Lyanco

[Convict Colony]

33 minutes ago, TotalSaintsPod said:

We interviewed an Italian football podcaster and journalist for Serie A on the show this week, he provided some good insight into Lyanco, what type of player he is and how he might fit into the Southampton team. If you want to hear the guys discuss it and the interview you can listen using the link below, the talk starts at 23 minutes.

https://podfollow.com/total-saints-podcast

 

thanks for that - you've got a new subscriber

[Chez]

18 minutes ago, Teddeer said:

Many are highlighting our inability to deal with crosses, particularly from set pieces. I get the impression that we are adopting zonal marking, is that how others see it? If so, I'm certainly no fan of this as a way of dealing with crosses. Every player should be designated an opponent and stick with him like glue - if you can't win the header at least make a robust challenge so there are less free headers.

maybe the man marking is so poor it appears zonal or maybe its a hybrid.

Its hard to stick with players like glue is their movement is decent. Often defenders get left for dead and its just good fortune that the cross is not to their man otherwise they will look like mugs.

[SaintTex]

2 hours ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

Salisu will obviously be first choice now which is fine, but if Lyanco is not good enough to displace Stephens or Bednarek then we shouldn't be signing him.

this. this. this.

I cant believe we are not looking to immediately upgrade the Right CB starting position.

 

[Highfield Saint]

1 hour ago, TotalSaintsPod said:

We interviewed an Italian football podcaster and journalist for Serie A on the show this week, he provided some good insight into Lyanco, what type of player he is and how he might fit into the Southampton team. If you want to hear the guys discuss it and the interview you can listen using the link below, the talk starts at 23 minutes.

https://podfollow.com/total-saints-podcast

 

Really enjoyed that. I'll subscribe 

[rooney]

5 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

I disagree. We have made necessary investments in players in key positions in the past. Vvd and ings for example. 

Yes and look what happened to them.

[egg]

2 minutes ago, rooney said:

Yes and look what happened to them.

They gave us great service, and made us a lot of money. Is that the point you're making? 

[hypochondriac]

8 minutes ago, rooney said:

Yes and look what happened to them.

Yeah they were brilliant and massively improved our team. 

[Dman]

7 hours ago, Turkish said:

It's more disappointment that it's a position we really need to add quality in given the amount of goals we conceded last season and it appears that yet again we've gone down the route of young, cheap, to hopefully sell in a few years time rather than bring in what we actually need. He might go on to be brilliant, lets hope so and Semmens and co can flog him for £60m in two years which seems to be the only ambition we have these days. They were talking about buying a player so we could sell them for a big profit in the future as soon as Vestergaard was sold. I've genuinely never heard another premier league club come out with this sort of stuff. 

The thing I really don’t understand is why we’re obsessed with trying to find players under £10-£15m to make a huge profit. 

You can still sign players in that 20-30m bracket and still make a profit, as Leicester have shown. I get the risk / impact is higher if they flop, but CB/ ST are 2 positions we really can’t get wrong in terms of quality. It feels like we’re trying to be smart and I really think it’ll backfire. 

If we’re worried about the risk, we obviously don’t trust our scouting team to get a player right, which begs the question of why the hell are we employing them? 

West Ham have agreed a fee in the region of £30m for Zouma. Proven in the PL, young and seems to have the quality to improve. A good season or 2 he’ll be worth 50m +. I can almost guarantee they make more money on him than we do on Salisu or this new fella. 
 

Regardless of fees, the most concerning thing for me, is our lack of ability to see that we have no leaders and old school defenders in our back line (Stephens aside who isn’t good enough unfortunately). We’re so obsessed with having ‘ball playing’ CB’s who look lovely on the ball but are shite off it (which is more often than not at a team like ours).

Edited 23 August, 2021 by Dman

[ChrisPY]

3 minutes ago, Dman said:

The thing I really don’t understand is why we’re obsessed with trying to find players under £10-£15m to make a huge profit. 

You can still sign players in that 20-30m bracket and still make a profit, as Leicester have shown. I get the risk / impact is higher if they flop, but CB/ ST are 2 positions we really can’t get wrong in terms of quality. It feels like we’re trying to be smart and I really think it’ll backfire. 

