Again I think we're overestimating the league, or maybe judging our players on how they performed in the PL, without factoring in the drop in quality of the division we're now in. Here's a few of the players who made 30+ for 5th placed Cardiff last year. Sean Morrison Will Vaulks Robert Glatzel Callum Paterson Marlon Pack Curtis Nelson Lee Tomlin Gavin Whyte Danny Ward Can't see many of those significantly improving the squad I mentioned.
Our back ups: Masina, Murray, Perica, Cleverley/Chalobah, Sema, Dawson, Janmaat, Penaranda, Dele-Bashiru, Sierralta, Navarro, Pussetto. 5th placed Cardiff's squad players: Sol Bamba, Dion Sanderson, Lee Peltier, Jazz Richards, Omar Bogle, Mendez-Laing. This league is *****eeeee And again, this is the doomsday scenario that we sell absolutely everyone YK mentioned, and sign absolutely no one.
Ok, let's accept then that the club are actively trying to sell our top assets, nothing we can do about it. IF we get the recruitment right, which is a big if, we can still have a good season and bounce back. The next few weeks are pivotal. Would we be happy keeping Sarr & Hughes but selling Estupinan, Suarez, Deulofeu & Capoue? I think i'd be happy with that!! Let's just hope we can keep both of them and add some quality around them. Failure to do so and we can kiss goodbye to promotion.
If we kept those two and Suarez now Estupinan is off that might just keep me sane. What a shame the bilge we have is very difficult to flush away. It's a massive drain on resources that are needed elsewhere to maintain cash fluidity and help Ivic in the division. I am sure he is delighted with the current situation. A far cry from his time with PAOK and Maccabi. Poor man does not know who to work with as yet to build his team. The bilge means players like Sinclair. Janmaat who hardly ever plays. Pereyra who cannot be bothered. Deeney and Dawson who are billy big ********. Not to mention wasters like Success and Penaranda. Conservatively costing the club 250K per week in wages.
Very much this. It’s a consistent problem on this board, the inability to contemplate the drop in quality. The football pyramid and league system has this handy way of sorting out teams in order of their ability, all of the teams in the championship aside from Bournemouth finished below us in the football pyramid, so broadly speaking they aren’t as good as us. It’s not like we were routinely smashed week in week out last season, in most cases it was fine margins. The difference between a mid table premier league team and a middle table championship team when you look at squad value, wage bills and ability is absolutely huge, much more so than the fine margins that often saw us losing last season. Do we get edged out 1-0 by Rotherham the same way we got edged out 1-0 by palace, whose squad is worth, what maybe £200m more than them? Pre pozzo we were promoted to the premier league twice with vastly inferior players. The standard of the championship is such that it doesn’t actually take much to elevate yourself above the rest of the teams. The right manager and some confidence and momentum can make a huge difference, so players that have struggled in the premier league are more than capable of doing well in the championship, playing against players who are all a lot worse than those they came up against the season before.
The issue is we currently have a team that could win the league blindfolded. We all know it. But, it's as if we're in cheat mode, and are voluntarily giving away all our advantages. This is what causes so much frustration and anger. This season could have been so exciting and positive but it's going to be a complete waste of time, full of broken promises and empty words. Friday's team is likely to be the team we use for much of the season. I cannot see too many more being added to it, who would vastly improve us. I accept Hughes and Sarr could play a part and that will left us, but is it enough over an entire season, where you need strength in depth? As I said a few days ago. We are already as good as promoted, if we keep what we have. We can only mess it up from here, which unfortunately looks like being our target.
I'd love to keep our whole squad and I think it's very possible we'd piss the league with it. However, that's a huge gamble that could potentially put the club's long term future at risk if it backfires. Also not sure what it would do for the atmosphere at the club and morale of the players for us to flat-out deny any opportunity to leave.
Yes but there is fantasy and then there is reality. If we had a billionaire owner then we could suck it up and keep all our players, that said if we had a billionaire owner we wouldn’t have got relegated in the first place. I understand your logic of wanting to keep all our players to give ourselves the best chance of promotion, I really do. But at the same time the sums just don’t add up and the massive flip side is the catastrophic consequences of not selling anyone and failing to get promotion, that could well mean the end of our club. Even if we do get promoted there is still a big £100m black hole that can’t be magicked away. We will be £30m down on our fa cup season and a further £60m down on the one just gone. That can’t be magicked away, we can’t just keep borrowing (literally there is nothing to borrow against anymore) sacrifices have to be made. In the meantime my original point stands, the championship is a lower standard than the premier league by every measure. Players who performed badly at Premier league level will perform better against inferior players, that’s just a simple fact.
