S.A.F.C. - the future

This takeover needs to happen sooner rather than later. We’re nearing the end of Jan and need signings. The problem we will have next season will be the players we are after will likely have better offers to fill up the championship squad if they are allowed 9 subs. This ridiculous wage cap really could **** us for years to come.

 

Three clubs have to go up every season no matter how bad they are ...

... all we need to do is make sure we're one of them.

 

Ever the optimist mate, I love it, glass half full

 

So the EFL have passed it and we are holding off announcing it?

 

We’ve struggled for 3 seasons with the biggest wage budget. Think it’ll be much harder on a level playing field. Think this wage cap will create a bigger divide between the championship and league 1. Our best hope is for the likes of us, Portsmouth, Peterborough etc challenge the legality of it.

 

This makes sense actually. Get some transfers in over the next 10 days without having our pants pulled down. We can also line up staff without bed wetting.

 

It woul be 'safc like' to go up thru the play-offs and a win at Wembley. But nee fkn fans allowed in.

 

Correct. This wage cap wouldn't stand a chance if any serious club took it to court. If we don't, after the new owner has been in place for a bit, then I'm not sure how he sees things, as getting up through the leagues will be massively more difficult. Any team promoted from League One will have a squad of low wage players ,most of whom will struggle badly in the Championship, apart from relegated teams of course, most of whom will enjoy a huge advantage, one they might not waste as we did.

Rubbish is what we have now, and if we fluked promotion we would need more than a dozen players just to compete, so low in quality and character is that side.

This is not going to be straightforward .

 

Regardless of league we face a major rebuild in the summer. I can only imagine how difficult it would be replacing 10/12 players with better with a wage of £2k a week.

 

Many of our highest earners have traditionally been our worst players ...

... perhaps better scouting is the answer.

 

The salary cap is clearly a false means to bring financial sustainability. It is really poorly thought through and I suspect more and more clubs will come to realiss that.

However we can still use our financial muscle to give ourselves a significant advantage. There is no limit on how much we invest in our academy and if we produce players from that they dont count to salary cap initially. There is no limit on how much we spend on coaching and management. Lets get the best coaching setup League 1 has ever seen. There is no limit on how much we spend on scouting and data analytics. Also there is no limit on how much we spend on promotion bonuses - we should blow every other league 1 club out of the water on this for most sought after L1 footballers. So long as we avoid agents fees being too high we can take the best players from every L1 club buying offering hefty promotion bonuses. So to me there is still ways to gain an advantage if we cant pay wages. In some ways making players hungry to win in order to earn top dollar is the right thing.

 

Better scouting is certainly a start, but based on £2k a week, out of our current squad we would possibly get Diamond or Embleton. Both of which will be wanting more from July onwards! I’m hoping that the new owners if they have had the EFL clearance that was mentioned 2 weeks ago are now at loggerheads trying to sort out this wage cap fiasco!

 

You think they're getting all their ducks in a row so to speak before an Apollo Creed style entrance in Rocky 4?

 

All true mate.

We have a massive advantage over the other clubs in this division.

Any player worth having would want to come to Sunderland ...

... I don't even need to spell out all the reasons why.

 

I half agree with you mate. I'm not writing him off yet, but the jury's definitely out on him. He may have a degree of talent, but he needs to show it on the pitch, and consistently so. I hope LJ gives him a good run in the side this season to see if he sinks or swims. If he swims then keep him in the summer, if he sinks, move him on.

 

There are two ways to do things.

Come in like Donald making all kinds of promises about a new set up, etc.

Or bring in the likes of Johnson, Speakman, Davison, etc.

By the time KLD is in the hot seat he'll have a full team around him.

 

Maybe just maybe, paying hungrier players less money than those that think they have made it by signing for Sunderland, will benefit us. They all think it’s the pinnacle of their career and they won’t get better so are quite happy to trot along. We need players who are willing to come along with the project and are at the right age to improve with us.

 

I was just messing around there. you can see from the outset that sensible appointments are being made before he comes in.

 

I'm not buying all this pay cap will stop us getting promotion bollocks. We've had the highest wage bill in the league since we we're relegated and not been promoted.

We need need more than just highly paid players. The whole club needs revamped. We've said it before many times. But when has it actually been done? We've shipped out players at a loss and replaced with equally poor quality. We need scouts and coaches that can make a real difference.

I've got faith we'll turn the corner once this take over is announced, but it's going to be a long bug job to get this right.

 

TBH, they either take it on or they are close to wasting their time.

Even if we miraculously and overnight gathered a top notch recruiting network together, ( I know of course that we eventually need this anyway), and found a load of gems, we could llose them very quickly to mid level championship teams paying three or four times the limit we will be able to pay in League One.

The cap is a crazy inverse power grab by small clubs over those who are larger. A crazed socialist experiment, which will fail like all the others have failed. If we don't take it on, we'll fail with it.

In what sane world can a business be prohibited from spending it's own money, on the grounds that another business cannot afford to spend the same amount?