Just a thought about next season..... (8 Viewers)

[Sky Blue Harry H]

Gutted though we'd be (and that's putting it mildly). if this season were to be voided, I had a thought earlier today. If next season is started, but without crowds - would we be better off as a club playing in League 1? The wages would be considerably lower than in The Championship, and TV revenue would be unlikely to cover our increased costs. That said, i'm not convinced that many Championship clubs could continue with their wage bills without paying customers, even allowing for ifollow etc. Confusing/uncertain times ahead. Sky/BT Sport etc would effectively be the mainstay of the PL (plus merchandising) and The Championship. League 1 and 2 clubs would be very vulnerable. I've done an about turn - I want us promoted now for the TV ££££s !

 

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[Esoterica]

I wondered how much turmoil Champ clubs would be in and how many would be forced to cut costs and have a frugal season - selling big earners and releasing peripheral players who they may have ordinarily kept on in a big squad. Maybe it will end up being a much better chance to establish ourselves again if there's chaos amongst clubs, than if we'd just gone up under 'normal' conditions.

 

[covcity4life]

Prem and champ clubs go bust and we will win 3 league titles in a row

Oh and sisu bought by CHINESE owners...

 

[rob9872]

We'd lose our loans, our better players and our manager imo. I can see no goid side about remaining in L1 H. We need to go up imo even though we'll struggle in the Championship.

 

[steve cooper]

Prem and champ clubs go bust and we will win 3 league titles in a row

Oh and sisu bought by CHINESE owners...

You forgot about Wasps go bust and we get the Ricoh for nothing

 

[Gynnsthetonic]

Championship clubs will have high earning players but will not be able to move them on, it could be chaos.

 

[Mcbean]

Are we not in reasonable shape - look at what happened at the Birmingham game - we pretty well
Matched them - for me manage to keep Walsh and O Hare and we should be at least competitive - we made a slight profit and someone may have to go but there are some good league one players and some reasonable championship players that might be available as clubs try to reduce their costs

 

[Grendel]

It’s good discussion point the other factor is where we would play. I don’t see any chance of a restart this season outside the premier league and even next season looks dubious. Many clubs will release a lot of players and squads will be decimated and many unemployed footballers - clubs will invariably go to the wall

 

[Leamington Pete]

You forgot about Wasps go bust and we get the Ricoh for nothing

Had forgotten about Wasps. Being the owners of the Ricoh they will be in massive deep sh!t now. With every conference, exhibition, trade fair, concert and sport event cancelled the consequences will be disastrous.

 

[shepardo01]

Interesting!
Lowest paid "top earner" at a Championship club last year = 8.5k p/w!!
Confidently say that is well over double what out top L1 earner is on.
Some crazy figures out there!

 

[shepardo01]

The above came from this Stan Collymore tweet;

 

[CCFC88]

Plenty of championship sides will be cutting fat whenever the next transfer window comes, 2 or 3 shrewd free signings added to our current perm squad could see us with a team capable of staying up.

As he has always done there will be a couple of youth players brought into the senior squad, along with a couple of loans and we wont be far off.

Half a season BCD at St Andrews starving Wasps a bit more, this could be the perfect storm. I am however an eternal optimist.

 

[Skybluemichael]

Think it’s good thing we don’t own a stadium could play games at the Higgs don’t need to pay stadium rent next year

 

[Grendel]

Think it’s good thing we don’t own a stadium could play games at the Higgs don’t need to pay stadium rent next year

No we can’t

 

[Skybluemichael]

Why not?

 

[Adge]

It’s just typical isn’t it. Now was/is our time to get out of this league and if we don’t I am really worried we could again go backwards.
We have/had all the pieces of the jigsaw up until now(well apart from a ground) but they will undoubtedly disappear which will be disastrous if there is no difinitive outcome to this season.

 

[Grendel]

Why not?

FL league rules dictate certain requirements if fans are there or not. Changing room facilities etc and if it was such a situation there would need to be some ability to televise the games as I assume they will be available to streaming

 

[Skybluemichael]

Higgs is a training centre I think they have changing rooms and they film u23, why have a 30k ground when all you need is a pitch

 

[Grendel]

Higgs is a training centre I think they have changing rooms and they film u23, why have a 30k ground when all you need is a pitch

You don’t you need to meet ground regulations and it won’t meet them - not happening

 

[Sky Blue Harry H]

You don’t you need to meet ground regulations and it won’t meet them - not happening

You're right - can you imagine City v whoever and we need to win to go up - impossible to police and stop the exterior being surrounded by people (a version of The Hill at Northhampton)

 

[SkyBlueCRJ]

Controversial but I wonder if some Premier League clubs will actually benefit financially from the lack of fans at games. Reminds me of this report that came out a few years ago.

Premier League: 11 of 20 clubs could have made profits in 2016-17 without fans at games

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

I'm not sure if I think the opposite - now is the best time for us to go up as without crowds it's a great leveller, esp if we're still playing in Brum. We'd be missing out on up to 10k fans per week, others would be missing out on double or even triple that, plus all the F&B income. So it'd be down to recruitment and while we've made some errors we've also made some very astute signings.

Yes, we'd still have to pay rent for a stadium but other teams will have the expenses of stadium maintenance. it'd give other teams collateral for loans etc but many are already sol to owners etc.

