by Wimb »
17 Aug 2019 09:08
As posted on Twitter. Both deserve a chunk of credit for sticking with the club during ridiculous uncertainty off the field. Few players will deal with 4 sets of owners (Anton, SJM, Thais, DY) during a 7 year spell at a single club.
How much loyalty they showed the club during that time is something only a select few know. However, what’s widely reported and yet to be disputed is that they’ve been among the highest earners at a club who’ve been among the top 10 wage spenders in this division since we dropped back down. Our return in that period? 1 play-off final and a (delightful) FA Cup run. Think it’s fair to say in 20 years time we won’t be naming lounges after players from this period or holding reunion dinners where Drenthe, Pog and Popa tell us stories (much as I’d pay to see that...)
As individuals both have been fine but aside from a few purple patches from McCleary, neither has made you rush to buy a ticket to a game. Gunter never hit the heights he has for Wales, while GMac’s unlucky injury record stopped him from really hitting form (although it likely also stopped a Prem team from signing him)
So we get to the present where both could probably do a job but neither are part of the club’s future. In this scenario you either just have them frustratedly kicking balls around knowing they’re somewhere between 3rd-5th choice or you say ‘thanks very much but we want all of our primary resources invested in this group who we’re building for the next few years’. It does seem a little harsh to see once integral players outcast from the group but if the Manager has no intention of using them, yet alone keeping them, why bring them in unless it’s 100% necessary?
Everyone will have a view on how much they could/would contribute to the first team now but ultimately it’s down to Gomes and he’s decided he either doesn’t want them, or they’re expendable until we’re forced to keep them.
So either they go down the financial/professional route and take their wages, which they’re entitled to do and just ride out a year, or they make moves for footballing reasons.
I don’t see anything wrong with this approach and as others have said, it’s something common in industry.
The club’s only loyalty is to its fans/owners who are trying to build something successful in the long term, not simply to give a happy ending to two men who’ve happened to be here for 7 years and done their jobs fine during that time.