If we end up with a weaker squad at the end of the window it'll tell you all you need to know about our ambition...
According to the Evening Standard (yeah, I know), the Brentford goalkeeper, David Raya is attracting interest from Chelsea and Tottenham in this window, so maybe Brentford are looking at Dieng as his replacement. Has a horrible ring of truth to it. As others have said, I wish we had engineered it so that our best players were on longer contracts than is currently the case but who knows what has been offered and discussed behind the scenes.
Critchley says an alleged £3m bid for Dykes from Millwall rejected (WLS). Apparently Stoke and Burnely also interested in him.
Well, bidding war for Dykes would be no bad thing. I assume no one here would be that sad to see him go for £4-5m and then for us to get in two decent L1 prospects. I think I like Dykes more than many on here, but he's certainly got his limitations and I'm surprised Millwall are bidding £3m for him.
That's an interesting bid (£3m) for Dykes. Perhaps if they added McNamara to the offer, there might be a deal to be done. Young right back with potential, what's not to like? It's not as if we're going to be able to keep Laird after this season, is it? And how can Millwall afford £3 million when we struggle to put together a 7-figure bid for anyone?
I agree we are a selling club and have to be realistic. A low fee for Dieng would add salt in that particular wound but I think he is one of the best keepers we have had in a long time and there are others I'd sooner sell: Dykes for £3million+ being a prime example.
On goal scoring record alone Dykes wouldn't be a big miss but he offers a bit more, we just rarely play to his strengths. We don't have anyone else in his position either so hearing the club are open to offers might suggest they are confident of getting a striker in. Unless we're using Lowe.
Lowe isn't a number 9, but maybe we let Dykes go and play without one. As you say, we don't play to his strengths anyway.
I think we need a mobile holding man like Dykes to make space for the likes of Lowe, Roberts, Chair, Willock etc. Now we have Lowe in and Roberts suddenly scoring, we look like we may have some goals in us. Dykes is also very useful defensively at set pieces. If we are going to sell him this month we will need to sell him for enough to bring in another big striker of his type, plus whatever we need to keep us safe on the rolling 3 year FFP situation. If there is more than one Club interested in him, any bidding war and him being an International striker should help us raise that fee.
In my opinion, even if we played exactly to his strengths, he isn’t good enough at anything, often enough. Generally, his touch and finishing is abysmal. Anything over 4 million and I'd snatch their hand off.
This is where January transfers are nuts..... 31 year old Danny Ings signed by West Ham on a 3 year contract for....... wait for it........£15MILLION......... plus his no doubt lucrative wages...... He'll be 34 when his contract is up with no sell on value....... say he's on £30k a week, possibly more, it will cost West Ham almost €20MILLION over that 3 year period........madness No wonder teams in the Championship can't compete without parachute payments.......
Or Fat Frank could be sacked if they don't beat West Ham - who'd be a manager, eh? Except for the massive pay-offs when they get the boot and jump back on the old-boys merry-go-round
How about a manager swap? So Moyes back to Everton (where he previously did quite well given the resources available to him) and Fat Frank back to his ancestral home.
