You have to be careful with wages, mind, when disecting some of this. Keeping Che, for example, might not be all that much 'cheaper' than brining someone in, over 3 years, given the wages he'd likely command as a free agent (and his likely re-sale value at the end of that period) Too simplistic to call free transfers 'frugal' in every sense - though the transfers that kill you in FFP ar the Orisic, Carillo types. Actually, our track record on singing players from abroad in the £15-20m had been pretty appaling. Balance to be struck.
You can't ignore wages but it is also less risky in the sense that he is a known quantity, so its easy to the club to decide if he is worth whatever wage he is asking for. If he left and we had to replace him, the wages may well be less but 40k a week on a proven player is less risky than 30k & £8m on a player from abroad who could be a massive flop. I'm hoping we re-sign Che, sell Onuachu and go all out on a starting striker.
Pretty difficult to work out. We lost over £85 million in the relegation season but last year made around £140 million profit in players sales last season and got rid of some high earners though would have taken a big drop on other incomings due to non premier league money. Won’t find out true figures until March 25. We also had to pay back a big chunk of the covid loan money last season and this season I think.
Good. He knows that a lot of the fan base would not welcome him back as it’s mainly about money for him. Hope the Ox rumours are also false.
I'm not against players coming back simply because they've been here before. Judge each on their merits and count experience as a positive. Fact is that we were too inexperienced last time and fact remains that in Mara, Sulemana, Edozie, SAA, Charles, Wood, Edwards, Bazunu and maybe even to an extent Smallbone ,Stewart etc - we have a lot of players who are likely to need a fair bit of handholding/improvement to be regular PL players. I think Lallana is our only outfield player over 30?
Yeah, it's impossible to know if we're planning for a really frugal summer transfer window, or if we're getting the easy/cheap deals done early and will progress the harder/expensive deals as the summer goes by. If Ipswich get Philogene and Greaves over the line (to go with Hutchinson), then I would say that their business would have been more exciting than ours. But at a total purchase fee of approximately £55m to £60m, just for three players, would they have much further room to spend beyond that? Their three-year cumulative loss allowance includes one year at the lower Championship rate, and one year at an even more L1 rate - so it will be way below the £105m loss figure which most PL clubs can benefit from. And I don't recall Ipswich selling anyone for decent money in the previous two years, so I doubt they have any profit to carry forward to, and benefit from, this season. Those three players are decent, but I doubt they alone will keep Ipswich in the league.
Ipswich are quite likely to go straight back down again (same as us), so I guess the players they are buying will be both low wages and excellent at Championship level to get them straight back up again the following year, with the potential that they will be good enough for lower half PL level too. Incremental improvements over multiple windows when there is little room to maneuvre with the bollocks that is FFP.
My Ipswich supporting friends insist they basically have a league one squad. So arguably even signing these 4 or 5 is not enough. Might be usual football fan pessimism though
Have to side with Tom on this one! Over 18s are allowed to the pub, and at 18 I could show my ID and get in legally. I was over 18.