West Ham have agreed a fee in the region of £30m for Zouma. Proven in the PL, young and seems to have the quality to improve. A good season or 2 he’ll be worth 50m +. I can almost guarantee they make more money on him than we do on Salisu or this new fella. 
 

Regardless of fees, the most concerning thing for me, is our lack of ability to see that we have no leaders and old school defenders in our back line (Stephens aside who isn’t good enough unfortunately). We’re so obsessed with having ‘ball playing’ CB’s who look lovely on the ball but are shite off it (which is more often than not at a team like ours).

For the same reason most people aren’t sticking £500 on Man City to win each week. As much as they are likely to do well and win, the consequences of if they lose is too great of a risk.

[Toadhall Saint]

Has he signed yet?

[John B]

12 minutes ago, Dman said:

The thing I really don’t understand is why we’re obsessed with trying to find players under £10-£15m to make a huge profit. 

You can still sign players in that 20-30m bracket and still make a profit, as Leicester have shown. I get the risk / impact is higher if they flop, but CB/ ST are 2 positions we really can’t get wrong in terms of quality. It feels like we’re trying to be smart and I really think it’ll backfire. 

If we’re worried about the risk, we obviously don’t trust our scouting team to get a player right, which begs the question of why the hell are we employing them? 

West Ham have agreed a fee in the region of £30m for Zouma. Proven in the PL, young and seems to have the quality to improve. A good season or 2 he’ll be worth 50m +. I can almost guarantee they make more money on him than we do on Salisu or this new fella. 
 

Regardless of fees, the most concerning thing for me, is our lack of ability to see that we have no leaders and old school defenders in our back line (Stephens aside who isn’t good enough unfortunately). We’re so obsessed with having ‘ball playing’ CB’s who look lovely on the ball but are shite off it (which is more often than not at a team like ours).

£20m to £30 m players are unlikely to want to come here in the first place

And those we have had want to leave like PEH Ings and Vestigard

[egg]

15 minutes ago, Dman said:

The thing I really don’t understand is why we’re obsessed with trying to find players under £10-£15m to make a huge profit. 

You can still sign players in that 20-30m bracket and still make a profit, as Leicester have shown. I get the risk / impact is higher if they flop, but CB/ ST are 2 positions we really can’t get wrong in terms of quality. It feels like we’re trying to be smart and I really think it’ll backfire. 

If we’re worried about the risk, we obviously don’t trust our scouting team to get a player right, which begs the question of why the hell are we employing them? 

West Ham have agreed a fee in the region of £30m for Zouma. Proven in the PL, young and seems to have the quality to improve. A good season or 2 he’ll be worth 50m +. I can almost guarantee they make more money on him than we do on Salisu or this new fella. 
 

Regardless of fees, the most concerning thing for me, is our lack of ability to see that we have no leaders and old school defenders in our back line (Stephens aside who isn’t good enough unfortunately). We’re so obsessed with having ‘ball playing’ CB’s who look lovely on the ball but are shite off it (which is more often than not at a team like ours).

We haven't got 20-30m for a start. 

[SuperSAINT]

2 hours ago, Convict Colony said:

thanks for that - you've got a new subscriber

A damn fine pod.

[Baird of the land]

Zouma at 26 seems to be at his peak valuation wise imo. I don’t really see him at 28 being worth £20m more, even if we had the money(we don’t) or could afford the wage(we can’t)

[AlexLaw76]

1 minute ago, Baird of the land said:

Zouma at 26 seems to be at his peak valuation wise imo. I don’t really see him at 28 being worth £20m more, even if we had the money(we don’t) or could afford the wage(we can’t)

26 is far from peak valuation. far from it this day and age. 

[revolution saint]

8 minutes ago, Dman said:

The thing I really don’t understand is why we’re obsessed with trying to find players under £10-£15m to make a huge profit. 

You can still sign players in that 20-30m bracket and still make a profit, as Leicester have shown. I get the risk / impact is higher if they flop, but CB/ ST are 2 positions we really can’t get wrong in terms of quality. It feels like we’re trying to be smart and I really think it’ll backfire. 

