[boinging_along]

That is the crux of the problem. Stick a bunch of employees in the same room doing a similar job and let them know one of them is on double the rest, the green eyed monster would soon appear as quickly as the team harmony disappears. It won't be just two HRK it will be at least 10 other players as well. You can get away with it last season as it's a one off, if we bounce back up everyone gets a slice of the premier league pie.

Who do you play if Gayle is injured/exhausted/off form/Suspended if you have sold all of our other strikers to fund him?

This happens now, it will happen when we lower our wages, we aren't suddenly going to pay our players the same.  It might be that some players are on £10k and others are on £20k.  The problem doesn't go away.  We don't sell all of our strikers to fund Gayle, we could certainly afford to sell get HRK off the books though - would anyone notice?

[boinging_along]

They won't be here but the club will have a contingency plan on how to fund their premier league wages and failure to bounce back. I suspect we have borrowed money this season to fund their wages, that money has to be paid back and the parachute money decreases next season as well so we need to adjust to that as well.

You might be right, in which case the board have screwed this club over.  If our gamble was a one off, one season gamble, then going into it with Big Dave at the helm, then sacking him without a replacement is a huge dereliction of duty.

[smethwickw]

Why would Dowling cover for him?

He's hardly going to come out and say he has no interest in re-joining us. Like I said I expect he'll attract a lot of interest this summer and can see a newly promoted side taking a punt.

[BoingFlyer]

You might be right, in which case the board have screwed this club over.  If our gamble was a one off, one season gamble, then going into it with Big Dave at the helm, then sacking him without a replacement is a huge dereliction of duty.

Agreed. I have been quite vocal about the board's incompetence in sacking Moore, the boards failure to replace Barn's or get cover in for Phillips, and that is before the debacle started of not bothering to get another manager in. However we still finished stronger than the other two relegated teams; Stoke must be absolutely bricking it they made some big money signings and are talking about a £35 million write down on two players just to get their wages off the books.

[divinewind]

Never mind his wage demands were probably too high, they usually are for a 20 goal per season striker.
Now, let's find a young striker with pace, who can score 15-20 goals per season and isn't that bothered about wages.
Shouldn't be hard.

[BoingFlyer]

Why would Dowling cover for him?

Because it could show the incompetence of the board and this is nothing more than a PR exercise.

A comment along the lines of "I'm not signing for you as you sacked DM who I really liked and was pivotal to me singing, can't tell me who the new manager is and are about to rebuild the squad selling your best players while I will have to take a pay cut. - Yeah, I think I will pass."

[WBArgo]

Not surprised in the slightest, you could tell it was going to happen the way our club was talking in the press about a re-build, younger players etc.

I think in this day and age around £50k p/w is correct for him, we just can no-longer afford it. We need to try and mimic the Dan Ashworth model again and look for foreign/lower league gems. Of course that is easier said than done as it failed in the Irvine season (Gamboa, Davidson, Blanco etc) but even more recently Hegazi proved there's still cheap and good signings abroad.

[alex1]

Never mind his wage demands were probably too high, they usually are for a 20 goal per season striker.
Now, let's find a young striker with pace, who can score 15-20 goals per season and isn't that bothered about wages.
Shouldn't be hard.

I trust and assume you are testing out forum members sense of irony/humour.

[baggie82]

Some very good posts in this threat mocking the club's strategy if you can call it that. We can't afford to pay Gayle £55k a week but we can afford to employe Brunt and HRK for another 12 months. That is madness. I would argue we can't afford not to sign Gayle if we have any ambition of mounting a promotion push. Sell Rondon and Livermore, use their fees to fund Gayle and use whoever else we flog (Dawson, Hegazi etc) on the rest of the squad. Gayle should be earning 2/3 times the rest of them, he's the best player. Without his goals and assists we wouldn't have made the top 6. You have to wonder what Hughton is going to make of all of this when he sits down for a chat. The remit is to get promoted on a shoe-string...easy peasy.

