Who Stays And Who Goes?

You've answered your own question.

 

Sure, though both reids and yourself were already talking about it as if it was a foregone conclusion, when I haven't seen something to indicate that it is.

Reids also gave a couple of other possible reasons why, which I have questioned the validity of.

 

Honestly I think it's very naive to think any of our decent players would stay and play for us in the Championship. Ultimately 99% of Premier League footballers are egomaniacs and would see the Championship as beneath them. Then on top of that each and every one of them would have a money-grabbing agent in their ear telling them they need to move.

 

Our wages to revenue in 2018 (can't find the 2019 figure) was 67%. 84% of our turnover comes from the TV deal. We owe £88m in loans + liability. Those aren't numbers to suggest being able to keep on (m)any high earners, even with the parachute payments and money made from selling off players.

I haven't spoken to him, but why would a 21-year-old who has been touted for moves to far bigger clubs than us, who has played in World Cups and in European competitions want to stay with us in the Championship?

Sarr and Mitrovic aren't comparable - If we were in similar circumstances (aka in the Championship) Fulham would have more money than us. They even gave him a new contract (on a rumoured 75k-100k a week) when they went down. Can you see us doing that to one of our players if we go down? I can't.

I think you're overestimating how many players Fulham kept from last season. These are the 11 players with the most starts last season:

Mitrovic - Still there, required a huge new contract to stay
Sergio Rico - Gone
Odoi - Was there for 2 Championship seasons before the promotion. Can't be on huge wages.
Chambers - Gone
Bryan - Still there, linked with a move away.
Seri - Gone
Sessegnon - Gone
Ream - Still there. Spent 6 seasons in the Championship before promotion. Can't be on a huge wage.
Le Marchand - Still there, don't even remember him playing for Fulham last season tbh!
Cairney - Still there, again spent 3 seasons in the championship so won't be on an astronomical wage

So a majority of the players they bought in have now gone and they largely have the same core that they ended up winning promotion with (aka Championship players on Championship wages). Our squad has (rightfully considering it's been a fair few seasons since promotion) has evolved to the point where we don't have many players on the sort of wages where we can realistically keep them if we go down.

 

Just to add to my above post here's Fulhams rumoured wages from last season:

https://www.spotrac.com/epl/fulham-f.c/payroll/

Schurrle - 104k a week - gone
Anguissa - 67k a week - gone
Seri - 65k a week - gone
Mitrovic - 60k a week - still there
Rico - 45k a week - gone

Then we hit the players that are still there - around the 40k or less mark. Now compare that to our wage list and you'll find the players that are most likely to stay - are around that wage point. As it's unsustainable to have players above that mark.

 

I thought this discussion was more about the fact that we would have to let go of all these players because they wouldn't want to play in the Championship, rather than because keeping them on their current wages is unsustainable.

Firstly, leaving aside the question of whether or not they would want to stay, what if no top flight side wants them? They will be seen in the eyes of many as the players who contributed to an underachieving Watford side going down. Secondly, if we are able to keep the likes of Deulofeu, Sarr, Capoue and Doucoure as a result, would it not be possible to get them to agree to a wage cut, if only for the time it takes us to get back up? I was quite shocked to see how many of our "stars" are earning as much as 60-70k a week for a bottom to midtable Prem team, but the debate about whether top level footballers are earning too much has been done to death.

 

Fulham's transfer approach was very scattergun, it's not that most of those players were bad, it's just they bought so many of them all in one go and they didn't gel until our greatness rubbed off on them late in the season lol. I'd say any of those players who moved on are bigger names and are more likely to attract interest from other clubs than most players we have (apart from the obvious)

 

Mitrovic was also playing in the same World Cup. One of Senegal's starting strikers, playing alongside Sarr, was Mame Birame Diouf, once of Man Utd, but currently rotting in the reserves at Championship Stoke.

In our last Championship spell we'd also had some players who'd previously played in the (for the most part mickey mouse) Europa League/UEFA Cup, such as Daniel Pudil and Joel Ekstrand. Davide Faraoni had also previously started for Inter in the Champion's League.

So...

Mitrovic has also been touted for moves to bigger clubs than Fulham. Being "touted for moves" is one thing, a club actually coming in and offering us something which gives us a decent profit in order that we might actually decide to cash in on him already is another thing. Barca were "supposedly" once interested in Penaranda and Cucho, they never really did anything about it though.

For us to actually have to sell it would still require a Richarlison-type situation, with a bigger club offering us already well in excess of what we'd paid for him, combined with the player throwing his toys out the pram. Otherwise, we'd be well within our rights to reject any offers.

