Total agreement. Looked at a list of players with contracts up this summer and can see very few that we will offer extensions to so where does that leave us.
Option 1. Sign another 10-12 average players hoping that we find a couple of diamonds.
Option 2. Sign 3 quality players break our wage structure and have a very small squad.
Option 3. Supplement both the above with loan signings and have a different team every three months.
Option 4. Take a leap make an initial loss sign several quality players and cross you fingers we succeed and don't go bust..

Pleased I'm not the manager but with our budget it's hard to get past another similar season.
Any ideas anyone apart from a lottery win?

It's always possible on loan but anything else is unrealistic.

Some just dont appreciate the gulf in fees and wages.

Even lafferty, the easiest of those, would be uunrealistic given he has 2 years left at burnley. Of course with the massive parachute they could cut him loose but they would want a sizeable fee.

With the very limited budget we have we will do well to get another decent striker, a left or right back and a box to box midfielder.

 

A.F.C.Bournemouth have set the benchmark now for all the "smaller" clubs like ourselves, and have shown the world just what can be achieved with a small budget and crowds of around 11,000!

 

Their achievement this season has been immense,  but I can only see them being a "one hit wonder" like Barnsley and Bradford, and coming straight back down!

 

Football is BIG business these days and money talks, and if you've got none, (like us), then it's going to be a struggle, unless of course we can come up with that magic formula that the cherries discovered, you never know! 

Nez - Bournemouth lost £15m last year, which I imagine was right on the very edge of FFP which includes a portion funded by investors. As they have bags of money they could do it. I agree if its an 'operating budget', but to get the Callum Wilsons Kermogorant & Ritchies of this world you need deep pockets. Remember they also loaned whatshisface from Cardiff who was on £32k a week!

They have a chairman who can afford to easily take the gamble, we ultimately cannot. There's only one way to get serious mid table year on year obscurity and that's with the G&C site, units sorted & a strategic increase to NYS.

Until that happens it'll be more of the same, lots of loans to supplement what we can afford, and hope it does the job. Evans & Raynors naivety & over prudent approach probably cost us 5-10 points this season, and as they rightly say, lessons will need to be learned. We also need to be more clinical in front of goal. There are a lot of chances, Derbyshire & Green especially have missed which were inexcusable at any level of football.

The champ next season will be cut throat, this summer will be one of the most important in a generation. Get it right, and its onwards & upwards, get it wrong and down we go & we all know how hard it is to get back up again!

Exciting times though