I'd like to see some decent sell-on clauses, and performance related bonuses added into the sale if they do go on the cheap
I thought the thread title was "lets have a sensible discussion" Darnell Furlong went for a rumoured £1.5M......he would walk back into our side now! McCarthy 3.5M for a player who has now amassed 73 Premier League starts! My god how we would love to have him between the sticks now instead of the dross we have to choose from now.
I think that's a case of looking at the past with the knowledge of today. Alex McCarthy was (at that point) a 'keeper who wasn't making it into our first team. Unless I've misremembered that. Getting £3.5m at that time was good value, even if he's worth £15m now. As for Darnell, yep, he'd walk back into our side now, but he's hardly much beyond a 'solid' championship right back, and I don't see how you get loads more than £1.5m for that, especially with sell on clauses etc.
I hope the answer is the next transfer window. I would love to see Eze and BOS as a foundation for next season’s team, but I fear they will go. If they do go, then I would expect fees of 20+ and 10+ mill for them respectively. Let’s see what will happen.
With the club still haemorrhaging cash - even before COVID19 - and revenue projections that must be real guesswork for the 20/21 season, the owners have some unenviable decisions to make on how to generate and spend the club's cash I don't know how much our new training facility will cost but Aberdeen's (opened October last year and next to where I was then working) cost £12m, and certainly from the outside doesn't look anything special. So that could be the entire Eze transfer fee gone for example I struggle to see how any more than a small fraction of any incoming transfer fees will be spent on strengthening the squad, bearing in mind that the club needs to remain FFP compliant
I thought at the time McCarthy was cheap but he was playing understudy to Smithies I think. They both went for 3.5M and even though Smithies hasnt yet reached the heights we expected I would love to have him back if we paid the same for him from incoming fees. I also think Freeman went cheap and Austin should have gone for double. Matt Philipps was probably a fair deal at 5.5M
I don't remember much a protest at the McCarthy fee at the time, not talking about you personally there, just generally. I tend to take quite a 'free market' view on transfers and think that most players, most of the time, go for about what they're worth, and that fans of a club are probably not well placed to judge their value due to the emotional connection. I think fans tend to ignore factors that buying clubs won't, like contract length, how competitive the demand is for that player, injury records, age, player power etc. There are, of course, many exceptions where players do go for too much or too little. Take Austin as an example - yes, he'd scored a lot of goals for us and others, but he was at the end of his contract, was an injury concern and was closer to 30 than 20. £4m might have been £8m with an extra year left on his contract which might have felt fairer. You look at his goalscoring record since leaving us and wonder if we really got such a bad deal.
McCarthy never got a chance for us. We were too busy persevering with Rob Green’s emotional breakdowns and kicking of an under-11 on a windy day.
Nor do I ! But throw in Chair and one of our Keepers we could be getting close. I think the training ground cost is outside the FFP calcs., and pre Covid anyway we were looking in better shape for FFP next season as a big loss 3years ago falls out of the calc.
Yes it is outside But it is the cash required that is the real issue Easy to get hung up on FFP but we need cash for any projects and I can't see the owners stumping up (say) £12m for a new training facility without a plan to get the cash in from another source
I thought I read somewhere the Owners were financing the Training ground in some way, but maybe that was a hopeful dream.
You misunderstand my point If the club is losing - say £12m a year - are the owners happy to continually fund that AND pay for a new training ground, or do they pay for the training ground but insist that the club has to reduce or eliminate its losses? I can't see them pumping ever more cash into the club given what they've already dumped and won't get back
I've always assumed that with those sorts of deals - training ground - that there are tax advantageous ways of financing, especially with loan rates favourable at present. With Amit as chair, I've also assumed we still have Mittal money coming in?? And the other Malaysians are not short of a bob or two and neither is Jamie Reuben. All that wealth and look where we are!!!
Having wealth and being willing to liquidate and spend it are two different things And even those with money eventually stop chucking it into a black hole!
James Reuben has just given an Oxford college near 12million...just to call it Reuben College.. But I fear he is jumping ship and is involved with the Newcastle take over...I hope he does not take Sir Les with him
Just guesswork but I'd have thought that given we now own that training ground instead of renting Harlington, it might be possible that we've got a mortgage type loan to cover the purchase and redevelopment of the new site. So the annual rent cost of Harlington saving goes towards whatever that payment is? Given how low interest rates are, it would seem a sensible approach.
I hear what you say, but it is mostly speculation. I don't know what the owners will/can do. But one other point is if the owners want some return on their investment in QPR, we have to get into the PL, and the sooner the better. The new training ground if Cat A may one day help us stay there, but not yet. Some moderate investment in players at least, within FFP rules ( whatever they maybe with Covid closed stadium) is needed to give us a decent chance of getting in to the PL in the next season or two.