West Ham have agreed a fee in the region of £30m for Zouma. Proven in the PL, young and seems to have the quality to improve. A good season or 2 he’ll be worth 50m +. I can almost guarantee they make more money on him than we do on Salisu or this new fella. 
 

Regardless of fees, the most concerning thing for me, is our lack of ability to see that we have no leaders and old school defenders in our back line (Stephens aside who isn’t good enough unfortunately). We’re so obsessed with having ‘ball playing’ CB’s who look lovely on the ball but are shite off it (which is more often than not at a team like ours).

Personally I think we're probably spending the amount we can afford - I don't think we have any more money left.  So, if you want to buy a CB for 20-30M then you'll need to either not sign someone like Adam Armstrong or you sell to raise the money.  About the only player we have that would go for the amount required is JWP.  Then you'd be in the position of spending that money on your CB and another midfielder.  Now I've never been that much of JWP fan so I might be tempted but it seems pretty clear the majority of fans wouldn't hack that.

Have to say I disagree on Zouma though - who's going to spend 50M on him in a couple of years time?  Possibly Arsenal I guess but if you're talking fees that large then there's only a handful of clubs that can afford it and this is the problem when you sign players in that 20-30M bracket.  If you're gambling on making a profit then you don't really have a massive pool of potential buyers out there.  Course if finances are such that you're just looking at getting your money back then fair enough, plus you get the value of the player for a few years.

I think it's fair enough to argue for one player over another if they're pretty much the same price but arguing for spending 20-30M is probably a bit unrealistic.

[nta786]

I'd like to see us buy one player at least that we have properly scouted, who we think can definitely be the next crown jewel in the £20m to £30m market. 

As someone echoed above, the ceiling is potentially higher. If a player in that market gets 10 PL goals 2 seasons in a row like Mane did, then no doubt we could sell on for £50/£60m to a big team.

It would be silly to only buy players around that price, but I don't think 1 would go amiss. It's good to diversify the transfers and buy £5m punts too that could definitely be worthwhile or good squad fillers.

Unfortunately, our trading model won't permit that though because it seems like we need to sell to buy and so I'm not sure will breach the £20m until we get new owners. 

 

[revolution saint]

It would be interesting to know how many players 24 and under have been signed for 20 - 30M and subsequently gone on to be substantially more expensive.  I bet there's more misses than hits.

[tajjuk]

50 minutes ago, Dman said:

The thing I really don’t understand is why we’re obsessed with trying to find players under £10-£15m to make a huge profit. 

You can still sign players in that 20-30m bracket and still make a profit, as Leicester have shown. I get the risk / impact is higher if they flop, but CB/ ST are 2 positions we really can’t get wrong in terms of quality. It feels like we’re trying to be smart and I really think it’ll backfire. 

If we’re worried about the risk, we obviously don’t trust our scouting team to get a player right, which begs the question of why the hell are we employing them? 

West Ham have agreed a fee in the region of £30m for Zouma. Proven in the PL, young and seems to have the quality to improve. A good season or 2 he’ll be worth 50m +. I can almost guarantee they make more money on him than we do on Salisu or this new fella. 
 

Regardless of fees, the most concerning thing for me, is our lack of ability to see that we have no leaders and old school defenders in our back line (Stephens aside who isn’t good enough unfortunately). We’re so obsessed with having ‘ball playing’ CB’s who look lovely on the ball but are shite off it (which is more often than not at a team like ours).

Zouma is exactly the kind of signing I wouldn't want us to make, he's an over priced player, who seemingly wants huge wages (seems to be the stumbling block with West Ham), he's 26, has over 200 PL games, been on loan at two other PL clubs, and has basically not really established himself as a good PL defender IMO, how you think he'll be worth £50 million is beyond me. 

£25 million and £100k plus a week, is not good value for an average and inconsistent PL defender. Better than our centre-back options? Probably, but a difference worth spending over £50 million on in wages and transfer fees? Not even close. 

 

[Dellman]

Our buy small, sell big policy is beginning to work well. It has taken a long time to clear out the bad buys but the Crocker/Semmens/Ralph combine has done it. The young and hungry newcomers are giving me hope for the coming season. I think I may enjoy it after all. No more £20m wasters to ruin us, thank you, £5m youngsters are far more enjoyable to watch and pay us a dividend on and off the pitch.

