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Only in the English Football League could a relegation season featuring a minus points total and not a single home win conclude with the “mother of all parties”.

At Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday a sell-out crowd of almost 35,000 will gather to celebrate the end of their worst ever campaign, but also the start of a new era under US owners Arise Capital Partners LLC.

Lawyers worked through the night on Thursday to complete the takeover deal on Friday. A public announcement was due to follow but got pushed back to Saturday with assurances that “nothing sinister” was delaying the confirmation. Now the hard work starts.

While the group will finally get the keys to Hillsborough on Saturday morning, work has been going on furiously behind the scenes for months to piece together a club left broken by former owner Dejphon Chansiri.

Consortium members David and Michael Storch – alongside business partner Tom Costin, who has experience of football through his Blue Crow Sports Group – have impressed with both their industry and willingness to engage with the fanbase.

Big day tomorrow… pic.twitter.com/PFFCsa6tTl

— Sheffield Wednesday (@swfc) May 1, 2026

They’re already “along the way” with a director of football appointment, a new CEO is lined up, and potential signings are understood to be in the pipeline too.

“They’ve not put a foot wrong. They reached out to us in the early days when the club was for sale and talked to the Trust,” says Rob Brookes, a board member at the club’s Supporters Trust.

“They’re very engaged, they want to engage the Trust, all the fans, the artistic and music community. They’ve been in touch with the Mayor of South Yorkshire, the leader of the council – they’ve been all over the place, they’re so energetic.”

On Saturday fans will don Hawaiian shirts to celebrate “Honolulu Wednesday” – a tribute to a song sung on the terraces since the eighties – but the challenges really are considerable.

As it stands the club will start next season in League One with a 15-point penalty and the EFL were also planning to restrict the club to a £7m-a-year wage budget, with a maximum of £7,000-a-week for any player. Given the Owls have to rebuild an entire squad, that feels fairly onerous.

Sources indicated that detailed conversations with the EFL – described as “hard bargaining” – that have taken place over weeks have reduced those penalties, although part of the discussions has been strict secrecy over what has been agreed.

The Trust have previously suggested starting with those “Draconian” penalties would be a threat to the club’s very survival. But the fact Arise stayed at the table suggests there has been progress with the EFL.

“We hope they give us a fair fighting chance. It would be so unfair to impose those conditions on a new group of owners – especially when we’ve got to essentially rebuild an entire squad,” Brookes says.

The consortium have deep pockets and will need them. “Coming out of administration is almost the easy part for Sheffield Wednesday,” says football finance expert Rob Wilson, who provided advice and counsel to some of the interested parties in the early days of the takeover saga at Hillsborough.

“The club has decayed over the last decade and the stadium needs serious work. This is a £100m project at a bare minimum – that’s in terms of acquisition, redevelopment of infrastructure and more.”

The new owners have been undeterred. “Arise are going into this with their eyes wide open,” Brookes says.

“They know the club needs serious financial investment to get anywhere close to being back to being a competitive force.”

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My Sporting Life is The i Paper’s look behind the curtain at what drives sports stars to greatness. This week, we speak to former England footballer Rio Ferdinand, widely considered one of the best centre-backs of his generation, who is best known for his 12-year stint at Manchester United, where he won six Premier League titles and one Champions League trophy.

Making my debut for West Ham is probably my proudest moment

From the age of seven I was hell-bent on being a professional footballer. I worked for the majority of my life trying to get there. It’s difficult to pin it on one match.

I made my debut for West Ham at 17. So that meant a great deal to me. Playing for England was another one, and then becoming a winner at Manchester United.

As a player, there are things that you absolutely want to achieve. You want to become a professional, you want to play for your country and you want to win trophies. And I managed to achieve all three, luckily.

Iain Dowie was a good mentor to me at West Ham

He was a centre-forward but I think he spotted some potential in me. He was always giving me pointers. Obviously he used to play against me in training a lot, so he would tell me about certain things I should be doing to look my best.

The door was always open with me at Manchester United. I don’t think anyone found it difficult to talk to me. If you speak to any of the players, they would say I was one of the most easygoing guys in the changing room.

If a young player needed to talk or had a problem, they knew they could come to me for advice.

Joe Cole wouldn’t touch a football in the changing room

I didn’t notice it at West Ham, more so with England. It’s quite rare when you consider you’re going to go out and play football, you need to get a good touch of the ball and understand it and get used to playing with the football. But he made sure he never got near a ball.

