[ex coseley kid]

I'm not talking about bouncing back down into the Championship. I'm not overly worried that we will do a Sunderland and drop through to the next division - though I'm certainly far from confident.

What worries me so much is the real problem.
It's not our exciting team of 2019 losing it for no clear reason and in the end being lucky to go up.
It's not Bilic's unbalanced purchases of the 2020 pre-season window (I maintain the purse strings were massively hampered but do agree he could have shaped us a little differently).
It's not the crazy appointment of Allardyce - and by that I mean square peg manager, round hole squad.

We all know that we are currently rotten at the very core. Our owners seem to have no concept of how to make their 'investment' profitable again and we seem to have nobody with the faintest footballing mind on our board. Finally, while I recognise why Slaven was sacked, we seemed to do it without any grace whatsoever; there was a time that we conducted ourselves with some dignity and style.

I know I'm stating the bleeding obvious here. But I'm genuinely very worried about our future as a club.

[gazberg]

I dont think we will do a Sunderland, we will have a decent pot next year for the rebuild especially by EFL standards who are struggling far more without crowds than we are. I do worry that Dowling will be in charge of that and i do worry about the people above him as well.

[baggie82]

It's not our exciting team of 2019 losing it for no clear reason and in the end being lucky to go up.

This caught my attention as it says a lot more about the unrealistic expectation of some of our fanbase than the team. We have no divine right to win 46 games in the championship and did remarkably well to get 83 points, which included four fewer defeats than Leeds. The championship is an incredibly tough league and it wears squads down. We won't do as well next season and I'd be surprised if we can make the playoffs.

[ex coseley kid]

This caught my attention as it says a lot more about the unrealistic expectation of some of our fanbase than the team. We have no divine right to win 46 games in the championship and did remarkably well to get 83 points, which included four fewer defeats than Leeds. The championship is an incredibly tough league and it wears squads down. We won't do as well next season and I'd be surprised if we can make the playoffs.

No, that's a fair comment actually.

[Albionic]

The manager for next season is critical, we will have an advantage over the majority of the chumps but if we blow it next season the advantage diminishes massively, then I will be concerned.

[Gilsey 56]

I am a little concerned that we may loose players because of the wages clause they have in their contracts but at least we are not under pressure to sell players unlike the last time we came down.
I do wish we would have stuck to the plan we started at the beginning of last season, bringing in young players and building a squad for the next few years, but that takes patients and bottle, both us (mostly) and the club were guilty of lacking.
We must now get back on that track, we have a lot of promising young players and must learn from our mistakes. I agree we will not do as well as last year but that was our downfall in the end.

[WoysWunderful]

If we can bounce back at the first time of asking, untold riches await us with the new tv deal. I dont think we have overextended financially, so i think we will be in solvent position in 5 years reguardless of divison, but the gap is getting wider and covid will only make this worse.

[smethwickw]

Despite what’s happened this season we will still have the nucleus of a very strong squad. I think we’ll be fine next season but hope we have a new manager in place.

[Manc Baggie]

I think all bets are off regarding our future as long as we have the current owner & board.
I think It’s pretty clear that the overall priority of the club owner is to sell & recover what was paid out.
Good luck with that Lai.

[baggiejohn]

IMO, we're in a mess.

Four of our current first team regulars are loan players.

The two players registered to us with the highest asset value are not being used by the current head coach.
Add to that, we have debts to Huddersfield for the next 6 seasons for Grant.

Due to covid, our income for this season will have fallen by at least £7 million (due to gate receipts).

It's difficult to see how we've made any profit on player trading.

We might be able to make savings by releasing high earning players, but we would make savings anyway due to flex down clauses

For example if Keiran Gibbs is on £70k a week, he would have been on £35k a week next season, so him going saves us £35k a week.

We will have parachute payments, but I just can't see funds being available for wholesale changes, which means that if SA is to be our Head Coach next season, he's going to have to use existing players.

Not sure how he's going to motivate players next season who couldn't get into this season's side.

So in answer to the OP's question, Yes I'm concerned.

