Transfer Rumours Tosh, goss 'n twaddle - Summer 2020

Two league appearances off the bench, against Bristol City and Sheffield Wednesday, January 2018

 

It’s been reported on NewsNow website that Ryan Bennett is available for £3m.
Assuming there is genuine interest in Ryan, and as rumoured Godfrey goes for at least £20m, then we should be able to raise that sort of money?

 

I can't see SW signing a 30 year old player for around £3m when Mike van der Hoorn (27) could be available on a free transfer.

EDIT: The Pinkun verdict on the Soh rumour:

"It seems unlikely that a player nominated for the Golden Boy would consider a move to the Championship, as illustrated by the amount of high-level links to City right-back Aarons following relegation. Losing that Premier League status could well be the crux of this tale, as Mbe Soh looks to be just the calibre of young player that the Canaries would have been targeting had they managed to retain their top-flight status."

 

You might get commitment from Bennett as he wants to return to Norfolk for family reasons. Soh looks like what it is, a rumour. The Swansea lad on a free transfer would be cheaper, but why is he on a free transfer ? Did he not take up a contract extension or is he simply surplus to requirements?

 

Swansea have been trying to get him to sign since last summer apparently, but he has declined to do so. Whether that makes it any more likely that he'll sign for us, I just don't know.

Fulham seem to want to move Mawson on ("EFL outcast" according to FLW). He does have the advantage of being left footed, as all of our CBs are right footed.

 

Well I suspect the club bought him because they hoped / expected he would have a positive impact on the first team either immediately or at some point in the future. He didn't take his chance and was moved on with no significant financial impact on the club.

You for some reason seem to think he was bought for some other reason, not sure you're clear in your own mind what this reason was. But with the benefit of hindsight because he didn't take his chance you seem you seem to be saying that we bought him because we didn't think he could become part of the first team and it was for some sort of investment purposes.

 

Swansea lad has had a long term injury and has had knee surgery. So we have in the frame Bennett (£3m), Mawson (£? Outcast) and Van der Hoorn (free). None of these players seem to command a huge fee so it will be down to who will be up for a long haul in the Championship. Bennett

 

I don't see Bennett as a replacement for Godfrey. If he was to be a direct replacement for anybody then it is probably Klose. Not that I think we should sign him.

 

My concern is not specific to Raggett; it's a general concern about engaging in "wheeling and dealing" under the guise of recruiting players cheaply who it is "hoped" might make the first team. I'm perfectly clear about the rationale of such recruitment; it is to buy cheaply, add value, and sell at a profit. All clubs buy and sell; what I'm concerned about is operating a policy of buying to sell.

 

£3m for a player we let go for free in 2017 doesn't sound like good business, he won't have any resale value and we released him in his prime after 5 years mainly spent on the bench or injured .

Wolves had his 3 best years and now he's not good enough to start they should thank us for his promotion season European run and give him back free of charge.

 

That happens certainly, but I can't think of it happening at Norwich. We paid £250k for Raggett and he left for free. IMO he benefited from the experience he got from being in our squad and then from the loans he had. He's now got a 2 year contract at Portsmouth - would he have achieved that if he had stayed at Lincoln? I can't think of any player we bought to sell.

 

Appreciate you aren't singling out the Raggett deal, but in terms of wheeling and dealing, why is the deal for Raggett (£240k) any different to the ones for Trybull (free), Zimmerman (free), Abrahams (£240k), or Watkins (free) the same summer? All involved identifying a player available below market value, with the aim of them filling a squad spot in the short to medium term. Two of those paid off handsomely, Raggett and Watkins' faces never really fit with Farke-ball, and Abrahams had similar opportunities to Carlton Morris but it didn't work out. We're trying to take that approach to every area of our squad and development pipeline. You get hits like Pukki and misses like Drmic.

The club finances didn't give us a lot to play with in 2018, and it was clear we needed to make creative transfers to shake up the squad. There was strong competition for Raggett's signature that summer, West Ham, Oxford and Peterborough all reportedly made bids, if my memory serves the loan back to Lincoln was an important part of getting that deal over the line. In terms of what we were getting, a 23 year old non-league CB was always going to be raw, but he'd impressed in the cup competitions that season against higher calibre opposition, and the hope was that he could develop into a Championship squad player. Arguably, he showed he could be that in 18/19 on loan at Rotherham, they liked him and it was only injuries that stopped him getting more game time. Had we not won promotion, I think he'd have been a squad option for 19/20 in the Championship, even if his playing style was a little agricultural for Farke. The money probably wouldn't have been there to keep Klose, and Raggett would have been a cheap, solid, 4th choice CB.

Had Raggett been 19 not 23 when he signed, I don't think there'd be any conversation around his signing. But Vardy, Charlie Austin, Troy Deeney, Grant Holt (oddly all strikers) were all still in non-league in their 20s, and developed into capable operators at Championship level or higher. Personally I can't look at any player to have joined Norwich in the Webber era and say they never had the faintest chance of making the first team, which would be my arbitrary distinction for "wheeling and dealing".

