Summer 2022 Transfer Thread

[paul_e]

I don't see what so controversial about Freds comment.  It's true, we do generally sruggle to get good value when we sell players.  Maybe it's because most of them aren't that good, but we paid good money for a lot of these players and more often than not we're having to give them away for next to nothing and pay up most their contracts too.  It may be the same for a lot of clubs, but it's still an issue we're guilty of.  Selling a generational talent for an incredible fee is a one off and does not expunge that.

I'm not saying these were all bad signings, some like Conor gave excellent value for money, but evern so...

Target -    £13.95    > £15.75 (this was decent business)
Tres -       £9.00  - > £3.6
Kalinic      £5.4m > free
Hourihane £3.15  > free
Samatta   £9.45m   > £5.4
Engels -    £7.2m  > £3.15
Heaton -   £7.92m  > free
Wesley -   £22m > will be a free
Hogan -    £9.45m  > £2.49m
McComrmack £12.87m  > free
Lansbury - £3.06  > free
Chester -   £8.37m  > free
Jota -        £4.05m  > free
Kodjia       £11.52m  > £2.7m
De-Laet     £2.07m  > free
Elphick      £3.51m  > free
Adomah    £3.15  > free
Whelan     £1.53m  > free
Tshibola    £5.31m  > free
Gollini      £4.5m   >  £3.96m
Bree        £3.15m  > free
Nyland     £2.7m > free

in addition
ElGhazi £8.1m > will prob be free
Guilbert £4.5m  > will prob be free

Most of those frees were people who got to the end of their contract, that happens to most clubs and in many case they are players who came in, did the job we needed and then left. A few are players who had major injuries and never really recovered, again that happens to every club and it looks bad on us recently mostly due to the fact that we've signed a fuckload of players for the last 7 years (64 players, so over 9 a season).

Yet more were players signed under very different owners and a manager who has a reputation for working this way (along with a manager who acted like a kid in a sweetshop and got sacked within 3 months).

Then you have the fact that covid ripped the guts out of the finances of a lot of leagues meaning players like Guilbert and Engels, who we'd have got our money back for earlier on, are now just priced out of the market of the sort of clubs that would like to sign them.

Finally a handful are just bad signings (and probably fit other categories above), players like Hogan, Kalinic, Samatta and maybe a few others were just overpriced and given wages that were far too high for their ability and McCormack and Lansbury (in particular) were signed despite there being red flags over them that should've made us a lot more cautious. Both of those sort of deals are bad and I'd hope that we've learned from them, I don't see anyone at the club currently that I'd say were like that.

Remember Lange has only been here 2 years and we're yet to try to sell anyone he was involved in signing so, whilst I'm not saying it isn't an area we can improve on, I don't know if it's a fair criticism of the club right now, once we finish up cleaning the squad of the failures from the Summer 19 batch of signings I think we'll be in a better place to work out how the club looks gonig forward.

[pauliewalnuts]

James Bree.

I'd totally forgotten he played for us.

[chrisw1]

Most of the frees were players we couldn't get rid of for a fee who we wanted rid of well before the end of their contracts.

I agree with the earlier points about some of them having done a job.  But it still doesn't invalidate Fred's point, which is we struggle to sell players for any value.

[Drummond]

£118m loss. So with Ratboy we're £18m down. Not bad all things considered.

[chrisw1]

£118m loss. So with Ratboy we're £18m down. Not bad all things considered.

The sale of a one off generational talent isn't really relevant to the point being made.

[paul_e]

Most of the frees were players we couldn't get rid of for a fee who we wanted rid of well before the end of their contracts.

I agree with the earlier points about some of them having done a job.  But it still doesn't invalidate Fred's point, which is we struggle to sell players for any value.

How many clubs in the top 2 divisions in English football over the last 7 years have made a profit on trading? How many of those have stood still over that time?