With Deulofeu, Pereyra and Doucoure the situation would be slightly different as they've all been at the club a fair bit longer, will have less time on their contracts, have made solid contributions, and are all either at their peak or towards the end of it so opportunities for a big move will be declining for them, thus the club would be more sympathetic if they were really itching to go. 21 year-old Sarr will still have plenty of time for a big move later on should we not be on course for promotion from the Champ.

Do you even have any idea what Sarr's wage is? It's unlikely he'd have come in right away as one of our joint highest earners, in which case something like £60k maximum also seems perfectly believable for him. We should get good fees for Del, Doucs and Pereyra (prob more than Fulham got for any of their sold players), and the debt won't need to be paid straight away, so given how much getting promoted again would be worth there's no reason why we can't maintain a few top performers on slightly higher wages for max one season to get us back up - the payoff would ultimately be worth it.

 

I don't see any way that he stays if we go down. We all know players have the power these days and I can't see Sarr or his agent fancying a season in the Championship. We are also going to need to cut the wage bill and somehow replace some of the TV revenue we are currently surviving on.

If clubs are already lurking then his agent is probably already working on potential moves in the summer should we go down. I'm sure he won't be short of choices. If we decided to pay £30m+ on him then I can't see that being a problem for clubs the size of Everton, Newcastle etc, let alone the bigger boys. Especially as he's showing potential of being a superb player in the Premier League.

 

The difference is Sarr was 20 years old and in the knockout rounds - his career is on the upward trajectory. Faraoni, Pudil and Ekstrands careers were not, which is why they were in the Championship and never really progressed past that point (although it seems as if Faraoni has now established himself in Serie A)

I don't think the club will be in a position to argue due to the finances (not to mention the outstanding fees due to amortization). 30-40m would see us recoup a majority of the outlay on him which would be hard to turn down. Or loan him out and hope we come back up...

FM20 has all the same wage values as on the previous page - they have Sarr at 70k pw (also to fill in the other blanks they have Dawson at 40k PW and Welbeck at 60k PW). You seriously don't think a new signing that doubled our previous transfer record won't be one of our biggest earners?!

 

Whoever stays will see us to better than 9 points from safety at the bottom of the table.*














* probably.

 

Is that anything more than just guesswork though, surely FM aren't gonna be privy to the actual figures. I mean, isn't it fairly common knowledge that Welbeck is on £70k p.w. when he plays and £25k p.w. when he doesn't?

(Not even sure FM can properly account for a contract like that lol)

 

It can't which makes me think maybe they've just accounted for that by lowering the actual amount. Obviously none us know the actual details around the wages, but the figures quoted on the previous page all sound about right at least. And a 35m signing would certainly be very close (if not the top earner) so 70k PW for Sarr also passes the eye test.

 

Easier said than done! Do you really think all three will stay next summer? Not a chance, they'll want to move on to the next phase of their career, they won't want to be stuck fighting relegation again!

 

If what you posted on the previous page is true about Deulofeu being on £60k, then given their respective histories and stage of their careers I'd just be surprised if Sarr was put on more than him, hence why I'd have thought £60k max.

I take your point about Sarr's trajectory relative to those other players, but Sarr still has plenty of time on his side. Don't forget that even just a few months ago many people on here (including myself) were wondering if he even needed to go on loan somewhere to get up to speed with English football. It seems as if he's only just starting to adjust to things here so a season in the Champ before going back to a top league one way or another might not hugely throw him of course.

One more point as to whether it would make more sense financially to keep him, as opposed to sell him or loan him out - as an example say Success is on £30k per week (as per the previous page), and maybe Pussetto is on similar, that means that over the course of just one season Sarr would only cost the club about £1.5mil-£2mil more than them in wages. (whether he's on £60k or even a bit more). Yet being able to play him instead of the other two would hugely increase our odds of being able to get promoted again which earns the club 100x that poxy sum per season - so really if the club can get Sarr to stay with us for just one season to help with the promotion push then financially speaking it would be foolish not to. Sarr's value would not drop much from just 6-12 months in the Championship, and certainly it wouldn't cost £200mil odd to keep him one year or bankrupt us, while Sarr could make the difference between getting back up or not.

 

Just to put that into perspective, our revenue in 13/14 was £17m and our wage bill was £12m - whilst Sarr would obviously be invaluable in the Championship, it simply makes no financial sense to keep him. Hopefully we won't have to find out but I highly doubt Sarr would be staying if we go down.

