To be fair, if fernandes has any sense, he’ll have watched West Ham tonight and hopefully not fancy another relegation scrap.
If a club meets our valuation, and Fernandes wants the move, he'll go. That's been the M.O. all summer.
That's a lot of money for potential, because that's all it is. Yes, it's a loss for us but really he's done nothing to justify that sort of money yet. If he was determined to leave then that is seriously a good bit of business.
I strongly believe that to grow and move forward as a club, you can’t have the mindset of ‘every player has a price’ all the time. Sometimes you just need to say not for sale. We were told we were in good shape financially at the start of summer, that we didn’t ’need to sell’. So I don’t like this line suddenly coming out from Blackmore that we ‘need to sell’ again. Fernandes has 4 years left on his contract. We’ve already made now with the sale of Dibling what? Over £70m this window? I wouldn’t even be happy with £50m or £60m for Matty. I want to watch good footballers play for my club and I want to believe that we can build a team capable of getting back to the PL and staying there. How much harder is that going to be if we sell our only PL quality players at the earliest opportunity.
It was always likely that both him and Matty would leave. Better to start with that assumption and then anything else is a bonus.
Worst thing about it is my Everton mates loving how we came grovelling back as Dibling wanted the move and we are such a **** small club and they are such power houses.
I don't disagree. But need stars to align - most importantly: a)players who want to play for the club in the championship b)be able to build the required team around them c)ensure we don't hold ourselves to ransom/end up in a dire financial spot down the line if we don't go up Not needing to sell is different to being in brilliant financial health. You don't pay good money every week to ABK, Aribo, BBD, Sugawara, Edozie etc etc and not look over shour shoulder in terms of financial sustainability at this level. I hope Matty stays but understand if he doesn't/ can't.
Was there not a report a couple of weeks back that if he were to go, he would prefer it would to be to Europe, rather then the EPL? Or am l confusing with someone else?
It depends really. If Fernandes has told the club that he's happy to stay regardless of teams bidding, then it's great for us. If he pulls an Isak, refuses to train/play or becomes a distraction to the team and eventually gets sold in January i.e. Van Dijk then we're in a worse position. Fernandes doesn't strike me as that type of player, mainly because he played in the cup game when West Ham had already bid for him.
Probably a bit controversial, but I think the income from the sales of Dibling should not be reinvested until next summer assuming we get promoted. I do not feel buying new players is as important as trimming the squad at the moment. We probably just need a few tweaks including someone who can bang a few goals in. In my opinion, trim the squad and use the sales from players who will not feature to buy one or two players with the guts for the fight to get us promoted. If we go up, I think the money for Dibling then gets spent but not beforehand.
Think you're half right there, Ian. I think we're well within our rights to spend some of the money, but it would probably be wise to hold some of it back too (potentially if we need some for January, and next season). Depends who is on our radar and possible right now too, of course.
I can’t remember the last time the club refused to sell a talent. I think it may have been Schneiderlin?
I would be shocked if we don’t spend 20-30 million over the next two weeks. I might even give Lincoln the win.
Well van Dijk springs to mind as more recent. Then he half-arsed his way through a few months before we caved in the January window. We haven't had many players good enough to attract that sort of interest since then. Was there interest in Ings? I don't really think it's fair to criticise the club for selling players in the summer after relegation.
