by WestYorksRoyal »
14 Jul 2020 14:15
From Despair To Where? Well, we've lost 5,000 of the gate on the past 4 years, that's over a quarter of our turnstile revenue. Let's take the two other clubs who have sold their grounds to meet FFP. £5m less than Derby? Their crowds are double ours. £7m more than Sheffield Wednesday? Their crowds are also significantly bigger than ours. We also have just about the cheapest tickets in the Championship.
WestYorksRoyal Get a decent fee for Swift and sell on Moore for £2m or so, which should be feasible, and the only Gourlay contracts you're left with are Meite and Aluko. Meite is worth keeping, and who knows, maybe we can flog off Aluko.
It's not as dire as you say
When you're talking of releasing all ooc players and selling our top players, it is as dire as we say. Some of these players would still need replacing.
It's about context. Our highest earners are not our best players. Releasing Gunter, Popa, Mannone and McCleary is not "dire". Selling Barrow is fine; we've lived without him this season and we can do next year.
Of possible departures, Swift would be a big miss, while Moore is an important player we'd need to replace (but probably could cheaply in the current environment). That's not a "dire" state of affairs. We used to sell key players regularly (Sigurdsson, Long, Hunt, Doyle). Were we in a "dire" state of affairs in those days?
To remember what "dire" looks like, go back 2 years when we had Edwards, Ilori, Bacuna, Mannone, Bodvarson, Kelly, Popa, Barrow and Aluko locked into high value, long term contracts they didn't deserve. That we're coming out the other end and can clearly foresee light at the end of the tunnel without is testament to the work done since Howe came in.