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Well we now have a new CEO, a young foreign manager and Chris Ramsey has gone. Either we are a mess and cost cutting or the owners have worked out they need a long term strategy as what they have done so far has been pretty much a disaster. What that strategy will have to include is bringing players through the academy, getting bargain players in and learning to sell at the right time and repeat.
We know we have been mainly useless at bringing players through and so many players have gone backwards after joining us. However what has really messed us up has been the decision to not sell players in Warburton's last year and then doing same thing when Beale came in. Those players have either gone for free or plummeted in value presumably on some misplaced belief we may challenge for promotion. Had we rigidly stuck to the plan we would be in a much better place. Ignoring how their values plummeted had we sold players at the right time would have made a huge difference. For example:
Dieng - £10m (£8m more than we got)
Dickie - £10m (yes he really was linked with moves around that price if not more! £9m more than we got)
Willock - £10m
Dykes - £10m
Chair - £10m
Field - £5m
BOS - £5m
Now those values were paper talk but that is £60m over last 2-3 seasons. Reinvest say £20m that is £40m which would have swallowed a large chunk of our annual losses and had the £20m been used largely wisely you would then be looking at improving those players whilst maintaining our position in this division. Life never works out perfectly but had we got even say 3 of those sales right things would be a whole lot better. I know we still have Dykes, Field, Willock and Chair but Field and Willock will leave for nothing, Dykes maybe £3m and Chair more like £5m optimistically.
Now imagine say in five years time the 'revolution' has worked and we are seeing players coming through the ranks into the first team, we are also buying smart and selling at the right time and our reputation is such that Premiership clubs are willing to loan us their up and coming youngsters. I could buy into that fantasy and a lot can happen in five years. Let's hope the new plan (in the hope they one) works and there are better times ahead even if we have to endure a spell in L1 to get there. Sometimes hope is all you have.
We know we have been mainly useless at bringing players through and so many players have gone backwards after joining us. However what has really messed us up has been the decision to not sell players in Warburton's last year and then doing same thing when Beale came in. Those players have either gone for free or plummeted in value presumably on some misplaced belief we may challenge for promotion. Had we rigidly stuck to the plan we would be in a much better place. Ignoring how their values plummeted had we sold players at the right time would have made a huge difference. For example:
Dieng - £10m (£8m more than we got)
Dickie - £10m (yes he really was linked with moves around that price if not more! £9m more than we got)
Willock - £10m
Dykes - £10m
Chair - £10m
Field - £5m
BOS - £5m
Now those values were paper talk but that is £60m over last 2-3 seasons. Reinvest say £20m that is £40m which would have swallowed a large chunk of our annual losses and had the £20m been used largely wisely you would then be looking at improving those players whilst maintaining our position in this division. Life never works out perfectly but had we got even say 3 of those sales right things would be a whole lot better. I know we still have Dykes, Field, Willock and Chair but Field and Willock will leave for nothing, Dykes maybe £3m and Chair more like £5m optimistically.
Now imagine say in five years time the 'revolution' has worked and we are seeing players coming through the ranks into the first team, we are also buying smart and selling at the right time and our reputation is such that Premiership clubs are willing to loan us their up and coming youngsters. I could buy into that fantasy and a lot can happen in five years. Let's hope the new plan (in the hope they one) works and there are better times ahead even if we have to endure a spell in L1 to get there. Sometimes hope is all you have.
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