I can see, though, that there is an option to include the player's shirt number, so it should be possible to just type in the player's age instead. That should work, unless it's programmed to reject duplication of shirt numbers, in which case assigning "21" to four players in the same lineup might cause it to crash
With the dust now settled on the transfer window (who cleans the window?) looking back at all the incomings, we signed a grand total of 20 players for an estimated £25m. Surely our busiest and most expensive ever. Different owners have changed the dynamic of our trading. Knowing nothing of the development players signed it's hard to say possibly our best widow ever. I'm on the fence a bit leaning to the positive side of it.
I make it £25.4m out, £26m in plus the £14m for Rowe from Marseille. We also need to look at the change in salary structure though. I certainly think it's been a far better window than last year, which was around £19m out, £34m in. I'm optimistic about this new intake but time will tell.
I mentioned the youth incoming. Have we signed the new Maddison, the new Godfrey, the new Aarons etc? It will be interesting to see if/how they develop in the coming years.
Here's the youth intake: Rylee Mitchell GK 19 Reece Wilkes AM 16 Luke Towler CM Glenn McCourt DM 17 Luis Lines GK 18 Rueben Cooper S 17 Botan Ameen S 18 Zach Baumann CM 18 Most are in the U21s, but Wilkes, McCourt and Cooper are in the U18s. The two who stand out to me are Botan Ameen and Zach Baumann. Ameen has been playing for the Swindon first team and Baumann, a Ukrainian, comes from the ManUtd academy.
I don’t exactly know how or when the money was physically transferred but I believe the Rowe funds were accounted for last season. Obviously there will have been some funds from his sell in this summer - around £850k reported
Luke Towler came in from Ipswich and has made a good start I believe. Baumann captained the Man United academy side
Yes, they have, but not without generating additional costs, firstly in the form of the interest on the various classes of income-paying Preference Shares created in structuring the takeover by Norfolk Holdings, and secondly interest on any loans specific to the purchase of players. As of now, none of the funds from player sales either this summer or last, has been generated by the sale of a player recruited by Knapper. He has proved himself to be an able negotiator of player sales, but as yet has nothing to show on the recruitment side of the ledger. And since his job also involves recruiting the Head Coach and supporting staff, as of now the Knapper-generated balance must actually be negative. As Mark Attanasio said when interviewed following the departure of JHT and appointment of Manning, "Ben now has to perform". Doesn't take much to infer the two words he left unsaid ....
Doesn't every director of football inheriet the previous directors players and doesn't it take some time for their decisions to bare fruit particularly with younger players. It's along term thing.
There's no doubt that Knapper is under pressure, but that's the way it should be with anyone in his position, just as it is with any Head Coach. No, he hasn't sold any player he's recruited, but it would be very strange if he turned around and sold any player recruited last year. I'd say his recruitment last year was disappointing, but they are mostly young players who may well develop further in the way that Sargent has. For me, though, the recruitment this window has been far more promising. I'd credit him with a profit already in the permanent signing of Wright and the recruitment of Darling, Topić and Diallo and I think they will soon be joined by Kvistgaarden, whose fee was higher (but not as high as that of Crnac, who had a fairly modest first season). Medić has been a break even so far, IMO, and we have yet to see what Mattsson has to offer. What the new owners have brought is a new edge to proceedings and accountability to go with that. There are no more utopian visions of 3 year transitions but instead an approach suited to a gruelling 46 game season with Knapper and Manning expected to produce far more than was achieved last season and we now have to wait and see, one game at a time.
The new ownership and to an extent Knapper have strengthened our negotiating power and ability to make moves in the transfer market. Previously everyone has known that we needed to sell a player for decent money each summer to balance books and to enable us to make signings, this has weakened our ability to negotiate as we often needed the deal to be done early and other clubs knew we were motivated to sell so they could offer less. As we have seen this summer we now have the ability to strike deals early as we are not waiting for the incoming money. Knapper has also driven a hard bargain on his player sales.
We sold an attacker who was our leading scorer and featured in the Championship team of the season and our best midfielder for a combined total of under £25m - driven a hard bargain? Really?
I think we need context here 1950. The ' best midfielder' (matter of opinion) had less than a year left on his contract, so the £7.5 m plus £2.5 are ons was a very good deal. Sainz was sold for about the going rate for his position and ability, so the two deals, while not outstanding, we're pretty decent. But anyone with an anti Knapper agenda could skew facts to fit this line.
As you say the 2 deals were not outstanding. I was merely querying the ' driving a hard bargain ' description. I have my doubts about Knapper but I haven't got an anti-Knapper agenda - yet!
In theory, yes, but in all honesty, I can't recall many people complaining that Stuart Webber was forced to accept cut-price offers for the likes of Maddison, the Murphys, Prichard, Lewis, Godfrey or Buendia. We took hits on Rashica and Tzolis, but neither was a case of having to sell cheap in order to buy. Where the new ownership does make a difference is in being able to seize opportunities as and when they arise. Schwartau is a case in point.
