Quote Originally Posted by BudMill90 View Post
100%

Look at 2015/16.

Players that left:

Keith Watson
Calum Butcher
Jarek Fojut
Rado Cierzniak
Nadir Ciftci

Players we replaced them with at the start of the season:

Zwick/Szromnik
Donaldson
Durnan
Bill McKay
Aaron Kuhl
Darko Bodul

There are more but I'm about being sick just typing those names.

If the players that left all stayed, we would never have been relegated in 2016. We could have lost Nadir and still stayed up, but losing Butcher, Watson, Fojut and Rado were a nightmare for us. Then you have Paton, Dixon, Erskine all getting major injuries that ruled them out long terms at the start of the season and we were always right up against it.

Benji, Edwards, Fuchs and Shanks are our most important players (by a country mile btw) so if any one of them leave, we CANNOT rely on anyone else at the club to replace them. We need to recruit players close to or above their level.

As for the rest of the squad, I feel all other players who were in our 'best' 11 all have fairly able replacements already at the club. Full back for example, Freeman and Sporle aren't miles away from Smith and Robson.
The bottom line is - sell too many, too quickly, and replace them inadequately and you’re rubber ducked. We saw that in, as you say, 2015/16. In contrast the 2010 team wasn’t just suddenly ‘arrived’ at - it was built over a good 3-4 seasons.But we still sold - Barry Robson and Noel Hunt being the obvious two off the top off my head. But the difference was that the ‘replacements’ for these players were already at the Club and the sales were genuinely part of a long term strategy with the interests of the first team front and centre in the selling policy.

That’s what the Snake forgot to our eternal detriment. He prioritised the bottom line over the team on the pitch whereas there should always be a balance between the two. He failed to do that and we’re still living with it’s consequences even now. I pray that the Club doe not allow lightning to strike twice.