I realise their squad will be decimated and even if free transfers are brought in they will incur sizeable signing on fees, but they will at least get rid of extremely high earners in Hughes, Brown, Nugent and Smith. Those four alone will free up wages for 10 or 12 NPC players.
Cleaning out the massive Prem wage earners is half the battle when a team goes down, although that has to be balanced with retaining some quality. Unfortunately in Haim they have an expense that offers no return at all. That said, Cotterill will have a much cleaner slate to work with this summer. The key for him is how quickly he can start adding to it, as last season he didn't start that process till it was almost too late. The best frees need to be tapped up now. The longer the takeover saga goes on the harder it will be.
I'm surprised Liam O'Brien is not seen as ready to step up to being Ashdown's number 2.