Spoke to Keith Hill. He said in hindsight the club possibly should've kept Ricardo Vaz Te. Money received not worth relegation.
would V'T have had the same impact? but do the maths, say we got 500k, less say 100k in wages paid (guess at 4k p/w) then the lost prize money for maybe finishing 10 places higher, have we actually made that much of a profit? a 10th-13th finish and we take optimism into the next season, now its looking like only pompey admin has saved us, of course hindsight is wonderful, what if V'T got injured if he played v derby? 1 thing for sure, hill was asked after the derby game about not having a replacement in, he said "we don't need 1, we just scored 3 goals" well, just 2 wins and 8 goals in 16 games since, and every tarn fan knew we needed a new striker as soon as he left. i hope those involved in the running of the club don't come crying when sales are down and blame us for us been bottom at xmas
Am I correct to think that we sold him AFTER we had already lost Butterfield and Drinkwater? It also begs the question as to how we were planning on balancing the books when the season began - were they always hoping to sell someone at some point?
They'll still argue 500k was good business on here, and go on about an out of form Nicky Maynard being "proven". It says something when the managers making comments like that.
It's all using the excuse of Vaz Te, Butterfield and drinkwater, but are they defender's? 3rd worst defence in the league
He didn't start to think about the defensive issues until the goals dried up. At that point, he'd left himself too much work to do. Problems in all areas of the team.
"Ricardo Vaz Te hasn't turned down a new contract because I haven't offered him one". He needs the gift of hindsight to realise that it might have perhaps been a good idea to at least try and keep our leading scorer and best player we have had since Hamill and arguably Hignett?