Relegation would be catastrophic

[Juggy 0]

It shocks me how many people can''t see this. I''ve seen people suggest that we could go into a championship season with people like Howson and Pilkington still at the club. Sorry but it just isn''t going to happen.

Relegation would result in the biggest summer rebuild we would ever have had to witness, possibly the biggest we will ever witness. This isn''t 2005, it would be a catastrophe.

Oh it''s ok because we are debt free (facks sake!).

Our turnover last financial year (pretty much last season) was around £75m, or wage bill LAST SEASON was around £50m. That was with TV revenue of £46m.

This may be fag packet stuff but £75m minus £46m = £29m.

Our wage bill was almost two times our non-TV revenue. If we ignore the other financial benefits of premier league football (Chuck from Ohio knowing who we are and buying a shirt, Billy from Costessey deciding that he doesn''t need to support Arsenal now that we aren''t as unfashionable).

Parachute payments will be somewhere around £20m for the first year.

£29m (optimistic) + £20m = £49m.

Even lasts seasons wage bill would exceed total revenue including parachute payments. Our wage bill is of course likely to be much higher, your guess is as good as mine. Let''s say £65m conservative estimate.

Our wage ratio for last season is given as 67% by the board. Even if we were to sustain a wage ratio of 67% in the Championship that would mean a maximum wage bill of £32m.

That is probably more than halved. That itself doesn''t consider that our fixed costs have increased, we now employ dozens more academy coaches. Remember that our tax bill from this financial year will be due in the next financial year. £32m is probably way too high for us to be solvent with £20m in parachute payments.

Wouldn''t surprise me if we have to cut our wage bill to one third of its current level. Even keeping Howson is optimistic.

Just one overpaid ''hanger on'' could cripple the club and deny it the chance to be competitive. We would have to know what individuals earn to speculate, but we could be lumbered with our Nicola Zigic.

Relegation would see us have to look forward to signing Championship journeymen like Carl Robinson and Andy Hughes again. At least Declan Rudd is a good keeper.

Can anybody seriously see us getting back up if we get relegation?

I am amazed at the blase attitude that some have towards our sleepwalk to relegation and the failure of the board to take a punt on somebody who may have been able to turn our season around.

I''m even more amazed that after clearly backing their man they have not at least taken a punt on a player of real quality like Ince or Zaha. We are going down without so much as a whimper, stuck in limbo land somewhere between rolling the dice and sacking the manager and rolling the dice by backing the manager with money. Sticking with the manager but not backing him with money is possibly the riskiest thing that the board could have done, it makes no sense to me and I struggle to understand how it could make sense to anybody else.

And yet we have posters saying stuff like "17th is an achievement". No, no it is not. 17th is avoiding a catastrophe which could ruin this club and lead us to decades of Leeds or Ipswich style mid-table Championship mediocrity where we all have to get excited about the prospect of signing a 32 year old journeyman like Stephen Hunt.

But it''s OK because we can almost certainly wait as long as it takes for our £8.5m Dutch bloke to break a sweat and begin to understand the severity of our situation. Not that it matters to him.

We have been watching a disaster unfold before our eyes in slow motion. I look forward to the inevitable criticism that this post will attract, but at least I''m laying my cards on the table. The same cannot be said for the board.

[lappinitup 629]

Can''t make head or tail of that. Are you saying we''d be in debt if we went down?

[Juggy 0]

Well that is the obvious result of having to spend more then you receive, haven''t you learnt anything from years of deficit spending by successive British governments?

I''m saying that the spending cuts required to avoid debt would need to be of a severity greater than we have ever had to see before at this club, and that this means a complete rebuild of the squad and the loss of probably all of our best players to be replaced by much cheaper players who are likely to be of obvious Championship standard.

[Bill 1,788]

blimey, I wonder if any of this has occurred to the board

 

maybe you should write to them

 

 

 

 

ps the parachute figure is £16m (try using google

 

 

[Juggy 0]

We would probably end up missing people like Marc Tierney and Chris Martin.

[Fr. Chewy Louie 137]

Well McNally said it was "worse than death", so presumably he takes it seriously.

What do you want to happen at this stage? The manager''s almost certainly here for the season, unless we have some really horrific results.

[Juggy 0]

"ps the parachute figure is £16m (try using google"

It is rising next season in line with the increase in Premier League TV money (try using Google), with £20m to £23m likely.

[Juggy 0]

"What do you want to happen at this stage?"

