I just hope it's gradual, at the min there's a few who might leave next summer if we don't go up. We've done really well to get Neil, Ballard and Clarke to stay, amongst others. Next summer could be disastrous to the squad, albeit, its hypothetical, but an extremely disturbing thought.
The only way to guarantee a 20 goal a season striker is to spend £10m+. Every striker signing is a risk. A £5m outlay can turn into a £20m profit next summer. Our issue is having the £5m to spend on a single player. I don’t believe we do, nor are willing to put all our eggs in one basket in terms of taking that risk.
See I disagree, I see it as an opportunity. I think we should've sold one of those mentioned in this window. Boro aren't sat there thinking about Akpom or Rogers now while they sign Conway. We can't be scared about selling players.
Aye. In a way I think we’d have been better off losing one this summer so that it spreads it out. Both in terms of the finances coming in and the disruption to the team.
It is, because you can’t treat the budget as a single pot where one deal doesn’t affect everything else in the squad and club. Even Football Manager understands the network effect. The current safc can’t afford higher cost players but can afford lower ones. It’s naive to think it’s as simple as spending two players worth of budget on one player. Besides, a £5m player amounts to roughly 10% or the entire clubs annual budget as things currently stand.
Be interesting if ekwah goes whether we replace him or not. The next person to fill in for Neil would be… Browne? Triantis? Jobe? For all I would understand the temptation to cash in, if we have an injury and ekwah comes into the team, I wouldn’t be too concerned.
The 4 you mentioned aren't really their reserves though - Ampadu is their captain and played Saturday, Bamford and Piroe have loads of experience in previous seasons, including coming off the bench on Saturday. Only Byram wasn't involved Saturday so maybe he is a reserve.
I disagree. I feel the money we have spent within the last 12 months have been a complete waste and will return very little. Would have been better to sign less by better quality. It's why we will end up having to loan the vast majority of signings we have made in the last 12-24 months.
ok rule Ampadu out of my point then. The rest all stand. I was talking about players that have come in from the weekend. The fact they’re experienced is the entire point rather than countering it
I mean you can disagree all you like, but it doesn’t mean that safc is any better able to support deals of the type you advocate.
We should definitely be scared to sell them all at once, which is what I'm saying could become a reality. Obviously, we'd hold the cards, but if we missed out on promotion next summer, Clarke, Ballard and Neil, I'm pretty confident, would feel like they should move on to finally reach their next level. I think this is a fair assessment.
I wouldn't even consider Ekwah leaving amongst this thought process, too. He's clearly shown he's expendable.
I actually don’t know if we need a “CDM” as much as I thought we did. The shape RLB seems to want to play is to have two holding players right and left to create triangles with the full back and winger, rather than a central single holding midfielder.
I don't think we should sell Ekwah. I think he's got a huge amount of potential and will be worth a lot more if he has a good season. He had injuries last season and I feel that we as a fan base are far too impatient when players come back from injury or when they first sign. We need to be selling when players are at their peak value
it’s a fair assessment, but it’s also something we were also saying in January would definitely happen this summer; and so far it hasn’t.
Personally I’d be trying to keep hold of Ekwah precisely because of what may happen next summer if we don’t get promoted (or pretty bloody close). I could see us getting another year out of Rigg but I’d expect Neil and Jobe to move on.
