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If Wanderers are to set out their stall this summer as a club intent on getting their wage structure under control they may have to deal with some resistance.
Given the financial problems encountered in the last two years few fans would argue a sensible approach to spending in the Championship and beyond is the right course of action.
This was a club losing close to £1million a month up until recently, the majority of which was spent on player salaries.
Those post-Premier League gambles caused irreparable damage and should hopefully act as a cautionary tale for the current ownership, and any future owners to come.
Getting back to a workable business plan whilst also retaining a competitive squad might be the tricky part for Ken Anderson, Phil Parkinson and Co.
Wanderers have looked closely at the strategies employed by Barnsley last season, and Preston and Burnley before them, and aim to follow suit.
Surviving while spending within your means is by no means impossible, it may be an increasingly idealistic notion in a division being warped by Premier League money.
The parachute payments of which Wanderers once benefitted are now unrecognisable, swelling from £32million to £90m in the last decade. Two clubs relegated from the top flight in 2016 – Norwich City and Aston Villa – failed to gain promotion and will continue to benefit this year, while the three teams coming down – Hull City, Middlesbrough and Sunderland – will get £46m next season alone.
Even re-signing the players who helped Wanderers gain promotion from League One will not be a simple task, as their success has also driven up their stock in the market place.
At Christmas, Anderson revealed his plan to bring costs down to a ‘acceptable losses’ of around £3m a year based upon a large number of players coming out of contract this summer.
The chairman has since recognised the efforts which went into securing an automatic promotion spot, branding some of the players “warriors” in the final few weeks of the campaign.
His unenviable task is now to juggle rewarding those warriors who want to remain at the Macron while also carrying through his business plan.
On Thursday an article carried by football site HITC claimed several Wanderers players had turned down the club’s initial contract offer – a statement which was quickly denied by the club.
At best, the worry is premature. Talks with the likes of Adam Le Fondre, Jem Karacan, Gary Madine, David Wheater and Jay Spearing are at a very early stage, so negotiation is hardly abnormal.
Whether such stories become more commonplace as the summer goes on, however, remains to be seen. And it is definitely reasonable to suggest the club will not be in a position to offer the same wages this year to those coming out of contract.
Plenty of talking lies ahead for chairman, manager and players but Wanderers are well-prepared.
It is eight-and-a-half years since Parkinson took charge of a game in the second tier, then as manager of Charlton Athletic. In all, he has presided over just 49 of his 613 games in the dugout in the Championship, or equivalent.
Typically, the Wanderers boss has done his homework, however, scouting out the wage structure of comparable clubs before speaking with his chairman and board consultant Paul Aldridge about his budget in London last Friday.
The manager is also on-message, vowing to restore a “fair and balanced” wage structure – which will most likely include incentivised contracts which reward better performance.
Convincing players, and more specifically their representatives, whose job it is to strike the best deal for their client, will not be easy in some cases.
Source
Given the financial problems encountered in the last two years few fans would argue a sensible approach to spending in the Championship and beyond is the right course of action.
This was a club losing close to £1million a month up until recently, the majority of which was spent on player salaries.
Those post-Premier League gambles caused irreparable damage and should hopefully act as a cautionary tale for the current ownership, and any future owners to come.
Getting back to a workable business plan whilst also retaining a competitive squad might be the tricky part for Ken Anderson, Phil Parkinson and Co.
Wanderers have looked closely at the strategies employed by Barnsley last season, and Preston and Burnley before them, and aim to follow suit.
Surviving while spending within your means is by no means impossible, it may be an increasingly idealistic notion in a division being warped by Premier League money.
The parachute payments of which Wanderers once benefitted are now unrecognisable, swelling from £32million to £90m in the last decade. Two clubs relegated from the top flight in 2016 – Norwich City and Aston Villa – failed to gain promotion and will continue to benefit this year, while the three teams coming down – Hull City, Middlesbrough and Sunderland – will get £46m next season alone.
Even re-signing the players who helped Wanderers gain promotion from League One will not be a simple task, as their success has also driven up their stock in the market place.
At Christmas, Anderson revealed his plan to bring costs down to a ‘acceptable losses’ of around £3m a year based upon a large number of players coming out of contract this summer.
The chairman has since recognised the efforts which went into securing an automatic promotion spot, branding some of the players “warriors” in the final few weeks of the campaign.
His unenviable task is now to juggle rewarding those warriors who want to remain at the Macron while also carrying through his business plan.
On Thursday an article carried by football site HITC claimed several Wanderers players had turned down the club’s initial contract offer – a statement which was quickly denied by the club.
At best, the worry is premature. Talks with the likes of Adam Le Fondre, Jem Karacan, Gary Madine, David Wheater and Jay Spearing are at a very early stage, so negotiation is hardly abnormal.
Whether such stories become more commonplace as the summer goes on, however, remains to be seen. And it is definitely reasonable to suggest the club will not be in a position to offer the same wages this year to those coming out of contract.
Plenty of talking lies ahead for chairman, manager and players but Wanderers are well-prepared.
It is eight-and-a-half years since Parkinson took charge of a game in the second tier, then as manager of Charlton Athletic. In all, he has presided over just 49 of his 613 games in the dugout in the Championship, or equivalent.
Typically, the Wanderers boss has done his homework, however, scouting out the wage structure of comparable clubs before speaking with his chairman and board consultant Paul Aldridge about his budget in London last Friday.
The manager is also on-message, vowing to restore a “fair and balanced” wage structure – which will most likely include incentivised contracts which reward better performance.
Convincing players, and more specifically their representatives, whose job it is to strike the best deal for their client, will not be easy in some cases.
Source