I really don''t know. I wanted something to happen in Mid-December (change of manager followed by transfer activity).

Second best would have been clear and concise commitment by the board to the manager and the arrival of some quality additions in January.

The worst thing they could have done is what they have done, which is absolutely nothing.

[Fr. Chewy Louie 137]

Yeah, well we are where we are. Most likely scenario is that Hughton will be here for the rest of this season, and will be gone by next, regardless of whether we stay up or not.

In the meantime, we might as well hope the team can scrape enough points to keep us up without undermining them at every opportunity.

In my opinion.

[Molly Windley 76]

Says 60 million parachute payments over four years on my Google, you must have an older version.

What was the fool proof, nailed on, 100% guaranteed answer to the relegation issue?

Or did I miss it amongst all the gnashing of teeth, grinding of axes, empty rhetoric, I told you so`s and hindsight.

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="Le Juge"]and the loss of probably all of our best players to be replaced by much cheaper players who are likely to be of obvious Championship standard.[/quote]ST sales, Casual tickets, boxes, Catering, clothing, sponsorship, TV money, advertising etc will probably bring in £30m. Add £19m parachute payments (City1st) means an income of around £50m. As you''ve already said, we will probably lose several players BUT they won''t be given away and I reckon we would be looking at a minimum of £20m giving us a total of £70m. Compare that with that lot down the road who''s total income last year was £15m so why would we need to be in debt and why couldn''t we compete?

[Juggy 0]

"undermining them at every opportunity"

Are you asserting that this thread is an example of me undermining the team? That would only really work if they made a habit of reading this forum. I''d suggest that they would be undermining themselves if they were that stupid.

There is something that I didn''t consider, and that is cash reserves. We don''t know how much capital the club has. If they have substantial cash they might be able to subsidise the wage bill for a season and hope that we can bounce right back up.

But I''m surely not alone in thinking, if this is the case, that any cash reserve would have been better spent in January trying to remain in the division and not as a short term fix if we get relegated. Getting back out of the Championship is probably much harder than staying in this division.

[Juggy 0]

"ST sales, Casual tickets, boxes, Catering, clothing, sponsorship, TV money, advertising etc will probably bring in £30m. Add £19m parachute payments (City1st) means an income of around £50m. As you''ve already said, we will probably lose several players BUT they won''t be given away and I reckon we would be looking at a minimum of £20m giving us a total of £70m"

So you think that relegation to the Championship would result in an increase in non-TV revenue? I''ll have a puff of whatever you are smoking.

[Juggy 0]

"Says 60 million parachute payments over four years on my Google, you must have an older version"

You get more in the first two years than you do the second two years.

At one point it was £16m, £16m, £8m, £8m.

So £60m would be the new version, something like £20m, £20m, £10m, £10m.

[Juggy 0]

"What was the fool proof, nailed on, 100% guaranteed answer to the relegation issue?"

If you find yourself on the wrong side of the motorway driving head on into an articulated lorry you would probably take your chances and have a last minute swerve.

There is a good chance that you would still swerve into something and die. What you wouldn''t do is nothing.

[ZLF 271]

The CEO has already said how disasterous relegation would be for the club so I neither get the denial that  it would be catastrophic (albeit one we would recover from) or the need to post a no s**t sherlock statement.

 

What happens if we get relegated can and should wait 4 months as we can do nothing to influence that right now beyond focusing on improving on pitch performances and in stadium atmosphere (removing the nervous negativity in the stands would not add to obvious player tension and lack of confidence)

[Fr. Chewy Louie 137]

"Are you asserting that this thread is an example of me undermining the team? That would only really work if they made a habit of reading this forum. I''d suggest that they would be undermining themselves if they were that stupid."

OK, you crack on with your constructive criticism then.

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="Le Juge"]"giving us a total of £70m"

So you think that relegation to the Championship would result in an increase in non-TV revenue? I''ll have a puff of whatever you are smoking.[/quote]I don''t know what the figure is now but even if it''s £10m less than my guesstimate, we would still be in a far healthier position than most in that division and certainly not the catastrophe that you envisage.

[Juggy 0]

"OK, you crack on with your constructive criticism then"

You are still appearing to assert that what I say on here has an influence on the team. By saying positive things on here I am not providing constructive criticism to anybody, unless they read it. In much the same way that if I say something negative on here I am not undermining anybody, unless they read it.

[Fr. Chewy Louie 137]

I''m just not sure what it is that you do want to achieve.

