As its New Years Eve... I will share with you 'My Opinion' on the subject..... people you don't have to believe me and neither will I name my sources, so save yourselves posting 100 times asking for them. Nogbad is correct in what he says above! This happened twice on big deals which led to them big scuppered and then being turned down. The two main targets of the Summer!! Both deals were agreed in principal at the end of May. The first deal scuppered was Harry Maguire, KB & SC had negotiated the deal to sign HM from Hull, a fee of £2.5 Million was agreed, personal terms agreed. The second deal scuppered was Andre Gray, again KB & SC had negotiated a deal to sign AG from Brentford for £4.5 Million and £14k a week. The deals were presented to JP who discusses them with SL SL has the final say on all signings. Beginning of June SC & KB go on holiday for 3 weeks and 2 weeks respectively. During this time JP & SL decide to negotiate the HM deal as they think they can get a better deal. They offer £1.25 million to Hull. Hull's response is that BCFC are trying the micky.... the deal had been agreed and now the club are trying to get him on the cheap. Hull's response is, you can buy HM but the price was then £4 Million and there was no negotiation. Deal falls through. Next up is the Andre Gray deal, as mentioned above the deal was all agreed in principal by the end of May, this deal was scuppered due to SL/JP deciding to 'wait' on the deal, they believed that he was valued at £3 Million and were prepared to play cat and mouse with Brentford in order to get him cheaper. June passes and we are still waiting it out. In the mean time Burnley come sniffing but with no firm offers. We then try again at the end of July but Brentford are happy to hold out and tell BCFC that the price is now £8 Million. Andre Gray is now reluctant to move to us as we held out on the deal and were not offering any more than £14k a week. Burnley then offer £6 Million fee, which is agreed. They agree personal terms of £26k a week and £3k a week in bonuses. Deal dead for BCFC. This then sends the board into panic..... Enter the Dwight Gayle saga. The deal was £9 Million and was made up of two parts. the first part was would see CPFC buyout the sell on clause of YB, they value him at between £15-£20 Million. Our sell on clause is 20 %, Both clubs negotiated that the sell on clause was worth £3.5 Million, so BCFC would pay £5.5 Million adding in the sell on clause would take the deal to £9 Million. The deal fell down through our wage structure. DG is on £21k a week at CPFC, BCFC offered £14k a week, DG said he would sign for £19k a week as he would receive a % of the transfer fee. SL/JP would not break the wage structure which is capped at £15k a week for any one player. Deal Dead. That leaves us at square one with none of our main targets secured, in a nut shell the above is what led to our disastrous transfer window in the Summer!!
All sounds very plausible and very much like our board when it comes to transfers. It still staggers me how SL made his fortune through finance, but TBH has been pretty shocking in this area when it comes to transfers. I still cannot forgive their f**k up when we had 2 £6m bids for Maynard and they knocked them back!!!
This story probably happens at every club but come what may we are in no position to criticise SL after all it is his money. He has had his fingers burnt once and you cannot blame him for being cautious/frugal. Be careful what you wish for. Look at Leeds, Bolton etc. We are at least not foreign owned and subject to a different culture (Hull, Cardiff etc). I would like better signings but am happy that our club is in good hands to secure its future even though the current results do not reflect that. Eventually there will come a time when we hold the whip hand.
Also, to the Cotts-haters, surely this can give some insight as to why we need to give him more time? We'd be nowhere near this mess with even just those 2 signings on board.
Not so sure about Gayle, but Gray is the one that has hurt us, with him in the side I honestly think we would be the best part of 12 points or more better off. Safe to say on his form this season, he would not have missed some of the sitters that have cost us this season.
I'm not a 'Cotts-hater', but I do question some of his 'strange' decisions around rigid tactics and subs (especially Cox).
I have been saying for years that something in the back halls of Ashton Gate stinks and it would appear that I wasnt far off the mark. Build the stadium and invite the guests and forget to book the band seems to sum up the consistently pathetic attempt by Lansdowne and his yes men cronies to fool the paying public.
My biggest concern is that Cotts will leave the City not that he will be sacked. We live in a changing football world and we need at least a manager who prefers attacking football. I don't know enough about football to say what is the right way or wrong way but I do know that no matter what system you play it is the players who ultimately deliver and in this respect players have got to want to come. But the facts are that we away from the bright lights of London and Manchester so we are presently getting the crumbs. That is the trading fog which exists. Can we negotiate our way through the fog . That is the question.
Tell you something i would rather live where i do than in London which has more foreigners than British. Manchester again not for me,but there are some cracking places not to far away.
I personally asked Tetbury to post this onto this forum as we seem to be going in circles with blaming someone. I was hoping that people read this and can see that SC and KB made plans but SL took advice from JP and tried to get these players cheaper. Hopefully with JP now departed SL might listen to others, I'm not blaming SL just believe that some people advising him need to understand that if you try and cheapen the deals then they collapse. Looking at the Zach Clough bid shows that we are just going in with bids to get accepted straight away
