As @Scout73 mentioned if we got a decent fee that was enough to sign Mepham and have plenty of change I think that would be a good deal for all parties. Ballard is a very good defender at this level who certainly has his strengths but I think Mepham is much better, like night and day better. If we could sign him and have £6-7m change for another improvement in the squad that would be hard to turn down.
I doubt there’d be a huge amount left to reinvest, agree that if we could get Mepham and have enough to get another player that would be good business though.
So youre saying sell player A for x.money and buy player Y (who is greatly better ) for less than we sold player A and have money left over, your glass is well more than half full,
That happens all the time in football though. I remember Brentford selling maupay for a good amount then replaced him with a better (and cheaper) player in watkins Mepham isn't wanted at Bournemouth, only has 18 months on his contract so would likely be available at a lower price
Teams replace players for better players who come cheaper all the time due to inflated transfer fees. Or players who suit them better at the time to reach their goals. I know I’ve mentioned Brentford signing Pontus Jansen from Leeds before but to do so they sold Konsa to Villa for £13m or so and signed Jansson for £5m plus Pinnock for £3m.. made Jansson captain straight away then went up the following season. Konsa is obviously a very good defender who’s now playing CL football at Villa but Jansson was a huge signing for them, provided some much needed leadership qualities in a young squad. That same window they sold Maupay and replaced him with Mbuemo for half the price. Those 3 players at the time massively improved them but on paper they’d sold two of their better players and replaced them with “cheaper” alternatives. Mepham has a few years on Ballard and is out of favour at Bournemouth plus doesn’t have long left on his contract. If Ballard makes the move to a PL club it’ll be for a bare minimum of £10m, I’d like to think closer to £15m and I think Mepham would cost around half of that. Cheeky £2m bid for Cissoko from Plymouth who looks a real player but picked an injury that’ll keep him out until Jan. Think Esse at Millwall is a good player too but might cost a bit more. Only issue would be that Mephams wages would probably be a lot higher than Ballard but as we’re starting to establish ourselves as a top championship team our wage structure will start getting bigger.
100% mate But with him being here and seems to be loving it, we have a cracking chance of signing him If I'm his agent I'm telling him to wait till the summer tho and then decide on next move then
There are some I would not sell/lose at any price at this point. Mepham and 09 would be two of them, Cirkin Neil Jobe Hume Rigg. Ballard I wouldn’t have on it. Clearly he’s a good player but I’m not sure he’s not too rash and reckless at times. I describe him as over competitive. It’s brave but not always wise and it costs his availability, quite regularly. I’d be surprised if we couldn’t use this money wisely and be more consistently stronger.
100%. there’s no benefit to him in signing for us in January. Whatever we offer now will likely still be on the table in the summer, and he may even be able to negotiate more from us if we get promoted
There’s a wild amount of logic and sense on this topic. I love big Dan mind, I’d prefer we keep him. Lads only 25.