[kendo]

We all know  what will happen. Rondon will come back to haunt us at the wolves. Gayle will go on scoring goals who ever he goes to and we have a certain Kanu. What a  joke. How is he still on the retain list along with Brunt. They should both be out of the club without a second thought. When you look at the squad, How many would you really want to keep, Not many. I think we have got to accept we are going nowhere, Look how long selecting a manager is taking and then it will be the cheapest option they can find. Same old song with this lot in charge, No ambition, No idea. We will do well to still be in the championship after next season.

[Albionic]

Now let me think !!?, i have options available to me, i have just scored 20plus goals last season when I was injured for a while and also played out on the wing which isnt my best position.
 
I enjoyed the experience and they are a good set of lads, but already a few have gone and a lot more are likely to be off, I dunno who will be there next season, they could be a right load of tossers for all I know.

The wages were good, but they will be asking me take a significant cut and well i aint getting no younger!
If I can get a gig with one of the promoted teams or even one of the relegated ones, I should get a decent whack and i might get a bonus in the form of a signing on fee.

New manager coming as well, I dunno, no certainty, less dosh, new faces, I might as well tell agent fella to get me out of here, will cheer him up as well as he'll get a slice of the action, happy days! Tara a bit!!

[Nice1Cyrille]

I'm sure we could have sorted a 'payment plan' out if we had thought it through.
£25k a week and a £1.5m bonus if we get promoted.
The Rondon money alone would more than cover that.

I like that thinking, however we would be asking him to take a huge pay cut with no guarantee of the bonus.
I don't believe he would go for that, football is now too greedy in general.

[divinewind]

Not surprised in the slightest, you could tell it was going to happen the way our club was talking in the press about a re-build, younger players etc.

I think in this day and age around £50k p/w is correct for him, we just can no-longer afford it. We need to try and mimic the Dan Ashworth model again and look for foreign/lower league gems. Of course that is easier said than done as it failed in the Irvine season (Gamboa, Davidson, Blanco etc) but even more recently Hegazi proved there's still cheap and good signings abroad.

Yes i am sure there are more Simon Cox's waiting to be plucked from the lower divisions.

[OldburyWBA]

We all know  what will happen. Rondon will come back to haunt us at the wolves. Gayle will go on scoring goals who ever he goes to and we have a certain Kanu. What a  joke. How is he still on the retain list along with Brunt. They should both be out of the club without a second thought. When you look at the squad, How many would you really want to keep, Not many. I think we have got to accept we are going nowhere, Look how long selecting a manager is taking and then it will be the cheapest option they can find. Same old song with this lot in charge, No ambition, No idea. We will do well to still be in the championship after next season.

For those two we have to look at who agreed to the contracts, whoever agreed to sign Robson-Kanu in the first place needs seriously looking at and then giving a new deal is a crime in itself. With Brunt it was in his contract that once he played a cedrtain amount of games it triggered another year, I do wonder how close or far away he was when Moore left as he wasn't in the team as much until Shan came in but I would have expected him to be given another year anyhow but I would have hoped for lower wages and as a bit part player.

I fully expect Gayle to move on a permanent deal this Summer to possibly one of the newly promoted sides or maybe one of the lower Prem sides or failing that back on loan to a side who have just gone down with Fulham the most likely.

[skyclad99]

We all know  what will happen. Rondon will come back to haunt us at the wolves. Gayle will go on scoring goals who ever he goes to and we have a certain Kanu. What a  joke. How is he still on the retain list along with Brunt. They should both be out of the club without a second thought. When you look at the squad, How many would you really want to keep, Not many. I think we have got to accept we are going nowhere, Look how long selecting a manager is taking and then it will be the cheapest option they can find. Same old song with this lot in charge, No ambition, No idea. We will do well to still be in the championship after next season.

Rondon will be retired before we play the Wolves again........

[baggiemart]

For those two we have to look at who agreed to the contracts, whoever agreed to sign Robson-Kanu in the first place needs seriously looking at and then giving a new deal is a crime in itself. With Brunt it was in his contract that once he played a cedrtain amount of games it triggered another year, I do wonder how close or far away he was when Moore left as he wasn't in the team as much until Shan came in but I would have expected him to be given another year anyhow but I would have hoped for lower wages and as a bit part player.

