Im thinking that this season is probably our best and only chance of promotion with RD as owner.
With all of the players out of contract in the summer, and a good chance of Lee and JJ going we could be left with less then a skeleton of a first team set-up to build on.
Whatever manager takes over (assuming Lee goes) would have an impossible task of assembling a squad. RD will only allow freebies and loans, and will probably make the budget even tighter. We could end with the Blackpool/Riga scenario from a few years ago, panic signing anyone who can kick a ball. What kind of team would that result in? At best youd be looking at a lower mid-table finish or worse.
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Totally disagree- it certainly IS worth worrying about! Time to withdraw one's head from out of the sand methinks.
This will result in a new manager coming in with a mandate that all he can bring in is free transfer players.
We will then struggle to finish in the top half of league one and our attendance will plumit .
Roland being the financial genius that he is will continue to lose money but refuse to accept the losses that are of his own making .
So this time next season when We are a bottom half third tier football club he will probably be looking to sell for about 80 million.
Unfortunately unless a sale happens soon I can only see this nightmare continuing indefinitely .
Phillips + 10 others mainly young players like Reeco and senior players like Pratley left.
7k crowds who only go to slag off the latest scapegoats.
Yes only an ostrich could disagree with that unfortunately.
If we went up and didn't sell we could be looking at a record low points total in the Championship, but at least we wouldn't be in League 1.
talking of which what clubs does he still own?
Standard and STVV both in top 5 in Belgium
What if he gets tired of losing £10m a year?
What if he gets to thinking there might be another way to cut his losses?
What if that leads him to liquidate the club and sell off the assets for whatever he can get?
If that sounds far fetched, remember we're talking about a raving lunatic here.
I’m not crediting Duchatelet with any sort of strategic genius here, and not at least tying the manager down is bad form, I’m just not certain it’s the calamity that many are making out.
I still think this is the case .. BUT .. devil's advocacy time .. a cold, hard look at a worst possible scenario ..
players go ... the players who were on long and lucrative contracts and were not good enough to get us promoted ..
solution ? .. there will be scores of players young and old with experience of the lower divisions who'd jump at the chance of joining CAFC. How many Luton, Barnsley, Doncaster and (say) Lincoln players are household names or would be recognised as 'star players' ?
Fan loyalty ? .. nothing new here. I used to stand on the old Valley terraces seemingly all alone amongst attendances in the 3 to 4 thousand range .. a few good results and the waverers will return. Lots of clubs in the lower divisions exist on small crowds. It's all a case of managing budgets and resources.
Managerial turnover ? .. IF Bowyer and Jackson want to leave or get better offers, so be it. We've lost managers before and the club has survived
Ownership ? .. The price might well drop to an attractive/realistic level as we are seen as a basket case of a club and therefore a bargain to a far seeing entrepreneur, rather as M Ashley keeps buying seemingly white elephant department store companies .. this of course depends on the Belgian twerp seeing the light at last and taking the money on offer
I REPEAT .. I see promotion as a MUST this season .. however, must is not a gimmee .. the club and its loyal fans will survive come promotion, relegation or stagnation