If you rolled the ball towards him he would jump out of the way. He wouldn’t touch it. So quite weird.

We used to just play games and try and make him touch the ball. We used to roll the ball at him all the time. He never got the hump to be fair to him. He would laugh. But he just made sure he wasn’t going to divert from his ritual.

The best piece of advice Sir Alex Ferguson ever gave me

It was the first thing he said to me, actually. I remember we were sat in his office. It was quite simple, really – he told me to work hard.

I’d been given a great opportunity. People would give their right arm, a limb, to go and put the shirt on and play football. And I carried that with me throughout my whole career, to be a professional is a privilege.

The ones that think they’ve made it don’t last long at the top. Just keep maintaining that hunger and that desire and that kind of attitude of “I haven’t made it yet”. There’s always things to learn. So to rest on your laurels is something that I wasn’t able to do. I didn’t let myself slip into that mindset.

I only had two roommates – Roy Keane and Frank Lampard

They were both very different. I can’t tell you why [laughs]. I controlled the remote control in both cases, so that was good for the TV.

Frank was a bit more noisy. Whereas Roy, I would just turn around and he would be stretching his hamstring all the time. He was just mad, but it was great.

They are both great guys. I still speak to both of them now, actually, so it wasn’t too bad. We still keep in touch.

My kids take the mick out of my YouTube channel

I love it. It’s something that I’ve always been interested in. I’m not scared to dip my toe into new things.

I was one of the early adopters of social media, definitely in the football world. Now I’ve got a business that’s doing really well, but I’m enjoying it at the same time. It’s like the best of both worlds.

Failure is a part of life. If it doesn’t work out, it’s not that bad. I’ve always been one to take risks.

Airbnb and Rio Ferdinand are launching a once-in-a-lifetime football experience, where fans can go behind-the-scenes at a podcast recording of “Rio Ferdinand Presents”, meet Rio, and attend a Fifa World Cup 2026 quarter-final match in Los Angeles. Fans can request to book “The Ultimate Quarter-Final Getaway” for free from 12 May at 10am BST at airbnb.com/rioferdinand

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Eddie Howe faced a “challenging” meeting with Newcastle United‘s owners on Thursday but emerged with the confidence of a man who will get a chance to correct the mistakes made this season.

The much-discussed Matfen Hall “off-site”, which stretched into a second full day in the Northumberland sunshine on Friday, was split into two parts: business and football.

With assistant Jason Tindall alongside him Howe, along with head of performance James Bunce and director of football Ross Wilson, delivered a presentation alongside data-led analysis of performances and recruitment over the last year to a 25-strong PIF delegation that included lawyers, equity advisers and club chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

With the team floundering in the Premier League it felt like a big deal, but Howe said on Friday he felt “support and unity” as he predicted “exciting times” lay ahead.

The content of Howe’s presentation was provided to the PIF contingent weeks in advance, in order for the delegation to digest and rigorously examine the information being communicated, meaning this was no easy ride.

“It’s not an inquisition as such but they do pick holes in things. It’s not an easy ride and if you bulls**t him [Al-Rumayyan], he’ll catch you out,” believes one source.

Al-Rumayyan’s areas of interest include a potential multi-club model – which remains on the table at Newcastle, with preparatory work carried out in 2025 – player development, innovation and, interestingly, psychology.

He has asked before about ways of making the team more mentally robust, so the late collapses and game management are almost certain to have been on the agenda.

Several sources The i Paper has spoken to believe that Howe retains the support of the key power brokers. He has a good relationship with the club’s chairman and achievements on his watch give him “credit in the bank”.

But he is clearly going to have to change his approach, embrace a more collaborative recruitment approach and working with emerging players from markets Newcastle have not worked in previously.

Last summer’s transfer shambles has put him on the back foot and there’s a staleness around the squad that is troubling. The performance of some players suggests their heads are elsewhere.

Where Howe might be pushed is that Al-Rumayyan is big on growth and development. Currently there are unnerving parallels with his end of days at Bournemouth. The question confronting those at Newcastle is can this manager adapt and not just survive, but thrive?

“His Excellency believes everyone should strive to get better. Standing still or going backwards is a problem for him,” says one source familiar with PIF’s inner workings.

