Wages

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Do we really have two players on £700k a year, both of whom want to leave, and have no interest in playing for the club.

[dontbedaft]

I can only think of one who might fit into that category.

[Sutekh]

Who is the other one?

[Mid Sussex Royal]

The only other contenders are Yiadom (currently playing) and Tmac, I believe they agreed new terms when we were still handing out big contracts.

[Orion1871]

The only other contenders are Yiadom (currently playing) and Tmac, I believe they agreed new terms when we were still handing out big contracts.

Yiadom definitely wants to play. He's improved the last few games as well.

McIntyre isn't happy with the manager from what I've heard, and have also heard he wants to leave. So could be him, but I doubt he would refuse to play for the club.

[Snowflake Royal]

There's no way Yiadom or McIntyre are on the sort of wages Ejaria is.

McIntyre had his contract extended within the last couple of seasons so no way he's on a lot.

Yiadom came from a relegated Barnsley side. He wouldn't have been competing for top dollar here.

It can only be Ejaria, there's basically no one left from the stupid contract period who would have been a big earner and hasn't had a contract update in the last two seasons.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

I read a thing online - which could be completely made up, but seemed reasonable to me - listing the top 5 best paid players at Watford this season.

Tom Ince is listed as on £30k per week - i.e over £1.5M annual wage.

Assuming that is correct, the only way I can see his agent leveraging that type of contract out of Watford is if his contract at Reading was around that level.

Happy to be proven wrong, but I think the idea that many of our players aren't on very competitive wages is wishful thinking...

[Royal_jimmy]

The only other contenders are Yiadom (currently playing) and Tmac, I believe they agreed new terms when we were still handing out big contracts.

None of our players are on anywhere near £700k. All would have seen a 40% cut on wages on relegation.

Ejaria is our best paid player, maybe on £10k a week/£500k/year. Don't think anyone else is on close to that.

Most of the squad are on between £1-4k a week. Wouldn't surprise me if excluding Ejaria we have one of the lowest wage bills in the league.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

The only other contenders are Yiadom (currently playing) and Tmac, I believe they agreed new terms when we were still handing out big contracts.

None of our players are on anywhere near £700k. All would have seen a 40% cut on wages on relegation.

Ejaria is our best paid player, maybe on £10k a week/£500k/year. Don't think anyone else is on close to that.

Most of the squad are on between £1-4k a week. Wouldn't surprise me if excluding Ejaria we have one of the lowest wage bills in the league.

What is the source for this info?

I'd be delighted if this was true, but I'm struggling to square this with the historical loses and cashflow challenges currently being reported

[tmesis]

The only other contenders are Yiadom (currently playing) and Tmac, I believe they agreed new terms when we were still handing out big contracts.

None of our players are on anywhere near £700k. All would have seen a 40% cut on wages on relegation.

Ejaria is our best paid player, maybe on £10k a week/£500k/year. Don't think anyone else is on close to that.

Most of the squad are on between £1-4k a week. Wouldn't surprise me if excluding Ejaria we have one of the lowest wage bills in the league.

Only players with a relegation clause in their contract would see a deduction, A club can't just force players to take a cut. We signed Ejaria for £4 million, so I would expect his salary to be at the level of a £4 million signing.

If we have one of the lowest wage bills in the league, and are the 5th best supported team in the division, why do we still need the owner to pay our wage bill every month?

[Snowflake Royal]

I read a thing online - which could be completely made up, but seemed reasonable to me - listing the top 5 best paid players at Watford this season.

Tom Ince is listed as on £30k per week - i.e over £1.5M annual wage.

Assuming that is correct, the only way I can see his agent leveraging that type of contract out of Watford is if his contract at Reading was around that level.

Happy to be proven wrong, but I think the idea that many of our players aren't on very competitive wages is wishful thinking...

Given when he signed for us we weren't permitted to pay anyone more than £8k a week by the FL, this seems doubtful.

[Clyde1998]

The only other contenders are Yiadom (currently playing) and Tmac, I believe they agreed new terms when we were still handing out big contracts.

None of our players are on anywhere near £700k. All would have seen a 40% cut on wages on relegation.

Ejaria is our best paid player, maybe on £10k a week/£500k/year. Don't think anyone else is on close to that.

Most of the squad are on between £1-4k a week. Wouldn't surprise me if excluding Ejaria we have one of the lowest wage bills in the league.

That's assuming all players had the wage drop in their contract - which with the decisions made at the club over the past few years wouldn't be too surprising if they didn't put that in the contracts of some players.

If Ejaria didn't for what ever reason, he'd need to be on £14k p/w to be around £700k p/a. That seems entirely plausible we gave him a contract around that when we signed him. I think ~£15k p/w was what people previously estimated his contract to be prior to relegation.

Cannot think of anyone else who'd be anywhere near that figure. Yiadom's and Holmes' most recent contract was signed in 2022, after we had EFL restrictions in place (I think that may have been when we could only offer up to £3k p/w). McIntyre was the year prior, but think we may have had restrictions in place at that point. Everyone else joined the club since we've had restrictions in place or have only come through the academy since. Even if we didn't have restrictions when these contracts were signed, you wouldn't think Yiadom, Holmes nor McIntyre would be on £14k+ p/w.