But even then (and I appreciate this is opinion), I'm not sure I'd have a problem with it if there were clear examples of wheeling and dealing going on. Fundamentally if the club want to be self-funded, they have to look at all revenue streams they can, and player trading is a way of generating significant money. Buy ten players for a total of £5m, and only one of them needs to become a Championship level player and we've broken even. If they make our first team, even better. You can make far more money that way than you can from pushing the commercial operations to the limit, or increasing ticket prices.

I'd have a problem if NCFC are pulling the wool over the eyes of young players and convincing them they'll be training with the first team and starting games before too long, but if anything we're going the other way. To take some old quotes from Weaver in the academy setup: "The model that’s always been successful for us is that we’ll say to the players if there’s not an opportunity for them here, then we’ll give them opportunities out and about and hopefully from the experiences they gain, they can come back here and add value to the club. We’re not here to build a great under-23 or under-18 side. We’re here to get players in our first team – and players who can make us better. Then if we can’t make players for Norwich City, at least we can start a career and if there’s a sell-on or we can sell one or two, get some money back. But I know under Stuart and what they’re trying to achieve, young players will get a chance here.”
There was talk of NCFC doing something similar to Liverpool and making sure that the academy and first team are separate, but interact. Making sure that the kids can see the senior side train and talk to them, but make it so earning your way into the senior dressing room is a big deal - something which has to be worked for. If we were just aiming to spin a profit on a player, you'd use that first team environment to help draw them in, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

If Bennett is really serious about returning to Norfolk, I suspect it's been a deliberate action by NCFC to get this rumour in the papers. If the player is convinced there's only one place he wants to go, and Wolves want rid of him, the fee becomes largely irrelevant. They can accept £3m bids from all and sundry, if Bennett's only interested in Norwich it doesn't matter. Norwich can run the transfer window down, offer a loan deal, etc. Might as well make maximum use of the leverage.

I don't think NCFC are thinking "Bennett is the player to transform our defence", I think it's augmenting the squad with someone available at below market value. That we let him go is irrelevant to that.

 

We paid £3.5m from Peterborough and released him for free ,maybe we negotiated a sell on clause so we would get a percentage of the transfer fee if we buy him back?

On a free transfer or under £2m and I wouldn't grumble at having him back.

 

Latest rumour is Jamal Lewis has returned from holiday to begin talks with Liverpool. Liverpool would be prepared to include Yasser Larouci in the deal, a 19 year old LB described as attacking and lightning quick. He made a couple of FA cup appearances for them this season, but hasn't had a lot of game time and has had no previous loans.

Were that deal to go ahead, I think McCallum would be first choice with Larouci in reserve. But the Championship would be a big test for either of them.

 

We don't have mega-rich owners who can treat the club as some sort of play thing or investment. What we have is owners with a community conscience who seem to have what they see as the best interests of the club at the heart of their ownership and who are not willing to make what they see as poor financial decisions that put the long term future of the club at risk. There is an argument to be had as to whether a change of ownership would be better or worse for the club and it's future, equally it reasonable to argue that the owners are potentially too risk adverse and could loosen the purse strings a bit whilst keeping the club self funding, but at the moment we are where we are.

The club appears to have made the decision not to spend vast amounts of money on expensive experienced players, but to invest in young talent who if they continue to develop as hoped / expected should be able to become first team players. The trouble with investing in youth is that very few will actually develop to the level we need and this is even harder when we yo yo between the PL & the EFL. The success rate for bring players through from youth setup to first team is very very low at all clubs. You can improve your chances of getting a few youth players to break into the first team by spending more on your youth setup and by buying in better younger players and better youth coaches. Far from buying cheaply we are actually in real terms spend quite a lot of money on youth / young players. We have done extremely well in recent years in this area and I don't doubt that the money we make and are going to make from developing youth players will easily cover the expenditure. Obviously the more we can get to develop to become first team players the better and if we can get them to the point that they become worth vast amounts of money the we can sell them on and use the money to make the club self financing, the 'Southampton way'. However as we know most are not going to develop to the standard we require and we will have to sell them on, some will end up at league 1 / 2 level, many will not even reach this standard. As any princess knows you've got to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. At most clubs youth players will never get anywhere near the first team and at the moment we seem to be doing a lot better than most.

I'm still not entirely clear what you are suggesting the club is doing by "wheeling and dealing" whatever that means. I can't see as we're doing anything any other club doesn't do and with our current levels of success I struggling to see a downside.

What exactly are your concerns ? What's is the downside ? or is this just another case of moaning for the sake of it.

 

The press are quoting his valuation on Transfermarkt (£9.9m). His true value is at least twice that considering his age (22), experience and his contract until 2023. Larouci is 19 with a valuation of £1.6m. It depends on whether Jamal wants to be a back-up to Robertson or start with us and what offer SW is prepared to accept.

 

Surely Byram is our 1st choice left back

 

100% agree with this. If fit I would play Byram ahead of Lewis especially if we're going to play 2 CB's. Of all our first team youngsters Lewis is the one I would be happiest to lose. If the rumour is true Liverpool might have to pay a bit more than 10m though, with some decent sell on clauses. From Lewis's point of view I think he'd be mad to go. Can't see that spending most of his time on the subs bench is going to help his development much.