Next Seasons 25

[Strawberry Avenger]

Too much experience = too old and not hungry enough as we have found out.

Not sure if we have been let down by the likes of Murray, krovinovic and Knockaert have we?

However I see your point SM. We do need to have some experience though but I suppose we need to get the balance right between experience and younger hungry players.

OK but young means expensive and we're already making heavy losses. The majority of the signings past year were done on frees or loans to keep costs down.

So SM what would you do? You want us be be more sustainable, you know the only option we have for that and no-one wants to do that. (Sell worrall) rely on the current squad and hope that CH can dramatically improve them?

Not a dig by the way, I'm interested as I really don't see many good options!

I do get the points you are making but dont agree youth has to mean expensive. For a start wages are much cheaper, I think for example Carvalho our record signing was on £10k/ wk or less. Arter and Colback on £20k/ wk. Thats £2M a year doen the toilet for 2 players who have contributed literally nothing this season.
That doesnt mean we go down the Carvalho route again, doing that you are competing with PL clubs and we will always come off second best. Wolves are the only club who have literally bought promotion, its one hell of a risk. Basically need to be far smarter with recruitment, no more agent recommendations, proper scouting allied to better analytics and looked for untapped potential.

It can be done and Barnsley is a classic example of a club run on a shoestring who now look ahead of us. Its a long term thing though and I dont advocate totally becoming Barnsley and operating on that sort of budget because chances are we get relegated before moving forward.

However off the too of my head here is a list of clubs who have spent a spell in L1 since we were there  and therefore had to cut their cloth accordingly: Southampton, Bournemouth, Leicester, Leeds, Burnley, Brighton, Wolves, Norwich. In other words all of those clubs in the last 10 seasons have been in a worse situation than us. All of them have had to adapt and dramatically reduce their costs at some point. All have restructured and through better management have overtaken us to spend time in the Premier league. It can be done.

That is a fair point on the wages, young players will save on that front, and obviously offer you a likely resale value. Plus you amortise the fees over the length of the contract so would not necessarily be that expensive.

For the record this is pretty much what I'd do.

Re-sign
Christie
Garner (loan)
Knockaert (if loan)
Krovinovic (if loan)

Sign (younger from league one or lower champ)
LB 2-5m
Striker 5-10m
AM either use Brennan Johnson there or another 5m on this position

Rely on current players for the rest of the squad. See if you can get away without selling Worrall.

Seems reasonable to me.

Keep Worrall.

Sell Arter, Car' and that other player we have out on loan.  Raise funds from those not contributing over the last year.  And letting the out of contact players who don't offer much go.

I've confidence in Hughton to do this.

SA.

[zicorice]

It's called experience knocker. Experience of getting out of the league we are currently in. It can be valuable.

Over last couple of years we have had:
Darikwa, Christie, Bong, Hefele, Blackett, Colback, Lolley, Arter, Grabban, Knockaert, Murray, Krovinivic and probably others I cannot recall. 

All have experienced promotion from this division and we are still very much in it. Not convinced its been that valuable to us.

[Duncan Mckenzie]

It's called experience knocker. Experience of getting out of the league we are currently in. It can be valuable.

Over last couple of years we have had:
Darikwa, Christie, Bong, Hefele, Blackett, Colback, Lolley, Arter, Grabban, Knockaert, Murray, Krovinivic and probably others I cannot recall. 

All have experienced promotion from this division and we are still very much in it. Not convinced its been that valuable to us.

Murray, Knockaert and krovinovic have only been here 5 minutes.

Lolley, Grabban and Colback in his first spell all been very good.

Depends how you look at it I suppose. Who knows where we would be without them (shudders).

[Duncan Mckenzie]

I wonder if Hughton has made up his mind on certain players.

No Ribeiro, Jenkinson, Colback, Sow or Arter in yesterdays matchday squad. I get the impression Ameobi might be offered a new deal because he was invloved.