Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[ChicagoLion]

The first team will be decimated.
Johnston  Terry Snodgrass Chester Grealish Hutton gone.
If we don’t get up this year we will be outside the PL for a long time.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The first team will be decimated.
Johnston  Terry Snodgrass Chester Grealish Hutton gone.
If we don’t get up this year we will be outside the PL for a long time.

You don't need to spend millions to get promoted in the Championship. Plenty of teams manage it.

[paul_e]

I largely agree SHQ but I expect £7-8m and £50-60k p/w means Snodgrass is out of our price range.  Grabban I have no idea what the asking price is or whether good form at 2 championship clubs might be enough for someone higher up give him a chance.  I agree on Tuanzebe and Onomah but they're still part of the matchday squad that we'd be losing.  Hutton isn't needed at right back but once he leaves Taylor is our only option at left back and he scares the shit out of me.

Bree may come in and be ok but we've not seen anything like enough to know, same with RHM, O'Hare, Suliman, Bedeau and Mitch Clark.  Hell even Steer and Sarkic could offer something and save us from having to spend n replacements but we just don't know because none of them have been given any opportunity.

All this comes back to the fact that looking to upgrade the players who are starting a decent number of games and doing ok (Whelan, Hourihane) is well down the lists for the summer if we miss promotion, the priorities will be bringing in enough money to not fail FFP and filling gaps so we can field a competent team, doing both of those will be a big job and there might not be room for much else.

[ChicagoLion]

The first team will be decimated.
Johnston  Terry Snodgrass Chester Grealish Hutton gone.
If we don’t get up this year we will be outside the PL for a long time.

You don't need to spend millions to get promoted in the Championship. Plenty of teams manage it.

Yes by developing players and having a progressive footballing structure.
There is no evidence that we are any where near that right now.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The first team will be decimated.
Johnston  Terry Snodgrass Chester Grealish Hutton gone.
If we don’t get up this year we will be outside the PL for a long time.

You don't need to spend millions to get promoted in the Championship. Plenty of teams manage it.

Yes by developing players and having a progressive footballing structure.
There is no evidence that we are any where near that right now.

Of course we're not but things change. Hopefully.

[SoccerHQ]

Snodgrass loves it here. He hated it at West Ham, not just playing for them but the way he was treated by Sullivan.

I'd like to think he's the sort that would take a pay cut to come here full time. Players do from time to time.

Not sure how long Grabban has left on his deal at Bournemouth, maybe try for a season long loan which is probably what we should've done last August.

Would cut losses on Hogan, he's never looked likely to fit into our style of play so would let him go.

[paul_e]

Snodgrass loves it here. He hated it at West Ham, not just playing for them but the way he was treated by Sullivan.

I'd like to think he's the sort that would take a pay cut to come here full time. Players do from time to time.

Not sure how long Grabban has left on his deal at Bournemouth, maybe try for a season long loan which is probably what we should've done last August.

Would cut losses on Hogan, he's never looked likely to fit into our style of play so would let him go.

The bold bits are important here, Delph supposedly loved it here and was close to turning down a move to Man City because of it but ended up leaving.  Plenty of players have moved for money, or refused to move because they'd take a pay cut and yet every club still thinks that they can sway players to take a big drop in wages because they love the club, it very rarely happens with players who aren't either at the arse end of their career or forgotten.  At 30 he could easily get someone like Burnley or Everton looking at him as an option and offering to at least match his current wage and give him another (possibly last) chance in the premier league.  Will a good season at Villa be enough to make him walk away from that?  I don't know the answer but I wouldn't assume he'll dismiss all the other offers he might get.

On Hogan, you might well be right but who's going to offer us anything like what we'd want to make it worthwhile to sell him?

Grabban, as I said, depends on the other options, if one of Hogan or Kodjia leaves then I think it's a definite possibility, but if we keep those I think we'll have to accept that Davis and RHM are sufficient cover, the latter particularly really needs to be given the chance to prove as much.