[Turkish]

51 minutes ago, John B said:

£20m to £30 m players are unlikely to want to come here in the first place

And those we have had want to leave like PEH Ings and Vestigard

Why not? They went to Bournemouth, Palace to name two. Taking inflation into account Mane and Van Dijk would be £20m players now. 

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Dman said:

The thing I really don’t understand is why we’re obsessed with trying to find players under £10-£15m to make a huge profit. 

You can still sign players in that 20-30m bracket and still make a profit, as Leicester have shown. I get the risk / impact is higher if they flop, but CB/ ST are 2 positions we really can’t get wrong in terms of quality. It feels like we’re trying to be smart and I really think it’ll backfire. 

If we’re worried about the risk, we obviously don’t trust our scouting team to get a player right, which begs the question of why the hell are we employing them? 

West Ham have agreed a fee in the region of £30m for Zouma. Proven in the PL, young and seems to have the quality to improve. A good season or 2 he’ll be worth 50m +. I can almost guarantee they make more money on him than we do on Salisu or this new fella. 
 

Regardless of fees, the most concerning thing for me, is our lack of ability to see that we have no leaders and old school defenders in our back line (Stephens aside who isn’t good enough unfortunately). We’re so obsessed with having ‘ball playing’ CB’s who look lovely on the ball but are shite off it (which is more often than not at a team like ours).

You have to remember with those pesky agent fees and bonuses a £20m player actually costs us £30m. But when we sell a player for £30m with agents fees and bonuses we actually only end up getting about £15m or something like that. 

[Turkish]

4 minutes ago, Dellman said:

Our buy small, sell big policy is beginning to work well. It has taken a long time to clear out the bad buys but the Crocker/Semmens/Ralph combine has done it. The young and hungry newcomers are giving me hope for the coming season. I think I may enjoy it after all. No more £20m wasters to ruin us, thank you, £5m youngsters are far more enjoyable to watch and pay us a dividend on and off the pitch.

I find it completely ridiculous that we’re openly talking about selling players before they’ve even joined. That is obviously the plan but it really weird that we’re so blatant about it. 

[revolution saint]

25 minutes ago, Turkish said:

You have to remember with those pesky agent fees and bonuses a £20m player actually costs us £30m. But when we sell a player for £30m with agents fees and bonuses we actually only end up getting about £15m or something like that. 

Serious question but do you think the club are lying about finances? I know there’s all the agents fees, signing on bonuses etc etc and you’ve mentioned how it only seems to affect us so what’s happened to the money? Do you think we’re choosing not to spend and keeping our powder dry, or is Gao taking money out? Personally I think the club probably is spending what it can afford so it’s difficult for me to have a go at them for not spending more but would be interested in another opinion.

[John B]

11 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Why not? They went to Bournemouth, Palace to name two. Taking inflation into account Mane and Van Dijk would be £20m players now. 

Mane and VVD  came here to play under decent managers and progress to higher things we were a better club in those days with better players and able to get into Europe

 

We were unable to recruit decent players after they and others left 

 

I can only think of PEH and Ings as being really good signings in recent years and they have moved on.

 

Only Carillo who I think was the worst signing in the last 60 was complete rubbish the others were just not PL players 

 

We are where are like we have been since being promoted to the top flight in 1966 in relegation fights sometimes pushing for Europe an occasional cup run but mostly finishing in the bottom half of the table .

 

This no doubt will continue to happen especially as no one special seems to come up from the Academy but I am proud of our record with limited resources and friends and relatives who support QPR Ipswich Portsmouth Fulham and Bolton think we are doing well

 

And so we are compared to them and other similar sized clubs  like Birmingham Middleborough Sheff Wed Sunderland Nottm Forest Derby and Coventry

 

 

[Chez]

19 minutes ago, revolution saint said:

Serious question but do you think the club are lying about finances? I know there’s all the agents fees, signing on bonuses etc etc and you’ve mentioned how it only seems to affect us so what’s happened to the money? Do you think we’re choosing not to spend and keeping our powder dry, or is Gao taking money out? Personally I think the club probably is spending what it can afford so it’s difficult for me to have a go at them for not spending more but would be interested in another opinion.

the club has spent more than it can afford...hence the need for a £70m loan.

