This will make Parish a success as a chairman because the overspending with very little strategy or nous doesn’t make someone successful. It just creates problems for later. I’ve been saying it for years and now we’re here in the reality of the outcome from it.

COYP

Absolutely! I know I keep saying it but relegation could soon see us in the lower reaches and not just the Championship. Also sorry but I really don't want to see second rate football in League 1 or 2. At least in the Prem we can admire the opposition even if with clenched teeth, and occasionally some wonderful skill from our own players (e.g Andros at Citeh last year and Ayew at home against West Ham this year.

It's almost as if Parish has to look at it that this summer we are starting from scratch, new plan for the prem and that we will be joined by 3 other clubs from the champ and we need to compete with them for survival.

Then, stay up, season after that we push on, but not in a way which see's us going back into over spending.

Reason I say this is because sooner or later we really need to stop, get off the ladder and get on one we want to be on, even if it is at the bottom and I honestly think we have enough in as, can't even believe I am saying this after 8 years, but we have enough to compete next season with the mentality we are starting from scratch, which we will be - no will, big earners off the wage bill, players that a re journeymen, misfits, doing what needs to be done to get us over the line.

Then, only then we can start restructuring. Relegation isn't the end of the world... but as we have seen for some clubs poorly managed, which I believe with parish we are, we will fall hard and crash.

As an edit, I really wished that this January was the reset we needed.

I would have sold zaha this jan, replaced and used the rest of the season as pre season for next year.

Edited by Vaibow (15 Feb 2020 1.57am)

This was once a quality forum....

Not relegated yet Rudi, I believe we will be OK.

To be fair, he kept us in the league in his first season with his 15 goals, not a great tally for a 27 mil striker but the revenue he saved by keeping us in the PL that year was invaluable. However, long before he had any injury, from his second season onwards he lost form and became very lazy, he could not even score from the penalty we were awarded in the last few minutes when we were drawing 0-0 with Man City. He has just lost his touch and is not the player he was nothing to do with injury and loss of confidence. The three goals he scored for Belgium was against the equivalent of non-league footballers, I'm not sure but I think it was either Malta or one of the other smaller European Nations. We should not have renewed his contract, saved on the wages and let him go on a free as frankly that is his worth these days!

We can't start from scratch because we've burdened ourselves with ageing, average players on big money that nobody else will buy. We need to stay up simply because we can't drop down to Championship-level revenue (i.e. an absolute pittance) while maintaining the squad that we've got.

What is needed is a complete rethink of transfer policy, buying in younger players with resale value - but this has to be a gradual process and we need PL revenue to keep us from complete financial ruin until we can replace most of the playing squad.