Rumour Mill

This Icelandic lad sounds a bit special. He is only 16 but he is to be put straitaway into the U23 squad. He must have impressed our scouts to the max.

 

Anybody else bet that we wait until the last few days, even the last few hours, to do our transfer business? The Icelandic lad seems to be a player for the future, but I seem to recall that a certain Man Utd manager once said "if they're good enough they're old enough"

 

Don't hold your breath but I was told last night but we will not be signing anyone of significant until we offload some players! Brady hasn't packed his bags, we've been trying to offload bassong for 2 years, premier teams are all over Oliveira, but some good news, we didn't pay as much for pritchard as people think. Apart from that we've got no money!

 

Get in!

 

Would somebody please explain to me why we are so hard up. After a year in the Prem and with parachute payments where has all the money gone?

 

The bench and u23 squad mainly!

Bah!

 

After my last comment I thought about it and the side put out for this cup game must be up there as one of our most expensive sides ever assembled.

With Klose, Naismith and Pritchard all starting together. Need; Brady and Nelson in there too but that's where the money's gone (that and holland with the wasted millions on dogsdick).

Bah!

 

I think a lot of it is down to the club forecasting a significant loss this season and so the money has been earmarked to help offset that as opposed to going into the transfer budget.
I think it was either RER or 1950 who suggested we're facing something like a £12m deficit this accounting year? (Help me out, whoever it was who has seen / heard forecasts of the club's accounts!)

Edit:'How long do we give him' thread #1366 RiverEndRick.
Have you looked at the accounts? We nearly went bust when we dropped into Div1 but Lambert and McNally saved us. How many years since then have we made a profit? Last year we made a profit of £5m - this year we are budgeting a loss of £12m and that does not allow for sacking and replacing a Manager and backroom staff.

 

Having looked up our transfer history the most expensive team we could field from the PL era acording to transfermarkets.com is;
GK Marshall £750K
RB Pinto £2.2m
CB Bassong £4m
CB Klose £8.5m
LB Olson £2.5m
RM Redmond £3.2m
CM Fer £4.5m
CM Pritchard £8.5m
LM Brady £7m
AM Naismith £8.5m
ST RvW £8.5m
Bench:
Maddison £3m
Dorrans £3m
Nelson £4.2m
Hooper £6m
Ryben £3.2m
Earsham £3.5m
Grabarse or Ashton £3m

We seem to like signing keepers but not paying anything and the defense until Klose seemed very much financially unloved.

Bah!

 

I must have been quoting a previous source at the time, but that looks about right. We also paid off the loans from Board members while in the PL, but I'm not sure whether that was before or after the £5m profit. Selling Brady now could balance the books as well as saving a big wage to give us some leeway for new signings. As for the signing on fees, I'm pretty sure Naismith and Pritchard would have has add-ons related to staying up or going up in each case, so for me RvW is still our most expensive signing. The point about the cost of sacking AN still keeps me on the fence, as I'd rather we spend the money on players.

 

Not quite sure of your point here General. A fair few are no longer with us, some who have been moved on for a prety decent profit., and going back to Marshall is a step too far, unless ]you were refering to Andy.

 

Just that the team we have at the moment with the players we have reflects that contrary to many of our complaints, we've never spent more than we are now doing. Perhaps the board are showing a degree of ambition. That it's not being well spent is probably the main reason we have failed to make the progress we'd all like to see and not maintained our PL status.

Bah!

 

He's scored 8 in 16 appearances for Vitesse so far. I think we could have got more out of the fella.

 

How!?! That is not possible. We have spent naff all. We aren't using the money to pour in to debts like we use to because "we a debt fee". We have bags of money. They are just locked in the vaults!

 

BURN!!!!

Eat that Delia!!!

 

Yea, a few of us said that at the time. I really thought he would get given his chance in the Championship this term. Although Lafferty is a goal machine against Europe's best, and he doesn't get played anyway. Nelson has only just started to reluctantly get played because he can't stop scoring. He still gets dragged off if he's played well and scored a goal but we need a winner. So f*ck knows what AN's problem is with strikers. Morris can't even get a courtesy 5 minutes sub appearance.

 

Our net spend according to this site has been:

summer 2016 - £3.7m
15/16 season - £18.85m
14/15 season +£7.4m
13/14 season -£22.78m
12/13 season - £9.0m
11/12 season - £9.55m
10/11 season £0
9/10 season £0

It really highlights the need to stay up. 11/12 and 12/13 I guess we were paying off the debt and we can only assume that anything above about £20m is filing backpockets or just not there with operating costs when promoted.
I think all of this would be really good if the money was being spent wisely and we would/should be still in the PL or at least more ready to return.
Yes we could have gambled a little more to ensure we stayed up, but it is a dangerous game and the way we waste money, a very dangerous game!

Bah!

 

Whilst I thought each season he might get a chance with us, he each season failed to do anything much on loan. I really don't think he is very good. i think the dutch league is just so low on physicality but quite technical that it might be the only place he can really flurish. I'm glad to see the back of him and his wages.
Interestingly I have just noticed there is no listing for his exit on the transfers website I've referenced in the other posts, so quite how accurate the site is given a lot of entries as "Undisclosed or signed"

Bah!

 

It's taken AN quite a while to realise that playing Basil is bringing more rewards than a misfiring CJ. I appreciate that they have totally different qualities, but only someone as arrogant as AN would leave the player who's most likely to score goals on the bench for a player who offers more to the team!!!
I've been to a few of the 'youff' games this season and Morris has always impressed, as he did when our under 18s won the FA Youth Cup, but as you say, he can't even get on for a few minutes.

Yes, look at what happened to Portsmouth.

Agreed General

 

He did well in Portugal too, scoring 28 in 55, but I suppose they are weak too and nothing to do with being frozen out by a jealous and selfish Snodgrass?