mrjc

Agreed, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants some time out (you couldn’t blame him tbf). And I see what you mean on this season. To be clear - I wouldn’t get rid simply as a penalty for not achieving promotion. I’d always try to view it from whether I think he can get us to our goals from here. Given he hasn’t done it yet, and the job is going to get harder, I don’t think he’ll get us there. So for me, that’s enough to make the change.

You're right, in a single match like that it's difficult to blame just the manager. But over the season, it's much more clear in my opinion. We came fourth (by a decent margin), and so by definition didn't deserve to be promoted. That's with more than 18 months in the role, considerable resources and a full pre-season to prepare. Simply not good enough.

Not for me. He had a smaller budget for fees, but not for wages (I presume, but not certain). Bringing in and paying wages for Terry, Whelan, Samba, Snodgrass, Grabban, Onomah, Tuanzebe is not a small budget at all, and I imagine nowhere near as small as it will be next season. Warnock took over at a very similar time, with Cardiff well below us in the league. I acknowledge the things he's done well, I just don't see how he will perform better next season under more difficult circumstances. Re Smith - maybe a fair point, as well as the one others have made about the whole set up at Brentford. I'm hoping the club have a good succession plan (at any time) with a list which has been thoroughly due-diligenced!

Well I would. I accept that it’s a risk, of course it is. But so was keeping him (from which the risk has sadly borne out), and so is keeping him from here.

Using Reading / Stam as an example doesn’t hold up quite so well though...

I think both Veretout and Amavi fees will go into this season (2017/18), so they don’t help us next year. Amavi initially went on loan with an obligation to buy, but they then completed the transfer in October. At the time, was probably a way of making sure we complied with FFP for this season

Yep, that’s essentially right I think. Can’t remember the figures exactly, but I think less than around £6m would be damaging as we record a loss on his asset value (even taking account of wages saved)

He’s done a good job at providing us some stability, getting some good morale around the squad and getting us challenging again. And, in fairness, that can’t have been easy with the mess we were in. BUT....he has now had more than 1.5 years, three transfer windows, very substantial resources, and a squad which is largely his own. He was brought in hailed as a promotiion specialist, and we haven’t achieved it. More than that, and I am talking across the season rather than a single match, we didn’t deserve to achieve it. Also considering that this will likely be a very different job next season - there simply has to be a change of manager imo.

I agree with your points around our weaknesses on the pitch. I suppose where I differ is in holding the manager accountable for this. I happen to think he’s been here long enough for these sort of issues to have been resolved (maybe that’s where we differ, which is fair enough). Not being consistent, being outfought, not having the right mix in the squad...these are all relevant points, but are points that it is for the manager to address. It is his squad (again today, I think 8 of the 11 and 12 of the 18 were brought in on Bruce’s watch), and therefore for me he is absolutely accountable and responsible for where we find ourselves. Yes, it’s progress from the dire state we were in, and I credit him for that. But for me, it’s not enough and will leave us in a very bad situation next season if we can’t get up through the playoffs. Here’s hoping....

I see what you mean, and also don’t think it’s a formality he goes if we stay down. But I think our chances of keeping Terry and Snod are hugely diminished by not getting promo anyway, more because of the financial constraints. Unless parent clubs are subsidising heavily, I can’t see how we’ll afford the numerous PL loan wages

Surely by sticking with the current regime we are also just hoping for the best though?

Totally agree. We’re close to 18 months into his tenure now, and the progress just isn’t good enough. Yes, we are more difficult to beat, and at times have had more of a winning mentality. But like you, I don’t see enough of an identity to how we play. We still don’t seem to adapt the style to who we are playing, or be able to adapt when things are going against us. To me, this just isn’t good enough after this amount of time and with this amount of resources. While Bruce hasn’t invested heavily in transfer fees, he has in wages. 11 of the 18 yesterday are from his time (I think), and those that weren’t included Grealish, Adomah and Chester. This squad should be doing far better than it is. There’s no point making the change now, but I still believe it would have been the right thing to do much earlier in the season.

Reminds me of the Bradford semi final a few years ago, when we ended up with 5/6 strikers on, but with no better chance of scoring

Yes, it's £7m rather than 7%...but you can exceed that, if your revenue goes up by more to match it. Any jump from Championship to PL would carry a huge increase in revenue, so shouldn't be an issue for promoted clubs.

