Captain Pratley targeted by Wigan

Norpig wrote:

wanderlust wrote:

Natasha Whittam wrote:

wanderlust wrote:
Madine £8k per week
Trotter £11k per week
Osede £10k per week
Dervite £9k per week

You made those figures up. They are way off the mark. Especially Madine.

Here's the link...

I misquoted the average League 1 salary though - it is actually £70k per annum. The £40k per annum figure is the League 2 average.

 if those figures are correct then we've saved over £2.8million on wages already and with Pratley hopefully going that would push it to £3.5million 

Sadly, as I've mentioned several time on here that there's no way our wage bill will get below £6 million next season - but it was over £10 million last season so I guess we're heading in the right direction despite still having to pay almost 10 times the league 1 average next year.
Those players will just have to get us promoted straight back up won't they.

Based on last year they are more likely to take us down

Lusty I admire your optimism but how likely do you think promotion is?

I don't think we'll go down again but I believe we're much more likely to finish in the bottom half of the table than anywhere near the top. I hope I'm wrong but as things currently stand I can't see much more than a season of treading water while we wait for some of those you named to run out of contract.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Lusty I admire your optimism but how likely do you think promotion is?

I don't think we'll go down again but I believe we're much more likely to finish in the bottom half of the table than anywhere near the top. I hope I'm wrong but as things currently stand I can't see much more than a season of treading water while we wait for some of those you named to run out of contract.

You should really do a little more research on league one before you make predictions. Wigan and Millwall went down the season before last, in a worse state than us, one of them came straight back up comfortably as champions and the other made the play off final. 

Fair enough Wigan spent a bit of cash on 3 players but only Will Grigg has been value for money. But other than that they have a bang average squad. 

And as for Millwall, their top scorers were Lee Cunting Gregory and Steve Morison.. A striker way out of his depth in the championship but excelled in league one, I fully expect Madine to excell too (he's already proven at league one level.)

Add to that, another proven league one striker in Max Clayton, up and coming Clough and even Samizadeh,  we have a strike force most league on sides could only dream of. It's a similar story with our midfield too, we have players with a lot of premier league experience, fair enough they underperformed last season but however much we hate them, they'll stand out next season.

Boggersbelief wrote:

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Lusty I admire your optimism but how likely do you think promotion is?

I don't think we'll go down again but I believe we're much more likely to finish in the bottom half of the table than anywhere near the top. I hope I'm wrong but as things currently stand I can't see much more than a season of treading water while we wait for some of those you named to run out of contract.

You should really do a little more research on league one before you make predictions. Wigan and Millwall went down the season before last, in a worse state than us, one of them came straight back up comfortably as champions and the other made the play off final. 

Fair enough Wigan spent a bit of cash on 3 players but only Will Grigg has been value for money. But other than that they have a bang average squad. 

And as for Millwall, their top scorers were Lee Cunting Gregory and Steve Morison.. A striker way out of his depth in the championship but excelled in league one, I fully expect Madine to excell too (he's already proven at league one level.)

Add to that, another proven league one striker in Max Clayton, up and coming Clough and even Samizadeh,  we have a strike force most league on sides could only dream of. It's a similar story with our midfield too, we have players with a lot of premier league experience, fair enough they underperformed last season but however much we hate them, they'll stand out next season.

Not often I agree with your prophetic stuff, but this is spot on, again the neg heads will drag themselves through their miserable days.

Boggersbelief wrote:

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Lusty I admire your optimism but how likely do you think promotion is?

I don't think we'll go down again but I believe we're much more likely to finish in the bottom half of the table than anywhere near the top. I hope I'm wrong but as things currently stand I can't see much more than a season of treading water while we wait for some of those you named to run out of contract.

You should really do a little more research on league one before you make predictions. Wigan and Millwall went down the season before last, in a worse state than us, one of them came straight back up comfortably as champions and the other made the play off final. 

Fair enough Wigan spent a bit of cash on 3 players but only Will Grigg has been value for money. But other than that they have a bang average squad. 

And as for Millwall, their top scorers were Lee Cunting Gregory and Steve Morison.. A striker way out of his depth in the championship but excelled in league one, I fully expect Madine to excell too (he's already proven at league one level.)

Add to that, another proven league one striker in Max Clayton, up and coming Clough and even Samizadeh,  we have a strike force most league on sides could only dream of. It's a similar story with our midfield too, we have players with a lot of premier league experience, fair enough they underperformed last season but however much we hate them, they'll stand out next season.

On paper we had a squad that should have challenged for the play offs in the Championship boggers.

I don't hate any of them but it's been clear for two or three years that they're not as good as some of us think they are. Their wages may be Prem standard but they're nowhere near it.

You assume we can keep Clough, something I'm not so certain of. As to Samizadeh and Clayton they'd need an extended run in the first team for me to really judge them as I haven't followed the development squad or players out on loan for a while.

No offence but you're saying almost exactly the same things I said a year ago, we had the likes of Pratley and Spearing and Mavies with big time experience and a crop of "promising" kids that should be stomping almost everyone in the division.

But the truth is the big money boys don't give a damn unless Sky are showing the match live and they think it'll put them in a shop window and the kids can't be expected to do it all by themselves. Add in the lack of anything remotely resembling stability and I can't see us doing more than mid table next term.

plz, plz, plz Darren, !!!!!!! FUCK OFF  !!!!!

To quote Smoky, " I second that emotion!"

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Lusty I admire your optimism but how likely do you think promotion is?

I don't think we'll go down again but I believe we're much more likely to finish in the bottom half of the table than anywhere near the top. I hope I'm wrong but as things currently stand I can't see much more than a season of treading water while we wait for some of those you named to run out of contract.

I can't claim to be optimistic about our chances of promotion next season but with a team of seniors with higher level experience and wages to match - supplemented by one or two of our better remaining prospects - we will undoubtedly be one of the favourites if not the outright favourite.
There will be a considerable temptation to play the seniors week in week out in order to get our money's worth and even more pressure on them to succeed in order to prove their footballing worth and to put themselves in the shop window for a contract with someone in 2017/2018. 
On that basis I continue to believe we have a chance but as they showed last season, it's by no means a certainty and the selection of manager could be critical in helping the seniors find the form they once had.
It wouldn't surprise me if this wasn't a large part of the vision being sold to managerial candidates. 
Next season definitely won't be all about youth development as many seem to think.

Interesting comment about a good manager helping the seniors find the form they once had, other than when Pratley was playing for a new contract when have any of them shown any kind of sustained form. Davies has always been about what he could potentially be, Pratley has always been about the fact he runs around a lot, 
I actually like Spearing and would have him in there and saw enough of Trotter when he came back from Forest to think he could be very useful in that division.
To me we have more chance of a successful season if we can get Davies and Pratley off the books, if we can we could have a squad, with a couple of good loanees and one or 2 decent free's that could challenge.

Last season the bookies had us favs to go down which shocked a lot of people. Bookies lay the odds based on as many facts they can gather not on hopes and dreams of the fans.  Does anybody know if odds are out yet for next season? I'd be stunned if we are in the running to come back up...but you never know.