Talk from the Atlantic is that we still want a right back, DM and forward. What isn’t clear is whether or not Jackson is that forward or if this is addition Perhaps this is where the 3-4 signings comments earlier on came from. Where if the right central striker option came up we’d go for them (bound to upset people) The recent links suggest that a central striker is still on the cards (as well). But difficult to tell There was also a rumour about that American striker who plays in Turkey. Opening big of less than 3m which suggests a signing to try and get the Turkish club promoted ?
I think it is still there for the right player at the right time. And 30m for Moffi is not seen as that. I guess logic being that if 35m could have got “a Gakpo” then 5m less for Moffi doesn’t feel right. And it doesn’t I think people are thinking too much in football manager terms of finite budget. But forgetting there is even a function on that game where for the right player you can go to the board and request. Gakpo seems kind of like that For example there is someone on Saintsweb kicking off about the Larios signing saying the 6m (although they say 7m presumably to make it sound even worse but it discredits their argument) could have been put towards the Gakpo deal. I don’t believe that is true for even a fraction of a second. Not least because the report was that the bid and terms were accepted. Unless the argument is we offer to pay him 3m extra signing on fee or wages over his contract. But I think his move to liverpool shows how false that is I don’t think we are operating in a situation of “oh 5m more for player x means we can’t bid for player y”. Or “we are signing Jackson so that 100% rules out a striker” But maybe I am just being too optimistic and “happy clappy”
There is also the very real possibility that we aren’t run by a bunch of absolute morons from a business perspective and they have done budgeting and forecasts for the next few years based on various scenarios, us going down being 1. We will have a good idea of which players would definitely be off if we were to go down and roughly what sort of fee we can get for them, they could decide to use some of that expected future income now to try and ensure we stay up. You also would assume that we won’t be doing a Chris Wood type signing like Newcastle so any player we sign this window will be heavily involved going forward, so in my mind spending some of the expected budget for the summer (regardless of safety or not) now isn’t a bad thing
There are people who are utterly unwilling to believe the people who run the club are anything other than morons. Some seem to have a vested interest in it in fact. As usual it is a sliding scale depending the source (Twitter being the worst). There are some who will keep on about not signing a striker meaning the board is incompetent in the same window as Leeds appear to have paid a massive amount for an unproven player (seriously if we signed that player for that price the same people would be going absolutely mental - in an angry way) and Man United (yes that one) have signed Wout Weghourst because they didn’t see value in the market
Not signing a striker in the summer was ridiculous. Not signing one this window when we're bottom of the PL is incompetent. Dress it anyway you want, but it's fairly obvious relying on Mara, Adams and Armstrong is a large slice of the reason we're bottom. They're ****
It is still there, but that was £35m at that time we would spend. I say the same to Mrs No7, if I say oh would you like this pair of earrings and she says no, 5 months later she can’t say oh you know you were getting me these earrings and didn’t, can I have x instead now. She probably can, but at that time I had the funds for the purchase,
The 'money available' isn't really the metric these guys go for either. It's more value based than that. They were seemly happy to sanction substantial (for us) bids for Gakpo and Goncalo Ramos in the summer because they believed these to have potential superstar value (they've been proven correct pretty quickly tbh). Paying over the odds for someone at a different stage of their career or who the club are less sure about is not what they are about. It's not a case of 'don't forget about that £35m cheque you've got to spend, Nathan' and more a case of 'how sure are we are his resale value?'.
I get that, but in our particular set of circumstance, over paying slightly for a player, or perhaps signing someone older with a lower chance of future resale profits, is a pittance compared to survival money. Staying up is worth so much mora to the club than the potential resale value of any player.
We were talking specifically about strikers so he isn't relevant. I know there is still time left, but this should have been planned long ago and with the links we are seeing it doesn't look like the club really have a priority target now that Moffi looks unlikely.
NJ just said in presser that he expects a couple to come in and that there are more pressing needs than right back
Of course he's relevant when you say we should be buying older players with little resale value. It shows that SR are willing to think short term to keep us up.
Again, we were talking specifically about a striker. Which is clearly our most pressing concern and has been for some time. I am not even saying we have to go out and buy an older player. It could be that we are forced to pay above what we actually value a player. But whatever we do, because of the mess we are in, we won't be able to find the perfect player at the perfect price, that ship has sailed.
Pedant alert. ‘Ridiculous’ is more extreme than ‘incompetent’. An incompetent, say, McDonalds employee, can’t make a burger. That’s it. A ridiculous McDonalds employee, sticks two French fries up his nostrils and f*cks a hamburger patty named Marsha.