Gao has taken no dividend yet.

 

[Dusic]

55 minutes ago, Turkish said:

I find it completely ridiculous that we’re openly talking about selling players before they’ve even joined. That is obviously the plan but it really weird that we’re so blatant about it. 

Apologies for the long post...

The flawed part of it is best highlighted by Salisu and Diallo:

They signed on four year contracts, so the times to sell where you can really make a big profit is after one or two seasons. Wait til after season three and we will basically just get our money back as the players have a year to go, won't want to extend and the club won't want them to run down their contracts.

Salisu and Diallo are young, inexperienced and need time to settle into English football and to get into our team more regularly. Basically they need a season. So essentially in order to sell for a profit it has to be after season two, i.e this season. IMO for both those players it would take more than this season for them to show the consistent quality that would make a big club want them. That means they will probably become desired in the dreaded season three when we cannot make a real profit on them. 

It seems very unlikely to be that at the end of this season anyone will be making £30m+ offers for Saliau or Diallo. So hopefully we are already thinking of contract extensions if we rate them because if not they will end up being sold for £15m.

Of course there will be exceptions like Ben White, or maybe Livramento, who move for big money after one season - but those are exceptions and not what you build a policy around.

To do this buy young and sell for profit and do it well we need to do two things:

1. Either consistently find exceptional talents like Livramento every year (nigh on impossible), or spend more on the young players and get better ones who are able to come straight into our team and not waste a year of their contract essentially adding nothing to their market value. These days those players are probably starting at £20m.

2. Have faith in our scouting and value proposition to the players and give them 5 yr contracts (like Livramento) instead of four (like most of our recent signings, obviously a policy after the failures of various players from the Reed era). This means even if they take a year to settle we should be able to have two years of them being a regular starter before their price drops due to contract status. If they happen to be great from the start and are desired sooner than that then fine, we would be well compensated for it.

IMO under our current approach we will only make big profit on exceptional players who are clearly excellent from their first season - and in our price range its too difficult to find enough of those to build a policy around it.

Edited 23 August, 2021 by Dusic

[Turkish]

30 minutes ago, revolution saint said:

Serious question but do you think the club are lying about finances? I know there’s all the agents fees, signing on bonuses etc etc and you’ve mentioned how it only seems to affect us so what’s happened to the money? Do you think we’re choosing not to spend and keeping our powder dry, or is Gao taking money out? Personally I think the club probably is spending what it can afford so it’s difficult for me to have a go at them for not spending more but would be interested in another opinion.

I don’t think they’re lying. I’m more referring to the current trend of blaming agents fees and bonuses on why we’re not spending much money. When we sell someone it’s claimed the quoted figure isn’t what we’ll get because we have to factor in agents fees and bonuses. When we sign someone it’s also claimed we’ll pay more because there are agents fees and bonuses to pay. This has to apply to every single deal ever done so why is it only an issue for us or are we the only club that does this on transfers? Our agents fees last season were the 4th lowest in the premier league. So it doesn’t stack up

Edited 23 August, 2021 by Turkish

[revolution saint]

8 minutes ago, Turkish said:

I don’t think they’re lying. I’m more referring to the current trend of blaming agents fees and bonuses on why we’re not spending much money. When we sell someone it’s claimed the quoted figure isn’t what we’ll get because we have to factor in agents fees and bonuses. When we sign someone it’s also claimed we’ll pay more because there are agents fees and bonuses to pay. This has to apply to every single deal ever done so why is it only an issue for us or are we the only club that does this on transfers? Our agents fees last season were the 4th lowest in the premier league. So it doesn’t stack up

Ah OK so it’s not that you think we have any more money we should be able to spend, just that we blame it on agents fees etc? Fair enough, end result is we still don’t have much money but I understand where you’re coming from.

[Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd]

Has anyone watched the lad play? I've done some digging around and found some bits and pieces. I know it's not easy to tell from watching videos but he doesn't look like anything special at all. Surely we'd have been better to spend 3 or 4m more and gone for the lad from Forest, who looks far more impressive from the videos I've seen.

