Looking forward to about 6 months time when the next season starts, somehow has me more concerned than in previous seasons. why ?,there is a great possibility through lack of foresight or inability we could loose Dembele,~ Mc C, ~ Hyndman, ~ Cairney, who without doubt could be the backbone for our bid to regain premiership status, and the fact that Parker is getting slower and O Hara is just about so so.a great deal of rebuilding will be required, something I cannot see Khan opening his wallet for. How Ali Mac did not tie in Dembele and Hyndman to longer contracts beats me, but then you only have to look at the cock up on the loan / transfer deals he did with "Stalk & Mitro". So for me the transfer window starts with the big heave ho for Ali M & W O S Rigg. Am I just being over pessimistic or do others share my views
No fan of the 'Blag Brothers' rosc. However, next season will be shaped not by them but the Manager. On BBC Radio London after tonight's game the plain speaking Slavi said that he's challenging his players to "show me who wants to stay with me and who doesn't". And it's for this candour why, albeit demonstrating coaching attributes, for me he is the Manager.
Hyndman, as much as I rate him and wished it had turned out differently he hasn't played much and you can't miss what you never had. Cairney I'm confident of staying and also think Ross will be with us next season, if he does go it will be for decent money! Obviously Dembele is leaving and will need replacing but there are lots of realistic options out there such as Gayle Lookman Zak Clough Hooper Lafferty Wells
I see where you are coming from Cookie, but part of my concern is the naivety in not tying down Dembele & Hyndman to longer contracts, and who is to say that Ali Mac and Rigg would acquiesce to Slavis suggestions
I agree that it would have been so much better to have got the likes of Hyndman, Dembele and Roberts to sign new, longer contracts, but if they aren't willing to sign, what is the club supposed to do - put a gun to their heads? You can't make a young player (or an old one, for that matter) sign an extended contract if they're determined to let the old one run down and explore their options. Players aged 18 or younger aren't allowed to sign a contract for more than 3 years, so at the time each of the aforementioned signed their last contract the club was unable to commit them to any longer than they did.
Not only can youngsters only sign a 3 year contract it includes the season they are playing in when they turn 16 so depending when there birthday is it actually only be a 2 year contract in reality, no relegation is good but ours came at the worst time in terms of all our youngsters, had we stayed up one more year we could probably got them to sign extensions but becoming a championship team the year before all our youngsters from that FA cup squad we coming to the end made it so much harder to do I can imagine.
Emerson is as good as gone now, no news on a contract - same with Dembele. I think it comes down to Kit not trusting them, if he'd built around the three of them then things might be different now, equally we might be in league 1 with none of them. Slavi will do a good job putting together a balanced team for next season and we'll probably see changes throughout the squad - of the players we've got I think Lonergan, Fredericks, Burn, Cairney and LVC will be starters but otherwise it's up in the air. I'm not convinced we will get out the league though, it's only getting stronger with PL money forcing some talent down and there could be some big clubs relegated. If Khan backs the manager and let's him do the rebuild then we could have a chance at playoffs, at the very least, if it goes wrong, he will get players to suit a system and not pack the team with similar type players as we've done since Roy left. The real shame for me with Roberts, Hyndman and Dembele is that together, potentially, they could have given us the magic to challenge - I don't think we will be able to attract the best talent against some of the other clubs around us in the summer. I just wish we'd played the three of them together more often, it's the unknown that bothers me! Of all the bad things and decisions we've seen, letting the three of them go in the way we have and will is the worst.
The annoying thing for me is that the Club's youth policy has been rotten for a number of years. The focus at the moment is on Roberts, Hyndman and Dembele and all things said above are good and proper. But we've lost others equally slackly - Tankovic being but one that comes immediately to mind.
