Summer 2015 - Transfer Rumours, Speculation & Suggestions

[Steve67]

I'd take Townsend and Huddleston. Trippier off to Spurs, so Walker to us as well please. Not a bad shopping list.

[OCD]

I think Townsend's transfer value probably carries a premium because he's one of those, often assumed mythical, 'left-footed wingers'.

The premium is probably because he's a Spurs player. We're lucky the story's not put his valuation at £20m.

[RussellC]

I'd take Townsend and Huddleston. Trippier off to Spurs, so Walker to us as well please. Not a bad shopping list.

Spurs really do love stock-piling right-backs, don't they? They've already got Yedlin & Dier, as well as Walker and Kaboul who has played there. No doubt they'll be looking for ridiculous fees to sell any of them too. I really do detest that club.

[Steve67]

I'd take Townsend and Huddleston. Trippier off to Spurs, so Walker to us as well please. Not a bad shopping list.

Spurs really do love stock-piling right-backs, don't they? They've already got Yedlin & Dier, as well as Walker and Kaboul who has played there. No doubt they'll be looking for ridiculous fees to sell any of them too. I really do detest that club.

Me too. It's the vision of grandeur that does it for me. If they weren't in London, they'd be a bigger laughing stock than we were before Tish took over.

[Dave]

I'd take Townsend and Huddleston. Trippier off to Spurs, so Walker to us as well please. Not a bad shopping list.

Spurs really do love stock-piling right-backs, don't they? They've already got Yedlin & Dier, as well as Walker and Kaboul who has played there.

I'm not sure that with Richards, Lowton, Bacuna, Hutton, Cissokho, Bennett, Luna and Richardson on our books we can really criticise others for having too many full-backs.

[RussellC]

I'd take Townsend and Huddleston. Trippier off to Spurs, so Walker to us as well please. Not a bad shopping list.

Spurs really do love stock-piling right-backs, don't they? They've already got Yedlin & Dier, as well as Walker and Kaboul who has played there.

I'm not sure that with Richards, Lowton, Bacuna, Hutton, Cissokho, Bennett, Luna and Richardson on our books we can really criticise others for having too many full-backs.

Maybe not, but neither do we usually hold buying clubs to ransom when shifting our deadwood. I'd be surprised if we made any more than about £5m combined by selling Lowton, Luna, Cissokho and Bennett this summer. Granted, that's a reflection of our poor recruiting in recent years, but it does irk me that Spurs consistently demand top dollar for players they have little intention of playing. It irks me even more that they usually get it.

[warleyboy]

Would spuds be willing to sell us Townsend for 12 mil, when they could possibly want Tekkers.
Surely they would be using any of there players as leverage.
Or maybe that's just the way I'd go about it.

[paul_e]

bad quoting aside surely if we made £5m from those players it would be hard to call that bad recruitment as that would be the money we spent coming back.  I think I'd rather keep hold of Bennett though, I genuinely think there's a decent player in there and he's worth another look.

[RussellC]

bad quoting aside surely if we made £5m from those players it would be hard to call that bad recruitment as that would be the money we spent coming back.  I think I'd rather keep hold of Bennett though, I genuinely think there's a decent player in there and he's worth another look.

Personally, I'd prefer our recruitment to focus on bringing in good players that don't need replacing on such a frequent basis, rather than just be able to make our money back on. I'm assuming you're not genuinely suggesting we've done a good job of buying full-backs in recent seasons...?

[paul_e]

bad quoting aside surely if we made £5m from those players it would be hard to call that bad recruitment as that would be the money we spent coming back.  I think I'd rather keep hold of Bennett though, I genuinely think there's a decent player in there and he's worth another look.

Personally, I'd prefer our recruitment to focus on bringing in good players that don't need replacing on such a frequent basis, rather than just be able to make our money back on. I'm assuming you're not genuinely suggesting we've done a good job of buying full-backs in recent seasons...?

Not at all but if you're going to go after £1m gambles the 2nd best outcome is getting your money back so I think labeling our recruitment as a massive failure is unwarranted.  There have been failures in there but in general Lambert was ok at that bit.  making a successful team out of the players he got was where he struggled, his record of destroying any potential in fullbacks was the crowning glory of his time with us, Bertrands start, fall and rise at Southampton should show just how shit Lambert was in that area.

