The silver lining, if we are relegated...

[Canaryboy]

Is that we are probably pretty well placed to yo-yo.

Need a bit of a rebuild but we aren't stuck with serious deadwood on long term contracts, we've got a few kids who are probably ready to do a job (Toffolo, Maddison, the Murphy's?)

Most of the fringe players seem to be out of contract in summer 2017 (Mulumbu, Lafferty, Van Wolfswinkel, Vadis). We've got Turner and Whittaker to release this summer.

Probably acquired a couple of high earners (Naismith in particular?), but I'd 100% rather be us than Aston Villa, they are f*cked. 

We're probably no worse off than we were last time we went down. I know that coming back up is never that easy, but Neil Adams did some terrible transfer business, perhaps if we can be a bit more shrewd in the summer and take a few tough decisions on who may not be worthy of bringing back up next time (Martin, possibly even Hoolahan when his deal runs out in 2017?) we may actually do things a little better this time. 

If we'd signed one decent centre back in summer 2014 instead of bringing in Cuellar, Hooiveld and Miquel then perhaps that would have been worth a few points to us this season.

If we are relegated, I don't think we need to necessarily feel too gloomy, if we get things right it could be a huge opportunity? OK so it could also be a disaster, we could be stuck there for a decade again, but I'm not really feeling too worried. Just resigned myself to the fact that we didn't come up strong enough this time and didn't get the summer window right, hopefully next time we can come up a bit stronger and get that summer window spot on. 

Yes we will lose Redmond, but even Matt Jarvis will probably take the p*ss in the league below, and we lost Snodgrass last time.... he was our star man. 

 

[Canaryboy]

I've had a few beers, if the above is a tangent I apologise! 

 

[Fenway Frank]

Biggest thing will be getting in a couple of strikers that can get 15-20 goals each

 

[Wiz]

It won't just be Nathan who buggers off, add Mobakani, Naismith, Brady, Klose and Howson to the list imo.

 

[Fenway Frank]

Why would Howson leave ? No one has ever bid for him as far as I know since he's been here. 

 

[GJP]

Why would Howson leave ? No one has ever bid for him as far as I know since he's been here. 

Bids happen all the time. It's just about whether the agents/clubs/players want to make a thing out of it.

 

[Fenway Frank]

Ok, none of them have wanted to make a thing of it before, the only reason that would change would be if a premier league team wanted him.

 

[KeiranShikari]

If Howson wants to go then he'll not struggle to find a club.

 

[Canaryboy]

It won't just be Nathan who buggers off, add Mobakani, Naismith, Brady, Klose and Howson to the list imo.

Obviously we wouldn't be able to keep Mbokani if his rumoured wages are correct, but I don't share your optimism about anybody taking Naismith. He's made no impact at all, doesn't appear to be fully match fit and I don't think he has played a full match yet. 

Hopefully with a full pre-season we'll see the best of him next season, but really can't see people desperate to take him this summer. Then again Bournemouth paid £8m for Lewis Grabban so anything can happen.

Would we be keeping Mbokani even if we stayed up though? I do think he'd be a different animal in a second season and that there is a lot more to come from him, but if we stay up I can see us dropping a big fee on a goalscorer. 

The biggest challenge if we go down would be finding a 20 goal striker I guess... Ross McCormack wanted to leave Fulham in January and has 22 goals this season. Not a long term investment at 29 but he pretty much guarantees goals in the Championship. 

Dropping a good £6m+ on a McCormack or similar is essential this time. We got very lucky with Jerome. 

 

[Fenway Frank]

McCormack would be a good shout 

 

[Lavanche]

I really doubt Howson leaves anywhere. I mean who in premiership would want pay enough for him? Long contract and even thought we rate him, he is not that rated on the market. At best his level will always be in lower half team in premier league so if he want's similar role than with us I doubt there is many teams out there ready to give us around 10 million pounds from Jonny which is probably near what we ask for him.

 

[It's Character Forming]

Good thing for me being based in Nottingham is that there are loads of local games - Forest, Sheffield, Derby, Leeds, Rotherham, Huddersfield, Burton...all closer than any Prem teams.  Well, except Leicester.

 

[Fenway Frank]

I wonder what the odds are for Leicester to be relegated next season 

 

[Canaryboy]

I really doubt Howson leaves anywhere. I mean who in premiership would want pay enough for him?

Ask this question again if Brighton are promoted.

That would be a strange situation wouldn't it, having some of our best players stolen by Chris Hughton  h34r:

It will probably be Bassong that he wants though. 

