Transfer Rumours Transfer Rumours - Summer 2018

Ok, last time i'm going to go on about our transfer dealings, as I feel this is where the clubs PR towards the supporters is very poor. They leak out bits to the media about having to sell before buying, FPP, building Staplewood etc etc. Well i'm sorry, but every other club has to play by FPP, and most premier clubs also have outstanding training facilities. Take little old Bournemouth for example. They have a 12k stadium, have been fined in the past for breaking championship spending, however , spend way more than the so called big rival up the road.

As ive said in the past, I never expect the club to go out and spend £50 - £60 net every season, but I do think its reasonable to think that the club could lose the purse strings, when it is glaringly obvious and has been for 3 seasons, that we need to strengthen attacking areas of the team.

Sell to buy was never going to work forever, as if you make a few bad buys, which will always happen, as it has done with the likes of Boufal, Carillo etc, you have very little to sell, if you are wanting to upgrade?

Taking away the top 6, here is a list of approx spending this transfer window, of the other clubs, who lets be honest, premier league survival is the main aim.

SAINTS -£45 MILLION ( as we all know that is the VVD money gone) (Net spend now in last 4 seasons is +£3 MillionProfit approx)

West Ham - £74 Million
Fulham - £65 Million
Brighton - £45 Million
Everton - £32 Million
Huddersfield - £31 Million
Wolves - £28 Million
Cardiff - £28 Million
Bournemouth - £26 Million
Burnley - £15 Million
Palace - £10 Million
Leicester - £5 Million

Watford + £23 Million
Newcastle + £17 Million

Don't spend money for the sake of spending, but some times when there are obvious weaknesses, you'd think the club should have some money down the back of the sofa, to spend?

 

oh dear.

 

The likes of West Ham, Everton, Wolves and Fulham have not spent to ensure PL survival. Everton´s target will be the EL and a points haul of around 60. West Ham´s management will be extremely disappointed if they only get around 60 points. They will be demanding 70 points. And what targets have the SFC board set Mark Hughes? Oh PL survival or something like 40 points. Not good enough!!!!

 

And how exactly is that the Markus model when he died almost 3 years beforehand?

It's also a bit silly to suggest that we're only doing that to live within our means, we earn a **** load of money and frankly if we're selling to balance the books then it's more than a tad concerning.

 

#MeltdownMondays

 

If you take wages into account we've almost certainly spent a lot more than all but West Ham due to us being in the league longer. Less financial commitments and all that. It's these long contracts on average players that's ****ed us.

 

I don't think having a discussion on the clubs ambition or where its going is a Meltdown. The problem is the club is mute when it comes to communication with the fans, so we have to have our own discussions on forums like this one. Which is great by the way

 

Everton spend more, Palace have Benteke on over 100k per week, Leicester have Vardy etc on over 100k per week, Fulham have Schurrle who is probably earning more than any player at our club??

 

My point is that I would hope that a PL club's scouting set up employing expert professional scouts would do more than read Wiki and what a few numpties on a football fan's forum think.


Edit: And a youtube video ( there's is probably one out there of him playing like Messi too)

 

Wasn't including the top 8, didnt notice you included everton. We spend slightly more than Leicester on wages and they only have +5m so similar to ours. We certainly spend more than palace.

 

Btw we can still lose Forster to a foreign club after the season starts right? Bit longer to hope to get rid of some of his wages.

 

Only messing around mate

I actually agree with most of what you wrote and it's a good post, would probably be worth pointing out that I think that I think it's more wages now that mean we need to sell before buying.

 

we can lose him to a championship club after Thursday

 

No you're right TLL. Problem is we have paid to many players to high a wage, which I think was probably meant to keep team unity and not have one or two big so called star players.
From what I have heard Gabbiadini is the highest on around £80k per week, which is probably the main reason he hasn't gone back to Italy this summer?
Closely followed by Forster, Austin and Bertrand on around £70k per week.
Unlike say Palace for example who pay Benteke around £120k per week and Zaha and Sakho around £100k per week.

 

It's the hope...

 

Forster will be a last day deal. Probably waiting for other transfers to happen. Could see him going to somewhere like Stoke if they sell Butland? They've just loaned Williams from Everton who earns around the same as Forster, so deals can be done for players on big wages.

 

Yeah but then they will have quite a few on like £20k. Our issue, as you mentioned, is that we have a pretty small difference between our top earner and lowest earner in the first team squad. Someone posted a link up the other day of salaries which looked feasible and Gabbi was top on £80k and lowest was £40k. This ****s us as £80k isn't enough nowadays to keep anyone who is really good and the average players will be hard to move on if they are earning £50k+. But because we have them all on high wages we can't afford to offer £100k+ to the best players.

The Palace model of paying the best players big wages is a far better one in my view, although Zaha is still supposedly leaving this window.

 

This is what I'm saying, there has been some serious mis management and as far as the fan in the stand is concerned, no one has been made accountable for what has gone on.
We are allegedly paying the likes of Boufal, Romeu, Lemina and Soares £65k per week, then Davis, Long, Redmond and Hoedt £60k per week. No wonder why we can't shift some of these players.

 

I actually think that rather than the top earners causing the issue it's the amount of 'middle tier' earners we have whose contribution doesn't match. I mean according to that list that was posted last week both Gallagher and Stephens are on 40k+ ffs

Throw in the likes of Long and Davis who (despite my love for them both) don't contribute anywhere enough now to be earning that sort of money at a smaller club and it's easy to see how we got into this situation.

 

I just hope that the club does the right thing by the player, I don't think for one minute that Fraser will want to stay here as third choice with little chance of getting any first team action. At this stage of his career he needs to be #1 at a club and if that means that we have to contribute to his wages, then so be it