martinwildbull wrote:
what is also clear is that the knife is over the squad, quote Guilfoyle but my emphasis:
Next season, they can rejig the playing squad and try and build a new, cheaper squad around the young talent they’ve got to VASTLY reduce the wage bill.
I don't really see how we can vastly reduce the wage bill next season.
We know the 17 players 'out of contract' at the end of the year, and the majority are likely to be the lower wage earners such as Walker, Sibbit, Ainscough - or they are the very people that fall into the 'young talent' category, such as Addy, Crookes and Donaldson. The only obvious high earners that could be let go are Elima and Hargreaves. And presumably either or both of Manuofakoa and/or Sammut could be released.
But the real high earners - people like Scruton, Langley, Diskin etc, and the higher earning overseas players such as Kearney, L'Estrange and Lulia are under contract - not to mention the likes of Platt and Sykes - are the ones are we can't get rid of unless someone comes in with an offer.
It seems like a right old mess - the people that we could get rid of to drastically cut the wage bill are the ones that we can't get rid of. And some of the ones we need are the ones that are out of contract. And getting rid of 'numbers' just to trim the wage bill isn't going to help when we start getting injuries - we've barely being able to name a starting 17 at times this season. Trim the squad by, say, 6-8 players and we're looking like we'll not be able to raise a team some weeks!
