Who we'll be able to keep vs not next year..

[General]

Hear people talk about the likes of Anguissa and Seri staying perhaps next season, which part of me wants and feels the club could stand up to and demand due to contracts (if they don't have release clauses), but realistically with FFP, how realistic is it to suggest that we can - their wages, on top of their salaries are probably going to be quite significant and to pay those off with decreased gate receipts may make it not possible?

I appreciate we get parachute payments and they'll be bigger, which may keep us in good financial spirits for one year or two after going down, but does that make it really possible?

I think under a manager who gets man management (like Scotty P, but perhaps more experienced re the championship), and who earns the players trust could get these players into good form and get us out of the league faster than last time.. with a few additions.. but to keep them seems unlikely?

[H4usuallysitting]

Betts......Fabri maybe sold
S Sess Christie Odoi Reeeam Mawson Bryan ................Le Marchand maybe sold.....I'd try & sign Nordtveit
Anguissa Seri Cairney Johansen McDonald R Sess............Cisse maybe sold
Kamara Kebano Ayite Fonte.......................................Mitro maybe sold

Mr Parker Mr Gray & new spuds bloke

If we can keep the above - I think we've got a half decent Championship team.....If we didn't sell Mitro.....I'd guess we'd be a top 6 team..... It wouldn't surprise me if we also lost Seri, Cairney & Sess

[Statto]

Bit pointless speculating really because no one has the slightest clue who'll be here next year, including those proclaiming with total certainty that Mitro, Seri and Sessegnon will be gone

I've no idea what *will* happen but what I think *should* happen is we keep these players together, purely because then we might come straight back up and all the economic and other concerns immediately become irrelevant

If we go for a rebuild,
(a) I reckon we'll generate a far lower budget from player sales than most on here seem to think,
(b) I have zero confidence in Tony Khan to spend that budget wisely, and
(c) with Mackintosh still here I expect the players won't be signed until August so, no matter how good they are, we won't look like a decent 'team' until at least November.
All in all, IMO going for a rebuild is the road to ruin.

[Sting of the North]

Betts......Fabri maybe sold
S Sess Christie Odoi Reeeam Mawson Bryan ................Le Marchand maybe sold.....I'd try & sign Nordtveit
Anguissa Seri Cairney Johansen McDonald R Sess............Cisse maybe sold
Kamara Kebano Ayite Fonte.......................................Mitro maybe sold

Mr Parker Mr Gray & new spuds bloke

If we can keep the above - I think we've got a half decent Championship team.....If we didn't sell Mitro.....I'd guess we'd be a top 6 team..... It wouldn't surprise me if we also lost Seri, Cairney & Sess

If we keep Mitro (and the rest mentioned above) surely we should be favorites for promotion, not just top 6? That team would be quite an upgrade on the one that finished just outside automatic promotion a year ago (and could arguably have won the league had they had Mitro and Targett from the start).

[toshes mate]

The decision makers at our dear Club fill me with dread every time a window comes around.  You know, almost for certain, that for every 'good' decision made there will be a multiple of 'bad' ones.  Perhaps the first decision our owner should make is to change the names and identities of the decision makers.

[The Rational Fan]

Hear people talk about the likes of Anguissa and Seri staying perhaps next season, which part of me wants and feels the club could stand up to and demand due to contracts (if they don't have release clauses), but realistically with FFP, how realistic is it to suggest that we can - their wages, on top of their salaries are probably going to be quite significant and to pay those off with decreased gate receipts may make it not possible?

I appreciate we get parachute payments and they'll be bigger, which may keep us in good financial spirits for one year or two after going down, but does that make it really possible?

I think under a manager who gets man management (like Scotty P, but perhaps more experienced re the championship), and who earns the players trust could get these players into good form and get us out of the league faster than last time.. with a few additions.. but to keep them seems unlikely?

Statto's comment "All in all, IMO going for a rebuild is the road to ruin" is 300% on the money (i.e. correct).

Tony Khan choose his players this year (they are Championship winning standard just), he should stick with them, because he isn't going to choose better with less money next time. A minor reshuffle to get a better balance of positions maybe, but I'd prefer to cover any holes (except centre back) with loans, because unless we have improve with recruitment a reshuffle equals a stuff up.

Why FFC shouldn't rebuild (just add)?

The reason is simple, our best chance by far is getting promoted next season. A rebuild may seem attractive, but its better to stick with a good enough squad and make a good start next season, than rebuild with a slow start and play catch up. We also have a chance to go up in the second season, but the player incentives aren't as great cause if they fail, they know they will get sold to another premier league club.

Can we pay the Wages?

