West Ham no longer in for KWP. Wonder if he would be willing to see his contract out and see what offers he gets. Hopefully we can get him on a new deal, maybe with a £25m-£30m release clause if that's the only way.
If there's any chance we can keep KWP then I hope we do all we can. If anyone is worth breaking the wage structure for then its him. I still have a worry about how RM's style will translate to playing against better players and how well we'd implement it regardless without one of the players that really made it work in KWP. Was the best player in the division last year for my money. However slim the chances of keeping him - that there is still a chance gives me hope!
Much as I'd love to see KWP stay (offer a contract with pay rise and fixed release fee) I'm not sure how you manage having him and Sugawara, moving forward. Yuki didn't come here without being told he will actually play (I suspect) and you'd have to manage the expectations of both him and KWP
Fair. But one could play left back / they could both play a pre defined part etc etc. I remember last season when there was some disquiet about Brooks and Wee Man coming in and keeping out talented players. I don't think you can ever have too many good players and I'm worried about only ever being 1 injury away from Bree not to mention relying on players new to the PL to immediately hit the ground running. But yeah, accept the point and that promises have probably been made.
Bit weird that theres never been a club statement then thanking him and wishing him the best as is normally the way. I had assumed that was because there was still a chance he would sign a new contract.
The obvious answer is KWP plays on the left, but having signed Taylor it would appear that the thought process, at least a couple of weeks ago, was that KWP was leaving. If we are playing hardball about a fee for him and that puts other clubs off then that may have changed
Suppose you could always play Taylor as your LCB if you are going to play three at the back, with wing backs in front. But otherwise yeah, I don't see it
That could’ve been the plan, but I don’t see us then signing Wood and Edwards as well. Leaves us with what 7 CBs on the books? Still fully expect KWP to be off and I still think it will be West Ham
I think it may be Brighton, although I think KWP wants Spurs. West Ham apparently have made a bid to United today for AWB
Shame to lose Che as he is a decent player in the PL. Ultimately though, the club made the right call to not sell him cheap last summer/Jan as his goals helping us get promoted turned out much more valuable than the few million we would have got with a sale.
Well Wolves did offer us £18Million last year for Che, but like you said he had a big impact on getting promotion.
Ah, I was wondering what was happening with Che Adams. Hopefully our relatively cheap buys so far mean there's quite a bit in the pot for a couple of attacking players.
I recall they offered but I don't think it was anywhere close to £18m for him. We would have sold for that much.
Think it was closer to £10m and they wanted to loan him initially with transfer fee deferred until 2024/25
Can understand why we kept him. Promotion was worth more than a future £10m (less as we would have needed to pay to replace Che). He probably would have gone for £10m had it been last summer. Let alone £18m
Another right back with only one year on his contract. And I assume our absolute minimum was the same. Odd strategy by them if true. Especially if that fee creeps closer to 20m. They would have walked away from a more versatile and arguably better player. They are very different though. AWB is pretty useless going forward. Not what most want in a modern full back but it depends on your system
Don't want this to sound like sour grapes or whatever but I've never thought Che was up to PL standard. I like him as a person, always sounded a decent guy (found his broad Scottish accent difficult to understand though) but we need better if we are trying to stay up. Can't get too attached to players anyway, as I understand it, he would have been off when we got relegated if we had agreed to it.
Agree. Decent guy, good championship player and I wish him well. But we need to improve on him if we want to stay up.
We are competing with QPR, Hull and Sheff Utd to sign Jesurun Rak-Sakyi on loan. Palace reluctant to loan to us, but would be open to a sale if we offer enough