I fully expect Gayle to move on a permanent deal this Summer to possibly one of the newly promoted sides or maybe one of the lower Prem sides or failing that back on loan to a side who have just gone down with Fulham the most likely.

He is not a premier striker , if he was Newcastle would play him.  The second option is more likely.

[OldburyWBA]

He is not a premier striker , if he was Newcastle would play him.  The second option is more likely.

So if he's not a Premier League striker why would so many have been happy to sign him if we had gone up?

He would score goals for any side that creates chances no matter what division.

[skyclad99]

So if he's not a Premier League striker why would so many have been happy to sign him if we had gone up?

He would score goals for any side that creates chances no matter what division.

Probably the only thing against him is his size, but the lad is lethal and I cannot for the life of me work out why some think that he is not a Premiership striker.

He is better than Rodriguez [in my opinion] but it is a given that he is a PL striker apparently.........

[baggiemart]

So if he's not a Premier League striker why would so many have been happy to sign him if we had gone up?

He would score goals for any side that creates chances no matter what division.

So why is he playing in the championship ??   If he could have gone to a premier league side instead of us he definitely would have.  I think you will find that not many premier league sides will come in for him. In fact probably only the promoted sides. 

There is a massive gap between scoring regular in the championship and doing the same in the premier. He probably wouldn't have achieved what rondon did this year if he had stayed at Newcastle.

Benitz is a good knowledgeable manager and if he thought he could score regular he would have kept him at Newcastle.

He did a good job for us but now its time to move on.  He wasn't even the best striker in the championship !!!

[boinging_along]

So Rodriguez is not a premier ship player either

[baggiemart]

If they are both premier league strikers, then name me premier league teams that they would get into ??

[NJS]

"He [Gayle] would score goals for any side that creates chances no matter what division."

There's the rub.  If we budget to fund him and surround him with mediocre players, he won't get many chances.  Every striker needs support.  Rondon didn't have it season before last with us and scored 7 in the EFL, this season with better players around him he got 11 in the EPL

[lewisant]

55k a week is 1.2 million a year ish. Getting 16.5 from Rondon, that's 15.3 left. However, if they're looking to build a younger team, with nobody on far higher wages than the others then it seems fair.

I also don't know if FFP comes in to play here.

[OldburyWBA]

So why is he playing in the championship ??   If he could have gone to a premier league side instead of us he definitely would have.  I think you will find that not many premier league sides will come in for him. In fact probably only the promoted sides. 

There is a massive gap between scoring regular in the championship and doing the same in the premier. He probably wouldn't have achieved what rondon did this year if he had stayed at Newcastle.

Benitz is a good knowledgeable manager and if he thought he could score regular he would have kept him at Newcastle.

He did a good job for us but now its time to move on.  He wasn't even the best striker in the championship !!!

Why is he playing in the Championship ? no idea but no he would not have done what Rondon has this season as they are 2 totally different players and if we were going up this season he wouldn't get the chances he did last season so wouldn't score as many goals either and then he would get written off just like Rondon has done here.

Its okay saying Benitez is a knowledgable manager which he is, he also knows that at a club like Newcastle staying up is a great achievement and so a Rondon type is more favourable than Gayle due to the style they will have to play to stay up.

Looking at some of the supposed Premier quality strikers some clubs have signed then Gayle is certainly no worse and would have done just as good a job as those. I have no problem with us not signing him due to his wages pure and simple.

The stupid thing is it will be lower Prem sides who are more likely to sign him but they are the sides that do not create chances, a side that does create chances would fit Gayle perfectly but those sides would never take a chance on him.

[OldburyWBA]

55k a week is 1.2 million a year ish. Getting 16.5 from Rondon, that's 15.3 left. However, if they're looking to build a younger team, with nobody on far higher wages than the others then it seems fair.

I also don't know if FFP comes in to play here.

We cannot commit to £55k a week especially on at least a 3 year deal in this division, we need to lower the wage bill. You say £15.3m remaining but fail to include signing on fees, fees to agents etc etc, plenty of hidden costs and we always put the whole of the contract to one side to cover the costs (or used to) so £55k  a week on 3 year deal sees £3.6m put to one side for wages alone plus the hidden extras so that £15.3m is vastly reduced.