Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

I don't think you are much older than me though....
My whole thesis is that it is and always has been impossible for a single person to know enough to choose good transfer targets. That used to be overcome by an army of scouts but I think that has been overtaken by data analysis. But it's still impossible for anyone to have a sustainable edge which is why I want the coach to be a coach and concentrate on coaching where he might make a difference and allow someone else to acquire the players.

 

It's also worth remembering that FFP is back on the menu - which is why Chelsea were signing players to ludicrously long contracts last season, why Liverpool would rather pay £35m + £20m in addons for Alexis Mac Allister than pay his £35m release clause, and why Leicester imploded due to failing to offload anyone for £60m+ in the summer of 2021 which obliterated their transfer plans for the summer of 2022 and ultimate led to their relegation

This ultimately puts Brentford expecting £40m for Raya into roughly the same camp as the various Ligue 1 players we and other clubs have chased yet their club has seen us as a way to cover their FFP balance sheet for a couple of seasons, which was especially obvious in the case of Batshuayi, and while our FFP is reportedly reasonably balanced at the moment (IIRC our wages are something like 55% of our revenue, give or take a few percent one way or the other) if we are looking at a heavy rebuild this summer then spending £40m on the first player is effectively helping out Brentford for 2-4 seasons while also eating into our FFP balance sheet for a couple of seasons, especially if we don't get high earning players with declining of non-existent value such as Perisic or Ndombele off the balance sheet PDQ

 

In other news, r/coys has gone dark for a couple of days in protest at Reddit playing silly buggers, meaning that anything from Romano, Aouna et al will have to be gleaned by me scouring through their Twitter feeds

I say this as there's reports claiming we're close to agreeing personal terms with Raya, and I can't tell if this is new information or just spinning a yarn out of the Romano tweet about Raya from the previous page...

 

We’re about £300m-£400m under FFP.

Lee Dykes has also just said anyone thinking they can get Raya for £20m will effectively have to double that.

 

And Brentford's wriggle room is...?

 

Danjum looks busy atm, altitude training

 

Raya’s their player and we’re desperate for a new number one, whilst Utd are interested and Chelsea might be lurking.

 

The answer is they currently have just under £90m of wiggle room, which would increase to just under £130m if we pay full price for a player in the last year of their contract, who has repeatedly stated will not be signing a new contract, and whose replacement has already been signed

It's plain to see that Brentford are trying to act like a Ligue 1 club looking to shore up their FFP standing at a Premier League team's expense, yet it is misjudged as the market itself is suggesting they have inflated the price beyond reasonable limits, what with Man Utd also balking at the price they have set

 

That’s your answer.

Most of us acknowledge if they want £40m for their key player we’ll likely have to pay it to get him. Just as whoever wants Kane will have to pay our valuation.

 

Yep. I simply don't understand fans who were up in arms when City offered us £85m for Kane yet were also up in arms when Villa refused to sell us Grealish for £5m, Onomah and a bag of training cones.

You can't have it both ways.

 

No, that's the answer of both Spurs and Man Utd

Which is why both clubs do not agree with Brentford's valuation

A valuation which is undermined by
i.) Raya stating he will not sign a new contract for several months already, which is not comparable with Kane's situation
ii.) Raya's replacement already being signed, which is not comparable with Kane's situation

It's funny how there's a section of our fanbase who complain that we don't just sign players first and eat the hit on the fee of the deadwood we were going to shift anyway, and yet here you are saying we should pay full price to a player who is leaving whose replacement is already in place when it is obvious paying full price is the sort of transfer business the club does which routinely gets criticised for

 

Doesn’t seem like everyone quite understands that.

 

First of all, that wasn't our bid for Grealish. You missed a digit

Secondly, when we offered £15m + Onomah for Grealish, they were up financial **** creek and needed money, which is not comparable to us not needing money due to not being up financial **** creek, which is why we were in a position to tell The Sheikh Mansour Team which hole to shove their tapping-up campaign into sideways

Third, when a player has very publicly said they will not sign a new contract, their club's negotiating stance is not strong enough to dictate a set price and refuse to deviate from it and that stance is further weakened when that club signs the player's obvious replacement, which again is not remotely comparable with our situation where we hadn't signed a striker when Gary Neville was bumping into H on a golf course nor did H have a contract which was winding down

And let's be real here: if Levy said we wouldn't let Sanchez go for a penny under £30m this summer even though he's got a year left on his contract, would anyone be saying that clubs should accept our demands and pay that fee in full? Of course they bloody wouldn't, and that is an example of people trying to have it both ways

 

You can, and in the past Levy was master of it.
But as the PL kitty gets fatter and fatter,
more and more of the lower clubs become
less and less vulnerable to those antics.

 

I don't think that anyone was offended that Villa turned down that offer.
They very nearly didn't too, if the rumours are to be believed.

 

It was tongue in cheek, probably an extreme example of the point I'm trying to make, which is perhaps better illustrated by us approaching Sporting for Porro to be told that they would only sell for 40M Euro, only for us to then spend the entire January window going round in circles before eventually paying the price quoted in the first place and the player missing out on 6 games to integrate into the team.

 

I’m not sure that was all on us. I seem to recall Sporting moved the goalposts multiple times including delaying the move for the cup final and then asking for different things the day after.

Sure at the end of the day you just pay the release clause at the start and avoid all the nonsense but a lot of people (not necessarily you) seem to think that Spurs are the only club who will mess people around when negotiating when it simply isn’t the case.

 

There’s been a few signing contracts in recent weeks but this one’s really good news, Dorrington’s a player who at the moment looks more likely than many others to make it to a high level. The fact he’s got an interview sort of implies the club might think so too.

 

Yeah he’s definitely one I’m excited by. Think he could have a big future.

 

Except that isn't the case either

Porro's release clause was £40m, and the thing which people habitually fail to understand about release clauses is that amount is paid in one go, which is why clubs negotiate around them - made especially obvious in the past week when Liverpool could have paid Alexis Mac Allister's £35m release clause but instead chose to pay £35m + £20m in addons over the course of 4-5 years instead of just pay £35m in one lump sum

Same goes for Porro: we actually paid more than his release clause, as reports say the loan fee was either £4.4m or £5m, and that comes with an obligation to buy him for £37m or £39m this summer - and no matter which of those figures is closer to the truth, they both add up to more than the release clause, but that figure is paid over a period of 3-5 years instead of the second the release clause is triggered

...and just in case anyone mentions Bruno Fernandes, the fact he signed for Man Utd for a lower fee than his release clause ultimately demonstrates why release clauses are guidelines and not the Word of God people believe them to be: the release clause he had was for €85m, but he moved for €55m + €25m in addons (plus a sell-on fee), which is €5m lower than the release clause but the upfront payment was more than enough for Sporting to listen