Exodus

Wolves and WBA found it not so bad when they was relegated because their teams was built with not a lot of cash and low wage players, these players who get your clubs promoted usually do not have to be sold off when relegated and when relegated before your sides never had a massive Wage Bill that stings you.

You also never had a lot of old journey men players.

The more Wolves stay up and spend as thats whats needed to keep up, the more the wage bill would increase and the more difficulty financially the impact of the wage bill would be if relegated.

With Blues our wage bill is not all that bad, we have Ferguson who is a high earner, and Zigic but he would be off.

Other main players seem to average about £20K a year tops and they are also players who clubs are interested in and thus can make money on and save wages.

But regardless the Prem gives clubs £40M a season extra income and that loss can have a huge impact.

so like Wolves we may have to build a side on low wage players like Rooney we just signed, as opposed to maybe going for fringe Prem Players as they usually carry high wages still.

For example last time we signed amoung others Carr, Phillips and Carsley who all average about £1M a year wages then we had Quincy on loan whos wages was high like £1.5M and Bents was likewise.

£6M wages on 5 players is a lot for the Championship

And the risk was that apart from the loan of Quincy the other players had little sell on values.


The KiD

It's a tough job making sure those books balance..Which is why I never moan about our own Jez Moxey.

Do you have any promising youth players coming through that can perhaps take some of the financial strain off? Zigic looks to be going to Bologna. If you can sell 1 keep 1 of Johnson & Dann then that would be a tidy profit but I don't think they we're on massive wages...Still the parachute payments will take the sting out of relegation a little...the problem with relegation is that if you can convince your players to stay for 1 season to get back up you'll have done well but failiure to do so will set you back 3 or 4 years as you're better players will have out. Do you think Europa League will help you to be able to put a sweetner on said players? maybe give it till Christmas and see where you are

Asante, Redmond and Mutch (mildly proven) are pretty promising, but its just will they get game time. Butland as well but if we hang on to Foster then I'd imagine he'll be held back as well.

I'd hope some players will be committed enough to give us the 6 months. If we're on course for promotion then stick around and see what happens. If we're struggling then we may have to let some go.

Of all our players Butland is the best, he is potentially the best we have had through our Youth system that i can remember.

Andy Johnson was the closest, but then he never looked that impressive for us hence why we let him move for free + £3M+ for Morrison, AJ then went on to do well with Pallace and then in hindsight looks like we made a mistake.

Butland looks to me like a good future prospect for England Goal Keeper, while Hart and Foster have great chance of fighting for England keeper over next 10 years.

I feel in 10 years Butland should be every bit as good as Foster is now.

Others show promise but we cant garuntee they would become players who will break into the Prem or be in demand.

But Mutch and Redmond certainly would be good enough to be at least Top Championship players.

The KiD

You know what we are missing down st Andrews. A player who all the fans love
I mean a Trevor Francis type in his playing days at blues. I thought Gardner would come close in a year or two but he ran off with his tail firmly between his legs. We need a goal scorer. Who knows, we have our own Rooney. maybe just maybe.
One thing we have always had is a good keeper. Usually the England keeper at some stage. In my time David Seamen, Hart, Foster and although I never saw him play the late and great Gil Merrick.

I know what you mean, we never seemed to had replaced that Duggary and Forsell

Hleb and Bentley could have been affective players that would have got the fans noticed had they been used more/better.

Who knows who we will bring in, its all a bit quiet but its the same with other clubs only they dont have the problem of what our owner has!

Hopefully the sooner we can sell players the sooner we can bring in some, i recon if we sold Jerome and Zigic within the next 2 weeks we would see about 3-4 faces comming to us with that cash. (not all of it).

Routledge and Best could cost us about £3M add Guthrie who would cost about £2.5M and thats basically the fee we get for Jerome.

so i would not be suprised if we had some cash flow we would offer Newcastle say £4M for those that can rise to £6M if we got promoted. or simular deal.

The KiD

We need a goalscorer, have not had one since Forsell.
Or someone uptop who can bring the midfield into the game with hold up play.
If Jerome stays in our side we will stuggle and don't give me the formation and tactic excuses, CJ is rubbish and is the reason we have struggled for 3 years upfront.
If he had been playing for any one of the other teams in the bottom 8 last season they would have been relegated.
Also as a sub watching him play every week performing as he does you must wonder what it is all about.
We have all been in teams and the useless player gets picked every week and the rest of the players feel embarrassed for you at being sub again!
Lets just hope Mcleish comes in for him so he can send them down aswell.
KRO.

I think we did

Super Kev was a goal scorer just he never got that many games really, ok maybe he is not a Prem starter but look at how few minutes he got last season, like what at times he came off the bench once every 3 games for all but last 5-10 mins tops.

Derbyshire would have been able to score a lot at this level, and he never got chances last season when he did his confidence was shot and who can blame him if he was not bothered.

If we need proven for this level well... Boyd has shown when at Forest he can do the business however chances are Boro would want a fee say £2M or more and player would want a high wage.

DJ Campbell could be good signing but he would cost £1.5M and also with some Prem interest again he would want decent wages.

Bothroyd and Kamara are free agents and i think either would do a good job, again wages would be over £15K for sure and players may prefer a move to a Prem Club.

SEB from Wolves would be a good signing, especially if it was on loan with a option.

Then again i dont think Wolves would do business with us over him and especailly was we would not sell them Johnson for £6M

The KiD

Banjo - Strange you mention SEB...I heard a rumor (I know I know) that we may be interested in doing a deal of SEB & 3 million for Johnson.

Could be a good deal for both clubs if true you get some cash and a double championship golden boot winner and we get the solid centre half we need

Na we need more than that

SEB had failed to make the grade in the Prem maybe never had many chances i say he is a £3M player

We want £8M+ for Johnson.

£6M+ SEB i think would be fine but £3M+SEB well thats silly unless we value SEB at £5M

Problem would be though, as with Dann to Stoke i think Johnson would want a bigger more stable club than Wolves, like Dann would over Stoke.

Maybe Stoke should had made a £13-14M offer for Johnson and Jerome i could see both players more likely to go there and us more likely to accept that offer.

As it stands now seem we want £8-10M for Johnson, and SEB would be what £4M so any swap would be £6M+ SEB and then who is to say Johnson would not want to go to them.

The KiD