If Laurence Bassini had not been the man he was and had a little business ability. Would the club have propered or started a slow downward glide? Of cours this outcome is something we will never know but is interesting to consider. For me I think we would be on a slow collapse and if we were not in league two already we would be favourite for relegation to that division this season.
Interesting to just wonder, but he didn't have any money of his own to put a plan in place that would eventually increase the revenue. A series of sales of our better players for small fees, and a steady decline with journeymen replacements would have been the way we would have gone just to keep afloat. I don't think that football clubs should rely on rich owners, see what happens to some that do, but sometimes it is necessary to inject some cash that will not get a quick return. With the money he was taking out of the club for his own use, just how long could that have happened? In the background of course was his Lordship who doesn't do administration. Maybe he helped in the removal of Baz.
If Baz had had a little more business knowledge, a little more transparency and a bit of his own money and had basically not been a crook (a lot of ifs there). Then we may have held on to SD for another season with a stable squad. Looking at what he has done with Burnley then the question 'what if' takes on another meaning.
I'd suggest we'd be either struggling in the Championship or in League 1, but with a totally different team (obviously) Deeney would have been sold for about £3m, and maybe Murray and Bond probably would have been sold too for about £1m each. 1 or 2 big sales each year to keep us afloat. I'd imagine we would still have the likes of Hall, Nosworthy, and Eustace. We'd also have O'Nien in the team, and maybe even Assombalonga. A mixture of the old heads and our Academy players. I personally believe Dyche would have moved on to a club with more ambition, and we'd probably have Neil Warnock in charge We'd still have the old East Stand there, and the SW Corner would have no plans for completion - but we would have the Red Lion open. Our sponsor would be an egg company for about £50k a year, and a dodgy law firm would be sponsoring our shorts in exhange for free consultations!
With a reasonable businessman who had the club at heart would have us still competing above ourselves in the Championship I have no doubt. But we would never have got to the stage we are even at now with strong foundations being put in place. Also, you should remember the Salad boys would have been floating around looking for a way back in. Politics would have been rife.
Well baring mind he broke a major rule when here causing us to get into trouble who knows what might have happened - Bassini might have tried the same tricks over and over again! Would we have seen any transfer money? We'd probably been ok on the pitch though - despite the recent troubles we've always managed to stayed afloat. However there would have been a threat of administration I am certain.
we would have been lucky to have only a 10 point deduction , I think we would have gone into administration and then breaking rules 10 + poss 10 and then there is the NO long ball rule . the last point deduction would have been because everyone knows that is been "little old Watford" that has stopped England winning anything since 66 . lol I joke but how much of this could have been true ?