To  put it simply to make decent profits you either have to sell players you'd prefer to keep or you have be high enough up the league to convince teams that the players you don't want are still good enough to play regularly in the league. We aren't either of those but I don't want us to be the former so we need to accept that we might lose money on players until we can regularly compete in Europe.

[eamonn]

Kalinic, Heaton and Nyland. About as useful as three chocolate tea-pots.

Yeah, yeah, Heaton got injured. He still turned-out to be a waste of money and then he buggered-off for free to be No.2 or No.3 somewhere else (Mould Trafford, was it?).

Also, did we really pay that much for Tshibola? That figure looks like the max payable to Reading based on milestones reached. Aaron probably faltered at the first one.

[Dave]

Most of the frees were players we couldn't get rid of for a fee who we wanted rid of well before the end of their contracts.

I agree with the earlier points about some of them having done a job.  But it still doesn't invalidate Fred's point, which is we struggle to sell players for any value.

How many clubs in the top 2 divisions in English football over the last 7 years have made a profit on trading? How many of those have stood still over that time?

Without looking, I reckon Brentford are probably killing it on that count.

[chrisw1]

It's not necessarily about making a trading profit, just about getting a little bit of value back.  We don't seem to have been very good at that for a good few years.

[Drummond]

£118m loss. So with Ratboy we're £18m down. Not bad all things considered.

The sale of a one off generational talent isn't really relevant to the point being made.

Ignore it then.

[paul_e]

It's not necessarily about making a trading profit, just about getting a little bit of value back.  We don't seem to have been very good at that for a good few years.

but 'value' is about more than just money. JUst from your list I'd say Hourihane and El Ghazi in particular played a big enough part in us turning things around and getting promoted that any value we needed from them was delivered on the pitch ages ago.

[ChicagoLion]

Most of the frees were players we couldn't get rid of for a fee who we wanted rid of well before the end of their contracts.

I agree with the earlier points about some of them having done a job.  But it still doesn't invalidate Fred's point, which is we struggle to sell players for any value.

How many clubs in the top 2 divisions in English football over the last 7 years have made a profit on trading? How many of those have stood still over that time?

Without looking, I reckon Brentford are probably killing it on that count.

Southampton?

[Drummond]

£118m loss. So with Ratboy we're £18m down. Not bad all things considered.

The sale of a one off generational talent isn't really relevant to the point being made.

Yet it is. Because FFP dictates (d?) our situation. We've balanced the books in that regard. Even if you ignore it, £118m cost to keep us going and get back up is money well spent.

 Lot is wasted, as is the same everywhere. Lot of those frees are players who did their job, and left again. I doubt we were expecting a return on many of them.

[paul_e]

Most of the frees were players we couldn't get rid of for a fee who we wanted rid of well before the end of their contracts.

I agree with the earlier points about some of them having done a job.  But it still doesn't invalidate Fred's point, which is we struggle to sell players for any value.

How many clubs in the top 2 divisions in English football over the last 7 years have made a profit on trading? How many of those have stood still over that time?

Without looking, I reckon Brentford are probably killing it on that count.

Southampton?

Southampton are my cautionary tale, yes they make profit by selling players on for their vlaue but it means they've stood still for the last decade, which is completely at odds with what we're trying to do.

Brentford is a good shout though, they're about the only club I can think of that works. Leicester maybe as well but they're a bit of a fluke really.

[Dave]

Most of the frees were players we couldn't get rid of for a fee who we wanted rid of well before the end of their contracts.

I agree with the earlier points about some of them having done a job.  But it still doesn't invalidate Fred's point, which is we struggle to sell players for any value.

How many clubs in the top 2 divisions in English football over the last 7 years have made a profit on trading? How many of those have stood still over that time?

Without looking, I reckon Brentford are probably killing it on that count.

Southampton?

Probably a decent shout. Although they've thrown away a lot of money on dross as well.

Boufal, Gabbiadini, Hoedt, Djenepo, Carillo, Lemina and Elyounoussi is the thick end of £120m, and they've not got much back from that - either in fees or performances.