[stuart445]

If we are in this division next season we will need an upgrade on Hourihane. Decent but not great, other than his goals.

If we're in this division next season we're going to need to replace:

Johnstone
Hutton
Snodgrass
Grabban
Onomah
Tuanzebe
and very possibly Chester and Terry

I think everyone else we want to keep would stay for another year but that's still 6 starters and 2 subs out of our 18 and we'll only get money back for 1 of them so we won't have anything to spend unless we sell off players we want to keep on top of that.

Rightly or wrongly Bruce has taken a "shit or bust" attitude this season and if it doesn't work we're in for a very painful summer, that's why he can't be kept if we fail to get promotion.

The reason for the "Shit or Bust" attitude is because it does not matter who the manager is, it IS Shit Or Bust this season.  But i'm not surprised you've made it a Bruce decision to choose this attitude despite that would have been the same attitude had you got your wish in the summer.

[mr underhill]

it needn't be a painful summer - it's not all about money. Cardiff have only spent a few bob since last May and could easily go up as champions.

[paul_e]

The reason for the "Shit or Bust" attitude is because it does not matter who the manager is, it IS Shit Or Bust this season.  But i'm not surprised you've made it a Bruce decision to choose this attitude despite that would have been the same attitude had you got your wish in the summer.

I didn't criticise him, I said "rightly or wrongly", which side of that you fall on doesn't change the fact that the decisions Bruce made to make the squad as strong as possible this season meant filling it with players who won't be available next season or who are going to be another year the wrong side of 30 and further along the downward path.  Those are facts and it was his choice, not an inevitable path that had to be followed, he decided to fill the squad with experienced players and loans but that isn't the only way we could've aimed for promotion, if it was every squad in the top 6-7 would be full of players in their 30s.

I'll admit that Chester being on the list is a stretch (and is based on an opinion not a fact) but all the others are either out of contract or finishing a loan spell.  I could add Whelan (who looks like he should be considering retirement to me) and Samba fairly easily and Jedinak is getting slower as well.

It might be a shit or bust season but that doesn't mean the squad had to be one that would need a complete rebuild if we failed, that's what I was talking about.  That said I actually see the sense in it as an approach, because it will make the big squad changes if we're promoted a little simpler because we won't have to move on as many players who were useful for the promotion but probably aren't right for consolidation.  That's why I'm not judging him over it, it's not the approach I'd have taken but I don't think it's wrong.

it needn't be a painful summer - it's not all about money. Cardiff have only spent a few bob since last May and could easily go up as champions.

The issue is, by all accounts, we've been operating right at the limit.  If that's correct then we need to find about £20m to do the same next season.  A big chunk of that will come from the players that leave but that won't really give us anything towards replacing them so it's going to be a fair bit of juggling to get on the right side of FFP and try to keep a promotion challenging squad together.

[mr underhill]

I realize that but by blending those seniors that want to stay with the best of the U23's and some judicious loans, we could, under the right management, build a competitive side

[paul_e]

I realize that but by blending those seniors that want to stay with the best of the U23's and some judicious loans, we could, under the right management, build a competitive side

I agree, but it's still going to be a big job because there's not many appearances in the U23 squad.  To go back, my original point was that looking for upgrades on some of the 'seniors that want to stay' is probably not going to be a priority this summer because there's plenty of other work to be done first.

[Risso]

It took Bruce a year and a half to get the team working and getting us toward where we should be.  I don't think he's the man for us, if we had to start again and rebuild once more if we don't go up.

[Richard E]

It took Bruce a year and a half to get the team working and getting us toward where we should be.  I don't think he's the man for us, if we had to start again and rebuild once more if we don't go up.

If he doesn’t get us up this time he’d have to go.

[cheltenhamlion]

It took Bruce a year and a half to get the team working and getting us toward where we should be.  I don't think he's the man for us, if we had to start again and rebuild once more if we don't go up.

If he doesn’t get us up this time he’d have to go.

And he knows that. If we lost say a play off final, he would be gone the next day.