Think a little context won't harm where wages are concerned.
What may be classed as big clubs, or even comparable sized clubs as the Blades, tend to have wealthy owners who add to their Premier dividend, sometimes by some considerable margin. At the moment we don't have an owner capable of matching this input....and thus reality bites and we realise the extent of what's necessary to make any club more than the sum of it's parts.
Bournemouth are where they are, a Prem club (but for how long remains to be seen) who've existed several seasons at this level because they have a wealthy benefactor. It won't be fees that have enabled B'mouth to sustain their Prem place (I believe that their highest fee paid so far was for Solanke?), but they will have been able to pay decent Prem wages, hence it helped persuade our player, Brooks, to sign for Howe. Unfortunately for Brooks, he may be looking for our results next season whilst playing in the Championship. As wonderful as it is that we're a Prem club, and it's raised everyone's view of what's possible, we cannot remain stagnant. I've no doubt at all that the same thought has already crossed the mind of our manager and chairman, and that they'll already be planning to improve the salaries we pay as well as the fees that we'll have to confront if we wish to remain at this level.
Of course it's not all about money, the personnel that the club recruit, in our case the wonder team of Wilder and Knill, are as significant as anything else. But given the quality we have in this department the very next thing we need to address is the question of wages and fees. I know it's been discussed a lot recently, and no doubt will continue to be a hot topic amongst concerned Blade's fans, but I cannot stress too strongly, under no circumstances do we rush into any foolhardy plans to compete at a level that we're currently not equipped for. Everything that has taken us to this position, building carefully, intelligently, one eye on the present, the other on what's needed to progress, that's the only way we'll manage to push this club forward. It might mean losing players, it might also mean bringing in new, unproven players who have the potential to take their place. The very nature of football is that players come and go, sometimes when you least expect it to happen. Managers need to keep on their toes when it comes to recruitment, and in this respect I feel we have a first class guy in Chris Wilder who can identify a player with potential. Just how good is something that I feel will need far longer to make a judgement concerning CW's talent for spotting a good to great player. Can anyone recall what JOC was like when he first donned a Blade's shirt? Yet now he's as good a central defender as you'll find throughout most Premier division clubs. Clearly, Wilder and Knill's influence has helped turn JOC into something special, and that goes for many of what's turned out to be a superb first team squad built over the last three seasons.
I'm prone to eulogising about the team of Wilder and Knill, the work they've done, the work they continue to do. I'm not someone who offers blind loyalty, but what I do manage to do is judge someone on achievements, and up until now those achievements have left an indelible mark on Blade's fans no matter where they are. You support a team in the hope that they'll manage to achieve a modicum of success, no matter how relative that success is. You support them in the hope that your team might one day play amongst the most talented players and managers, and this season we've not just achieved that, we've shown that we're far more than Championship upstarts, we've shown that we sit comfortably amongst some genuinely world class talent, how amazing is that?
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