PeteG

Selling shares in what though? OAFC 2004 or Grocco? One is worthless with no assets the other isn't.

I agree with you. My concern is we've thrown a good few quid at it and been shit, if the budget is down considerably, the club may well be thinking along the lines of consolidation which is unacceptable imo.

That was my initial thought, we could be way off of course but if that is the case we are in the shit as it really does mean we (and i really means Unsworth et al) have spunked the budget up the wall!

Less than £800 a week?? I doubt that, unless Wigan are feeling like a charity. I do think Wigan will be looking at getting him involved in their matchday squad this season providing he's recovered from his injury over the summer.

Agreed but it's the budget that worries me. Fondop can't have been on more than £800 a week so is it possible we can get better than him for less than that. If we have to shift out Norwood then it may help but we also lose our best player in the process. I guess the key to this summer is trying to offload the likes of Nuttall, Reid etc. without it actually costing us too much which then gives us some ammo but that's going to prove quite tough given the reported wages some of these players are on. I doubt we are able to just pay them off and if for example Nuttall is on £2k a week and only gets an offer for £1k a week we aren't going to get the best available. It may be a year of consolidation and then go again in 12 months when these players are off the wage bill.

Forget what I said about a long term plan, DoF for recruitment etc. I'd suggest that will all have to wait until some of the dross are out of contract. No point putting in place a proper recruitment strategy if we have no proper budget to recruit. Mellon has to stay now and do his very best to wheel and deal which may mean losing some of his better players in order to bring in some. I don't envy him one bit. It's such a shame we have lost 2 years, blown the budget on Unsworth and his pals and will very likely lose all momentum the takeover should have given us. If i'm wrong the club need to speak up quickly whilst the early bird is still active or people will make their own minds up based on that retained list today.

Fair enough but i'd have thought they knew weeks ago who they wanted to keep and in previous years they have told us who had extended their contract or who was in negotiation. Obviously the club is not obliged to tell us anything.

The out of contract players could sign pre-contract deals with any other interested parties though. I'd like to think if wanted to keep any of the players we'd have the decency to tell them and make them an offer now rather than keep them in limbo. It may well be that they have made some offers but shouldn't they let the fans know?

Either way it's somewhat worrying. It does appear the budget has been shot and unless we can offload the biggest earners such as Norwood etc. we aren't going to bring anyone in of any real quality. I hope the season just gone wasn't our 1 and only proper shot at promotion.

He said the budget was already taken up by players under contract. Doesn't mean he didn't want to keep some out of contract players but probably its a 1 out 1 in situation. Knowing our luck the players he may want to keep will have found new clubs by the time we get rid of some of the contracted players and if the budget is really tight, do you think we will find a striker much better than Fondop on less money than he was?

My season ticket expired last week, thanks.

I'd rather have took our chance in extra time and penalties. We had a potential home tie v Wigan in the next round for a place at Wembley, plus i've seen us play at Goodison numerous times.

Is it? Tell me yours then, because he certainly inherited an absolute mess of a football club. He provided decent budgets in the early days and i'd still argue that the squad that got relegated from League 1 was far superior to some of the ones in the previous few years that had stayed up. If we had stayed up, it may have worked out differently but i suspect not. He never really endeared himself to the fanbase for whatever reason, the crowds never went up when he took over which i still find strange given how many have turned out and supported Frank 2 divisions lower down.

Budget is only half the battle but without it you are most certainly struggling. Our recruitment over the past 2 seasons reminds me of United and Chelsea for our level. Throwing loads at it with no real plan or thought to what is really required. Then you have City who generally replace like for like and players just fit straight into a system that is settled. We need to go back to the drawing board as i've said numerous times, employ a good DoF who works closely with the manager, who is involved in the recruitment of the manager so they are singing from the same hymn sheet and who oversees all aspects of football at the club. Do not just sign players because they have become available regardless of how good they may seem if they are not what you need or don't fit into the system we have adopted. Lots of work to do.

No we aren't a big club but we certainly are at this level. Let's start acting like one and bully our way out this shithole and back into the EFL. Once we are back in League 2 we can reassess and take it from there. What I will say, in today's game in takes a monumental amount of money in most cases to climb the pyramid. At some point the Rothwells will either need help or hand over the reigns to someone with more resources.