But why can't we convince players to come here? There seems to be some suggestion that it's because we won't pay what other clubs will in terms of wages. It's all very well committing 21.5 million quid to transfer fees but if you don't commit to paying wages comparable to our competitors players aren't going to sign.
Seems to be doesn't it and you can't blame them for wanting the wage bill to be cut. It'll help when we've had all the deadwood chucked on the fire not just loaned out.
A) coz we've been trudging the bottom for four years, under about 46 different managers. B) we clearly do compete on wages, but it seems some players want more for coming here. Solve A , and we should solve B ie not have to pay over the top
Someone posted an anecdote about Wilfrid Bony a couple of weeks ago which would appear to disprove B. Can't remember who it was though.
The other thing about all this is that the economics of our summer business don't make sense. £13.6m for N'Dong or £8m (or whatever) for M'Vila? On the surface that seems ridiculous. The most obvious explanation is that the overall deal for N'Dong is less than it would have been for Yann.
Considering our lowly position over the past few seasons we do not appear to be low payers as we are roughly half way in the league table of wage bill. It is player/agent/WAG choice in the end, as shown by Crouch's girl friend a few seasons ago as she would rather be at Stoke than here. That's football nowadays.
I posted something about Bony choosing Stoke as he could commute from Manchester. Paying a transfer fee for six months of M'Villa certainly did not make economic sense for both parties. We may have a deal in place where we pay him a hefty signing on fee rather than his Russian club's transfer demand. A deal obviously fraught with pitfalls but he knows us and may well be happy to come for a huge wage packet. On the other hand he could get a pay rise out of his current club and choose to remain. Bosman rules.
One day he very possibly might do. ut we are talking about this coming January window, even if he performs miracles between now and then, it's too short of a timeframe to rocket his value to £50m, it could just be a purple patch. No club in the world would pay anywhere near that amount imo.
Firstly, our high wage bill is due to giving too many sub-standard players high wages. That seems clear. Its certainly not down to paying good quality players what they're worth (in relative terms). Secondly, if it's down to WAGS etc then the club needs to find strategies to deal with that. Money is the most obvious.
No, but it's equally not unbelievable that this deal won't happen at all. If the club were serious about signing this player at any point in the future, why would they have left him sitting in an airport when he had rushed here from Russia to sign for us?
Our wages v turnover suggests we overpay, as of end 2015 Stoke wages 67 mill (67% of turnover) Sunderland wages 77 mill (77% of turnover) 8 million in wages for Bony I heard
IIRC what I saw posted here suggested that Bony was on the verge of signing for us and then Stoke doubled our wage offer so off he went. I'm sure the figures you've quoted are accurate and if that's case I'd say it supports something I've said previously which is that Short might not be stingy but he doesn't spend his money effectively.
Mostly the Sky money I believe, but that wage bill could include some players long gone but still contracted unfortunately.