Newcastle sources have played down the idea that Howe was fighting for his job in front of his paymasters. That interpretation “over-dramatises” the annual meeting that has taken place regularly since the PIF takeover in 2021 but the run of form Newcastle are on – and the club’s trajectory this year – made the timing awkward for a manager under pressure.

The voices calling for change in the fanbase have grown and Newcastle need results, even if the manager projects authority.

“I have to retain that confidence. I don’t think it serves anybody not to have that long-term vision,” Howe said.

“I’ve never needed clarity in my head (about what the ownership think), in the sense that I’m here, I’m working and I’m committed.”

Howe has delivered Champions League football (twice) and the Carabao Cup, but the job now is more prosaic. They are still not mathematically safe from relegation and their last league victory at St James’ Park was way back on 4 March. That is utterly unacceptable.

“In my position, I am under no illusions I have to get results to keep that feeling, that strength and that trust and that will be regardless of whatever moment we’re in,” Howe said on Friday.

“I am well aware there is a responsibility that comes with the job.”

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For some, Leicester City’s fairy tale feels like yesterday. The 5,000-1 feat ended with Claudio Ranieri’s unlikely lads lifting the Premier League trophy before being serenaded by Andrea Bocelli.

Yet the 10-year anniversary of Leicester’s 2015-16 Premier League title win is also a reminder of how fast football moves.

That astonishing triumph was confirmed on 2 May, 2016, when Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur’s infamous “Battle of the Bridge” draw kickstarted the Leicester party at Jamie Vardy’s house.

Fast forward to May 2026 and the Foxes are on a downward spiral, their finances in tatters and League One football awaiting next season. They nevertheless marked the anniversary with a charity match at the King Power as Claudio Ranieri and Wes Morgan returned.

So what are Leicester’s title-winners up to now? One boxed a YouTuber, another switched to construction, while Christian Fuchs has a huge task as a manager in League Two.

Marc Albrighton

One of the final title-winning players to leave, Albrighton experienced relegation with Leicester and then played in their Championship-winning season before retiring in 2024. He has dabbled with punditry and kept the competitive juices flowing by playing in Baller League.

Danny Drinkwater

Leaving Leicester for Chelsea in 2017, he had loan spells at Burnley, Aston Villa, Kasimpasa in Turkey and then Reading. He opened up about boozy London nights while a Chelsea player on Jake Humphrey’s High Performance Podcast, and after falling out of love with football he started a new career in construction. Responding to trolls after posting a picture in his new job, he said: “Some of these messages, behave. I love being on-site grafting! It’s a choice.”

Throwback to this from Danny Drinkwater on Instagram…

He lived the dream, had a fantastic career and now runs a profitable construction company pic.twitter.com/N9DBE1qmVa

— The Away Fans (@theawayfans) April 1, 2026

Christian Fuchs

Joined MLS side Charlotte FC from Leicester in 2021 and retired two years later. Fuchs is now in Wales, where he manages League Two club Newport County. They are currently fighting for their EFL status, one point above the relegation zone.

Robert Huth

Injuries forced Huth to retire in 2019. He ended his career at Leicester and returned there in 2022 for a two-year stint as loan manager. Now does talks and evening shows on both his time at Stoke City and Leicester, joining Danny Simpson, Albrighton and Morgan on stage to reminisce about 2015-16.

Great time with these guys at De Montford Hall. What a turn out! Great event pic.twitter.com/UmH0wIZYMR

— robert huth (@robert_huth) November 3, 2025

N’Golo Kante

It was one season and out at Leicester for Kante, who was quickly snapped up by Chelsea and won the league there as well. The Frenchman spent seven seasons at Stamford Bridge, and is now at Fenerbahce in Turkey after three years at Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia.

Riyad Mahrez

Unlike Kante, Mahrez resisted the temptation to leave straight away but eventually joined Manchester City in 2018. The winger never quite replicated his 2015-16 campaign but was devastating for City on his day, winning four league titles, three EFL Cups, two FA Cups and the Champions League. He signed for Saudi side Al-Ahli in 2023.

Wes Morgan

Stayed at Leicester until retiring in 2021, bowing out by lifting the FA Cup in his last appearance. Post-retirement sidequests have included punditry, achieving a Masters in Sports Directorship, golf, and the latest fitness craze, Hyrox. Has also been a part-time academy scout for Nottingham Forest since 2024.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DWqjYQhDaYl/?img_index=1

Shinji Okazaki

Founded a German sixth-tier side FC Basara Mainz with a focus on developing Japanese players. Could never quite step out of Vardy’s shadow at Leicester and eventually left for Huesca in Spain in 2019. Spells at Cartagena, also in Spain, and then Belgian side Sint-Truiden followed before retirement in 2024.