I've made it pretty clear that I think our recruitment should focus on the best young players we can afford and trying to get 2-3 of them every season.  That way if we see 1-2 leave for big money and 1-2 fail we're building a conveyor belt of talent where the chances are that we'll always make profits.  The odd thing is mon tried to dabble in that market and was hugely successful with it (Young, Milner, Delph, Davies being the obvious exception), but he ruined it by also spending huge sums on players who had no resale value.  We're not in the right place to implement that strategy yet so people like Richards coming in are good because they have quality and experience and are young enough to be around for 4-5 years to serve as the cornerstones of this type of strategy.

[brontebilly]

I think Townsend's transfer value probably carries a premium because he's one of those, often assumed mythical, 'left-footed wingers'.

Personally, I think you need a player in the side who's willing to take a few pot-shots during the game. Granted, at the goal and not the corner-flag as Tonev had a tendency to do, though.

those pot shots have resulted in 3 goals in 47 league games over the last two seasons, think there were a couple of penos in that too 

Townsend's transfer value carries a premium for one reason primarily, his passport

I'll skip the quotathon

Why do you think we'll go 3 at the back next season? Nothing Sherwood did with us, or with Spurs hinted at 3 at the back being a long term option as far as I can recall.
Wing back wouldn't suit him as there (if done properly) the onus is on attacking and tracking back when needed.  Richards is first and foremost a defender, albeit from the responses on the Blue Moon board, okayish going forwards, but relying more on speed and physique than technique.

Fiorentina - can't comment.  Saw a few minutes of their Europa League games, but wasn't really paying attention.

Senderos & Baker - agree.

Wages for Richards - we've spent the last 9 years being notoriously difficult for journalists to get any contract information out of us and the last 5 being notoriously tight. Why should we suddenly believe that we've pretty much shattered our wage structure now? Alternatively the brave new world of the new TV deal means that we can afford to start paying these wages to players we believe are worth it, and if he can get back to 75% of what he was pre-injury he'll be the best right back we've had in more years than I care to remember, Mark Delaney?

And again.  Why has he got to be playing centre half.  His best performances have come at full back. He won the League and FA cup playing full back, he played for England at full back.  People have kittens about Okore at centre half being a shade over 6'.  Why should we now play someone who's 5'11" there?

If I was to guess, I'd say that the starting back 4 (assuming no more signings other than maybe a left back) will be

Richards - Okore - Clark - A.N.Other (Possibly Bennett)

Hutton will be first cover for Richards
Baker will be first cover Clark
Senderos will be first cover for Okore

If necessary Richards can cover for Okore

the angle being played out in the media is that he chose us as he has received assurances re playing at centre back e.g http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/17/aston-villa-micah-richards-transfer-centre-half. Could be media guff but suspect there is something in it for sure. Remember him playing with Dunne at centre half for City years back. Bit of a gamble considering how long it is since he has played regularly at all but even more so in that position. Micah Richards isnt worth anything near the contract we have given him and it suggests a foolhardy return at board level to the days of giving the likes of Habib Beye a pension. Scott Dann, Michael Keane, James Chester three players off the top of my head who would be far better bets to play in that position for us than Richards and cheaper too.

Re going three at the back, think Bacuna got 5 or 6 assists after Sherwood came in so getting him or an attacking full bacl further forward next term gives us much needed width. The one Spurs player I wouldnt mind us signing would be Kyle Walker to play in that role. Richards might be best suited I would suggest as a right sided centre half with Clark and one other. A first choice centre back partnership of Richards and Clark next term would really worry me. If the proposed centre half experiment doesnt work what do we do with him, an expensive injury prone reserve for sure.

Wouldnt be surprised in the slightest to see Hutton moved on this summer, his form tailed off badly after Sherwood arrived and he was as bad as Nzogbia or Grealish in the final imo. If our full backs are expected to push forward next term, he clearly isnt suited to that. Lowton, Bennett, Cissokho - time to cut our losses on those three too.

[Ads]

Couldn't disagree more. Richards is proven top flight quality, a winner, with age and versatility on his side. The absence of this sort of signing over the past five years is the reason why we've struggled. Comparisons to Habib Beye are utter nonsense.

[passitsideways]

Also, I'd imagine a Keane or Chester would cost 3-5 million without requiring substantially lower wages, so I doubt that they would be noticeably cheaper. Better at CB, I would think, but I think Richards will primarily be a RB, which could mean various things (Bacuna spending more time at RW, Hutton and/or Lowton being shifted on or seeing time, unfortunately, at LB)

[Matt Collins]

Townsend is better than nzogbia and Huddlestone at least has in the past been better than Westwood (pretty good last season, awful this one).

But for the best part of £20m I think we could do better

Plus we'd then have three holding midfielders and only Delph proven on the box to box front

[Ads]

I imagine it's very easy at this point to link us with anybody that's even driven through N17.