Acun/his team obviously got a little excited during summer, but I'm more then happy to see the odd mistake in things he does if he learns from them, which as you say, he seems to be doing. During his first 6/8months I think he tried to be involved to often in to much. But over the last few months he's let people do their jobs and has taken a step backwards. I don't ever want him to lose his excitement, but any great leader knows when to let their team do their jobs and when they need to help. I've heard a couple of things re plans for summer and it's very interesting and exciting ( obviously things can and In football, almost certainly do change ) but we are looking more quality over quantity. We have zero plans at the current time to sell any of the bigger names, nor do we need to move anyone on financially ( this obviously could change if stupid bids come in ). The players the club want to move on are fringe players / players we replace with better. There's a couple of impressive sponsorship/commercial deals being worked on and potential for a very close relationship with a club on the continent.
Good to hear the backers are doing it in a way which increases the revenue of the club. The fact Acun bought us under embargo and had to pay off a covid loan a week/days before last January window ended obviously hasn't helped our ffp either. We need pace out wide that seems to be getting addressed. We needed ****housery also and with connoly and potentially Toffolo, then were trying to add a bit of that. I just hope next time Tetteh meets McBurnie he actually connects and flattens the ****s nose. Top half this season would be a decent start for a first full season under the new ownership. That's where I think we'll end up.
It is an awkward one as some of the summer business was outstanding and other bits were crap. We signed the best ball player in the league and the 2nd top scorer without paying a transfer fee. But then we went a bit crazy signing **** loads of central midfielders, topped it off with 2 young uns on DD and had no pathway to play them. We skimped out on the defence which has really cost us and didn't sign any wingers when Shota seemed to want to play with wingers and not want to at the same time.
I don't think this is worth fixating on as we would have paid signing on fees. So while the fee didn't go to a club we would have still paid a fee.
I'm sure it was either HT or ST who said none of the signing-on fees was over £1m though. If we'd have gone for a Brereton or a Gyökeres in the summer, we'd have been charged an 8 figure fee, similar wages to Oscar and a substantial signing-on fee too. No decent player is 'free' but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than having to pay a club
Vale, Mhand, Baxter, Sinik and Fleming (whom I include cos he got a sparkly long term contract) have to be considered overly exuberant signings. Luckily 3 out of 5 were loans and one we never paid a fee for, so it's not a terrible record at all. The club has also worked hard on shifting Enob/GruntMcCunt/Darno shoestring deadwood on. The rest the the jurys still out on. Christie is a good signing, Oscar, Seri, Pelkas look ace, Tufan intermittently looks world class and there's obvious potential in Tetteh. Longman and Slater are young lads who haven't let us down and Traore is a potentially exiting no 10 with Ali to come back and Ebiowei to look forward to as well. I think between summer and now it's too many changes in the coaching/squad ls to really get consistent but if there's a dark horse this year there's no reason why it shouldn't be us.
Someone wasn't talking **** when they advised this board in summer that the KLP fee was reinvested in fees where the ffp headroom was in wages. Glad you're coming round to that same acceptance.
We received over 15m for KLP and spent half that on fees (Tufan 2m (with 2m add ons for promotion not now achieved), Ally 2-3m, Woods 1-2m, Sinik 3m). The very fact SS is saying the signing on fees for the free agents was so cheap goes against the point 'some' tried to make in the summer that we were forking out big sign on fees.
We were all delighted to get Baxter back so it's hard to criticise that one. Figs would have been great if we adopted the same style as we played under Shota last season so I understand why the analysts highlighted him. Woods has been a completely pointless yet expensive signing (big wages). Technically very good but signing him and Seri was complete overkill and not realistic in the Championship. Simons and Vale were panicked signings that should never have been brought in. Simons looks a decent player in the brief glimpses we've had but to bring them in when we were stacked in midfield was just silly. The one thing I'm hoping to see from the next few days is us not panic. We've done it twice since Acun's been at the club on DD and there's really no need. Tan's interview gave me hope that they were happy so hopefully, we've learnt
There was £7m between Sinik and Tufan. I'm standing by previously quoted fee of around 11.5m between transfer fees, signing/agents fees and then probably a mil in admin fees. The 15m for KLP is the max potential of the deal. Its more like 12.5 guaranteed over installments. The ffp headroom is committed in the wage bill and its inherently a rolling consideration. However significant investment is likely to be incoming (it's always been there in the background) and it's only gonna snowball if we get ourselves promoted so let's look up not down.
I thought we got Woods on a free as they wanted to shift a big earner. When we've heard bits from the ITKs on wages, that's where the money has gone. Seri, Tufan, Pelkas & Oscar on close to £30k a week, that's £6m straight away. Then there's Vale £500k for half season, Baxter £500k for the season, Adama must be on £20k a week so that's another £1m. We're up to £8m already and there's Christe, Woods, Sinik (half season), Greaves' new contract, Tetteh and Figs to add in. They all must be on something close to £15k a week so that's another £4m. That's £12m added onto the wage bill from last season, I know we lost a few lower earners but it's some increase For all the signings we must have spent at least £2m on signing on fees and another £2m on agents fees.
We’ve got him on a long term contract. How does that work with trials? Can you take anyone on trial up to a certain age without the parent clubs permission?
The post I was addressing was saying the KLP sale funded the transfer fees, if Woods was free then we spent even less on transfer fees than I thought. I still refuse to believe Vale was on 25k a week here until we see solid proof of that. If we spent about 6-7m on transfer fees + the above wages that's only 18m, which is 2m more than we received on the KLP sale. I find it amazing some are still trying to brag that they were right in the summer that we were so close to our cap despite news we are bringing in Darlow and Toffolo on top of Connolly and Ebiowei having only recouped wages on Baxter, Vale and Sinik, when the former four would be on substantially more than the latter three.
Like we're doing with Vaughn I would think anyone can go on trial it's just then a matter of determining a fee if you want them. You would certainly need the parent club's permission.
Surely if he was going to go on trial with West Ham he shouldn't have signed a long-term deal in the summer. I'm sure his agents have probably tried it but can't see any way we'd allow that
Why? If the interest from West Ham is fresh how could that be foreseen in the summer? Even with a long deal I wouldn't have thought we'd be looking for a ridiculous fee. As discussed when we brought in Tu-Tala, we have a lot of keepers now, some are going to have to move on, as Baxter already has, and possibly Cartwright now.
Bit different with youth players. We lost Dan James to Swansea cos at the time we didn't have an academy and he could be signed for free with pre determined compensation only. Allam learned from this and we not only got an academy they got Tom Ince for compensation very soon after and a certain Jarrod Bowen also. The reason we're looking at Covils and Vaughans is because there's gems to pick up to develop for literally **** all.