Kasper Schmeichel

One of Leicester’s best servants, staying with the Foxes until 2022, Schmeichel’s departure was a signal of the club’s increasingly strained financial position. He spent a season at Nice and then Anderlecht, and currently plays for Celtic – initially reuniting with Brendan Rodgers, who was then sacked last year.

Danny Simpson

Kept busy since retirement, and still laces up for the odd amateur game, playing for both Stretford Paddock – a 12th-tier team – and Wythenshawe Vets, who have seen a high-profile list of ex-pros play for them, including Papiss Cisse, Stephen Ireland, Emile Heskey and also Drinkwater.

Simpson tried his hand at boxing – drawing against YouTuber Danny Aarons in 2024 – while last year he opened up a new bar and restaurant in Manchester. Like 90 per cent of the global population, he has also taken up padel.

Jamie Vardy

Arguably Leicester’s greatest ever player, Vardy scored 24 league goals to inspire the Foxes to glory in 2015-16 and stayed to lift the FA Cup in 2021.

The 39-year-old only left last summer after 13 years at the club and moved to Italy to play for Cremonese. ITV will broadcast a series later this year about how Jamie, wife Rebekah, and their four children are adapting to life abroad.

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CITY GROUND — They twirled their scarves in the air at the City Ground and they played the songs of old, those anthems of yesteryear that are suddenly back in fashion. This team has been through a lot over the years and a lot over the course of this season too. If it seems remarkable and ridiculous that it could still end in the fourth greatest season of their history, isn’t that just perfect Nottingham Forest.

Nothing is done, of course. It never could be on Thursday evening. But for the first time since more than a year ago, this is a team with truly positive momentum that believes it can bruise the noses of the supposedly bigger and better. That was their fuel last season. That was their fuel when Cloughie walked on the Trent. I hope you’re not stupid enough to write them off.

Chris Wood was the match-winner and may well be the season changer too. His recovery from a serious knee injury has – perhaps slightly inadvertently – altered the course of a campaign drifting towards who knows where. His penalty was pure and definitive and gave Emi Martinez no chance at all.

Wood’s return has allowed Vitor Pereira, the fourth and maybe most defining manager of Forest’s season, to switch formation. There are two strikers. There is high pressing and there are turnovers. There is Morgan Gibbs-White nominally starting out wide but basically acting as a magnet to wherever the ball is.

Near Gibbs-White is always Elliot Anderson; there was a passage of play in the second half, after Forest had scored their penalty, when the two exchanged five passes on the left wing, each more intricate and outrageous than the last. It persuaded the home crowd to ole while they were still wrought with tension. That’s what supreme talent does.

But for all of the improvements in Forest’s attack, they have conceded four goals in their previous nine games after five games without a clean sheet. That was the headline from Thursday night. Murillo was injured. Jair Cunha was injured. Morato had to play and was excellent. Ola Aina came off with an injury and academy product Zach Abbott came on.

And Neco Williams kept on keeping on, from minute one to 90 just like always. Of all the principal contenders to be Forest’s potential hero in Istanbul, if they get there, most will be midfielders or attackers. But Williams hasn’t just been one of the most consistent performers at the City Ground this season. He’s been arguably the best left-back in the Premier League this season and he was a contender for that same award in 2024-25 too.

WIlliams was one of the 2022-23 crop, that Nottingham Forest splurge that drew much mockery and opprobrium. Liverpool allowed him to leave for £17m because he was a young right-back and they had Trent Alexander-Arnold. Now Williams is comfortable on either side, comfortable going forwards and back, comfortable driving inside or crossing with his left and comfortable taking set pieces.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: Gibbs-White is stung by England exile – and Forest have reaped the rewards
• Daniel Storey: Stoke City are the most depressing club in English football

But it’s Williams’ one-on-one defending that is most impressive. He has a tigrish quality, a determination to compete for every ball and never give up whether he is faced with pace, guile, strength or a combination of all three. He is a tyro and a terrier and yet possesses the composure to start moves as well as block them. He is a future Wales captain, if they’re smart.

