Morning Mike, pleased you had a good nights sleep. The Blades have just made a 4m offer for Freeman. We'd better be quick...
Kitching has spent most of the last 2 seasons at Harrogate mate now needs either letting go or bringing back to fire some coaching into him. Yes £8.5m now and up to £13m total with add ons. Remember that the Woods £14m was spread over 3 years so only £4.6m each of the 3 years, but getting £8m up front is banging
Wouldn’t normally mean 8m upfront I don’t think, unless negotiated that way. Normally Means 8m fee, spread over a few years + add-ons. Could be that spurs would agree to pay all upfront to get their man, but havent heard mention of that. you heard different doc?
When Delph was sold by Bates for around 7m having played only a few games, Bates was the devil incarnate. Whats the difference in Rads selling Clarke? Answers on a postcard please
Lots of reports on the fee so something in it but also seen 2 stories stating the negotiations went from £10m with add ons taking it to £16m not the £20 Radz asked for but Radz agreed to accepting £8.5m all up front and up to £13m with ad ons. So its been mentioned twice and makes a wee bit of sense as we know Levy is great negotiator and loves a deal?
What would our previous (and current) owners have done with an incoming transfer fee on 8m Bates - Personal bank account in Monaco Cellino - Would have swapped for some magic beans Radrizzani - HOPEFULLY used to bring in some TOP loan talent whilst balancing books
Time for me to offer my opinion on the Clarke situation. I think it's good business to get money for him now. The future is uncertain with him. If indeed he has a future. Seriously. Pre-'illness', he was an occasional game-changing sub. Hopeless when starting a match. Post-'illness', he has done absolutely nothing. Zilch. The invisible man. Now you have to ask yourself 'why the change?', as I have, & I keep coming back to this 'illness'. What was it? A virus? Really? Looked more like an anxiety attack to me. You don't get oxygen for a virus, do you? And one certainty of an anxiety attack is that your confidence takes a huge knock, plus you're constantly worrying when it's going to happen again. What if it happens when you're on your own? What if you're swimming? In a plane? The list goes on. I've encountered it time & time again as a Samaritans Listener. I've also been there. Compounding all this is his young age, and being on the cusp of a dream career, with all of its pressures. He may never recover if I've guessed right. And yes, it's a guess, I acknowledge that. And I hope I'm wrong. I get where Radz is coming from. He needs to sell someone, but who? The weakest link with a decent value is an obvious choice, & Clarke is most certainly that in our current situation. Radz is possibly thinking that Clarke may never hit his previous heights again. He's also possibly thinking that the heights were very occasional & unpredictable. And he'd be right to be worried. I bloody hope I'm wrong, but imagine later in the season we find out that I'm right, and we're left with a dud that could have generated millions for us. How would the fans react to Radz? I don't think I need to tell you. Bottom line: Radz has made an easy choice here, & I fully support him. We can't afford the risk of keeping a dud. Time to cash in. And I really hope the lad gets his form back, for his sake & ours.
Aston Villa managed it last season! Funny that, eh? Sure, they scored 9 more goals than us, but let in 11 more! Abraham even managed a goal every 133 minutes, which is better than Bamford & Roofe's combined effort of a goal every 165 minutes. But when you look at their second best, Kodjia scored every 227 minutes. First class strikers? Nah, the majority of their goals came from midfield. Norwich, I grant you was a different matter. They were exceptional. There's no escaping that.
Just read an article from a Spurs journo who said the deal was agreed back in May but Levy insisted on checking Clarkes health records and having his own tests done so satisfy himself the lad isnt going to break down again as it was a seizure he had at Boro?
The thing about these tests, Doc, is that they'll all have been physical & measurable. Confidence & mental state isn't physical & not easily measured. That's where his problem is, if I'm right.
Abraham banged in 26 goals, twelve more than our leading scorer Roofe. 35 goals between Abraham and Kodjia. Having a man that can net over 25 means they can afford to concede. We couldn't...
There’s a site that has a stat called expected goals... It basically breaks down chances into types of chance, statistical likelihood of them going in etc. Like all these algorithms it will have its limitations but it basically tries to assess chances by giving a different weighting to headers and shots, so shots from 30 yards with 5 players in front of striker has x% chance, header from 6 yards with open goal has y% chance... etc, even factors in the pass/cross type that led to the chance. Here is the final league table with an option to rank by expected goals. It makes quite interesting reading. https://www.infogol.net/en/leagues/english-football-league-championship-table-2018-19/89 Basically we should have gone up! Now we already knew that. If you click into a given team and then click stats you can see expected goals for and against. For us, we scored less than we should and conceded more. Both Norwich and Sheffield utd scored more than they should. Norwich were ridiculously efficient. As a side note, look at derby and Swansea in the table.
