I don't think they were slashing the wage bill to sell the club.
They were slashing it because it needed to be cut. We had a Champions League wage bill, without the Champions League football.
We spent big and kept giving generous contracts, presumably in the expectation that we would quickly get back into the CL. That didn't happen.
It then reached a point where there was a difficult decision to be made. You could try throwing more money at it in the hope of a quick fix. Problem is that it's a risky tactic, and one that had already failed.
You end up with players you don't want on wages other clubs can't afford, and you practically have to give them away to get them off the wage bill.
The alternative is to cut back. The downside is that while you're saving money, it's also making it harder to get back to the top.
Go ask Leeds and Portsmouth what happens when your owners don't care about that.
The thing is, this sort of thing works great in baseball. If you think you're contending with a shout of winning it all, you splash the cash. During the middle of the baseball season, contending teams trade for big names on teams that have been underperforming. If you think you're going to win, sign the big names. If you've got no chance of winning, get rid of the highly-paid players and develop your youth. Why pay someone superstar wages when the end result is the same as paying a 20-year old pennies?
They did this with Kenny in 2011. He had led us to 6th after the Hodgson debacle, within a whisker of getting 5th. The Champions League looked attainable, so FSG authorized the massive spending.
A year later, we don't look like getting into the CL, never mind the league title. Thus, FSG have gone with the baseball strategy of a salary dump. If we aren't going anywhere this season, might as well shift wages and play young players. If the young players develop well and we hang on to our core, maybe we'll sign big names two summers on for a CL/title push. No sign of contending = play the youth
Sounds great in baseball.
Sounds shit in English football.
Rebuilding isn't going to work in the English "Moneybags" Premier League. Reputation matters and if we don't show ambition and we are in "rebuilding" mode, then we can forget about hanging on to our top players. And in baseball, the worse you do, the better young players you can get in a draft. It doesn't work like that in footy.
The difference between top and bottom in baseball isn't all that much. The same can't be said for football. It's too top heavy. You only fall further behind. There's no cycle of rebuilding and contending like there is in baseball. Man City, Man United, Chelsea will always spend big in hopes of contending. The more we try to rebuild, the further we fall behind.
FSG have not covered themselves in glory here.
