The scale of the mess

Been thinking this weekend about the sheer mess we are now in. We have gone down while paying a very large squad the highest average wages probably ever. The £6-7 million revenue loss from TV will be made worse by a (optimistic) 20-40% reduction in season ticket sales. The club lost £4 million in its last accounts, has no cash on hand, no property assets, and has a loan from the EFL.

The squad performed dismally under two different head coaches and is broadly arranged into 4 pools:

1. 'Quality' payers under contract with at least some resale value:
Collins, Walton, Helik, Mads, Styles, Morris, Woodrow, Kane.

At least 3/4 if not all of these will be moved on to keep the club afloat.

2. Crap players under contract on high salaries but no resale value: Brittan, Benson, Iseka, Cole, Schmidt, Obbi. These are players who offer very little to the team but will remain (maybe 1.2-1.5 million per year as a whole) on the payrole as we can't find clubs who will take on their wages.

Players from 1) will ultimately be sold to pay players in 2).

3. Assorted hangers on/misfits in contract: Halme, Hondermark, Thomas, Odour, Miller, ICD.

4. The rest: Wolfe, Moon, Kitchen, Williams

Palmer and Victor are out of contract and I assume both will leave. What stands out from this is just how unbalanced the team is, and the criminal level of incompetence in our recent transfer dealings. Once you discount the likely departures we could be left with literally zero cover in centre half, and midfield positions with no obvious goalscorer but a bonanza of wide attacking players who offer very little at all. Even if all in group 1) are sold there is likely no financial room for the scale of the rebuild that we would need to address this.

I think the club is overall in the weakest position since administration, regardless of the head coach we appoint. Best case scenario is that a squad can be cobbled together out of that lot, a couple of academy products make breakthroughs and KEA/Zuk find a way to keep us afloat. However I think we are in serious trouble of falling straight through L1. The idea of a back 5 of Brittain, Moon, Kitchen, Halme, Williams needing to get results against physical sides like Wycombe or FGR fills me with dread!

 

Agree, it's a mess on a massive scale.
Think you might be wrong on one or two contract situations though. Pretty sure we can release Halme, Miller, Hondermarck and ICD this summer.
I also think Brittain would attract some bids, even though he's had a poor season.
Iseka would probably attract interest from Europe too, although I think he could be one worth keeping if he's used properly.

The ones we're stuck with are Benson, Cole, Schmidt, Obbi, Thomas and Oduor.
Maybe Benson and Cole might improve a level down?

 

Yeah I might have been a tad pessimistic. Hope you are right about Miller and ICD but it's a drop in the ocean compared to say, Schmidt's salary. Imagine Halme and Hondermark will have to stay purely to fill gaps though you could be right about their contracts.

Even if Benson and Cole do improve, is that enough in a very competitive L1? Not sure.

 

Halme is out of contract as l understand it but overall yes a fair summing up. What really sends shivers down my spine is listening to and reading what as happened at Oldham. If they were the first club to have played in the premier league and dropped into none league who might be the second?

 

Cole would not show improvement if we dropped to the Vanerama. If his name wasn't Cole he would not be a footballer. Never seen anyone make a living off his father's reputation to the extent that he has. I would be happy if he never pulls a shirt on again for us.

 

A decent coach can turn all that round by giving us a winning season. Most fans are loyal to the club despite the fickleness of some. The main issue this year is the recruitment of two of the worst head coaches we have ever had.
The next appointment has to be right, this is no time to gamble on another unknown foreign coach.

 

No, I don't think it is. Can see a struggle in L1 without 4 or 5 decent signings to replace our better players who will be sold off.
The fact we won't have any money to spend makes that pretty difficult.
We'll be looking at freebies and loans I imagine.

 

In theory yes but it would have to be a hell of a coach to concoct a winning side out of that lot? Last time we at least had a fairly balanced team on relegation that gave Stendal the foundations for success. The money situation let us keep a decent core too.

 

Out of the players you mention that we're stuck with it would be interesting to see if any of them have ever started 5 consecutive games for us, maybe when we invest in players it might be worth judging them over a longer period before writing them off, especially if they are on long contracts.

 

Yep. I mean Oldham bumped along in the third division for years but we might speedrun that in a year!

 

Herbie Kane back with us next season also.

 

You think?

 

Yeah but most likely sold if Oxford fancy keeping him and we can get 6 figures. Not sure why he would want to be back here given we've never given him game time in either L1 or Champ.

 

Some of them have not started 3 consecutive matches under 3 or 4 different head coaches. Is that becuase they haven't been given a fair shake, or becuase they are crap and should never have been invested in, can't be gotten rid of and were signed without any idea of how they would fit into a coach's plans?

I mean you are right, we should be doing that. It's another example of how we drag ourselves from pillar to post recruiting players and coaches seemingly at random

 

The only ones I would be writing off right now are Schmidt & Obbi. I think all the others deserve a chance in L1 under a new coach and some who’ve been loaned out/dismissed could make a decent fist of it for us in L1. What we do need is experience in midfield depending if Herbie Kane goes and also upfront if we lose Morris and/or Woodrow.

 

The scale of the mess can be summed up by the fact that we have got 30 points from 43 games, and we have no money.

So, we'll have to sell the best of an already bad bunch, and that might not even bring enough money in

 

Not sure how we could've given him game time in L1 given that we were in the Championship when he signed?

Edit: And given that we reportedly paid £1.25m for him I'd rather have him back here than sell him for £100k

 

I hope to god we never have to witness Clarke Odour in a tarn shirt again! Crap left back, crap winger, & definitely a crap striker.

 

When we were relegated in 2018, we had Pinnock, Mowatt, Kieffer Moore and Bradshaw (who was soon replaced by Woodrow). We had a squad that looked good enough for a decent attempt at an immediate return, and that's how it turned out. If Helik, Morris and Woodrow are all sold, the squad will look very poorly equipped to repeat the success of 2019.

 

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