I think, provided "The Khans" invest the maxiumum allowed equity over the next five years, which is £87m and players sales make a profit of £13m (i.e. Sessegnon), we should cover the £100m in transfer fees this year. As for Staff/Player Wages it should be covered by £170m of TV money over the next three years. Most estimates of wages are around £65m this year (including loans) and £50m next year (without the loans), which uses it all up.

Lastly, FFC may need some money for generally expenses, loans and transfers fees. Well, gate receipt have historical covered most of the general expenses, sponsorship should allow FFC to get four mid-championship player loans and transfers will have to be "sell £5m to buy £5m".

My Opinion

We don't need to worry about not having this squad next year. We need to worry, will they want to come back, will this squad fight to get back up and will they work as a team. Personally, I think FFCs biggest danger is this squad doesn't click until game ten next season and we are playing catch up and going for a playoff place rather than automatic promotion.

[Roberty]

Unless he signs a new contract Ryan Sess will be gone - if they get anywhere near to what has been mentioned recently it should go a long way to balancing the books - so it might be possible to just do some light pruning

Mirtro - he's on a long term contract and his beef with Newcastle was not being able to get a game.
If we do let him leave where are we going to find another hot-shot forward
If we keep him he might just be the one to get us promoted and without him we are likely to be mid-table

[The Rock]

Rational fan, your posts seem loaded sometimes, but Tony has set the bar pretty low for himself. I bet he could throw darts at a dart board and sign better players.

I agree with Stato - you need to start somewhere, and keeping the existing Top 11 and bringing in improvements would be the logical way to go. Surely every player has a relegation clause. But then again with the Khan's you never know.

One might argue we should have done this last year as well, but we aren't the ones making the choices.

[Sting of the North]

Rational fan, your posts seem loaded sometimes, but Tony has set the bar pretty low for himself. I bet he could throw darts at a dart board and sign better players.

I agree with Stato - you need to start somewhere, and keeping the existing Top 11 and bringing in improvements would be the logical way to go. Surely every player has a relegation clause. But then again with the Khan's you never know.

One might argue we should have done this last year as well, but we aren't the ones making the choices.

I know that this debate has been had to death, but I really don't think the biggest problem this year was the quality of the players we signed (most of them individually are of at least decent PL quality in my opinion), but the timing of said signings coupled with our thin squad needing a lot of new bodies. As such, to randomly choose players as you suggest above would likely have rendered much worse players, but we would still likely have the problem of having too many new players to integrate and too little time to do it. So, in short I believe you are wrong.

I agree though that we should try to keep as many players as possible, since there is nothing to indicate that we would go about our business in a better way this summer, meaning that if we need a lot of new players we may yet again sign most of them on transfer deadline. 

[Balham Boy]

I'm guessing most of the players have wage reduction clauses in their contract which from a positive perspective covers the revenue issue. On th negative side that's why players will choose to leave - money talks.

I think Fabri (never going to play), Kamara (shouldn't play again), Mitro (only player to look Prem status) & Fonte (never coming back) will go plus Ayite and Johansen are out of contract.

Not sure about Sess - clearly there are suitors out there but he hasn't set the world alight and maybe one more season playing regularly wouldn't be the worst thing.

Anguissa Seri Cairney - who knows, not shown Prem quality. I'd be happy to see Seri go (probably back to France or Spain) but on Saturday's performance Anguissa could be a monster in the Championship and obviously Cairney, but at 28, money and a fresh challenge may come into play.

Apart from that we really need is a manager who wants to play exciting football balanced with a solid defence and is not afraid to integrate some of our promising younger players.

[The Rational Fan]

Rational fan, your posts seem loaded sometimes, but Tony has set the bar pretty low for himself. I bet he could throw darts at a dart board and sign better players.

I agree with Stato - you need to start somewhere, and keeping the existing Top 11 and bringing in improvements would be the logical way to go. Surely every player has a relegation clause. But then again with the Khan's you never know.

One might argue we should have done this last year as well, but we aren't the ones making the choices.

I know that this debate has been had to death, but I really don't think the biggest problem this year was the quality of the players we signed (most of them individually are of at least decent PL quality in my opinion), but the timing of said signings coupled with our thin squad needing a lot of new bodies. As such, to randomly choose players as you suggest above would likely have rendered much worse players, but we would still likely have the problem of having too many new players to integrate and too little time to do it. So, in short I believe you are wrong.

I agree though that we should try to keep as many players as possible, since there is nothing to indicate that we would go about our business in a better way this summer, meaning that if we need a lot of new players we may yet again sign most of them on transfer deadline.