Another theory is we're paying some wages to player we've sold recently in order to get them out the door. An example might be someone like Puscas, if we agreed to pay a percentage of his previous wages with us until the natural end of his contract to get him to agree to leave the club. Cannot see this sort of payment being anywhere near £14k p/w for Puscas, especially he couldn't've been on much more than that when he was here and he was sold as part of the loan agreement. Everyone else I can think of with a large contract left when their contracts expired.

The only other thought I've got is that's it's not a player who's getting £700k p/a; it would have to be a director salary. Would be surprised if that's the case though.

Without knowing what the source of this two players on £700k p/a is, I'd be very cautious to think it's realistic.

[Snowflake Royal]

The only other contenders are Yiadom (currently playing) and Tmac, I believe they agreed new terms when we were still handing out big contracts.

None of our players are on anywhere near £700k. All would have seen a 40% cut on wages on relegation.

Ejaria is our best paid player, maybe on £10k a week/£500k/year. Don't think anyone else is on close to that.

Most of the squad are on between £1-4k a week. Wouldn't surprise me if excluding Ejaria we have one of the lowest wage bills in the league.

That's assuming all players had the wage drop in their contract - which with the decisions made at the club over the past few years wouldn't be too surprising if they didn't put that in the contracts of some players.

If Ejaria didn't for what ever reason, he'd need to be on £14k p/w to be around £700k p/a. That seems entirely plausible we gave him a contract around that when we signed him. I think ~£15k p/w was what people previously estimated his contract to be prior to relegation.

Cannot think of anyone else who'd be anywhere near that figure. Yiadom's and Holmes' most recent contract was signed in 2022, after we had EFL restrictions in place (I think that may have been when we could only offer up to £3k p/w). McIntyre was the year prior, but think we may have had restrictions in place at that point. Everyone else joined the club since we've had restrictions in place or have only come through the academy since. Even if we didn't have restrictions when these contracts were signed, you wouldn't think Yiadom, Holmes nor McIntyre would be on £14k+ p/w.

Another theory is we're paying some wages to player we've sold recently in order to get them out the door. An example might be someone like Puscas, if we agreed to pay a percentage of his previous wages with us until the natural end of his contract to get him to agree to leave the club. Cannot see this sort of payment being anywhere near £14k p/w for Puscas, especially he couldn't've been on much more than that when he was here and he was sold as part of the loan agreement. Everyone else I can think of with a large contract left when their contracts expired.

The only other thought I've got is that's it's not a player who's getting £700k p/a; it would have to be a director salary. Would be surprised if that's the case though.

Without knowing what the source of this two players on £700k p/a is, I'd be very cautious to think it's realistic.

I think it's highly plausible Ejaria is on something between £14k and £18k - so slightly upper end to what you think.

We weren't restricted to £3k in previous seasons, it was £8k. Otherwise spot on.

[Clyde1998]

None of our players are on anywhere near £700k. All would have seen a 40% cut on wages on relegation.

Ejaria is our best paid player, maybe on £10k a week/£500k/year. Don't think anyone else is on close to that.

Most of the squad are on between £1-4k a week. Wouldn't surprise me if excluding Ejaria we have one of the lowest wage bills in the league.

That's assuming all players had the wage drop in their contract - which with the decisions made at the club over the past few years wouldn't be too surprising if they didn't put that in the contracts of some players.

If Ejaria didn't for what ever reason, he'd need to be on £14k p/w to be around £700k p/a. That seems entirely plausible we gave him a contract around that when we signed him. I think ~£15k p/w was what people previously estimated his contract to be prior to relegation.

Cannot think of anyone else who'd be anywhere near that figure. Yiadom's and Holmes' most recent contract was signed in 2022, after we had EFL restrictions in place (I think that may have been when we could only offer up to £3k p/w). McIntyre was the year prior, but think we may have had restrictions in place at that point. Everyone else joined the club since we've had restrictions in place or have only come through the academy since. Even if we didn't have restrictions when these contracts were signed, you wouldn't think Yiadom, Holmes nor McIntyre would be on £14k+ p/w.

Another theory is we're paying some wages to player we've sold recently in order to get them out the door. An example might be someone like Puscas, if we agreed to pay a percentage of his previous wages with us until the natural end of his contract to get him to agree to leave the club. Cannot see this sort of payment being anywhere near £14k p/w for Puscas, especially he couldn't've been on much more than that when he was here and he was sold as part of the loan agreement. Everyone else I can think of with a large contract left when their contracts expired.

The only other thought I've got is that's it's not a player who's getting £700k p/a; it would have to be a director salary. Would be surprised if that's the case though.

Without knowing what the source of this two players on £700k p/a is, I'd be very cautious to think it's realistic.

I think it's highly plausible Ejaria is on something between £14k and £18k - so slightly upper end to what you think.

We weren't restricted to £3k in previous seasons, it was £8k. Otherwise spot on.

I thought there was a period it was as low as £3k, as I think Andy Carroll was brought in on that amount initially. It might've not been a hard limit however, merely all we could offer without going over our overall wage bill limit at that point. We certainly had a hard limit of £8k afterwards - which might be the limit Yiadom and Holmes got their most recent contracts. Either way, I'm struggling to see how we could have two players on anything like £700k p/a.

[tmesis]

Didn't the 8k limit only come in in 2021? We signed him in 2020.