After the blur of a breathless final afternoon last weekend came brutal reality. The Championship’s three reluctant new chairpersons awoke to the grim facts of relegation with a tortuous season of cutbacks, contingency plans and financial restructuring ahead. The trauma will not be confined to the season’s finale.
For Crystal Palace, Norwich City and Southampton there was no consolation; for all that Alan Curbishley attempted to offer a hint of comfort in the aftermath. ”It may be slightly easier if you’re relegated after just one year,” said the Charlton manager after his team had played their part in jettisoning Palace. ”It can certainly be less painful financially than if you’re an established Premier League side locked into long-term contracts.”
That will have sent shivers of apprehension along the south coast. Southampton have been among the elite for 27 years and are likely to suffer most in the months to come. An average income of £25-million in the Premiership — comprising fixed media revenues, appearance fees and merit payments — will be replaced with little more than £700 000 of central payments in the Championship and a £6,8-million parachute payment, but that leaves a £17,5-million reduction in income in each of the next two seasons.
For Palace and Norwich, those staggered future payments can work as short-term fixes. Yet the Saints chairperson, Rupert Lowe, spoke of ”tragedy” and ”catastrophe” at an empty St Mary’s this week.
”I’ve dedicated almost 10 years of my life to the club and put a lot of energy into getting us into the situation where our wage bill is no longer the smallest in the Premiership,” he said. Overnight it has become one of the biggest in the Championship.
He claims Southampton’s players will take wage cuts as a result of demotion, their salaries being proportionately much higher than their counterparts at Selhurst Park or Carrow Road. Yet those, and the anticipated staff redundancies at St Mary’s, cannot relieve the huge drop in income. After all, the club are still paying off a £32-million loan on their stadium, with the latest repayment of £2,4-million due in August.
Harry Redknapp warned this week that the sale of Peter Crouch would seriously undermine his team’s immediate chances of returning to the Premiership, but player departures appear a necessity if not necessarily a formality.
Only West Ham in recent years have seen their squad plundered after relegation, with almost £18,8-million raised by the sale of four players on their demotion in 2003.
Norwich and Palace will presumably only lose players who request to leave. The Londoners sent Vassilis Lakis back to AEK Athens and Wayne Routledge, out of contract, is expected to move to Tottenham. Andrew Johnson, despite signing a five-year contract this season and with the chairperson Simon Jordan insisting he will not be sold, surely sees his future at the higher level having graduated to the England set-up, and may request a move.
Similarly, Norwich will be reluctant sellers.
”There is no financial need for us to sell anyone,” said the chairperson, Roger Munby. ”The finances are sound and the squad is affordable in the Championship. The structure of the squad for next season will have a lot to do with the individuals concerned.” Whether Robert Green, Damien Francis and Dean Ashton choose to pledge their futures remains to be seen.
The exodus is likely to be more dramatic at St Mary’s where the management has often bemoaned the considerable size of an inadequate squad. Crouch remains an asset who will attract Premiership bidders, while Anders Svensson, Olivier Bernard, Graeme le Saux and Jamie Redknapp will depart. Further interest is likely to be forthcoming for Antti Niemi, Kevin Phillips, David Prutton and Nigel Quashie.
Yet, while Redknapp has stressed the need for a ”massive clear-out”, reality suggests it is the better players rather than the dead wood who will depart, leaving immediate prospects no brighter. Will there be takers for Jelle van Damme or Andreas Jakobsson? Selling off the best players, as West Ham and Leeds discovered, rarely improves chances of long-term progress. A tumultuous season balancing ambition with realism lies ahead for the Saints. — Â