Conor Hourihane - thanks and farewell

[Sexual Ealing]

You can’t just bring a player on take free kicks and corners.

We bring Barkley on to do a lot less.

[Toronto Villa]

You can’t just bring a player on take free kicks and corners. He became a decent option once in a while when we rotated but at the time we just had better starting options. It’s the same as Guilbert. Just Sod’s law that Cash got injured but if he hadn’t he’d have been third choice for that position. I’m delighted both of them are doing really well and in the case of Guilbert I hope he comes back to legitimately challenge Cash next season.

There's no way that Guilbert should have been behind Elmo in the pecking order.

I don’t think he is or was as a pure RB. My guess is that Elmo is just more versatile to play other positions as to why he made the bench over Freddie.

[Toronto Villa]

You can’t just bring a player on take free kicks and corners.

We bring Barkley on to do a lot less.

We bring on Barkley to do a lot more overall. That he doesn’t isn’t the point.

[mr underhill]

is Conor out of contract in the summer? If not we must be able to get a reasonable fee, surely?

[OCD]

Next summer. Should be able to get £5m for him.

[Ian.]

He seems very at home there, it would be great for him to get promoted and stay with them.
Sometimes a player really clicks at a club and it’s gutting when they’re are on loan and do not return. We’ve had it with Snodgrass and Tammy over the last few years.

[JuanMartinez]

As much as I love Conor for what he did for us,
Loaning him out was the correct decision especially as we are now likely to receive double what we paid after 4 years usage.

He’s not mobile enough for the EPL and madness to suggest he could be utilised as a set piece taker primarily.

[eamonn]

I notice that he's often coming off and subbed with about half an hour left. Probably difficult to get back into that three game a week rhythm but he doesn't throw a strop, presumably (didn't he in a Villa game this season and we scored as he was making the long walk around the goalposts?).

[Sexual Ealing]

He makes and scores goals, which most of our squad doesn't. I don't get why we couldn't benefit from that.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Erm..because we play him as a defensive midfielder?

[London Villan]

What we get for him is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. In hindsight he could have been useful during this sticky patch.

[eamonn]

He loved playing against Newcastle. Would have funeral-ed them the other night with his left-foot.

[Toronto Villa]

This is the same player many referred to as Hologram. Which was incredibly unfair. But even his most ardent supporters could see he’s not what we needed as a full time midfielder given where we were at Christmas. That’s why it made sense to give him a chance to play elsewhere. That, and don’t forget he’s a stand out player in the Championship. Most of our current players would be.

This isn’t American football where you have special teams players. Because if that was the case he’d be worth having around just for free kicks and crosses.

[SoccerHQ]

What we get for him is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. In hindsight he could have been useful during this sticky patch.

6-7m is peanuts in football but it's not like we regularly make that from squad players. Usually they play so little and are on such big money we either have to wait for their contract to run out like Neil Taylor or give them away for practically nothing like Lansbury and Hogan.

As brilliant as our owners are I'm a little uncomfortable with the demand they keep pumping in 70-80m every summer as that was the approach Lerner eventually got bored of after 3 summers of doing it for MON.

I'd like us to start slowly to become more self-sufficent and make 30-40m a summer from moving on unwanted squad players. You see Liverpool selling likes of Brewster and Solanke for over 40m combined and while we're a long way off from doing it it's a good way of balancing the books and making minimal impact on FFP.

Apparently we get 5m for Samatta on 1st July, Conor will be 5m and least and letting go of one of Trez/AEG,Engels, Gulibert and perhaps even Nakamba should raise about 30m and decent chunk of wages off and still leave us o.k in most areas. Whatever we're paying for Barkley will also be no burden and that saved should go towards new contracts for Konsa and Martinez.

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

This is the same player many referred to as Hologram. Which was incredibly unfair. But even his most ardent supporters could see he’s not what we needed as a full time midfielder given where we were at Christmas. That’s why it made sense to give him a chance to play elsewhere. That, and don’t forget he’s a stand out player in the Championship. Most of our current players would be.

This isn’t American football where you have special teams players. Because if that was the case he’d be worth having around just for free kicks and crosses.

Only the juvenile called him "hologram".
You seem to be the only one mentioning the nonsensical US idea of him only being brought on for free kicks and crosses missing the point of my original post, which was who do we have now who takes a decent corner/free kick? Clearly nobody including Jack so this is something we're going to have to address in the next window.