There is going to be a cost in getting promoted regardless of who is in charge, not sure why some are suggesting it will be worse with Sam. Sure, he had failed in keeping us up but I have been encouraged by some of the players he has brought in (or Dowling, or the groundsman - wouldn’t want to give him too much credit) so I would like to see him have a go. Not really bothered about what other clubs think of him, they need to remember he avoided relegation for them and improved their teams.
Personally I want him to take full control of the team, it is pretty obvious that there is no else there with a scooby
I believe I have explained why I think the costs are likely to be higher with SA.
Undoubtedly, there will be players that clubs will want to unload, & they might be willing to sell without a transfer fee, but players will demand that contracts are fulfilled, which means that even player loans & wages would be expensive.
Just to give the argument a benchmark, a squad of 26 players on an average £20,000 a week would give an annual wages bill of £26 million.
We have a 26 man squad & I believe we have 6 players who will be out of contract this June 30th. Our wage bill last season was around £59 million (2019 £42 million) so there might be opportunities to replace those 6 with less expensive versions, but it's unlikely if we're focusing on experienced EPL players.
There is also the small matter of Diangana & Grant sitting on our books with an asset value of around £33 million, who are not being used. As things stand, I couldn't see us getting anywhere near that sum if we moved them on, so a write off just isn't an option.
We showed an operating loss last year of £23 million (when we had gate receipts up to March). This season we will have had zero gate receipts & it's likely that most of the media money from promotion was spent on wages, so I'm expecting another loss this year.
I believe that parachute payments next season will also be reduced due to additional "claw backs" from media companies, so I'm not sure have much income we're going to have.
Really don't think we're going to have the available income to give SA the assurances he will demand.
If he takes the job on that basis, he's going to have to be more pragmatic, than he's been up to now.