2024 January transfer window - hopes, needs, expectations and rumours.

[ozzjim]

Diaby looks like a player that needs one to go in off his arse to get a bit of confidence.

[Hookeysmith]

As much as i love SUE i do wonder why he does not try some of our more promising youngsters.

He took Kellyman to USA and he looked good, Patterson has been on the bench a couple of times as has O'reilly

Tim is close but not getting any actual minutes

He seems to rather have an additional keeper or an empty space - i am not sure why

[Smithy]

This whole FFP thing - sorry, can't say 'P&S', makes me think of ferries or creepy old theatre directors or something, while 'FFP' makes me think, appropriately, of swearing - it's all just made me even more pissed off with Gerrard and the whole Gerrard phase. Squandering all that money, forcing the sale of academy players we might've wanted to keep while reselling his duds at big losses...fuck all of that honestly.

Yep. Gerrard was a colossal error.

He was, but not sure that signings were the worst bit of it. Kamara is brilliant and was free, and Digne has been good value and more than played his part in our improvement. The jury's out on Carlos but a year out with an injury will do that to anybody. The biggest hit to our current FFP in terms of value for money is Diaby unfortunately. Just under £20m a year in amortisation and salary, and playing like an absolute drain for weeks now. I hope he'll come good, but he's not looking like a £50m+ player at the moment.

This is the issue with playing at the top end of the table.  Mistakes can get REALLY expensive.  I'm not saying Diaby was a mistake, he's done better than Bailey did in his first six months, and Bailey is now firing on all cylinders, but the jury is definitely still out on Moussa.

Pretty much any team that has challenged for the top 4 more than once in the last decade has at least one, VERY expensive flop. Just off the top of my head;  Spurs spent £60m on Ndombélé, Arsenal spent £70m on Pepe, Man Utd have LOADS over utter gash over £60m, Man City have Phillips,  Chelsea also have LOADS of gash over £50m, Liverpool spent £50m in Keita.

The difference is that being at the top for a while means you can afford to make one or two expensive mistakes.  We can't - yet.  If we're spending £50m on a player, he has to be contributing regularly to our first team results.

[Risso]

Agreed Smithy, there are always hits and misses. We've had superb value for money from the likes of McGinn, Mings, Konsa, Martinez and Watkins, but very little from the likes of Wesley, Samatta, Traore and Sanson. Torres looks a really great piece of business and is key to our way of playing now, Diaby much less so. Tielemans and Kamara on free transfers have both been excellent acquisitions, as was Young.

[pablo_picasso]

As much as i love SUE i do wonder why he does not try some of our more promising youngsters.

He took Kellyman to USA and he looked good, Patterson has been on the bench a couple of times as has O'reilly

Tim is close but not getting any actual minutes

He seems to rather have an additional keeper or an empty space - i am not sure why

I think he would have used Kellyman more if he hadn't got his injury.

He certainly seemed to have taken to him in particular out of all of the youngsters...

[Richard]

Re loans, I think the rules are that we can loan a maximum of 2 players from English clubs but not sure how many in addition we can also have from clubs abroad.

[OCD]

Re loans, I think the rules are that we can loan a maximum of 2 players from English clubs but not sure how many in addition we can also have from clubs abroad.

You can take on up 4 loans over a season but you can only have 2 registered at any one time.

[PaulWinch again]

Agreed Smithy, there are always hits and misses. We've had superb value for money from the likes of McGinn, Mings, Konsa, Martinez and Watkins, but very little from the likes of Wesley, Samatta, Traore and Sanson. Torres looks a really great piece of business and is key to our way of playing now, Diaby much less so. Tielemans and Kamara on free transfers have both been excellent acquisitions, as was Young.

I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions on Diaby yet, clearly he’s struggling but he’s also shown great promise. Also you’d have had Torres out the door in September with a half a chance (winky thing)!

In all seriousness I think our hit rate of late is pretty good - part of the reason I’m open to the Rogers deal.

[VillaTim]

I'd imagine that paying up Gerrard and co's contracts hasn't helped either.

we also paid Rangers compensation to get this clown and his team of helpers

[Dave]

Re loans, I think the rules are that we can loan a maximum of 2 players from English clubs but not sure how many in addition we can also have from clubs abroad.

You can take on up 4 loans over a season but you can only have 2 registered at any one time.

How do Sheffield United currently have all of Brereton Diaz, McAtee and Larouci then?

[AV84]

Re loans, I think the rules are that we can loan a maximum of 2 players from English clubs but not sure how many in addition we can also have from clubs abroad.

You can take on up 4 loans over a season but you can only have 2 registered at any one time.

How do Sheffield United currently have all of Brereton Diaz, McAtee and Larouci then?

This is in article from December about Sheffield Utd being set to look at loan options for the January window

The Blades cannot complete any more temporary deals within England having already brought James McAtee and Luke Thomas in on loan during the summer window.

I think they cancelled Luke Thomas' loan in this window, but does that imply the rules are about English to English clubs?

[Dave]

I now remember this "two versus four loans" question came up in the summer

AV84 is correct, the 2/4 rule only applies to loans between Premier League  and other English clubs. It doesn't apply to loans from overseas, so we can get more if we wanted. The PL rules state that players from overseas clubs are not subject to the relevant rules. For some reason it won't let me copy and paste the relevant bit.

edit: as mentioned in this article. https://sqaf.club/premier-league-loan-rules/

[ozzjim]

So we could potentially loan a player in then.

Seems Duran is going nowhere as he's injured anyway.

Kesler Hayden and Tim both seen as players in the first team squad according to Emery today

[chrisw1]

We've always had a thin squad but it's looking frightening now.

I'd honestly be delighted with 5th if offered it now.

[aev]

I blame the mobile phone light show.

It has been very underwhelming since then.