I think that would probably be the club's stance as well. Just not sure if he would want to carry on or not if we stay down. It would be a different job next season with much bigger constraints, plus with everything he has had going on in his personal life, he may decide it's not for him.

They don't get that much from Etihad though - total turnover was £473m, of which more than £250m was from match day and broadcasting. The craziness of the PL now means doing well generates you ridiculous money. Admittedly 'other commercial activities' gave them a further 200m, but it's not as extreme as always made out (and much of that will be because of genuine commercial activities). They spend a fortune, of course, and arguably got lucky with timing of the rules coming in. But we're in trouble because of mismanagement, rather than restrictions, imo.

Depends what you mean by ‘worth it’. If we get promoted - entirely agree. If we don’t - I suspect we will be worse off in August 2018 than had we not signed him, as I imagine we won’t be able to afford him or a replacement.

Fair enough. I totally agree that he won’t have been the cause of us not going up (if we don’t, of course), and I have no complaints with what he’s offered us this season. And yes, this season he has offered far more than Baker would / could have done. My point is more that, it was a short term and quite expensive ‘fix’, which potentially leaves us severely short in that area if we stay down, and therefore less prepared to go up next season. And if it didn’t help achieve the goal of promotion, that would have made it not worth it. For what it’s worth, I would have done the deal at the time - I just expected us to achieve promotion.

Not if he’s not able to lead us to promotion, in my opinion.

Yes you’re right - the big difference is that by selling him earlier, any loss we realise at that point is immediate. And given FFP is on a rolling basis and we’re about to hit a year which is very tight, all losses in the next year are bad news. You're right that if he stays we will have another year’s worth of amortisation plus wages - it’s just his ‘cost’ gets spread over the life of the contract. So probably worse for us as a club overall - but not for the sake of meeting the FFP test (one of the flaws of it!). I suppose overall, I don’t see this one as being a game changer either way for FFP - even a sale won’t particularly help us, but take your point that it might not be disastrous.

Depends on how much we sell him for. I think at the end of this season he will have an asset value to us of around £8m (this is based on a fee of £12m on a 4.5 year contract, which I don’t know for sure). So if we sell him for less than £8m, that goes as a loss for FFP (although we will save his wages...maybe a couple of £million?). If we sell him more, that’s all profit.

Agreed. He's generally been great, but effectively selling Baker to accommodate him and his wages may look like a pretty expensive indulgence if we're down here next year. Chester + Suliman / Bedeau maybe?!

Weirdly (sadly), this is only beneficial for us if we can get some meaningful cash for him. Let's say he's on £45k per week (I've seen differing reports). If we get rid in the summer, that will save us £2.3m over a year. However, he will still be 'worth' £6m in our accounts (based on it being a £12m fee, four-year contract), at the end of this season. So if we gave him away, we suddenly have a £6m loss (ie, bigger than the saving in wages). Even if we were able to sell him for £4m, we would make a loss which would just about be offset by the saving in wages. Better solution (purely for FFP test) might be to try and get him out on loan again, with someone paying a fee and a bit of his wages. Real mess though

Where do you think he would go? Talented enough for someone like Poch to think he could take him on even further? Or more like a Burnley, or even one of the survivors? Would be an interesting one - and £20m could end up being a bargain if they use him right. Let's hope it's no issue...

It could create a real problem. Potential outcomes: We scrape some loans and rely on youth, which could end up being positive (would need a different manager / approach though imo). It would need the likes of Bedaeu and O'Hare to step up - the optimist says this could be great, but it could quite easily go the other way; OR We basically accept that we will breach the rules slightly, and do it accepting that we will get fined / penalised somehow. This is high-risk as I don't think the penalties are clear, but as I understand (from afar) this is maybe what Brighton and Bournemouth have done, such that the EFL are now trying to penalise them? This is also much more risky if it doesn't get us promotion, as penalties are easier to impose if we're still in the division! In either case - trying to appeal to Grealish's fanhood and keeping him is perhaps the most important thing to do, as he could make the most difference. Still, a week ago there was confidence we wouldn't have this problem!