 

[egg]

2 hours ago, Turkish said:

You have to remember with those pesky agent fees and bonuses a £20m player actually costs us £30m. But when we sell a player for £30m with agents fees and bonuses we actually only end up getting about £15m or something like that. 

You ever moved house Del? When I have, I've had to pay the pesky estate agents, and pesky lawyers, and pesky removal men. If I hadn't been able to save that cash, I'd have had to pay it out of the sale money. 

It's not a hard concept. 

[CB Fry]

27 minutes ago, egg said:

You ever moved house Del? When I have, I've had to pay the pesky estate agents, and pesky lawyers, and pesky removal men. If I hadn't been able to save that cash, I'd have had to pay it out of the sale money. 

It's not a hard concept. 

If you ever tell someone how much you bought your house for, do you say the £350k that was your accepted offer, or do you go into chapter and verse about stamp duty and conveyancing costs and the cost of the bacon rolls you bought for the removal men?

I think the point is that every other club takes it as read that those kind of additional costs exist.

When you see the net spend analysis etc it is at the level of Leicester sold Mahrez for £60m and replaced him with Tielimans and whoever etc for £30m and £15m etc. Agents fees/bonuses etc never ever mentioned because its all the fucking same for all the clubs.

We seem to be the only club in the Prem where we can bring in £30m for a striker but can only possibly spend £15m on a replacement and that’s it, or bring in £15m for a centre back and only possibly spend £7m on a replacement because agent fees and removalmen or whatever.

Its not a hard concept.

 

Edited 23 August, 2021 by CB Fry

[StrangelyBrown]

1 hour ago, Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd said:

Has anyone watched the lad play? I've done some digging around and found some bits and pieces. I know it's not easy to tell from watching videos but he doesn't look like anything special at all. Surely we'd have been better to spend 3 or 4m more and gone for the lad from Forest, who looks far more impressive from the videos I've seen.

 

The kid from forest goes to ground far too easily and will be a liability in the prem. He also didn't look that special on the ball. Personally speaking I think we've dodged a bullet.

[Badger]

7 hours ago, TotalSaintsPod said:

We interviewed an Italian football podcaster and journalist for Serie A on the show this week, he provided some good insight into Lyanco, what type of player he is and how he might fit into the Southampton team. If you want to hear the guys discuss it and the interview you can listen using the link below, the talk starts at 23 minutes.

https://podfollow.com/total-saints-podcast

 

A good listen. Thanks.

[Warriorsaint]

Listened to that Podcast. I will admit I have been judgemental before the fact.

The scouts have seen something. They are better in the job than I or any legion of armchair warriors will be.

we cant buy Varane or Zouma so the approach has to be different. Maybe its another Livramento. Time to back our team whatever.

[Granite_City_Saint]

10 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

If you ever tell someone how much you bought your house for, do you say the £350k that was your accepted offer, or do you go into chapter and verse about stamp duty and conveyancing costs and the cost of the bacon rolls you bought for the removal men?

I think the point is that every other club takes it as read that those kind of additional costs exist.

When you see the net spend analysis etc it is at the level of Leicester sold Mahrez for £60m and replaced him with Tielimans and whoever etc for £30m and £15m etc. Agents fees/bonuses etc never ever mentioned because its all the fucking same for all the clubs.

We seem to be the only club in the Prem where we can bring in £30m for a striker but can only possibly spend £15m on a replacement and that’s it, or bring in £15m for a centre back and only possibly spend £7m on a replacement because agent fees and removalmen or whatever.

Its not a hard concept.

 

So you are saying that Leicester spent 75% of the money they received for Mahrez on 2 players? We spent a bigger percentage of what we received for Ings on Armstrong and Peraud. Why are we worse than Leicester?

[egg]

15 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

If you ever tell someone how much you bought your house for, do you say the £350k that was your accepted offer, or do you go into chapter and verse about stamp duty and conveyancing costs and the cost of the bacon rolls you bought for the removal men?

I think the point is that every other club takes it as read that those kind of additional costs exist.

