They wanted £3m loan fee I guess we haggled down to nearer £2m , how do you know we are only paying half his wages ? Where do you get £20k week from ? I would guess he's on at least £40k week . Marriot scored over 30 goals last season and is still very young, very little risk in my opinion. One positive is that his contract expires next May so if he does well for us we may be able to sign him on a free next year.
Grant Hanley has been named the new team captain! I’m happy with that, I presume everyone else is too?
Squad numbers have also been revealed. Largely gaps being filled with the rest of the squad retaining last seasons shirt number so not much to be read into with that. Most notable I would say is Ben Godfrey being handed the number 4 shirt. But it could really mean nothing as 2,3 and 5 remain with Pinto, Husband and Martin respectively
I really can’t see him staying, with Marshall, Passlack and Aaron’s here, Ben Godfrey has also previously done a good job at RB. High wages too I reckon he will be off. Has he featured in pre-season at all? Did he travel to Germany?
Can't remember him playing in pre season, shame because I like him but seem like we have good options there.
It will be interesting to see if Pinto or Oliveira feature in the squad for the Charlton game. Particularly the latter given Rhodes missing out in this one
I think they are as good as gone just hope we can get some money back on them and in Oliviera's case we dont pay him to play whilst on loan. Hell we could even charge someone £3m a year to hire him? Nelson scored 7 times all in the Championship 26 years old Rhodes 5 in the Championship 2 in the Carrabu cup. 28 years old Marriott 27in League 1, 5 in the FA cup . 23 years old
Pinto given #2 shirt, Nelson given #9. Interesting. I don’t think Farke likes either of them, and thought they would leave. Maybe not.
OK DD - let's see who scores more this season between Marriott and Rhodes. 2 pints on it. Don't forget there are lies, damned lies and STATISTICS!!!!
My argument was that calling players names like "butterfingers" is based on precious little evidence. A long ball was allowed to bounce by the defence and Ben Godfrey (who I admire greatly) lost his man and was two steps behind when he ran through on Matthews and scored. Godfrey received no flack, but Matthews was called "butterfingers". Both shared the blame, but only one was blamed. Instead, Matthews was written off as "butterfingers". Is that fair? Not in my book. I understand that every player competes for his position and that is the way it should be. The difference for me is that DF says that Matthews has a good chance of becoming our number one keeper. He doesn't denigrate players, he wants to develop them. That's the difference.
We have looked much better since we signed him, I believe he captained Blackburn Rovers at an early age and is an improvement on Pinto and Martin in terms of impetus to the team . Also shows the intentions of Farke. It would appear the German has had run ins with the Portugese boys. I hope Germany massively failing in the World cup will galvanize the Germans into pushing the limits. There was also the slow bouncy one that trickled past him in the previous game and a few other "Iffy" moments. Farke clearly felt the same and we have in a direct response to this signed Krul. Butterfingers has possibly strengthened our chances of doing well next season so it could turn out as a blessing in disguise that he made the cock-ups.
Michael Bailey claimed it was around £1.5m with a “chunk” of his £40kpw wages paid (but not all). I think that is a v good deal for a striker with superb pedigree, even if only a season tbh. All signings are a risk. A lot of strikers have a dip in form from around age 25-27, weirdly. One thing I saw was somebody wrote that Rhodes’ best form at Blackburn coincided with Ben Marshall...
Wouldn’t be surprised if our bid never came close for Marriott at an early stage, so we didn’t even bother pursuing it. And a very different striker to Oliveira or Rhodes so he probably would not have heen right for the system in Farke’s plans. No point ruing missing out on him if he was never on the cards.
I think the deal for Pukki ended any interest we may have had in Marriott as they are similar strikers, and getting him on a free could be the best business we've done this window. Two accomplished strikers for around half of what we'd have paid for Marriott (if we could have outbid Derby). You could say that the remaining money financed Buendia and Marshall, both of whom look very promising.
I wouldn't be unhappy if this was the starting 11 for next Saturday, with Rhodes replacing SirBenny!!!! Strong bench as well - Matthews (GK), Godfrey, Zimmermann, Aarons, Buendia, Stiepermannn, Thompson, Marshall, Cantwell. I see we have Matthews instead of the McGovern twins!!!
