As I said this squad has to be the foundation and have to grow together if we are to have any chance of a bounce back ... we go down another route as suggested to buy a new team of youngsters then I am not sure it will work ... Why? all teh best youngsters are snapped up ... any idea what it like at this level and the pressures of the youth market ... I do and its crazy
I noticed that too Norway and thought it might have been the nugget in the whole article. Mixed feelings about keeing the squad unless it means keeping Remy and (probably) Samba when he hopefully gets properly fit and improves. For those who advocate wholesale change, I am sure you understand that means 3 or more years in the NPC.
"To do this, we need the strongest squad possible and for that reason every player under contract must stay unless we get the right offer and Harry agrees to let them go." The right offer - could mean any offer, and if Harry isn't ultimately able to change the squad as he wants to, i suspect it will be Harry that is first out of the door. I think Harry will want rid of Taarabt, SWP, Bosingwa, Zamora, Barton, Cisse, Granero, Probably Hill after the last game, maybe even Hoillet. Add to this Samba, Remy and Cesar who will probably have to go for financial/career reasons Starting to look like an inevitable mass clear out to me. As someone has already posted the only way for us to get the most dollar for each player is to say we don't need to sell unless we get the right offer, not sure anyone really believes this and in the case of a few, just getting the player to **** off on a free is going to be nigh on impossible. To those suggesting we will sign OdemWINGIE on another thread, I think it is fair to say my Albion friends are less than well impressed with him, the guy is a cock. Whilst he might do a job in the championship he is also no spring chicken, and has 12 months left on his near £40K a week contract, unless we want to pay him a similar wage on a new longer contract i can see him sitting tight at the baggies and ****ing them off for another year and simply taking his money whilst running down his contract and doing a Bosman on them in the end. Also not sure he would be one of Harry's targets.
I see this as good news, the last thing the club needs now is a fire-sale and even more instability. But it’s a strategy that has real risks. I for one was very disappointed with Harry’s comments the other week about the players. If saying things like “are they talented? I don’t know” and “How are you going to get rid of them? They won’t f***ing go!” was meant to try and motivate them for one final push for safety, then it has clearly backfired. But worse than that, it may mean that he has lost the trust of the same group of players who we will be relying on for a promotion push next season. It’s often said that the Championship doesn’t have the player quality of the Premiership, and that is true. But despite, or perhaps even because of this, it is probably the most competitive league in Europe, and is devilishly difficult to get out of. No team, no matter what players they have, has a divine right to do walk it. Instead, the key factor to doing well it in it is not so much player quality as player motivation and team spirit. It’s a real scrap down there, often a pretty ugly one, and always unpredictable. If we want to do well in it, then players and management have got to be in it together. We can’t have players in our squad who feel under-valued and marginalised. And the club can’t afford to carry on paying big money to players who don’t pull their weight.
Pretty fair assessment there, 'Cannock' .................. with that in mind, it is we might as well call it a 'clear out'. In regards to OdemWINGIE, as I mentioned on the other forum, he will have the opportunity to display his true colours as to whether he is genuine about joining us for less coin as opposed to more game time................ time will tell.
should we go down I would not expect the team we have to bring us up within 3 years anyway I thought we would bounce right back the last time we went down not looking forward to the championship 1 little bit
This. I will tell you here and now that most of this squad will go. Some because they have relegation trigger clauses and some to be turrned into glue. Some will be released and some will sulk as soon as they do not feature. I don't know who TF thinks he is kidding with this brave talk and I gave up looking for an honest comment from Redknapp some time ago.
After Saturday's abject surrender it's hard for me to believe that, with a few exceptions, we would actually want any of the current squad to stay on. It's a busted flush and there is no point trying to fix it. Don't tell me about avoiding yet another rebuilding exercise; this time round we really have no choice so we may as well face that head on rather than pretend. That makes the future necessarily uncertain and making prognostications about bouncing straight back at this stage in the game is at best not business-like. Someone should put a sock in Mr Beard unless he has something to say about the new stadium.