When you see the net spend analysis etc it is at the level of Leicester sold Mahrez for £60m and replaced him with Tielimans and whoever etc for £30m and £15m etc. Agents fees/bonuses etc never ever mentioned because its all the fucking same for all the clubs.

We seem to be the only club in the Prem where we can bring in £30m for a striker but can only possibly spend £15m on a replacement and that’s it, or bring in £15m for a centre back and only possibly spend £7m on a replacement because agent fees and removalmen or whatever.

Its not a hard concept.

 

It's about what you have left to spend out of what you sell for. If you're skint you pay the sale costs out of what you sell for, whereas the better off ones shoulder those costs. 

What other clubs can afford is bollox. We're not other clubs. We're the skint one. 

It's pretty staggering frankly that people refuse to understand that we can only afford to spend the net sale proceeds rather than the gross sale proceeds. Sure, its shit, but that's our reality. 

 

[Killers Knee]

Looking forward to watching the boy play, hopefully a faster Stephens with ariel prowess.  Surely Liverpool will buy him in 3 years for £100m.

[CB Fry]

23 minutes ago, Granite_City_Saint said:

So you are saying that Leicester spent 75% of the money they received for Mahrez on 2 players? We spent a bigger percentage of what we received for Ings on Armstrong and Peraud. Why are we worse than Leicester?

No, the figures for Leicester were just made up which why I wrote "whoever" and "etc etc". I don't remember what they actually got for Mahrez, it was something like £60m. Wasn't actually making specific point about a specific club.

 

But If you did want to compare, Leicester generally net out as spending what they bring in, as measured in the usual way (fees in, fees spent) unencumbered by the agents costs and oh-but-its-all-in-installments stuff that on this forum we simply must assume.

So in that area we are worse than Leicester. And on the pitch we are worse than Leicester because they finished fifth and won a Cup and are good and we are not.

 

[Saint Garrett]

Torino have now bud for Kabak. Think this one is done 

[CB Fry]

35 minutes ago, egg said:

It's about what you have left to spend out of what you sell for. If you're skint you pay the sale costs out of what you sell for, whereas the better off ones shoulder those costs. 

What other clubs can afford is bollox. We're not other clubs. We're the skint one. 

It's pretty staggering frankly that people refuse to understand that we can only afford to spend the net sale proceeds rather than the gross sale proceeds. Sure, its shit, but that's our reality. 

 

But we've made gains beyond just bringing in a fee on some of these players. 

There were significant "net" proceeds from selling Ings because we got a fee and we don't need to fund the salary and bonuses of Danny Ings any more. 

We don't have to pay him the (estimated) £90k a week that we put in the table, that was firm offer on a contract awaiting signature.

So that's about £5m a year right there. Do you think Armstrong strolled in and trousered all that ? I reckon he's on half. So that's at another £2.5 million a year (£10m in four years) on top of the £30m fee. Huge "net" benefit.

I wonder who has the higher agent fees, Danny Ings or this kid from the Championship. Who would have had the better bonus plan, Armstrong or the terms in the unsigned Ings deal?

The "why don't people understand" routine is nice and cute but forever just looks at hidden cost, not hidden benefit. 

What about the savings we've made? Why do people "refuse to understand" that?

 

[egg]

1 minute ago, CB Fry said:

But we've made gains beyond just bringing in a fee on some of these players. 

There were significant "net" proceeds from selling Ings because we got a fee and we don't need to fund the salary and bonuses of Danny Ings any more. 

We don't have to pay him the (estimated) £90k a week that we put in the table, that was firm offer on a contract awaiting signature.

So that's about £5m a year right there. Do you think Armstrong strolled in and trousered all that ? I reckon he's on half. So that's at another £2.5 million a year (£10m in four years) on top of the £30m fee. Huge "net" benefit.

I wonder who has the higher agent fees, Danny Ings or this kid from the Championship. Who would have had the better bonus plan, Armstrong or the terms in the unsigned Ings deal?

The "why don't people understand" routine is nice and cute but forever just looks at hidden cost, not hidden benefit. 

What about the savings we've made? Why do people "refuse to understand" that?

 

Our wage bill needed to come down massively. It has, and that will hopefully stop us having to use the loan to pay the wages / bills. It doesn't give us extra buying power though, at least not until we're in a better financial state. 