 

[KeiranShikari]

Hughton isn't that bad a manager.

 

[the jarrold]

I can't see much of a silver lining at all at the moment. I think this time around we may lose more players who could do a good job in the Champ. I've read that Klose and Naismith  ( who although Naismith is  pretty rubbish in the prem ought to be an asset in the lower league) have relegation clauses. Klose obviously too good for Champ and maybe too expensive anyway. Other useful players will move on. I may have missed it but nowhere have I seen McNally say no player needs to be sold if we're relegated as he did before. Also didn't he say that some January transfer funds were financed against future season ticket revenue? If so that must mean that somewhere further down the line, next season maybe?we'll  not have that money to use to rebuild.  I'm not sure if that's what it means because I'm rubbish at money matters. Anyway as a glass half empty kind of guy I have a bad feeling about this and need some more positive posts because those above have left me unconvinced. And yes I know we're not down yet but neither are we out of the EU but that doesn't stop people speculating about what might happen.

 

[It's Character Forming]

It is a worry about the January transfer spend.  They said it was covered by the bank from future income but hopefully that was income for this season otherwise it would be a problem..  It was largely spent on Naismith and Klose, so as long as it is current season money and assuming we sell them for the same amount we paid, that's not so bad, and I'd have thought we would refuse to let them go for significantly less.

Redmond we'll presumably have to sell - when does his contract run out ?  I have a feeling there's another year to go but he hasn't signed an extension, so if we're relegated we'll basically have to cash in.

Otherwise we might get an offer for Brady that's too good to refuse, not sure about Olsson.  Can't think of any other players we'd lose unless Rudd decides he's had enough.

So for the Champ, if you take the remaining squad, add a decent striker and bring in Loza as 3rd choice, I'd say it's pretty healthy - but the big risk would be complacency.

 

[Beauseant]

I can't see much of a silver lining at all at the moment. I think this time around we may lose more players who could do a good job in the Champ. I've read that Klose and Naismith  ( who although Naismith is  pretty rubbish in the prem ought to be an asset in the lower league) have relegation clauses. Klose obviously too good for Champ and maybe too expensive anyway. Other useful players will move on. I may have missed it but nowhere have I seen McNally say no player needs to be sold if we're relegated as he did before. Also didn't he say that some January transfer funds were financed against future season ticket revenue? If so that must mean that somewhere further down the line, next season maybe?we'll  not have that money to use to rebuild.  I'm not sure if that's what it means because I'm rubbish at money matters. Anyway as a glass half empty kind of guy I have a bad feeling about this and need some more positive posts because those above have left me unconvinced. And yes I know we're not down yet but neither are we out of the EU but that doesn't stop people speculating about what might happen.

With respect, why would he do so when we haven't been relegated yet? The financing is under control and any relegation clauses would be subject to a release level so no one is playing fast and loose with the finances. I suspect that the overall deal will be that the players take a cut with the proviso that if they get us straight back up they will get the balance as a bonus. There is also the option to keep players' registration but loan them to Prem clubs like QPR have with Leroy.

We have some very smart people at this club so I'm not unduly concerned.

 

[Canaryboy]

I suspect it would just be similar to last time we got relegated, sell a player or two to balance the books and finance a bit of a rebuild. 

Last time we sold Fer and Snodgrass and got Pilkington off of the wage bill. 

This time selling Redmond alone would probably realise a similar amount of money in transfer fees, what are we talking for him, £12m to £15m? 

A few experienced players out of contract to reduce the wage bill (Whittaker, Turner, O'Neill, although I hope we could sort out one more year for the latter) and a few loanees to go home. I don't think we'd see a huge exodus at all to be honest.

Even Snodgrass didn't request a transfer last time, he said publicly that we'd simply not offered him a new deal, accepted an offer for him and then he went to talk to Hull. Presumably because he was simply on big wages and somebody with a calculator had worked out that we needed some cash. 

I just hope that if we do sell a player or two this time it is spent a bit better, that summer transfer window under Adams was a bit bizarre, just got lucky with Cameron Jerome. Seems like all of our failed managers at least leave us with a solitary great signing.... Roeder left us Hoolahan, Gunn left us Holt, and Adams left us Jerome. 

This time we don't need to do anything too radical, just invest sufficiently in a goalscorer and fill any gaps left with adequate players. 

 

[lyb]

I wonder what the odds are for Leicester to be relegated next season 

You may jest, but they wouldn't be the first team to run into trouble trying to run a domestic campaign and European campaign simultaneously having never done so before.