It really IS silly season. Was listening to Talkshite before the Preston game and Micky "media personality" Gray was saying his sources were telling him Clarke had turned down a contract that's been on the table for a while Mucky Gray's sources being that tweet from Teamtalk then
Agreed. Everyone online is a journalist these days which means there are more and more column inches to fill and precious little actual information coming out of the club. SO, people makes stuff up and add "Hearing...." or "Sources indicate....." to attempt to give their fairy tales credence.
Infuriates me that the people who represent our club in the media the most are Gray and Phillips. Love them as players but they don't have a clue
I think that article has been cobbled together based off posts on here to be honest. @Scout73 said the other day about european clubs and loads of clubs being there. The Liverpool and Spurs links have been posted on here plenty as well.
Yep noticed that, @Prehab26 mentioned 3 pl clubs n 1 european one just after i commented then later his info was tweeted out - folk will always read forums n post what they hear as 1st hand knowledge
I just don’t think it will happen now. Let’s say with 22mill for Neil we get Iroegbunam, George Hall, Stansfield (we won’t i know) we probably look stronger for it. If we get two - maybe the same level, if we get one we’re weaker. Things won’t align like that in January so we won’t take it now is my take on it.
Add mvila on to that and I'd take it, tin hat on. Hate to lose Neil but carry on as they are and we'll lose likes of him and Clarke at some point. If you bring in 3 or 4 quality players to improve the squad then it'd soften the blow
They are the three positions I’d fill. Burstow I think us getting a forward would see him going back because if he’s playing under 21 football they’ll just have him back in theirs.
Obviously nobody wants to see our best players leave and the transfer windows become nervy times but it's a clear indication of the great work going on at the club that every window in the last few years our players are linked with 10mill+ moves. As a club we have always struggled with player sales. Our normal strategy has been to sign a player at the end of their prime on a big wage and a long contract and then just let them run the contract down and leave for nothing after performing poorly. This won't happen now. Transfers are inevitable, players are being shopped around by their agents every day of the year. This is especially the case for a club like us in the championship as some of our players are seriously attractive to PL clubs. I'd like to think if/when we are a PL club again and there was a winger tearing up the championship like Clarke or a young midfielder with 100+ games under his belt already like Neil we would be all over them. For us it is all about selling at the right time and for the biggest fee possible. Under the current financial rules, selling players is the only real way to move clubs forward. If we were to sell in this window it has to be with a view to use the money straight away.
The bit about using the money straight away is key for me. We are in the hunt again for promotion. Losing a key player could literally end that hunt, unless we sign a replacement. If we took Neil out now it would frighten me to be honest and I think it would be really tough to bring in someone close enough to his level in Jan to sustain what we are aiming for this year. I see Rigg as Neils successor, and based on the glimpses looks an extraordinary prospect. But it would be a hell of an ask to do that second half of this season. If Neil were to go in the summer, for £25m, I think the club will have exposed Rigg enough to see him playing a significant role next season in that engine room, alongside a more seasoned Ekwah and arguably sign another talented youngster to make a 3 into 2 situation. Similar with Clarke, I could see us buying a left winger this window, integrating him for the rest of the season, and letting Clarke go in the summer. The club feels very savvy to me these days and I suspect they have succession plans for all players, just a lot easier to implement in the summer window for me.
People on twitter are still asking "what happened to the Ross Stewart money?" We sold him on deadline day ffs.
I don't know how true it is, but I heard at the Preston game that Clarke had asked for his contract talks to be put on ice until the summer.
Neil would be daft going to Liverpool. They already have Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott struggling for game time. He needs to stay with us at least another year or 2 and keep playing week in week out
