Snowflake RoyalMr Angry Re: Sidwell.
First thing to say - SJM was NOT happy at the thought of paying large wage increases to existing players simply because they had - in his mind - done the job they were paid to do, and he saw the wage inflation that came with the promotion as a curse....
My understanding at the time was that he/his agent was approached in the Summer of 2006 by the club with an offer which he/his agent didn't think valued him highly enough.
In the January, Chelsea offered him a substantial raise both compared to Sidwell's then salary, and what we had offered in the Summer of 2006, and he committed to joining Chelsea at that time.
Later in the Season, we offered him more money than Chelsea did, but he decided to turn that down, and still join Chelsea.
Also, by leaving on a free, he would have got a substantial signing on fee.
As for the numbers, I heard figures at the time but frankly, its all irrelevant now - water under the bridge.
However, I will give an illustration of SJM's view of salary offers; Coppell told the story of why Matty Upson failed to join the club.......
.....basically, Upson was very keen to join; he loved the club, loved being adored by the fans, and really wanted to be part of what was happening here. Arsenal indicated that they were happy to release him and for us to talk to the player, so it was decided that, before we spoke transfer fees with Arsenal, we would make an offer to Matty and take it from there.....
.......so, SJM and Coppell met with Matty and his agent; SJM gives all the gushing spiel, how we wanted to have Matty as the club captain, build the team around him, valuable asset for us etc etc etc, and then came the offer.
It was 23% of the salary Matty was on at Arsenal.
Whilst Matty's agent sat there with his mouth open, Matty looked at Coppell and laughed, before he and his agent said "thank you Mr Chairman", got up, and left.
There's a fairly major issue with that story. Upson was with us on loan until December 2002 and Coppell didn't join us until October 2003.
Mr A has mixed up Coppell with Pardew but it's pretty much ( I think he said it worked out as a third of his current salary ) what Pardew said happened at a Fans Forum on the subject at the time.
Worth remembering that this was not that long after the disastrous Burns period where Madejski was on a Tax Dodge in Malaysia and in his absence we paying fortunes in Transfer Fees/ Wages in the 3rd Tier. Madejski became very big on performance related salaries after this. I suspect the initial Sidwell offer in the summer we got promoted would have been considerably bigger when linked to a Top Half Finish as it likely was.