Lee Johnson explains how Bristol City secured their bargain deal for Hertha Berlin's Jens Hegeler Lee Johnson has described the deal that brought Jens Hegeler as "genius." One of three new faces to arrive through the door at Ashton Gate last week, the 28-year-old German penned a two and a half year contract to play in England. His transfer from Bundesliga high-fliers Hertha Berlin to a Championship club came as a total surprise to many German pundits. And they were even more surprised at the size of the fee involved. A majority of reports on the Continent quoted a fee of £300,000 when reporting the story. But the Post understands City have paid around half that amount up front for a player who had six months left to run on his contract in the German capital. City will have to pay a further £150,000 in the future, but only when Hegeler has played a certain number of first team games for the Robins. It represents a remarkable piece of business on the part of City chief operating officer Mark Ashton, who negotiated the deal to bring the former Germany Under-21 international to the Football League. Commenting on the deals that saw Hegeler arrive at the same times as striker Milan Djuric and defender Bailey Wright, head coach Johnson said: "I think it's fair to say that Djuric was the most expensive (£1.5m). "The Jens Hegeler deal was genius in terms of what we paid financially for that quality of player." City paid around £500,000 to Preston for the services of Wright, the 24-year-old Australia central defender. Johnson added: "Given what we paid for Bailey Wright, I think that is a really good deal as well. If you look at the going rate for Championship centre halves at the moment and consider he is an international, we could probably quadruple the asking price if we wanted to sell him tomorrow." http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/lee-jo...jens-hegeler/story-30050160-detail/story.html
Hegeler £150K ( £150K at a later date) Wright £500K Djuric £1.5M Total £2m.150K Brilliant business, well done that man..
Yep have to agree,not seen any of them play but it seems excellent business,let's see what there made off against Cardiff on Saturday. These guys potentially are the ones the can save LJ as the rest can not.
Just to be on the flip side for a minute, we all said the same about the summer's business. I still stand by the fact that we did good business, but many are now slating him for spending millions. Let's wait and see
Depends if Engval and co are ever going to get near the 1st Team I guess. If they don't, then it won't have been good business unless we can recoup what we paid for them if we sell them on.
I've got no problem paying that money for Taylor Moore, if SL is happy to pay it. The guy could clearly be worth a lot, lot more than that in the future. Engvall, yeah I'm as mystified as the rest of us.
Engvall had a career threatening injury, and has been on the slow road to recovery. If he is going to shape up it will be next season not this one. He must be one helluva player when fit. Paul Cheesley took a season to find his feet and place in the team as I remember, but it was worth the wait. Gerry Gow lost nearly a season in 1972 with a serious injury also I believe, but his return wrote a glorious page in our club history. Patience is a mark of maturity. Arsenal were rudderless for nearly a whole season while they waited for Wenger to leave Monaco, but he bought them a double within three years. You don't win anything with kids, but when they get slightly older you win everything. That is the gamble with Engvall, and only time will tell if it is successful, but if it is we will have one serious dude in our forward line
I seem to remember SAF taking a similar gamble on a certain Ruud Van Nestelrooy when he was recovering from an ACL injury. It worked.
I've not heard about this Engvall injury? Fair enough if so. As you say, he must have been one hell of a player to still take the risk, but then again these types of risks make great managers. In a similar vein, sticking with good potential through bad form also.
Engvall probably needs a full pre-season - think we need to judge him then As for this season - it's a shame we can't send him out on loan for just a month to get him some proper game time