Fulham got it wrong this summer...

[eloc]

I think alot of people are forgetting that norwich had built in a lot of relegation contract clauses that lowered their teams wage bill by a significant portion, allowing them to retain the team for the most part. Fulham either out of naivete or utter disbelief never put those kinds of wage cuts into their contracts. When we went down we were still paying our championship team premier league wages. That's financial suicide, especially when you consider the advancing age of the players that left( stockdale notwithstanding). Also alot of the players that were gone were end of contracts that we chose not to renew, which in my opinon is a good thing.

[MJG]

Actually the club did have relegation clauses in the contracts.
But they were on higher wages than Norwich were even with reduction. So you can't blame any player staying in Prem for same wages.
Also noticeable today that Birmingham wage bill last season was 18.5m. Compare that to our 70m plus last season and you realise how we have to cut back and also lack of prize money at this level once you have been down here.