[overseas baggie]

I’m not in the slightest bit concerned.  We have a very strong Championship squad and we’ll strengthen it by selling Johnstone and (probably) Pereira and buying wisely as well as using the loans market which we are allowed to make much more use of. Nobody in the Championship has any money apart from us and 3 or 4 other clubs. There are loads of bargains around.

If we get a savvy manager like Wilder we’ll be absolutely fine.  A big fish in a small pond. 

I’d only be worried if we were going down with loads of debt, which we aren’t.

[WBArgo]

It's in Lais best interest to get us back promoted again as it will raise the value of the club. I think this is far more realistic and sensible than him deciding to abandon the club altogether or asset strip which is far more illogical.

For the time being, we're kind of like a poor version of Mike Ashley's Newcastle. A club that doesn't really have any ambition but is (hopefully) too good for the Championship but doesn't really have the finances or smarts to stay in the Premier League for very long either.

[tuamigos]

I hark back to the days of Trev the Shed, Gouldy, Alan Buckley, Denis Smith. Now there was a time to be worried.
Not overly worried the way we are at the moment.
Yes there are things that need addressing but no need to over dramatise IMO.

[miggybaggy]

Very worried. And even more worried that most poster's don't seem to be!! We'll struggle to achieve mid table under BS next season.

[BB74]

Very worried. And even more worried that most poster's don't seem to be!! We'll struggle to achieve mid table under BS next season.

On what basis? Sam has improved us since he’s been here and he knows how to get out the Championship. Why suddenly will he have a mid table finish?

[johnny Cash]

I’m worried. I think we are on the path to becoming championship also-rans.

I think Baggies made some comments about smart clubs currently such as Brighton, Brentford, Leeds, Norwich and also extends to teams like Barnsley.

So when you take the big 6. Add teams with money like Everton, Wolves, Villa, Leicester, Newcastle, West Ham  and clubs who for one reason or another have  something we don’t  (not to say any of those couldn’t get relegated but I think they’d bounce back), and then add some of the smarter clubs it doesn’t leave much room for us.

In contrast, I’m not sure we are ‘rotten at the core’. Complacent, limited, over their heads, but not crooked, criminal or sinester

[miggybaggy]

On what basis? Sam has improved us since he’s been here and he knows how to get out the Championship. Why suddenly will he have a mid table finish?

On the basis that he hasn't improved us. A massive backward step IMO.

[Standaman]

I find it telling that the worse case scenario that most posters can envisage is "doing a Sunderland" nobody talks about "doing a Bury". This is not surprising because all our experience says no matter how bad things get at some point somebody will step in and at the very least the club will survive.

I have often posed the question what happens when football runs out of rich people to subsidise it? The answer seems obvious a lot of unevenly distributed pain and a major reform of how the professional game is organised. I keep thinking the game's finances must be at a tipping point and clubs start to fold. Yet there always seems to be someone waiting in the wings to burn through a fortune for no particular reason.

I read that Wigan seem to have a new owner Abdulrahman Al-Jasmi who is a Bahrain based businessman. In the various interviews and news items I picked up that the club is losing £15k a week. This is a stripped down to the bare bones League 1 club and maybe those losses evaporate when fans come back. Yet at the moment it costs the owner £750,000 a year just to own it, and without a fair wind and a lot more investment it isn't going to be anything other than a League 1 club.

Even if Wigan are promoted it seems that Championship football is just an opportunity to lose even more money given the club was losing £9m a year prior to going into administration (or £175k a week if you prefer) and nobody batted an eyelid because this is totally normal in football.

At some point this has to stop the losses in game (even prior to Covid) are not sustainable and you don't want to be on the wrong side of the line when the crunch happens. To the extent we are dependent on owner finance we are on the wrong side of the line. Aside from the first season we have lost money under Lai owner debt has grown to £24m and I await the next set of accounts with a certain amount of trepidation to see just how bad our promotion season was financially. This season may have saved our bacon but even here the Premier League gravy train is somewhat reduced (covid on going rebate collapse of the Chinese broadcast deal).