Meanwhile if we don't go up we lose all momentum and how it would affect the players being denied promotion is anyone's guess. If we were still in L1 we could fall away massively.

But I still want the season finished.

 

[Skyblueweeman]

It’s good discussion point the other factor is where we would play. I don’t see any chance of a restart this season outside the premier league and even next season looks dubious. Many clubs will release a lot of players and squads will be decimated and many unemployed footballers - clubs will invariably go to the wall

Eh? We'll be playing within two months. And theres absolutely no chance of next season looking dubious.

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[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Eh? We'll be playing within two months. And theres absolutely no chance of next season looking dubious.

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Of course there's a chance of next season looking dubious. Did you think at Xmas/Jan we'd still have 9-10 games to play at the beginning of May? They may restart, the situation gets worse again and lockdown reestablished before the games are completed.

How do you know what will happen? There could very well be a second wave as people cooped up for over a month get complacent when restrictions are lifted leading to another increase. It might be like flu in terms of being worse in the winter. It might mutate and we end up with Covid-20. A player in a squad might get it and thus that team will have to cancel games for the next few weeks leading to a backlog.

There is way more uncertainty over next season than there ever was over this.

 

[SlowerThanPlatt]

The Mail article is very sensationalist. £13k/year in the Championship must be Bellingham or another young player who would still be on scholarship wages and therefore can’t earn any more rather than him struggling to live

 

[Grendel]

Eh? We'll be playing within two months. And theres absolutely no chance of next season looking dubious.

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Players and all staff under current guidelines who attend matches would have to be in total lockdown after testing so will have to stay isolated in hotels for the duration which will cost a fortune let Lomé the other associated problems

 

[Skyblueweeman]

Of course there's a chance of next season looking dubious. Did you think at Xmas/Jan we'd still have 9-10 games to play at the beginning of May? They may restart, the situation gets worse again and lockdown reestablished before the games are completed.

How do you know what will happen? There could very well be a second wave as people cooped up for over a month get complacent when restrictions are lifted leading to another increase. It might be like flu in terms of being worse in the winter. It might mutate and we end up with Covid-20. A player in a squad might get it and thus that team will have to cancel games for the next few weeks leading to a backlog.

There is way more uncertainty over next season than there ever was over this.

Well of course there's going to be changes to next season...it'll be pushed back and likely shortened with maybe 1 or maybe even two cup competitions cancelled.

I don't know what will happen...same as you, same as G. What I'm sure of is that two things are going to happen - the govenment are going to want to kickstart the economy as soon as they can (with relevant measures in place) and the recommencement of sport is being considered of as something that will be good for the psyche of the nations mental state.

Games will go on behind closed doors. They'll commence in June and we'll kick next season off in September.

And to your point about whether I thought we'd be in this position in Dec/Jan...did you think a month ago that there's a chance that we'll start to look at reducing restrictions at this point when other countries are? A lot will happen in the next 6 weeks...generically and in the world of football.

 

[Skyblueweeman]

Players and all staff under current guidelines who attend matches would have to be in total lockdown after testing so will have to stay isolated in hotels for the duration which will cost a fortune let Lomé the other associated problems

Things will progress in the next 6 weeks to a state where it'll be possible to complete the season. If they complete the EPL, they'll complete the EFL.

I have it on good authority that one of the top EPL teams have contacted one of their local hotels about a 4 week exclusive use of the hotel as a mini-preseason, gearing up for the start of the season in June (date TBC).

 

[SlowerThanPlatt]

Robins has said there should be a 1 month pre season before any competitive games start

 

[Grendel]

Hh

Things will progress in the next 6 weeks to a state where it'll be possible to complete the season. If they complete the EPL, they'll complete the EFL.

I have it on good authority that one of the top EPL teams have contacted one of their local hotels about a 4 week exclusive use of the hotel as a mini-preseason, gearing up for the start of the season in June (date TBC).

The EPL will die to the cost of not completing the season. The EFL will reject proposals that include isolation

 

[Skyblueweeman]

Hh


The EPL will die to the cost of not completing the season. The EFL will reject proposals that include isolation

We'll see...

 

[Brylowes]

Eh? We'll be playing within two months. And theres absolutely no chance of next season looking dubious.

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How can you possibly know that ?
The only certainty with regard to this virus are the things that have already happened
‘And even with those’ we aren’t completely sure.
How it will behave and effect our daily lives in the future isn’t known ‘and all predictions,
Theory’s and forecast’s are just educated guesses really.

 

[Grendel]

How can you possibly know that ?
The only certainty with regard to this virus are the things that have already happened
‘And even with those’ we aren’t completely sure.
How it will behave and effect our daily lives in the future isn’t known ‘and all predictions,
Theory’s and forecast’s are just educated guesses really.

Even if players can play - which under present guidelines they can’t - lower level teams just can’t play behind closed doors and survive. It’s like a pub being allowed to open and not allowed customers in.

 

[chiefdave]

The above came from this Stan Collymore tweet;

How many times did Collymore refuse his wages because they were too high?

 

[chiefdave]

Even if players can play - which under present guidelines they can’t - lower level teams just can’t play behind closed doors and survive. It’s like a pub being allowed to open and not allowed customers in.

Which are the guidelines that would prevent games being played? Be good to know what restrictions have to be lifted to realistically allow a restart.