Typical paranoia from us Cov fans.
All our players are under contract, apart from maybe Bayliss. People feared a sell-off in the summer and in January and it didn’t happen. We only sold fringe players (Stevenson + Harries), and only lost players who’s contracts expired. We rejected a deal of up to £1m for Bayliss, deterred teams with our asking price for Willis and Jones got injured before any interest could materialise. Since the window closes before the season starts, Jones will v likely stay regardless of what league we’re in because he won’t be able to prove his fitness. The same with Andreu although he hasn’t done anything to warrant any interest.
Realistically, we could have a battle to keep McNulty, but I’m sure we’ll hold out for a good fee — we’re holding out for at least 500k for Willis. McNulty, I think, will be a good L1 striker, but I’m unsure if Championship clubs will take a punt if we hold out for say, £750k-1.5m. To compare, Marquis who got 26 league goals last season has only managed 12 in L1 this term. If a big SPL club come in for him, he may be tempted away. As for Willis, I can’t imagine we’ll do a U-turn on our asking price.
Bayliss, I fear could be off, especially if we fail to get promoted, but I’m ok with this if we get a good price for him. Andreu will (hopefully) fill the void left by him, probably as adequate of a replacement you could st for him in L1 or L2. If the Telegraph is right and his contract is 2019 with an optional 1yr extension, he’ll stay if we’re in L1
I do sense there’s a general reversal in our fortunes. Robins is a good fit for us, he’s rebuilt well and used the resources given to him well. Whereas Pressley had cut ssubstanstially to make the job difficult for anyone and Mowbray’s recruitment strategy was too ambitious for what our budget could handle. The only player we paid a fee for was Turnbull, who’s got relegated in consecutive seasons now... That’s not to say he’s a bad manager, just not a good fit for us. With Robins, we have a manager the board trust, the fans trust and can work effectively with our budget. It’s as a good fit as it was in 2012/13.
In L1 and onwards, our owners haven’t been as trigger happy to sell players when things have been going well. It’s only when there’s little chances of a successful season (i.e. playoffs) that we then start to ‘tank’ during the season (borrowing an American sports term). Even deals like Maddison and Wilson, that seemed to be sold quite cheaply, may actually pay dividends, with potential sell-on fees.
