Transfer goss and rumours, Summer 2016.

I see that Kiev are not offering Mbokani a new contract, so he will be a free agent soon. Would he want to play in the a championship though. In my opinion, he is a better striker than Jerome and would be an excellent asset for us. Plus he is on a free. I believe we negotiated a £5.5m fee when we took him on loan.

 

He will get better offers from Turkey where a lot of players go to finish their careers.

 

Or China/MLS

 

As I might of mentioned once or twice before I never thought that Martin was good enough as a CB either in the championship or in the PL. At the start of the season when I was saying he was not a PL CB and we should sell him quiet a few posters on here argued that he was good enough for the PL and that they could see some PL teams wanting him if he was for sale, so I'm expect some offers from PL teams for him any day now. Many posters also thought Bassong was PL quality, so hopefully we'll have a plethora of bids for him as well. I'm not suggesting the General was one of those posters, indeed over time they seem to have disappeared or changed there view.

 

Not the MLS, Only 3 marquee players per team are allowed the rest get payed a relative paupers wage c.f. the PL. I think we could compete with that as he is unlikely to be the star man an MLS franchise would want. That said would we want to? Where we can freshen up the squad we should and he wasn't that great for us. Does he really fit our system? And would he slum it in the championship like GE says? I guess if Jerome can score 18 in the Champ then Mbok should be able to break 20.

Bah!

 

He may be better than Jerome, although personally I'm not convinced, but neither are good enough for the PL. IMO we'd be better off spending money on a striker that had potential to be PL standard. I wouldn't also touch Bamford. But if we did go for them then only on a very short contract, which I doubt they'd go for, so that we could replace them should we get promoted. I think if we're going down the line of sticking with what we've got and making wholesale changes should we get promoted then we should really be looking at season long loans. Does anyone know how many loans we're restricted to in the championship.

 

Martin made the Championship team of the year so that was the excuse as to why he was good.
In reality he was ****.

 

Indeed I wasn't. I was one of the many who thought it was PL suicide to start with them and Bennett in the PL. I think the one thing I would say though is that all three of them (Inc Ryben) have looked passable PL players when paired with Klose. I do think Martin can play at CB fairly well at Champ level, ditto Ryben and Bass, if we can only hold on to Klose, then anyone of them will be a perfectly capable partner. Still want rid of Bass to start evolving the sqaud, but his wages and recent form may preclude him from moving. Maybe we could persuade Hootun to do an exchange deal for Dunk?

Bah!

 

He'd definitely fit in as being one of three 'marquee' signings at some of the smaller MLS clubs.
I suppose the bigger issue is that they are mid-season at the moment.

 

Does that mean his contract expires in 2017, or did we negotiate to buy a player for £5.5m when he was out of contract in the summer anyway?

With the lack of gossip, to keep on with the "who should stay/go" argument, I think the biggest question is how much has the championship moved on, and are the players who got us up the same or better than they were two seasons ago? For me I think the championship has got harder with some clubs around the top end throwing £5m transfer fees around aplenty, whilst it's hard to argue any of our players are stronger than they were. The additions of Brady and Klose probably the only genuine strengthening we've done. Players like Jerome joined off the back of crap seasons and still shone in the championship, so hopefully they can do so again.

I get the argument that we don't have the funds to chop and change the squad willy-nilly when we have 90% of the players who got us promoted before, but equally we shouldn't overlook any opportunities to replace players with those of similar quality who have different attributes/are younger. Sticking with the CB position, both Martin and Bassong have shown they can be a part of a promotion-winning championship defence, but have also shown they will make a mistake every game which will be punished at a higher level. I can't provide names, but equally I can't believe there aren't championship level defenders who can stay switched on for a whole game, even if they struggle more against pace/height/physicality/whatever than Bassong/Martin. Perhaps the better mental game would be more of use should we win promotion, but may not have to cost us a huge sum to attain if there is interest in Bassong or Martin.

 

i think we had been negotiating a permanent deal for £5.5M but couldn't get it over the line and he is now out of contract. Though I'm far from sure, I'm sure someone will set me straight if that is not so.
I'm not so sure the championship has got so much harder only in so much as we got relegated with Fulham and Cardiff last time who arguably were not as strong as Villa and Newcs. Look at the sides near the top who didn't go up;
Brighton, well organised and a team exceeding the sum of it's parts, how many of there players would you want to trade with what we have?
Derby, Brilliant before Xmas each season, but full of our rejects. How much better they can do will depend on retaining Hughes. I still think with Martin as their main spearhead they will continue to struggle to get over the line for Auto promotion, their marque signing last year was BJ and he has not really had any great impact.
Hull/Wedneday, Hull in a little decline, if they miss promotion this year, could be fighting an exodus of their best. Wednesday are on the up and have a couple of useful goal scorers, but look short of a title tilt.
Newcs/Villa could either be the main contenders, with large budgets and high profile managers, or absolute basket cases, who knows, Fulham looked better placed when they dropped, even spending loads on McCormack so it's anybobies guess.
Will we be stronger? We'll have to wait and see who stays. goes and arrives. But I think as is we're stronger.

But

 

As I think someone else has pointed out, Bassong can reunite with Hughton at Brighton in return for Dunk?

 

Me in #448

Bah!

 

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From the pinkun. Not a bad bunch to hopefully be holding on to. They're a bunch to build on, now all we need is a goal getter and a top keeper.

Bah!

 

And who would we fans keep or sell
I won't post the whole team but I think you can all guess the position s that have the highest desired cull rate!

Bah!

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Good graphics GM! I think those prices are about right and replacing any would be hard work, IMO. Most fans seem resigned to Redmond leaving, as the graphic indicates. I do think the average age of our squad is a concern, but that could be alleviated by young players stepping up to the first team. It may also be why we don't sign older players let go from the PL. I wonder how AN sees the future of Andreu.

 

Andreu is an intriguing one at Champ level.
He made 10 starts (and one sub app) for Rotherham last season, scoring twice and getting four assists. I suppose he's a decent back-up option, but is almost certainly going to be down the pecking order behind Hoolahan and Naismith (if we keep hold of them - not to mention Maddison).

EDIT: just noticed that 3 of his 4 assists came in one game!

 

See, we're not all bad!!!!!!!

Mind it was the first time I'd looked at your board for a year or so and just happened to see the sterotyping comments about the R's, so thought I'd just straighten things out so to speak......

 

I had a lot of time for BrixtonR, a true gentleman, and I also exchanged friendly banter with wubba, a realist and micky taker of WCT, but I've not heard from him for a very long time, I hope he is ok!

 

Reply to this post with that line as well mate