Sell to buy Broja, not sell to buy generally. Broja is said to cost £30mill+. It makes sense that we can't afford to spend that much on one player without selling.
I’m no expert on football finances but we made about £130m profit on player sales last year didn’t we? Surely some of that is available to spend from a purely accounting perspective? We haven’t got anyone to sell really. Anyone with any value left last summer and nobody we bought last summer is worth much. This is the risk/reward with relying on loans last year. We saved a load of money by not buying anyone and loaned in players to get us promoted. Then we could spend the money banked from selling our high value players, rather than trying to spend that money last year when we were less attractive than we are now. If we can’t spend that money now either (I’m talking like £20m plus each on a couple of players) then we are going to have to scout very well
We did make a huge transfer profit last summer. But check out our transfer profit, or lack of it, from the previous 2 windows. Last summer basically paid for our crap spending in our final PL season. We do still have some talent that we could sell and not really miss though; DCC (already done, not sure how much) ABK (£8m-£12m) Onuachu (£4m-£8m) Lyanco (£1m-£3m) Perraud (£1m-£3m) Alcaraz* (£15m-£25m) Sulemana (£5m-£15m) Mara (£4m-£8m) *good player but we got promoted without him That lot could fetch anywhere between £20-£70m depending on how realistic you want to be and if we managed to actually sell rather loan out for a fee.
We will miss Alcaraz if we sell him. Unless someone is willing to offer £40mill+ for him we should keep him. He's a quality player and his style suits the PL.
I included him in the "wont miss" category as technically, we wont be missing anything from the squad that got us promoted. But I get your point, he would add something to the team if be were to stay.
Charly did play in the first half of the season TBF. Scored that cracker against Plymouth as well where we were struggling to break them down. I really hope we keep him as he can do things that no one else in the squad can do.
Alcaraz offered 10x more than Sulemana and still got 7 goal contributions whilst here despite not performing that well. A player still very young has alot to offer, and his skillset is probably more suited to the premier league. We don't have great numbers in midfield so should retain him unless a stupid offer comes in.
Yeah but we also had PL money aswell, so that would’ve offset a fair chunk of it. Yeah we have some players to sell, but not enough really to buy someone like Broja if he’s going to cost say £30m. Saying “they won’t be missed” just because they weren’t here last year is a bit ridiculous aswell. I’d far rather have ABK, Alcaraz and Perraud than non existent 4th centre back, Rothwell and Manning. I’d say well over half of the squad from last year wouldn’t be missed in the PL because they aren’t good enough. As Laces said I hope sentiment doesn’t cloud the clubs decisions on them, although not off to a good start with making Fraser deal permanent
Yeah he played a part but I dont think we wouldnt have gone up without him. I completely agree that there is a good PL player there but I also think Martin doesnt see him fitting the system, otherwise why would be have sanctioned the loan?
I think its perfectly accurate - how will we miss them if they weren't at the club and didn't play? I'm not saying we just get rid of them and don't reinvest it. Im looking at it as a way of generating funds to invest in the team, without Martin actually losing anything from the playing squad he had last season.
Using your valuations I doubt we get better players than most of them for the value you are suggesting. We may aswell keep them. Yes they weren’t here last year and I’m assuming for most of them that’s because they didn’t want to play in the Championship. If they are happier to play in the PL then it is up to Martin if he wants them back when they are likely upgrades at least in the squad, if not the best 11. That’s partly what I mean when I mentioned sentiment. Alcaraz and ABK I can see leaving due to not fitting in with Martins play style, I think they both could be solid PL players in the right team, but we currently aren’t it. Anyway we’ll just have to see how it plays out, in my opinion the squad needs serious work, keeping a few of the players coming back should help
Newcastle looking to offload Matt Targett apparently. Pre empting another ex player being linked with a return soon
Wouldn’t mind that, I felt he was a bit too timid for us, but he’s improved and I think Russ and our system would suit him
The biggest criticism of Matty was that he lacks pace but that would be less of an issue under Russ I feel, his defending, distribution and crossing were all good. He'd be a decent addition to the squad I reckon.
His left foot is a darn sight better than Manning. Always had a soft spot for Matt especially when he embarrassed himself in one of those club videos about liking his maths classes. When questioned about his liking for maths his response was something like “didn’t like maths but it was a good group of lads in the class.”
Also loved his ****housery at Arsenal away when it was 1-1 in the last minutes and he sauntered over to take a throw in, only to put the ball above his head, look around then drop it on the floor for I think Bertrand to take - wasted about 40-50 seconds and the Arsenal fans behind him were going mental.
