Chris Lepkowski has insisted that despite new takeover talk at West Brom, the situation remains that the wage bill needs to be lowered.
It is suggested that a new injection of capital could reduce that damage, but a “big few weeks” are looming ahead of a potential change of ownership at The Hawthorns.
John Percy reported on 12 December that a takeover was close with Guochuan Lai set to grant exclusivity to a preferred bidder before Christmas arrives.
He wrote on X: “The takeover news from a few days ago is certainly encouraging but the situation remains that the wage bill needs to be reduced irrespective of any acquisition.
“An injection of capital via a new investor may obviously reduce this damage. But the level of governance needed to rubberstamp an acquisition will require a period of time.
Warning.
This is a message to prevent everyone from getting carried away with celebrating a potential new takeover, as it will take time to get everything back to what we would call a so-called normality.
With plenty of debt loaded onto the club, that will need to be sorted and that doesn’t happen overnight so even if it does happen before January, change may not come.
Takeovers have not been proven to be that easy in the EFL this season though, with a longer timescale and wait for agonising fans seemingly on the table.
Given the trouble at West Brom recently, it may mean an even longer wait too.
January can go one of either two ways, either players simply need to be sold or a risk can be taken with potential new owners and funding coming in to bring some players in for once.
Time will tell, but answers should come out gradually as the days and weeks go by over Christmas, and hopefully they are positive ones with everything crossed.