We don't need a premier league quality team, we just need a team good enough to win automatic promotion in the Championship. All we need is a team better than Betts, Fredricks, Odoi, Ream, Targett, McDonald, Johasen, Cairney, Kamara, Mitro and Sess. Well, right now other than full-backs (Christie vs Fredricks and Bryan vs Targett), we do have better team that is better than before and if we keep Fabri, MLM, Mawson, Cisse, Anguissa, Seri, Kebano and Atiye we have a stronger bench than last year.

The Best Way to know if our team is good enough is play the team staying for at least the last four games of this season (if we can get results against Bournmouth, Cardiff, Wolves and Newcastle) the squad is good enough to get automatic promotion. If the team is good enough, don't sell anyone and add a few players on the bench for depth like a full-back.

[The Rational Fan]

I'm guessing most of the players have wage reduction clauses in their contract which from a positive perspective covers the revenue issue. On the negative side that's why players will choose to leave - money talks.

I think Fabri (never going to play), Kamara (shouldn't play again), Mitro (only player to look Prem status) & Fonte (never coming back) will go plus Ayite and Johansen are out of contract.

Not sure about Sess - clearly there are suitors out there but he hasn't set the world alight and maybe one more season playing regularly wouldn't be the worst thing.

Anguissa Seri Cairney - who knows, not shown Prem quality. I'd be happy to see Seri go (probably back to France or Spain) but on Saturday's performance Anguissa could be a monster in the Championship and obviously Cairney, but at 28, money and a fresh challenge may come into play.

Apart from that we really need is a manager who wants to play exciting football balanced with a solid defence and is not afraid to integrate some of our promising younger players.

Why do you think Fabri and Fonte are never going to play, surely they are good championship reserves? And, transfermarkt say Fulham has the option to extend Ayite and Johansen, which if they don't get injured im sure they will do.

As for selling Seri, im really against that idea, because Cairney needs a replacement when he cannot play. When they are both available we can rest one or find a way to squeeze in both of them in the start lineup. As for selling Cairney, i don't think we should give him the choice to leave, he has a contract make him honour it.

[Sting of the North]

Rational fan, your posts seem loaded sometimes, but Tony has set the bar pretty low for himself. I bet he could throw darts at a dart board and sign better players.

I agree with Stato - you need to start somewhere, and keeping the existing Top 11 and bringing in improvements would be the logical way to go. Surely every player has a relegation clause. But then again with the Khan's you never know.

One might argue we should have done this last year as well, but we aren't the ones making the choices.

I know that this debate has been had to death, but I really don't think the biggest problem this year was the quality of the players we signed (most of them individually are of at least decent PL quality in my opinion), but the timing of said signings coupled with our thin squad needing a lot of new bodies. As such, to randomly choose players as you suggest above would likely have rendered much worse players, but we would still likely have the problem of having too many new players to integrate and too little time to do it. So, in short I believe you are wrong.

I agree though that we should try to keep as many players as possible, since there is nothing to indicate that we would go about our business in a better way this summer, meaning that if we need a lot of new players we may yet again sign most of them on transfer deadline.

We don't need a premier league quality team, we just need a team good enough to win automatic promotion in the Championship. All we need is a team better than Betts, Fredricks, Odoi, Ream, Targett, McDonald, Johasen, Cairney, Kamara, Mitro and Sess. Well, right now other than full-backs (Christie vs Fredricks and Bryan vs Targett), we do have better team that is better than before and if we keep Fabri, MLM, Mawson, Cisse, Anguissa, Seri, Kebano and Atiye we have a stronger bench than last year.

The Best Way to know if our team is good enough is play the team staying for at least the last four games of this season (if we can get results against Bournmouth, Cardiff, Wolves and Newcastle) the squad is good enough to get automatic promotion. If the team is good enough, don't sell anyone and add a few players on the bench for depth like a full-back.

If the team doesn't need to be PL quality, why does it matter if we play the team supposed to stay for the last four games? Since that will be against PL quality opposition, how would we know whether or not they are good enough? If they lose all the games, we only know that they are not PL quality, not that they are not Championship quality.

I also don't think that we need a team better than Betts, Fredricks, Odoi, Ream, Targett, McDonald, Johasen, Cairney, Kamara, Mitro and Sess. I believe that lineup showed to be the best, or maybe the second best team in the Championship last time out. Remember that for much of the first half of last season we didn't have Cairney, Targett or Mitro. That made quite the difference I would say.