I don't see it as a gamble at all. It's the best squad that's ever been in the Championship. It will get you promoted, there's no doubt about it. It will. Now, by selling so many players, the chance of promotion is going from 99.9% certain, to unlikely. So, what's the greater gamble? The only reason I can see why they want to sell so many players now, is because they want to sell up. Any owner serious about getting promotion would not sell all their best players.......it's just a crazy thing to do.
I think you’re passing that out a bit. Some of those won’t play for us again. Some of them are unproven at any level and some are permanently injured. As far as back up goes, I doubt there’s a full bench worth who will be regularly available to us and fewer still who will be of any real use.
Pretty much agree with this. We need to cut our cloth accordingly and you’d be deluded if you thought otherwise. Especially as there is no crowd income now and goodness knows when that will be back. I’d rather try and get on an even keel and end up in the Championship the next 5/10 years (as we mostly have been my whole life), than risk it all and end up like Bolton, Sunderland etc in Leagues One and a Two or heaven forbid like those muppets up the road falling into the Conference! Perspective n’all that etc etc..
Why are the same people who bemoaned the players in the starting 11 week in week out last year who couldn’t give a monkeys and are all millionaires, who got us relegated now crying a river as they being sold??? sell them to whoever will take them I say! I couldn’t care less if we only get say a million for Deeney! Get him and all the other cancerous clowns who have downed tools now for so many managers I can’t remember gone! Rebuild start again. If we get anywhere close to £100m from selling them all then happy days in my book!
But we are a selling club though, even as a premier league club. We buy players so we can sell them at a profit and then reinvest again at higher levels than before so we can incrementally improve the match day squad, at least that’s the plan. If we’d stayed up this season and somebody offered £50-£60m for Sarr then he would’ve been sold, just like Richarlison was. That’s the only we we can even attempt to elevate ourselves above at least three premier league clubs every season longer term, who will all likely have bigger resources than us. Keeping all our players isn’t even a choice, you might think it is but it isn’t. It’s not even about giving ourselves the best chance of promotion, even if we get promoted their is a black hole in the finances. We sold players to survive without that black hole and steady PL income, to think that we can somehow not do the same after relegation is just not realistic unfortunately.
If the coach had been given a 3 year contract and given licence to 'rebuild', I'd agree with you and fully support the project. However, he's got a year and everyone around the club says we have to be promoted straight away.
I don't think anyone is making the point about not selling some players......but every saleable asset? This is the problem. Sell around £50m worth of talent and retain the rest. Be tough on the players who are not currently committed. You cannot let them rule the roost like this. The club have been very weak in this regard. Moving players on in a depressed market is just bad business. Engage brains here. Sell the very minimum if you have to, but wait until the market is better before selling the rest. If they want promotion, they have to keep the quality they have amassed. They are not going to get it if they sell everyone of any note.
Have you traveled back from the future? As far as I can tell we've only sold one saleable asset. 2 if you include Perv's imminent departure.
yeah fair point, maybe they have only given him a year as they are sick of paying out compo to sacked managers? As he is an unproven gamble they limited their exposure.
For me, the biggest problem hasn't been the players we may or may not be selling, it's been the comms out of the club. If Watford knew Suarez and Estupinan didn't want to play for us and were never going to, why not frame the message from the start that they will help us raise funds and they don't want to be here/have the attitude required for Ivic. I think fans would have understood that and wouldn't have got hopes up. It would have been easy enough to give that story to Leventhal or someone else. Other issues have been badly communicated too, which I think has been the biggest issue this summer.
Do you know something we don't? Looks so far like Doucoure gone, Pervis gone, Suarez wanted but no concrete offer from anyone, Capoue wanted by Valencia but potentially not happening due to their money problems, Deulofeu strongly linked to Napoli, Pereyra touted by us but yet to get a bite, Liverpool interested in Sarr but no firm contact, and some BS stories about Foster to Chelsea and Hughes to Spurs. I'm sure a few of the above will eventually leave but don't think it constitutes a fire sale and certainly not a case of getting "every saleable asset" out the door ASAP.
not sure I’m bothered by them all leaving. Might have been good to keep Suarez but we are in the championship. Dawson is dogshit anyone, sure he scored a few, but champ level defender at best and he isn’t the youngest
Is it possible we had intentions of keeping Suarez/Estupinan because we thought we’d be able to raise money elsewhere? If we accept that as a possibility, perhaps our hand has been forced in part by the lack of buyers for the likes of Dawson, Capoue, Pereyra, and Femenia etc.
If you want to look for clues, just look at the team the coach picked. You can't be clearer than that as to who is part of things and who is not. From that Friday team, the only assets are Foster, Pedro, Ngakia and Quina. No one else is anything to get excited about. Sure Hughes and maybe even Sarr could be added to the team, but I don't see anyone else of any note being selected this season.