[Juggy 0]

"I don''t know what the figure is now but even if it''s £10m less than my guesstimate, we would still be in a far healthier position than most in that division and certainly not the catastrophe that you envisage"

We have liabilities in the form of player contracts that those other clubs do not have lappin, not to mention a probably large HMRC bill.

The point is the extent of which are outgoings exceed our probable revenue next season in comparison with other clubs, not the extent of which are turnover exceeds theres. I''m probably flogging a dead horse.

[lake district canary 4,531]

"Relegation would be catastrophic"

Its all a bit doom and gloom on here.    We all know we don''t want to be relegated.    We have our own Zaha in Nathan Redmond, we have good players.    The players performed well on Saturday so we know they can play and have the stomach for the fight.  We know the manager is probably here for the season.   We know that the board have put their faith in Hughton, not because of what they do say but  because of what they don''t say.  Silence is sometimes better than speech.  

What we don''t know is how the run in is going to pan out.    We don''t know.  Some people seem to think they do know what will happen - perhaps they have crystal balls...........

What I know for sure is that it is going to be tense and exciting - there will be some good results and there will be some bad results, ups and downs. All the teams around us have difficult fixtures and all are under the same pressure as us - so they are going to find it as difficult as us too.

What I think I know is that the team seems to respond when the chips are really down - and most onlookers thought we were unlucky on Saturday - but then we were lucky maybe the previous Tuesday.   We are still functioning and as I said - we don''t know what is going to happen.  Anyone that says they do know what is going to happen are - and I can''t think of a better word - are just lying.

[Juggy 0]

"I''m just not sure what it is that you do want to achieve"

Well this is a thread on a discussion forum, which is aptly named ''main discussion''. So my primary objective was to evoke and embark on discussion, with the underlying hope that it wouldn''t evolve around wild assertions that I was in some way undermining a group of professional footballers who almost certainly should not be reading this forum.

[Juggy 0]

LDC, I don''t claim to know what will happen. I claim to know what I think will happen.

I hope that you are right and that we do get a response out of the players, and that they get the sufficient number of points required to avoid the apocalyptic scenario in my original post.

But the idea that this is going to be "exciting" is ridiculous, and that is the type of thing that a neutral would say.

[Molly Windley 76]

[quote user="Le Juge"]"What was the fool proof, nailed on, 100% guaranteed answer to the relegation issue?"

If you find yourself on the wrong side of the motorway driving head on into an articulated lorry you would probably take your chances and have a last minute swerve.

There is a good chance that you would still swerve into something and die. What you wouldn''t do is nothing.[/quote]

So the team is the car, Hughton the driver and the lorry is relegation, got it.

You cant change the car or the driver as its physically moving along the road you cannot effect the path of the lorry.

We are mere spectators or witnesses to this event, what can we do?

[Juggy 0]

We can do nothing but suffer. I''m suffering.

[Fr. Chewy Louie 137]

"Well this is a thread on a discussion forum, which is aptly named ''main discussion''. So my primary objective was to evoke and embark on discussion, with the underlying hope that it wouldn''t evolve around wild assertions that I was in some way undermining a group of professional footballers who almost certainly should not be reading this forum."

Fine, enjoy your discussion.

[Molly Windley 76]

Its what you do if you follow a team, any team. Could be worse we could have been thrashed in the ashes and lost to France in the last minute in the Rugby.

[......and Smith must score. 1,331]

[quote user="lake district canary"]"Relegation would be catastrophic"

........What I know for sure is that it is going to be tense and exciting ...........

[/quote]No doubt about the first bit but the second ?It may well be in LDC-land but for the rest of us probably not.

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="Le Juge"]LDC, I don''t claim to know what will happen. I claim to know what I think will happen.

I hope that you are right and that we do get a response out of the players, and that they get the sufficient number of points required to avoid the apocalyptic scenario in my original post.

But the idea that this is going to be "exciting" is ridiculous, and that is the type of thing that a neutral would say.[/quote]

My words were "tense and exciting".   Its definitely going to be both - if you are not excited by the prospect of watching how our season pans out, then I''m sorry for you.   You sound as if you have given up and are just expecting the end to be bad.  But as I say - it hasn''t happened yet - it doesn''t have to happen - and I have faith in the players - and yes, in Hughton - that they can steer us away from trouble.

All us fans can do is support as well as we can as we are not going to change anything by being so down and out about the situation.   You might as well try and enjoy the football - and it will be exciting - I guarantee it.