I agree, but that means a real chance. If we kept Ballard, that means signing a maximum of one other striker. Otherwise, he's not going to get more than a few 15-minute cameos, which isn't good for his development. If we're planning on signing two such players, he needs to be loaned out. As I said earlier today, I was comfortable with the risk of having a Stewart/Adarma/Ballard striker grouping, but it appears that the club might prefer to have a third experienced striker, particularly with Stewart's injury history. Funny thing, though: Reading's incumbent striker is Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan. Signing Ballard means that Kelvin's brother, the much better named Princewill Ehibhatiomhan, moves up in our depth chart (and depending on timing, there's a possibility he makes the bench tomorrow for wont of other options).
I get your point. It's a very difficult balancing act when bringing these players through. I guess I'm just anxious about the situation. Loans for young players have never been historically good for us, and we have the best generation of academy players since the famous Jwp, Chambers, Shaw, Reed class of 2012, and I don't want to see that talent & potential go to waste.
No disagreement. I'm probably the most willing on here to take risks in order to bring kids through, and I think the majority of Championship teams would be quite happy with Stewart/Adarma/Ballard as depth. But we have an embarrassment of literal riches, and open slots for loans, so I do understand why the club wants to cover all the bases.
Well, here we go. Buckle up and enjoy what is likely to be a busy day. Will there be some suprise outgoings / incomings?? Who knows, but remember that there’s nothing we as supporters can do about it. Come 11pm tonight we’ll still all support the same team, and be hoping for a win tomorrow lunch time with the players that take the field.
Yeah, and him leaving can be both fine and disappointing from a fan’s point of view. Not sure why ‘meltdown’ is always thrown around in transfer windows when fans express disappointment/annoyance.
At the end of the day we have sold a massive amount of goals out of the team. Currently we haven’t replaced them, despite having sold 150mil of players. We have to do so today, or it’s outrageous from the owners.
I can remember waking up 13 years ago on a bright and sunny day, with Pards at the helm and recent trophy winners, we were set fair for a blinding last day of the transfer window …. Not sure many of us were expecting what happened next….!!!.. let’s hope it’s better than that day…!!
From the Cambridge dictionary "informal an occasion when a person becomes extremely upset and is not able to deal with a problem or situation." In the context of football I see it as an excessive reaction to the loss of games, players or action by owners and management. Throwing a load of ****s at it could be stress relief to, venting your spleen is cathartic. Let's see where we are after 11pm tonight and after the game tomorrow.
For me it would be a bit like watching `Arry Redknapp drive off a cliff in my new car - but I`d go for Miovski if I were Saints, given our dearth of strikers. He`d be good value, and is playing well this season.
Crazy how the second biggest club in Germany sold a player for €100m and is still broke. And they are usually the club held up as an aspiration. How badly run must they be? I can only assume that for every Bellingham or Haaland there are many more relatively expensive gambles
Bayern also interested and have just sold Pavard. Otherwise someone will lap him up on loan. Decent loan fee, go again in the summer or keep if promoted. Failing that we will have the greatest selection of centre backs the Championship has ever seen.
Don’t know why people keep saying things like this. Said the same about Liverpool/Lavia as well. If you think something is worth a tenner would you pay £20 just because you have £20 in the bank?
Except the reporting is that we dropped the loan fee from €8m to €3.5m and there is only an option to buy - in order to facilitate a move. And the reporting is also that despite all their sales they only have €10m budget in total. That screams more of being broke than them not agreeing with the valuation. Trying to pay a lower loan fee than that is Everton style behaviour. And if you listen or read about Everton’s finances you will learn that they are in massive bother and are trying to get teams to agree to back loaded deals. And succeeding in some cases I appreciate your point but I simply don’t think it applies here. It also clearly doesn’t apply to Liverpool either as they were prepared to pay far more than any objective valuation of Caicedo (and the same as overpaying Chelsea did) so they could have afforded the extra that still would have paid less than chelsea did. Your example is too simplistic in this case. Because they clearly are broke. So are wolves and many other clubs otherwise all this loan with option to higher division teams wouldn’t be happening Might be proven wrong with Wolves. We’ll see how much they actually spend today but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nunes profit is largely unspent and indeed was indeed to plug the gap on the massive fee they had to spend on their obligation to buy the Brazilian attacker
I wonder if the Saudis will come in for Salah and why they haven’t so far. Highest profile Muslim player. I kind of hope they do as the overwhelmingly pro Liverpool media will go into hysterics