 

The main reason why we're fighting relegation is because Javi lost his way and didn't prepare his players adequately and because of the lunatic decision to rehire Flores who clearly doesn't trust flair players (imagine how much better off we could've been if QSF had thrown on Sarr earlier against Sheff Utd and Burnley and played him in crucial home games against Bournemouth and Chelsea). If we finish the season strongly and avoid relegation with something to spare (admittedly not looking very likely at the moment) that might persuade those three to stay as it would suggest that if we keep our best team and add much needed depth up front and at the back we will be well out of the relegation picture and even improve on 2018/19.

 

We'd also have an additional £40mil revenue from parachute payments in our first year, which we didn't have in 13/14, as well as additional revenue from the sale of Doucoure, Deulofeu and Pereyra.

Continuing with the theme of "financial sense", let's get more in to it then. Whether it makes "financial sense" or not really depends on how much keeping Sarr may improve our chances of getting promoted by. Using a relatively conservative figure and some "back of the envelope" calculations it might look like this:

- Let's assume without Sarr we have, say, a 40% chance of getting promoted back to the Premier League and earning c.£200mil. In addition, maybe we gain an additional £10mil relative to keeping Sarr via either a loan fee, or selling him for a bit more than if we waited 6-12 months. Plus we'd get £1.5m-£2m opportunity cost of removing his salary from our books relative to having another first team player.
- So, the value of being in the Championship for one season without Sarr would be:
£200mil x 0.4 = £80mil
£80mil + £10mil + £2mil = £92mil

- However, let's assume with Sarr we have, say, a 50% chance of getting promoted back to the Premier League and earning c.£200mil. Taking this decision might cost us £1.5m-2m additional wages + £10mil opportunity cost of not loaning or selling him immediately.
So, the value of being in the Championship for one season with Sarr would be:
£200mil x 0.5 = £100mil
(£12mil x 0.5 = £6mil)
£100mil - £6mil = £94mil

Now, you would be well within your rights to question and debate the assumptions I have made for the above calculation, but I reckon I have already been fairly generous to the "get rid of Sarr option" in assuming we might lose £10mil in his value, or miss out on as high as £10mil in a loan fee, should we decide to keep him.

Also, the sum of £200mil in additional revenue for getting promoted again is on the lower side of the possible range, and is generally in line with that for clubs that fail to stay up in their first season back. If one could be bothered to calculate it further, which I can't right now, then taking in to account more the odds for staying up again for consecutive seasons would significantly increase this figure. Every additional season one might assume we could stay up for would increase the value of the decision for retaining Sarr in the Champ relative to getting rid of him.

Lastly, I wouldn't be surprised if keeping Sarr would increase our chance of retaining promotion by more than 10 percentage points, even having one top player can make all the difference in that league (just look at Grealish carrying Villa last season, for instance). But 10% sounds fine for now.

So, even on a conservative basis, it is actually financially still slightly preferable, or at least net neutral, for us to keep him in the Championship relative to getting rid of him, with any potential upside still being much higher than a worst-case scenario if you wanted to do a more negative or optimistic calculation.

 

I think you're being rather generous with the percentages of us going back up:

18/19: Fulham, Cardiff and Huddersfield went down last year - only Fulham are anywhere near the playoffs and there's currently a 39% chance of them going up.
17/18: Swansea, Stoke + West Brom all went down. All still in the Championship.
16/17: Hull, Middlesbrough and Sunderland went down. All still down.
15/16: Newcastle, Norwich, Villa went down. Newcastle came straight back up
14/15: Hull, Burnley, QPR went down. Hull + Burnley came straight back up
13/14: Norwich, Fulham, Cardiff went down. None came back up.
12/13: Wigan, Reading, QPR went down. QPR came straight back up.
11/12: Bolton, Blackburn + Wolves went down. None came back up.
10/11: Birmingham, Blackpool + West Ham went down. West Ham went straight back up.
09/10: Burnley, Hull, Portsmouth went down. None came back up.

So out the last 30 relegated teams - only 6 out the 30 came straight back up (and I'm including Fulham in that to be generous) - that's a 20% ratio (falling to 16% if Fulham don't go up). There's a clear pattern as well = the less seasons you're in the PL, the easier it is to get back up - most likely due to having the same core squad without much overhaul (which would see wages rise). We wouldn't fall into that category as our squad has changed significantly since promotion (with the wages to match).

It's pointless arguing as we're not going to convince the other to our side, so i'm gonna save mine (and your) time - we'll just have to wait and see what happens (provided we go down!).

 

This is who I see leaving if we were relegated:

GK: Gomes

CB: Kabasele

Fullbacks: Janmaat, Navarro, Foulquier, Holebas. Masina?

Central Midfield: Doucoure, Capoue, Pereyra. Hughes?