These are the qualities that Pereira has repeatedly insisted are non-negotiable, certainties if Forest are to push Aston Villa and keep their heads above water in the Premier League. Williams epitomises them.

As he wandered around the pitch after full-time, Williams’ forename was briefly sung on repeat by those who have grown to adore him. He still looks a little humbled, unsure of whether he is the right actor for the protagonist role. But make no mistake: he leads by example and by attitude.

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If Everton come up short in the race for European qualification this season, there will be more than a pang of regret for David Moyes.

In his second stint at Everton, Moyes is a man in a hurry. While the club’s football leadership team is building for the long-term – with the ambition of establishing themselves alongside the likes of Aston Villa and Newcastle United as regulars in gatecrashing the Champions League places in the next year or two – the Scot believes there is no time to waste.

That is why when some see issues for Everton qualifying for Europe – the squad would need significantly more than the planned-for four or five major signings to cope with the expanded fixture list – he sees a golden opportunity. And it is a chance that, if Newcastle, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea get their act together, might not be as easy to achieve as this season.

After stumbling in recent weeks, it now looks like a long shot. Three wins from their final four matches – starting with Monday night’s visit of title-chasing Manchester City – might be required.

Whatever ultimately ends up happening, the club have progressed. On and off the field, where a £30m front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with CMC Markets has been struck, there is confidence going into a summer where Everton – who have funds and scope to make first team-ready additions – intend to be “front foot” and attack the transfer market.

Ambitious targets – and Grealish optimism

First through the door is likely to be the returning Jack Grealish, with sources understood to be increasingly confident that a deal can be struck with City to extend the England winger’s time on Merseyside.

Everton are hoping for another loan, having committed around £12m to his first year, and there is a belief that Grealish’s desperation to return to the Hill Dickinson Stadium will help negotiations with City, which will open at the end of the season.

Beyond that, Everton’s approach will be fascinating. The dynamic between the football leadership board, who will lean into data and analytics, and Moyes is a fascinating one.

The Everton manager, for example, was advocating that the club speculated to accumulate in January, pushing for experienced signings that would strengthen their push for Europe.

In the event the club, mindful of financial restrictions that have landed the club in trouble in the recent past, decided to keep their powder dry ahead of what one source suggested would be a “big summer” at the club. Now they have decisions to make.

Striker and right-back at the top of the wishlist

The club desperately need a striker and – whatever happens next with Thierno Barry after a decidedly mixed first season following a £27m move from Villarreal – they intend to add another forward.

There is some support for reviving interest in Liam Delap, who opted to move to Chelsea last year and is likely to be made available this summer for around the £30m he cost 12 months ago, but it is by no means unanimous. His first season at Stamford Bridge represents a red flag to some and other well-placed sources believe the club are more likely to turn to the European market again, given inflated Premier League prices.

Right-back is a priority area but two centre-back names being explored are Arsenal’s England defender Ben White and John Stones, who is understood to be keen to remain in the North West when he leaves City in the summer.

The 31-year-old spent three years at Everton – working with Moyes for six months – and possesses the  leadership qualities and experience that the Toffees coach believes will be key to moving the squad forward.

Contract extensions incoming

There will also be continuity, with Everton close to triggering a year extension in the contract of left-back Vitalii Mykolenko. There is also a desire to extend Idrissa Gueye’s spell for another year, but that extension requires the veteran midfielder to agree. It is not viewed as a certainty that he will stay.

And Everton insiders remain confident that midfielder Merlin Röhl and Tyler Dibling, who has been used sparingly this season, will come good after slow first years.

Conversations with agents ahead of the summer have been positive. There is a sense that Everton is once again seen as a “destination”, with Grealish’s presence and the excellent form of the likes of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and James Garner giving them a platform to sell themselves to potential targets.

“Whatever happens this season, we’re absolutely moving in the right direction,” one source says.  

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It’s complicated, but to quickly summarise Burnley’s financial position; they are not in as perilous a position as people think. The major cause for concern is the club’s footballing strategy.

Given they have debts of around £115m, most of which came because of owners ALK Capital’s leveraged takeover of the club in 2020, there were fears a fire sale of players would again be needed to simply stay afloat next season.

While £200m of new recruits over the past few years failed to even make a fight of it back in the Premier League, off the field, The i Paper has learned that financial restructuring on loans taken out to fund their transfer market failings is under way.

