manager we might just get a lucky season and have a cheeky play-off push...we need to stick together and support our club through this hard time...You Reds! I think so far we have had a really good season and some of the football has been great Ive got one question though why did we not get Vaz Te on a year and half contract as soon as he looked to have the ability...if he had turned out poo im sure a team would have too him off our hands...we could have the same problem with cotterill if he starts to fire...if we give cotterill a year and half contract someone would take him off our hands at the end of the season if he is ***** we would not get a fee but we would not be paying his wages anymore...
Same reason we didn't offer butterfield a new contract earlier, why we haven't offered o'brien one yet, why we didn't look to offer hammill a new contract, why we didn't offer howard one etc. What is that reason? I don't know but it smacks of incompetence on somebody's part to me.
I suspect O'Brien hasn't been offered one is because he's deemed to already be on too much money under the new dictat. And, though I'm not sure, don't new contract offers have to be at least comparable with existing ones?
He looked to have the ability in November/December. We lost him in January. After Pompey away I never thought he'd play again. Think you've got to look at Vaz Te in isolation - absolutely no risk and massive reward. Without him, we wouldn't have 500k in the bank and we'd be about 10 points worse off.
Keith Hill said that at Rochdale he would discuss contracts with players once they had achieved safety as he felt it was inappropriate to rewards players if they hadn't achieved anything. We assume that Vaz Te would have signed a longer contract if he was offered it, when in reality he might have said he only wanted a one year contract so that he could leave for a bigger club. People seem to assume that if we offer a player a long contract they will automatically sign it - of course they won't. A four year contract gives a player security, but it also increases their transfer value and therefore limits their opportunity to move to a bigger club. If I was a player who thought I was good enough to play in a higher league I wouldn't sign a long contract - I would keep my options open. If I was a player who felt he'd reached his level and wanted some job security for my family I would sign a four year contract. I've got no doubt that Cotterill has joined us to put himself in the shop window for something better. I'm sure KH would love to sign him for another two years but Cotterill won't be signing anything until he hears what offers come in over the summer. People need to get real and understand where we are in the pecking order. If we look at the rest of the Championship I imagine it's 24th.
That is only if you want to get compo for u23's. We can offer him a new contract on whatever terms we feel appropriate.