I don't think too many people can argue about us cashing in on a few players.
Most are worried about what standard their replacements will be
Not as good I expect?
It's not really feasible that you can expect to attract established players of the same caliber when offering wages at half or less than you were before. The sooner people understand that the better I think.
I don't agree with Reg's outlook on a lot of things but think his view of what we should expect next season is pretty spot on.
Putting aside the board's PR etc and what you think of them, we are going from an ultimately untenable period of massively overspending to cutting our coat according to our cloth. That will most likely mean the squad won't look as good on paper - unless MacDonald turns out to be a wizard in the transfer market or a couple of the kids turn out to be gems.
We enjoyed the ability to keep discarding and signing players on big (for L1) wages while someone was footing the bill and it could have sent us out of business when the money stopped. We have to accept in the short term we have to pay the price for that.
Get the wage bill in line, hope we've got a manager who can get the best out of the youngsters and keep a few old heads around and stay in League 1 next season. Then over a bit of time you can hope a couple of young players come through and do well and build a cheaper squad that can become competitive. I doubt that will happen in one summer though. Even Yeovil - touted as the model of success on a shoestring this season - spent about 7 years between 12th and 18th before getting a team good enough to be promoted.
It's better for the club in the long run, and our crowds should be good enough we're not exactly going to be paupers. But don't have a meltdown if we take a step back before moving forwards as the club undergoes quite a radical shift, and be happy that this is a more sensible course when the likes of Bournemouth come tumbling past us down the leagues when it all blows up in their faces in a few years.