“ALK and Velocity [Sports Partners, the sports investment arm of ALK Capital] are manipulating what they know – finances,” one source says.

“Managing the football side and communication is a very different story.

“There is a certain level of arrogance, audacity in ALK/Velocity believing that they can replicate the operations of Tony Bloom and Matthew Benham [at Brighton and Brentford] when nobody at the club comes from that modelling background and has not been refining their capabilities in the field for the best part of 30 years or more.”

Brighton and Brentford’s Moneyball approach, taking a strong data element to their recruitment approach, before selling their incredible finds for hundreds of millions and still progressing, has reached new heights this season, with qualification for next season’s Champions League, astonishingly, still a possibility for both.

Burnley tried it on their last sojourn in the Premier League under Vincent Kompany – spending money his predecessor Sean Dyche could only dream of – in 2023-24. All it did was saddle the Lancashire side with even more debt, and very few points.

The policy – to build, maintain and develop a core of young, inexperienced players mixed in with some seasoned pros – remains one similar to that of Kompany’s ill-fated top-flight campaign.

“The club appear to be in the early part of this new strategy that unfortunately has seen few positive signs and has left a significant proportion of the fanbase having no faith in the owner, recruitment team, the manager and his coaching team, along with many of the players,” a source adds.

“There remains a need to reduce the size of the squad. Outgoings are expected and if they are fringe players, it could easily be around 10 or more – there are so many injured and out on loan. Plus there are a few who don’t look like they will make the grade

“There should, unlike last time, not be the need to sell more than one or two of the core group.”

ALK completed a takeover of Espanyol earlier this season, a team tipped to challenge for the Champions League places. Instead, the La Liga side are just above the relegation zone.

“There remains a need to reduce the size of the squad,” a source continues.

“Outgoings are expected and if they are fringe players, it could easily be around 10 or more – there are so many injured and out on loan. Plus there are a few who don’t look like they will make the grade

“There should, unlike last time, not be the need to sell more than one or two of the core group.”

To bring in much of the current crop, Burnley took on what are effectively payday loans, adding to worries over finances.

Burnley entered into a £40m factoring agreement with London-based Fasanara Capital in January 2025; this means that a proportion of incoming transfer fee instalments goes to them rather than the club. This factoring loan is thought to close in January 2027.

There has been no refinancing at the club since it borrowed a reported nine-figure sum from American private equity group MGG in January 2024, to pay off £89m in debts and gain some additional funds.

Around 75-80 per cent of the debt, upon release of the club’s last accounts, was scheduled to have been paid off by the close of this financial year, the majority of that last season. The next accounts should confirm this when they are shown at Companies House early next month. The current loans are scheduled to end in 2028.

One potential problem that could put a severe dent in the finances is that midfielder Florentino’s loan move is understood to have an obligation to make the deal permanent at the end of the season, taking the total fee to around £22.5m, just under their club record.

The squad is evidently not good enough for the Premier League. But is it even capable of securing another immediate return to the top flight?

“No team has ever yo-yoed three times consecutively and next year’s Championship will possibly one of the hardest ever to get out of, given who is going down and the possibility of the likes of Southampton, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Wrexham and Birmingham City alongside the relegated trio,” another source adds.

“Some may be complacent about Burnley’s last four seasons in the Championship each with automatic promotion, earning 93, 93, 101 and 100 points respectively in the process.

“All of that was done with key players signed by Sean Dyche – there are none left now and there is nowhere near the same knowhow or fight in what is there now.”

Some names could leave. Zian Flemming has impressed and scored goals. Former Manchester United midfielder Hannibal Mejbri could attract suitors, as could Maxime Esteve and Jaidon Anthony.

Top earner Kyle Walker is expected to leave, too. However, that is about it in terms of players whom the club would struggle to keep. Another damning indictment on a transfer policy where past mistakes have simply not been addressed.

Read more

• Michael Hincks: Birmingham City and the big ‘what-if’
• Daniel Storey: Stoke City are the most depressing club in English football

Whether Scott Parker stays put remains to be seen, with Steven Gerrard understood to be a potential option should he leave. Whoever is in charge is nonetheless likely to have a more settled squad than many of his relegated predecessors. The jury is still out on whether that is a good or a bad thing.

“I think we are more likely to do a Leicester,” another source says. “The recruitment has been that bad.”

Burnley did not respond to The i Paper’s requests for comment.

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