To be honest I thought that was a fair question, if not worded the best. I'm slightly surprised there's no plans in place really.
Obviously losing £50m is not great, but it is still over double our turnover last time we were in the Championship (£23m). The biggest worry is the wage bill, which I suspect will be in and around the £40-45m mark (our wage bill 12-13 was £46m, which will have gone up for 13-14, but McNally said all players had relegation clauses, which I assume average to about 25% deduction. Essentially, this means our financial position is secure, but we won't be able to invest much without selling players for decent whack. Obviously offloading the very high wage earners who aren't bringing as much to the squad will make this healthier, but Wigan last year after relegation spent £6.2m and received £19.3m in player transfers. I don't think we will make as much profit as them, but we have a higher turnover so I imagine similar amounts will be spent
I think RVW will be one of the first to go, I don't think they will want to take the gamble on him being crap in the Championship as well.
You're entitled to your opinion Fenland, but I have to disagree. Part of the reason he was c**p was due to the lack of service from the midfield and I don't feel we could recoup much of the £8.5M we spent on him. Also, I am confident that if both him and Hooper stayed (and both avoided long term injuries!!), we could have an excellent strike force going forward - BUT THEY MUST HAVE THE SERVICE FROM MIDFIELD and NOT Snodgrass trying to walk the ball into the net!!!! I'd like to say a HUGE Well done to the board for coming on air this morning thanking the fans and saying they are looking forward to working with the new manager. Also that despite relegation, season tickets will be capped again very soon - awesome!!!!
That is true and I respect your opinion also, but considering how much he will cost us in wages and the number of goals he scored in the PL I'd say his days are numbered.
For any of you that missed the phone in, here's the iplayer link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zc5z0
Fenland, you are entitled to your opinion, but if you listened RvW missed 13 weeks of the season and was not at full fitness for another chunk! I honestly believe that a fully fit and well serviced RvW will tear the Championship a new one!
I agree: 1. It was his debut season, often foreign players don't do so well 1st season 2. Supply - not his fault 3. Not fit, injured for a long time and not fully fit when back 4. You often saw him gesturing to the other players to get the ball through to him and they either couldn't or wouldn't 5. Relegation wage clause in ALL players contracts so maybe not the issue we're thinking it is You CANNOT make RVW this seasons whipping boy. You quite often saw in matches he was working his arse off. I'd like to see him stay and prove his doubters wrong!!!
I agree with this, I still think RvW is a decent player and certainly the press' attempts to blame our entire season on his contribution is massively unfair. But I think this is somewhat talking at cross-purposes, in that the key part from Fenland's post is that he will cost us a lot in wages. If we can offload him for a decent amount, cut our losses, we may be able to bring in a cheaper striker who gets nearly as many goals. It's something the board need to weigh up, along with RvW's commitment to playing in the Championship after a frustrating season in England.
There was worse than that from what I heard, but it's probably best not to post them on an internet forum Should be able to get some clues from a bit of googling. It's probably all rumour though.
Excellent post Rich44 and I can see this is one that will divide opinion in the same way as 'Marmite'.
Especialally given Hooper and Elmanders struggles aswell, I don't see how anyone can lay all the blame at Ricky's door. And once he realised nothing was going to change in terms of the playing style, his confidence just ebbed away.
