Why Sammy must stay...

Last week was a bad week for Sky Blues fans, further revelations of just how dire our financial position is.

News of taking out a mortgage against next seasons season ticket income, simply to pay the wages for June and avoid another transfer embargo is quite frankly and embarrassing situation for us to find ourselves in. Granted the wages for June would have included high earners such as King, Westwood, Carsley, Mcindoe et al, but it does raise questions about how serious the attempts to re-sign King, Westwood and Gunnarsson were (three of the better players in a squad that only finished 17th last season).

Once this news was public, it seemed obvious that clubs would begin to circle and think they could get our players on the cheap, and on Friday morning Sky Sports broke the story that Leeds were interested in Sammy Clingan, our captain, our playmaker, our set piece taker, and quite frankly our best player.

Rumours of a bid vary from a paltry £200k upto £1million, but quite frankly we can not afford to let him go, and whilst Andy Thorns suggestion that he is not for sale was good to hear, I and many others do not trust this board to do the right thing.

The have a history of incredible short-term fixes, and if Leeds do offer cash then i believe they will take it, in another attempt to cover a couple of months losses.

In his two seasons at the club, Clingan has made 62 league appearances, scoring 5 goals, all in his first season, however he was taken off Free-kick duties (where the majority of his goals came from) whilst Marlon King was at the club.

Those 62 games have seen us rack up 79 points, averaged out over a season of 46 games would see us get roughly 59 points which would have seen us placed 13th in Clingans first season here, and 16th last season, both times higher than we finished, and positions I'm sure most city fans would be happy with for the upcoming season.

Of the 62 games, we have won 19, giving Clingan a success rate of 30.6%, and drawn 21 (33.8 %).

Compare these figures to when Clingan has been out of the team either through injury, or the bizarre fact of Aidy Boothroyd seemingly preferring Michael Doyle at the start of last season, and it shows what could be in store if we were to sell...

Clingan has missed 30 league games, since signing for the club, during these 30 games we have amassed just 28 points, averaged out over a season this record would see us get 43 points. this would have seen us relegated into League one in 2009/10, or surviving by a single point last season.

When Clingan misses games our win percentage drops to just 26.7 %, and we draw just 23.3%, and any budding mathematicians should therefore see we have lost exactly half the games where we have been missing the Northern Irish international.

These figures paint a poor picture of what life would be like without Clingan, and so I beg SISU to look at the longer-term future for once, and to turn down any bids for Sammy, as if he goes i fear the club will soon follow