No chance of us buying Elmo now. Absolutely no need to because he will be back shortly on loan and we have a deal in place to bring him in in the summer. No chance that we'll bring in a replacement for Aluko. He was out for a month and we did very well without him. Small chance that we'll get Campbell. IF he's not been snapped up by the end of the window, I suspect we'll get him, but suspect it will be a loan again on the basis that if no one wants to buy him, we'll take him on loan and then a) if he does ok, see if we can secure him as a free agent in the summer when we know where we are or b) if his knee breaks down, we don't have another Jimmy No chance we're spending stupid money on a keeper. £1m tops but again, more likely to be on loan until the summer and then when we know where we are, spend the money on securing someone. There is very little value in January and we're not about to potentially piss away £5m - £10m when we can get 1 -2 good players in on loan that will do the job. As for the comment that they have £100m for a sports village, do you think they have £100m sat in the bank?!!! Wheeling and dealing is exactly what will happen. Anyone expecting a blow your socks off buy - Sneijder for example !!! - may as well get on the happy pills now as they;re going to be disappointed
Allam snr is worth some 400 million is he not? It's obvious HCFC have a budget and are very lean, but the money is there in pots should they want to use some of that vast sum.
Fantastic thread, with well rounded opinions demonstrating both sides of the 'argument'. Do we play it safe? This is fair enough if this is what the Allams want to do. They've done plenty already by most peoples' reckoning... Or do we splash the cash? There's no guarantee of promotion... look at Leicester and Cardiff over the past two seasons. If we DO go up and aren't seen to be doing any business over summer it'll be panic button again for many fans. On a side note, I didn't realise we were dipping into our Summer budget in this window. I can't work out why this is happening after everything that happened with Barmby about this time last year. We're quickly learning we need to be very worried over January aren't we...
I would never demand they splash the cash. It's their money and they do as they choose with it. But when Duffen and co spent money they didn't even have a tenth of the wealth the Allams have. Which isn't to say they should set a bigger budget to reflect their greater wealth, but they must be aware of the advantage money gives you at this level and our rapidly approaching fork in the road........
Elmo - We dont know he will be back shortly on loan. We also only have a deal to buy him in the summer if we are promoted. In fact that deal may be gone. If he comes back on loan again to us will a new loan deal need to be worked out? If so then we do not have a deal at all to buy him as the purchase deal was part of the original loan deal to the best of my knowledge. Aluko - We did well without Aluko yes, we also had Elmo to. I dont know what to say if you think losing your top goal scorer does not imply you need to bring at least a temporary replacement in. Campbell - If the Sunderland fans are correct there is no chance of him leaving them in this window. About 4 of them have come on here saying that. If we dont get a striker like Campbell in now, a good chance we already know where we will be next season and this league is already part of the problem in convincing him to come here. Keeper - 1 million tops on a keeper? Ok. Who is your realistic choice? A loan keeper? Who will that be? Stockdale possibly but we have heard of no one else for a loan deal. Your last point - Who are these loan people you are talking about? This isnt the CIA and even in the CIA leaks happen. There are 2 weeks left in the window Bruce must have an iron lid on to keep info from leaking out. Any amazing loan deals will be loan deals that our rivals will also be trying to secure. We have no guarantee of getting these people on loan that will do the job. Investing 5 - 10 million is not the same thing as pissing it away.
as from next season .. any spending is related to turnover if you are in the football league .. in other words transfer fees this January will not be counted towards it ... after this window we have to justify every transfer turnover wise (no ****ing chance)
That makes much more sense now thanks. But that also backs up the point I've made that MON and Sunderland realising, probably quite rightly from their POV, that there is money to be squeezed out of us.
Agreed. All this 'top 6 budget' crap. Shouldn't say any of that stuff unless you're really gonna go for it. What would be the point in recalling him just to send him here on loan again?
Because of the way transfer fees are accounted for it's largely irrelevent, but the first half of the summer transfer window is actually the last one before the rules. (A £3M signing now has the same result as a £3M signing in July, but different to a £3M transfer in August)
Agree I think we will spend, the problem is how many other teams will be hoping to bank roll promotion as you say in this last window.
We do have a top 6 budget, and we have already spent it, the others in the top six have not spent as much as us this year bar Cardiff, so you can't go using that excuse. Our wage bill is probably the highest, and also the Allams have 400M, no they don't. They are worth that, i very much doubt any of that is in cash, if it is, not very much is cash, the rest is in assets. Also they don't have the money to build a sports village, they will mortgage it off basically like you would a house. We need signings, but you don't need to spend millions to get them.
If you look back, you'll see I said Allam snr is worth 400m - not he has 400 million to spend as you imply I said.
Having a pop at people for them wanting the Allams to spend a bit more is absolute bollocks. There is a time and a place to spend "big" - this is the time and the place. 2nd In the league, only just, with over half the season gone we have to have a go at this now. Didn't agree with the milliions spent by Duffen/Bartlett, but now we do have to take a bit of a calculated gamble.
We need to spend if we are going to take advantage of our position. We needed to buy people rather than get them on loan due to the January recall problem. Even if they are not good enough for the Premier League week in week out they will be good squad players. We need to pay reasonable wages. If we did go up we would have to spend and it's not easy to get good players if we insist on a relegation cut in wages clause. We don't have to risk the club we can always have clauses ending the contract if we are relegated - most players will accept that. Phil Brown did well when we got promoted. I think we could have built on our start but he panicked and went ultra defensive without the players for it to work. He then gradually alienated half the team due to his small minded attitude. We may not like it but football is a lot about money nowadays. We have to accept reality and work the system.
Clearly some delusional people follow city. We will not be spending much more, if anything, this window. We will be looking at loans/loans with a view to a permanent in summer. Until last Saturday, the general consensus was we could do with a striker and a keeper. We have one dodgy game and it's 'aaaaaaaaaargh, we're buggered, we need to spend the family silver'. Relax and keep the faith
Can I just say I have really enjoyed reading the posts on this thread. Personally I just want the January window to be over and then lets get on with it.
The Allams are worth roughly £490m as of December, but very little of that is cash, less than 1% if I'm being really generous. They haven't got money coming out of their ears; if they sold everything they had they would, but that's not going to happen. People need to realise that the Allams aren't a bottomless source of cash. They will invest what is necessary and that is all. I'd say 3.5m in this window is already pretty good going. And to City Agro: You said their money is there in pots. It isn't.
I don't think people quite realise how much they have spent on the club, it's an enormous amount, most likely in the £30million/40 million bracket... all included... I mean that's a significant chunk... It goes against every business acumen to think "oh what is an extra 1 or 2 million gonna change" We're talking MILLIONS here... some people really need to realise this