Our model is self sufficiency. If that involves paying all transfer related expenditure from transfer sale proceeds, so be it. 

How much we've actually received and actually paid out are other issues. There's been talk that the Armstrong fee went up if Obafemi didn't go to Blackburn. That may be the case, and his refusal to go may have limited our buying power. All guess work, but the bottom line is I suspect that we would have loved to have spent £25m+ on a decent CB, but we've got we've got, and are spending accordingly. 

We see this one differently. All I hope is that Lyanco is not as shit as I fear he will be. 

[Saint_clark]

Let's not forget that we don't actually need him to be the level of VVD or Aldeweireld to make progress. All our CBs are lower Prem quality, so someone who is good enough for top half would be an improvement. 

[Singapore Saint]

13 hours ago, Dman said:

The thing I really don’t understand is why we’re obsessed with trying to find players under £10-£15m to make a huge profit. 

You can still sign players in that 20-30m bracket and still make a profit, as Leicester have shown. I get the risk / impact is higher if they flop, but CB/ ST are 2 positions we really can’t get wrong in terms of quality. It feels like we’re trying to be smart and I really think it’ll backfire. 

If we’re worried about the risk, we obviously don’t trust our scouting team to get a player right, which begs the question of why the hell are we employing them? 

West Ham have agreed a fee in the region of £30m for Zouma. Proven in the PL, young and seems to have the quality to improve. A good season or 2 he’ll be worth 50m +. I can almost guarantee they make more money on him than we do on Salisu or this new fella.

Regardless of fees, the most concerning thing for me, is our lack of ability to see that we have no leaders and old school defenders in our back line (Stephens aside who isn’t good enough unfortunately). We’re so obsessed with having ‘ball playing’ CB’s who look lovely on the ball but are shite off it (which is more often than not at a team like ours).

Because spending money is no guarantee of success. Bournemouth were OK until they decided to take their spending up a notch whereupon they promptly disintegrated. Our own most expensive signings too have been the biggest flops: Carillo, Boufal, Lemina, Hoedt, Gaston Ramirez, Dani Osvaldo.

[rooney]

13 hours ago, egg said:

They gave us great service, and made us a lot of money. Is that the point you're making? 

Absolutely. That is the way we can survive in the PL as Ralph acknowledged in the pre Man U pressa.

[angelman]

12 hours ago, John B said:

Mane and VVD  came here to play under decent managers and progress to higher things we were a better club in those days with better players and able to get into Europe

Better manager maybe, or at least one with a superstar name. But tell me, when Mané came, who were all these better players you refer to?

[CB Fry]

11 minutes ago, angelman said:

Better manager maybe, or at least one with a superstar name. But tell me, when Mané came, who were all these better players you refer to?

Yes it is slightly pushing it to claim that Mane was joining a club "able to get into Europe" - pretty much no one thought that back when he actually signed. Except maybe Koeman himself.

[bennyev]

On 22/08/2021 at 22:33, sadoldgit said:

Do you honestly think that Gao is involved in choosing which players we buy? As for speaking English, there are plenty of players born here that I can’t understand what they are saying half the time. It has been made abundantly clear that the Board are running this club, not Gao.

Of course I don’t think he’s choosing the players. But I think he’s the guy who bought a football without having enough cash and now forces the board to take the cheap alternative. 

We’re gonna be the one club in the league who makes a profit in the season where we’ve lost our 3 most senior players.  And the tv money is just spirited away too…

And if you can’t see we’re lacking a leader who talks the defence and our two shit keepers through games you’re as lost as them…

[Colinjb]

37 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Yes it is slightly pushing it to claim that Mane was joining a club "able to get into Europe" - pretty much no one thought that back when he actually signed. Except maybe Koeman himself.

Indeed, He left a club playing in Europe to join us.....

[Dellman]

Reading these posts it is really embarrassing to see fans writing off a guy who hasn't even arrived. How do they know more than Crocker Semmens and Ralph? I believe this 'window' shows a consistent policy and that they are building a strong base. Lyanco deserves a big welcome-all the best young man, ignore the pessimists, shape your career with us.