[Lordedmundo]

I would agree that we don't need a Premier League quality team next season. However, we do need a strong squad of predominately 'owned' players. There should be a good blend of experience and youth, that would not require a massive number of additions to both the first team and squad if and when we go back-up. I also wouldn't assume that we have to sell all of our best players. I would imagine we need to recoup £40-60 million, so that could be for instance Mitro and Seri with funds from selling lesser squad players like Fabbri, Kamara, MLM, Christie and Fonte. We are not in a strong position to keep Sess, but I don't see why we cannot keep Cairney and Anguissa (for instance). If we retain the right players (Betts, Bryan, Mawson, Johansen, Johansen, Ayite) and bring in youngsters like Fossey, Steve Sess and O'Reilly then it would just require some key signings in four areas RB, CH, LW and CF (x2). Players like Ream, Odoi, Cisse and maybe Markovic could also serve as back-up. I see no reason why we don't recruit (say) 2 loan players total next season, but we should be less reliant on them. Without Mitro we would maybe not have as quite as good a first eleven, but should have a stronger more balanced squad overall...

[Statto]

I would imagine we need to recoup £40-60 million

Why?
Not necessarily disagreeing... Just curious as to how this figure is calculated, and what's meant by "need" (ie, what will be the consequences of not recouping this amount?)

[Penfold]

Rational fan, your posts seem loaded sometimes, but Tony has set the bar pretty low for himself. I bet he could throw darts at a dart board and sign better players.

I agree with Stato - you need to start somewhere, and keeping the existing Top 11 and bringing in improvements would be the logical way to go. Surely every player has a relegation clause. But then again with the Khan's you never know.

One might argue we should have done this last year as well, but we aren't the ones making the choices.

I know that this debate has been had to death, but I really don't think the biggest problem this year was the quality of the players we signed (most of them individually are of at least decent PL quality in my opinion), but the timing of said signings coupled with our thin squad needing a lot of new bodies. As such, to randomly choose players as you suggest above would likely have rendered much worse players, but we would still likely have the problem of having too many new players to integrate and too little time to do it. So, in short I believe you are wrong.

I agree though that we should try to keep as many players as possible, since there is nothing to indicate that we would go about our business in a better way this summer, meaning that if we need a lot of new players we may yet again sign most of them on transfer deadline.

We don't need a premier league quality team, we just need a team good enough to win automatic promotion in the Championship. All we need is a team better than Betts, Fredricks, Odoi, Ream, Targett, McDonald, Johasen, Cairney, Kamara, Mitro and Sess. Well, right now other than full-backs (Christie vs Fredricks and Bryan vs Targett), we do have better team that is better than before and if we keep Fabri, MLM, Mawson, Cisse, Anguissa, Seri, Kebano and Atiye we have a stronger bench than last year.

The Best Way to know if our team is good enough is play the team staying for at least the last four games of this season (if we can get results against Bournmouth, Cardiff, Wolves and Newcastle) the squad is good enough to get automatic promotion. If the team is good enough, don't sell anyone and add a few players on the bench for depth like a full-back.

Haven't seen enough of Fabri to form a judgement. Fonte was poor last year and last time I looked wasn't having a great time out on loan. Sell him.

[Penfold]

Apologies to The Rational Fan. My reply to your comment went belly up. Subsequently checked out Rui Fonte on Transfermarket. If their appearance statistics are correct, this season he has appeared in 11 league matches, 1 French cup match, 1 French league cup match and 1 EFL cup game this season with a grand total of zero goals.

Haven't checked minutes on the pitch etc but it's hardly impressive.

[Facts Not Fiction]

Betts - keep
Fabri - sell
Use Rodak and Luca Ashby-Hammond as squad players

Odoi - keep
Ream - keep
MLM - keep
Christie - keep
Bryan - keep
Mawson - keep
Add some depth, plus a Steve Sess, and our defence could be one of the best in the league

Sessegnon - like to keep, probably sell
McDonald - keep
Kebano - keep
Johansen - keep
Cairney - sell unless committed to cause
Seri - would boss then division, but could get a good move to European side
Zambo - unlikely to find a suiter, and could dominate the Championship
Markovic - don't know
Cisse - a good squad player
Utilise O'Riley, de la Torre and possibly Elliott, not looking too bad

Mitrovic - sell, for his own sake. Can do so much better
Ayite - keep, good squad player
Babel - defo try and keep, would be superb in the Championship
Fonte - meh
Kamara - final chance?
Area where we'd need most investment, but still looking reasonable

[davew]

Back to an old subject, please don't mention bringing back Fonte again, I would rather take up watching another team, well maybe not!

[Sting of the North]

Facts Not Fiction, I am curious about your comment refarding Cairney. Why is he particularly being singled out as having to be committed to the cause? Does this not apply to other players?