Where did the 70k top earner come from?

Was a rumour thats since being quashed by our Asst chairman.

It's market forces, we need to be wise to agents trying it on but we can't swim against the tide.

One potential issue is that good players who signed long deals last year could easily find themselves on similar or even less than less important players re-signing now, which might make for some interesting squad dynamics.

I could come up with a hypothetical banded wage structure and, because I'm ace, it'd probably be a decent guide. It'd be really boring though and I've already been told off for being a weirdo following my excessively rigourous investigation of sabremetrics on t'other board.

Go on then - lets get all hypothetical!

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

fun time frankie's the official eavs dropper, shove off you.

im not due to be the place were i gathered my info for 2 weeks but i was right about shenton

Mate, seriously, I can't believe you're still getting cross about this. I believed you at the time.

You'll be thinking you're Darth vader next at this rate.

The first stage of insanity that. The second stage is taking pictures of building sites.

Is Kev Naiqama signed up yet?

im not cross im just keeping you informed when you can expect more info

Ah, I'm with you now chief, I await your update with bated hiss.

Doh! I was listening to RH - no way would I dream of taking over FTF's role on these threads lol!

You were warned...

The full cap for the top 25 earners is £1.6m iirc.

An average of £64k per member of the 25 man squad. I'd divide them into the following four bands:

Very Important Players - Those worth six-figure salaries. Maybe 3-5 in any squad. Michael Dobson would be an example for Hull KR. Going above £160k for any player would be a big step psychologically - 10% of the cap. £200k, an eighth of the cap, and you're definitely getting into the realms of diminishing returns - even a brilliant player needs decent players around him to make a strong team. 3-5 players taking up not much more than £500k.

Regular first-team players - Those others who you'd expect to play when fit, to a lesser or greater degree. Probably earning £50-100k. Say an average of £75k and 10 of them to keep the maths simple, £750k.

Squad players - the sort who are expected to be regularly on the fringes of the first team, competing for a bench spot and filling in for injuries. Likely to have a squad number in the high teens or low twenties. Probably the sort of player NH reports as looking for the wage hike up from ~£35k as their agents market them as filling the emerging (though possibly exaggerated) gaps amongst the ranks of regular first-team players. 8 of them comes to £280k.

Promising youngsters - the sort already with a handful of games under their belts. On less than the squad players, but not for long they hope, and slightly more than those poor impoverished souls simply considered 'youngsters', outside the top 25 earners. 3 at £25k each, is £75k.

Squad grand total 500+750+280+75= £1.605. I bust the cap by £5k, but that is a very simple and rough example of how I guess clubs might structure their cap space.

What's that noise?

It's Mike Smith warming up his old Fujitsu photocopier...

Mild Rover, putting your generic ‘bands’ into perspective, then, Rovers squad perhaps fits into these bands:

Band 1 - Very Important Players (5 players): Dobson, Green, *Webster, Galea and *Clinton.

Band 2 - Regular first-team players (12 players): Paea, O’hara, Withers, Murrell, D Hodgson, Welham, *McDonnell, J Hodgson, Taylor, G Horne, *Watts and Mika.

Band 3 - Squad players (4 players): Hall, Netherton, Latus and Lovegrove.

Band 4 - Promising youngster (4 players): Cox, Salter, J Green and Carlile.

NB: Rovers also have these ‘impoverished souls’ - Sheriff, Ollett, Griffin, Petersen, Hepi and Beaumont (sorry to those I have omitted).
I have * those players who I believe or know to be leaving.

Setting aside any disputes over banding etc., what this model highlights is the areas of contract manoeuvres (between bands). It also tells me Rovers Board can save £200,000 (or thereabouts) by not renewing Jake’s and Joel’s contracts without seriously denting the clubs/Sandercock’s ambitions.