Lai wants out but stands little or no chance of recouping his investment yet in the short term we will require on going support to be competitive in the Championship. Given the developments in China with regards to football in general and overseas investment in particular the willingness and ability to support the club could end very abruptly. This does not threaten the future of the club because there are enough saleable assets to keep the club afloat and see us through a short term cash flow problem but it is the first downward lurch on a very steep spiral.

To say I am worried about future of the club in terms of survival would be overstating the case to say that there isn't a risk of a downturn in our circumstances which bottoms out in League 1 flies in the face of experience. 

[leeiswba]

On the basis that he hasn't improved us. A massive backward step IMO.

I ain’t saying that Big Sam has been brilliant but I seriously can not see in the slightest how we have gone massively backwards.

Sure you just don’t dislike Big Sam as a person? Seems to be what the main problem is that a lot of fans just have a huge dislike for him so over exaggerate his performance in terms of how bad it has been.

[ex coseley kid]

In contrast, I’m not sure we are ‘rotten at the core’. Complacent, limited, over their heads, but not crooked, criminal or sinester

I liked your whole post - this I've highlighted as you've expressed what I meant better than I did.

It still troubles me a great deal that our real problem is not players or coaches but the structure and management of the club itself; hard to fix.

[Albionic]

I ain’t saying that Big Sam has been brilliant but I seriously can not see in the slightest how we have gone massively backwards.

Sure you just don’t dislike Big Sam as a person? Seems to be what the main problem is that a lot of fans just have a huge dislike for him so over exaggerate his performance in terms of how bad it has been.

For me, the difference is we were struggling under Bilic with our players, Under Allardyce we are struggling with 60% our players and 40% mercenaries using us as a shop window. 

Thats not an improvement, its a step backwards. (for me)

[leeiswba]

For me, the difference is we were struggling under Bilic with our players, Under Allardyce we are struggling with 60% our players and 40% mercenaries using us as a shop window. 

Thats not an improvement, its a step backwards. (for me)

What should we have done then? Just given up and not signed anyone in January and continue to have teams put 4 or 5 past us?

If that had happened there would have been an even bigger uproar so basically just on to a no win situation.

[mulliganstired]

I liked your whole post - this I've highlighted as you've expressed what I meant better than I did.

It still troubles me a great deal that our real problem is not players or coaches but the structure and management of the club itself; hard to fix.

This is what worries me, there seems to be no real strategy, and we are getting through managers at the rate that usually shows a club is drifting towards serious trouble.

[Albionic]

What should we have done then? Just given up and not signed anyone in January and continue to have teams put 4 or 5 past us?

If that had happened there would have been an even bigger uproar so basically just on to a no win situation.

The point I was trying to address is "Sam has made us better",  IMO he has not.

Should he have tried to, yes its my understanding that was his sole remit, make us better so we get more points and stay up. Again failed dismally

Final point, you cite the the 4 & 5-0's, they were not happening before Allardyce rocked up, his silver charger turned into a pantomine 'oss fairly bloody quickly.

[seteefeet]

Not concerned at all, we are exactly where I expected us to be.
Next year we will be favourites for promotion and rightly so. I'm looking forward to August.
This will go against the grain, with many but we are well run, in fact, that's what annoys most fans. The chances of us doing a Sunderland are virtually zero and the chances of doing a Bury, non existent. Villa and ,Wolves are doing well at present but they are more likely to do both than we are.
I wouldn't say we are "rotten to the core" in any way shape or form. We spend within our means, we are pretty clear about our budgets and our limitations, there's no evidence of corruption or money being syphoned out of the club, so I'd say that's pretty fair and upstanding.
Of course we would like more money to spend, especially in the Prem, but that only comes with new owners, which brings a whole new lot of risks.

I would be more worried if I were a Newcastle fan, with a much higher wage bill and no flex-downs. Ashley will probably bail them out but i wouldn't consider them "well run" and, if he decides to cut and run, they could be very vulnerable indeed.