Big article on Barnsley in The Times today

But then you have set the bar for the salaries, why shouldn't Woodrow, Mowatt etc. go in demanding they are paid similar?

 

Spot on.

 

It's a bit more complicated with wages though, as I understand it. From what I gather, agents put clauses into contracts that certain players are not paid significantly less than the highest paid at the club, or some might have a contract that says they are the highest paid (Hammill had this clause, from what I remember). When Hammill came back, I remember Patrick saying that he had to get permission from the rest of the players to break the wage structure to get him in.

 

The board said at a meeting which was attended by Stendel that they had spoke to Championship defenders in the summer and there wage demands were off the scale.At this point I would have been tempted to try and sign the most experienced centre backs in league one,I don't think some of the fan base would have been happy but they maybe could have added that bit of steal to our defence and we wouldn't have been paying silly wages which if we are to keep sustainable is out of our range at the moment.

 

You’ve got this bit wrong I think.

IIRC-

Pinnock did engage in discussions and we offered him a very large wage to sign for this season on the premise he could go after - he still chose Brentford as they offered more money and better prospects, as well as it takes him home to his family and friends (he is a London lad).

I think the offer was around £11k a week - around 3.5 times his previous contract? But that’s only off memory.

I agree with the basis of your post - and I think so did our owners, but as we know, it’s never that straight forward.

 

Our fans would know our owners don't own Nice and that we didn't get Diaby from Belgium as just two examples.

 

Yes we did. We signed Diaby from Lokeren in Belgium.

 

Clearly some of our fans don't know...