>>Seem to remember Cundell getting his frilly little nickers in a twist when I was complaining about our failure to pay market rate in the Summer (re Johnson; Kilkenny). CBA looking at the digest but imagine some of his 'intelligent musings' would look quite interesting in the context of today's debacle.<< Ian, I remember your concept of "market rate" equated to "top dollar". Paying every two-bob journeyman a premiership salary in the hope they'll somehow gel as a team and achieve promotion. In other words, the financial policies that caused this mess in the first place under Ridsdale. You don't seem to understand the gulf between premiership wages and championship wages. All that TV money goes straight on the wage bill. Howson has probably been offered three- to four-times his current wages. I'd guess he was currently on about £5-6k a week. Bet he's been offered £20k. That's a pay rise from £300k a year to £1 million. And on a five-year deal, he's guaranteed £5m in total. Set up for life. Can you blame anyone for doing that? We cannot compete with that. If we did, of course, and it became known that Howson was on £1m at Leeds, the rest of the squad would be demanding it too. Financial suicie. Unless a team has a real sugardaddy owner (Leicester, Ipswich, and Southampton are probably the only ones in the Championship at the moment) there is no way even a "big" championship club can match a mediocre premiership team. Bloody Norwich (unlike strugglers like Wigan or Bolton) of course are an ideal destination for players like Howson - he's guaranteed at least another season in the prem and as long as they hold on to Lambert, they look likely to do a Stoke and stick as a mid-table team for the forseeable future. Get used to where we sit at the table....for the moment at least. _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email [email protected]
PETE CASS (1962 - 2011) Rest In Peace Mate
