Re: : "We risk losing all the players because we left it so late to open negotiations Hassell won't leave.
No they wouldn't but if they'd been offered two year contracts in the first place they'd still be here and we could command a fee for them. Hate the pessimism of this club. That attitude being that if we give someone a 2 year contract and they turn out to be useless we've lost a year's wages. Why not trust the judgemnet of the manager who is more optimistic than the board? He'll get more right than wrong and the wrong ones are more costly e.g. Butterfield, Vaz Te, Cranie
From a business point of view, losing Cranie would be the equivalent of someone breaking into a Rolls Royce garage and driving away with a Phantom worth £300,000 (one of the most valued assets) for free. That would be Keith Hill's view on it anyway.
I think Cranie and Cywka may leave. Mellis could also find himself with a better offer. All the others I expect to re-sign.
Unfortunately, we've given contracts to too many poor players over the past 6 or 7 years and we have very little money coming in, so the club has had no alternative but to be cautious. Over the past twelve months though this has changed. There's a new found optimism around the place and with only a couple of exceptions the players brought in by Flicker (and Hill before him) have proved to be good signings for the club, so I think that now is the time to back the manager's judgement and start offering longer contracts. We are, of course, presuming that the players will want to sign longer contracts with us though...
This just highlights further the obscene wages destroying football at all levels. We're likely to lose players who want a wage that is to an average bloke a kings ransom but in the parallel universe that is football this represents just one weeks wages to some players.