Are we seeing the starts of a slightly different train of thought with the new chairman now in place?

In the past when it's come to contract talks with players the publicity from the club has always emphasised on the fact that we have a wage structure in place and offers would be made in line with that.

I've noticed that during this transfer window and leading up to it the response to these queries from the club has been a bit different.  Not once in any press article, in the Q&A session we did with Alan Savage or in any interviews with CC have we heard the "wage structure" being mentioned.

We still get comments about having to watch the budget etc, but we are also hearing a lot of talk about players being given not only enhanced offers but "Greatly Enhanced Offers".

This point only struck me tonight when I was listening to CC's post match interview when he was asked about Dods and he made the above statement.  Dods has said that he wants to move at the end of the season and it was mentioned earlier in the season that he was looking for a deal that would take him through to the end of his playing days.

All in all I can't help but wonder if having a new man at the helm has brought a different line of thought to the whole "wage structure" issue and the club are now taking player salaries/packages a bit more seriously than some of us might have thought they did in the past.  Granted we saw David Sutherland play hardball with the grocer at the start of the season, but I feel that we are maybe seeing a bit more value in retaining players than we are in letting them go for any and all offers received, and we are in fact looking to push the player salary budget a bit more.

Whether that comes at the expense of bringing in "bigger" players or not is yet to be seen, but I think that the early signs are pretty positive and we might finally be starting to view ourselves as a bit bigger than we may have done the last 2 or 3 seasons.

I think at times CD that us laypersons tend to conclude that when mention is made of wage structure and enhanced offers we tend to link them together.

In truth an enhanced offer could easily be made without breaking from the wage structure. i.e. a players total package is structured to include a signing on fee, a term of contract, a basic salary and various bonus's based on things like appearances, wins etc. This is the wage structure that a club will try and stick to. Whereas an enhanced offer could easily mean a little more money in basic, a little more in signing on fee, longer term contract and may even include the club paying the agents fee. It may be that the enhancement is x £'s a week more but the deal is for a longer term. This still fits in with the structure because if, for example, we offer another £300 a week for a three year deal, in two and a half years we will have paid the guy £39k extra before he comes back to the table to negotiate further, whereas, if we give him £200 a week over two years, although we pay him less (£15600) after eighteen months he's going to be back looking for another signing on fee and even more money which would likely, if we want to keep him, result in us paying out even more in the long term. Does all that make sense?

maybe our big North American tie-up will turn out to be a link to the LA Galaxy and we'll be able to arrange a wee loan deal with them and learn how to finance a saaccer club

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I know what your getting at Alex and I agree. 

What I was trying to focus on was that the phrase "wage structure" seems to have gone and is no longer being trotted out by the Board, The Manager and the players when interviewed on such things.  It used to be the standard excuse for us not being able to hold on to players, but no longer seems to be part of the defensive arsenal.  In other words, the club etc are making positive noises about negotiations instead of the usual, much expected, negative.

I think most of us will realise that, strict wage structure or not, we have to continue to keep wages etc affordable, but the emphasis on 'one team one pay deal' seems to have gone and perhaps the club have realised that we do have players who are justifiably worth more than others and are making changes/offers accordingly.

Nothing may have changed other than attitudes to such things, but even if that is the case, I still think it's a plus point that perhaps those involved are seeing us/themselves a little less as the "wee team" and more on a level playing field with others and that's increasing positive talk - something thats not happening all the time (e.g. CC's constant mention of "a club of our size") but it is a shift in the right direction.

I tend to agree with all that's been said.

Even in the past our wage structure has not been as rigid as has often been suggested, while that was true of basic weekly or monthly salary the club have, in the past, created exceptions by paying, for instance, enhanced signing on fees by instalments together with other similar departurtures from the basic structure.

It seems to me tht there is now a great deal more of this under the Savage regime for certain players that we are particularly keen to recruit or retain as well as a fairly healthy accross the board increase for the entire first team squad.

Nevertheless, the club remain constrained overall in what we can offer players due to our relatively modest turnover but, unlike the majority of SPL clubs, be have no large burden of debt to service, as a result of which we have moved over the course of the last two and a half years from having far and away the smallest overall budget for players wages to being not far short of being able to compete on a level financal playing fied with the likes of St Mirren, Falkirk and Dunfermline.

The longer we can retain our SPL status and grow the commercial side of the business the better we will be able to compete financially with other clubs in the league.

Note to Pele_is_god...

I didnt mean it to sound offensive action man sorry.

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