Wingers: Deulofeu, Sarr

Strikers: Success, Gray, Sinclair, Jakubiak, Folivi, Suarez

Leaves us with:

GK: Foster (Year extension), Bachmann (Said talks in progress recently), Dahlberg

CB: Cathcart, Dawson, Mariappa (Year extension), Wilmot, Spencer-Adams

Fullbacks: Femenia, Estupinan (?), Masina (?)

Central Midfield: Cleverley, Chalobah, Quina, Dele-Bashiru. Hughes (?)

Wingers: Pussetto, Penaranda, Sema

Strikers: Deeney, Welbeck (?), Pedro, Hernandez (?)

(?) - Denotes chance of leaving

If this was the squad and the (?)'s stayed, I would get a pacey CB, a RB, Winger and a striker who's name isn't Andre Gray. Otherwise that's isn't a bad squad at all to push for promotion.

 

Nothing to do with the players of course?

 

Whilst if we went down we would all hope for some watershed moment where Watford suddenly spring into action and promote youth and give all our ‘promising youngsters’ a game, the reality will be that we will sell the players we can make good money on and replace them with cheaper options while retaining the high average age of the squad.

We’d likely sign Wes Morgan, Billy Sharp and players like Robbie Brady and the same young hopefuls we have will be loaned out again.

Rinse and repeat.

 

What's the percentage of corners that lead to goals? IIRC it's pretty similar to the percentage of relegated teams that have gone straight back up in the last decade.

And like with corners potentially leading to a goal or at least a clearcut goalscoring opportunity that has alluded our team up to that point, fans often delude themselves into thinking they're going straight back up (TBF I was guilty of doing that in 2000 and 2007!).

 

Thanks for showing your research.

Although say if you look at it over the last 5 seasons, instead of 10, then 2 out of 5 (40%) of the teams that have finished 18th have gone straight back up. Were Fulham to get promoted this season then it would become 3 out of 5 (60%) on the same measure.

Chances are if we did go down it'd be in at 18th, and certainly past dross such as last season's Huddersfield (and even Cardiff) aren't fair comparisons for the quality of the team we could still have.

Anyway, even in the really "worst case" min 10% to max 20% scenario, it would only swing the financials on my previous generous assessment to being £1.5mil in favour of without Sarr. That is really not much of a cost for the worst case scenario (especially when the upside on a still feasible best case scenario for keeping Sarr would be at least 10x that). What your other point emphasises is that big overhauls of the squad make getting promoted again less likely, which would be another point in favour of trying to keep players such as Sarr were we intent on giving ourselves the best chance possible of getting straight back up.

I agree and understand your point about this all of course being very hypothetical, and also think that we have now covered most of the potential points which could be debated around this issue. Though I'm finding it/have found it, an interesting discussion all the same.

 

Why?

 

Obviously that is hypothesising, but the bookies currently have us to finish 16th (though most the odds for the bottom clubs are pretty tight together).

If we get relegated (and also if we stay up), then it appears as if one way or another it will be by an incredibly fine margin.

Of course were we to end up losing the vast majority of the rest of our games, appear shot as a squad, and finish 19th or 20th, then all my above assumptions about us being in with a decent chance of getting promoted again would have to be re-evaluated, But given current circumstances and our current player and manager status I think it all seems fair.

 

Anyone of any quality and youth will go, all the old crap like Mariappa will stay. Pretty simple.

Can really see why some of our fans are licking their lips at the prospect of the Championship.

 

We will when he goes on strike!

 

He can go on strike all he wants, doesn’t mean we have to sell him. Just look at Zaha and Palace for example. There’s been plenty of players who have tried to force something but not got what they wanted. I personally think we keep him for a season if we get relegated. If we fail to get back into the Prem then we will sell him.

 

If we go down why would we want to keep half these losers anyway? If they don't have the fight in them now **** knows what they'd be like at Wigan or Stoke on a Tuesday night. We'd need to a complete overhaul and a fresh start, building the team around a bunch of new players who will be there for a number of years. Expectations would need to be realistic and a target set for promotion in about 3 seasons.

Only players I'd keep:

Foster (Probably good for another season)
Masina
Chalobah
Pedro
Hughes
Quina
Sarr
Kabasele
Deeney

 

I think he'll go in the summer if we go down or not. Some big italian teams were sniffing round him. Plus after reading that article about his family, it seems his brother is not in a good place and still lives in italy, so I bet he would jump at the chance to go home.

It will be the most devastating day in the club's history when it happens.

 

If so, it's Pervis time

 

Were they? Who, when, and, most pertinently, why?!

He said in that article that he preferred playing football in England to Italy though.