Wednesday have single-handedly pillaged our team and then they wonder why a lot of our fans hate them. We have a team of great scouts who find undiscovered/underrated players on the cheap and then clubs like Wednesday throw 5 times more money at them as soon as they get the chance. It sucks being a small club, how are they meant to keep together a good group of players? Vaulks was a solid player for us and he's a long throw specialist, any throw-in in the last third of the pitch is practically a corner and now with Smith you have a pretty potent combination (Ihiekwe is decent in the opponents box as well). Oh and when Vaulks scores he does a nice flip to celebrate. We offered new contracts to both Smith and Ihiekwe but Wednesday are rumoured to have offered £14k in wages. We simply can't compete with that. A lot of our fans will be hoping they're all a big flop like Stevie May, Lewis Wing etc. but they've all been great players for us with fond memories.
Same as our dressing room. I just hope we have a good contingency plan with some replacements already lined up, only yesterday Warne was saying on the radio that he was confident at least one of them would stay. Whoops! Who knows losing Smith might be a blessing for us as we'll have to play less direct. It's fair to say we have a strong midfield we just need a prolific goalscorer at Championship level and some defenders, easier said than done though on a shoestring budget.
I almost forgot about Deon Burton, another player who did well for us that Wednesday nicked. Bastards. Hire some proper scouts.
Did Rotherham make any efforts to tie them up earlier? Surely, as they were pissing the division, they could have put something on the table contingent upon promotion, with a more modest pay rise had they stayed down. Of course, it's not difficult to envision Smith turning any offer down, as he was sure to have options coming off that season ... but if you couldn't have tied him down in, say, January, surely you had no chance come the Summer.
I think they were offered deals last winter but Smith reportedly wanted to see what division we would be in before putting pen to paper. I think with him signing for a League One side it's clear he doesn't care what division he is in so like you said just keeping his options open. I'd say he just wanted a huge pay rise on the back of a good season. You can't really blame him for doing what's right for his family, it's just annoying that we can't hold onto players whenever a big club flashes some cash.
Wednesday scouts have been sent out on an emergency visit to Scotland. https://www.themillers.co.uk/news/2...defender-with-deal-to-be-finalised-next-week/