Summer 2022 Transfer Window

[Lighthouse]

6 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Pope obviously won’t be costing £40m he’s got a year left on his contract. Forest and Fulham are meant to be interested in him FFS, if they can afford him no reason why we can’t 

These are just internet rumours so far, the window isn’t even open. Let’s wait until we actually find out who signs who and how they play before getting too dramatic. Wherever Pope goes, he’ll be double the price being mooted for Baz, and then some. IF we’ve done our homework properly we could be getting a competent ‘keeper at a decent price and have more money to strengthen where it’s badly needed, I.e. everywhere.

[Turkish]

Just now, Lighthouse said:

These are just internet rumours so far, the window isn’t even open. Let’s wait until we actually find out who signs who and how they play before getting too dramatic. Wherever Pope goes, he’ll be double the price being mooted for Baz, and then some. IF we’ve done our homework properly we could be getting a competent ‘keeper at a decent price and have more money to strengthen where it’s badly needed, I.e. everywhere.

Let’s hope so. We don’t have a great track record when it comes to signing YHGTIs in key positions though do we.

[Saint Garrett]

You say the window isn’t open yet…plenty of clubs have done business and joined clubs, guessing it’s the day they can be entered into payroll.

But one of the reasons why we kept 1 of Macca and Fraser, was that we didn’t want 2 keepers on £70k odd a week. We’re not going to keep Macca and sign Pope, nor would we ever do. That money is better spent elsewhere in the squad. 

[whiteleySaint30]

Just now, Lighthouse said:

These are just internet rumours so far, the window isn’t even open. Let’s wait until we actually find out who signs who and how they play before getting too dramatic. Wherever Pope goes, he’ll be double the price being mooted for Baz, and then some. IF we’ve done our homework properly we could be getting a competent ‘keeper at a decent price and have more money to strengthen where it’s badly needed, I.e. everywhere.

Point to note - a  keeper that is just competent is not good enough at this level - really going for it with this no holds barred approach. 

[Baird of the land]

23 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

People are talking about the likes of Pope and Henderson being £40m. We’re going to have to get an inexperienced player of some description, be he foreign or lower league. Niemi had only ever played in the SPL when we signed him and that’s barely Championship standard.

Nonsense playing for the third best team in Scotland at the time is loads higher than league 1. Plus he’d played in Denmark as well as Finland, unless you think utd should never have signed that bloke schmeichel from brondby either.

[Turkish]

27 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

You say the window isn’t open yet…plenty of clubs have done business and joined clubs, guessing it’s the day they can be entered into payroll.

But one of the reasons why we kept 1 of Macca and Fraser, was that we didn’t want 2 keepers on £70k odd a week. We’re not going to keep Macca and sign Pope, nor would we ever do. That money is better spent elsewhere in the squad. 

Yep we’ve shot ourselves in the foot keeping McCarthy. I disagree the money is better spent elsewhere a good keeper wins you matches and points. A crap one costs you them, as we well know 

Edited 8 June, 2022 by Turkish

[Lighthouse]

24 minutes ago, whiteleySaint30 said:

a  keeper that is just competent is not good enough at this level

Competent litter means good enough.

17 minutes ago, Baird of the land said:

Nonsense playing for the third best team in Scotland at the time is loads higher than league 1. Plus he’d played in Denmark as well as Finland, unless you think utd should never have signed that bloke schmeichel from brondby either.

That’s pretty much my point, decent players can pop up in all sorts of weird places with little or no previous experience in the PL. If our recruitment team have done their homework and think he’s good enough based on actual real world analysis of what he’s done on the pitch, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt until I have reason to think otherwise.

 

[Matthew Le God]

 

[Saint Garrett]

33 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Yep we’ve shot ourselves in the foot keeping McCarthy. I disagree the money is better spent elsewhere a good keeper wins you matches and points. A crap one costs you them, as we well know 

I mean having 2 shit expensive keepers. You’re better off have 2 shit keepers, 1 expensive and one cheap! Problem is we’ve kept Macca and lost Fraser. 

[Chez]

2 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

I haven’t the faintest clue how good this mush is, whether he’s being bought to come straight in or even if he’s the only ‘keeper we’re after. If we’re losing Forster, Willy and Lewis there’s clearly room to bring in more than one. Joe Hart went from being a League 1 player to competing for titles with Man City practically overnight, so being better than two of the crappest regular keepers in the PL isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

This is more than a little premature for someone who’s usually first to laugh at ‘hysterical wet tarts p*ssing their knickers.’

Hart played a full season on loan at Bum before playing for City, so wasn't quite overnight, but still made the jump without any issues. 

[SaintJackoInHurworth]

I think we need to calm down and wait to see what happens! We have no idea what is going on so we can enjoy speculating all we like, but it's a bit soon to start analysing the speculation as if it is absolute truth! Who knows maybe the truth is something like this:

• We sign Bazuna to compete with McCarthy.
• We then sign Pope or Henderson or other quality keeper as our first choice keeper - Bazuna continues to compete with McCarthy for the spot on the bench as substitute keeper.

Until we know for sure let's just enjoy seeing how things shape up and enjoy trying to guess which bits of speculation are true, which are just smoke screens to hide the real activity and which are just stories made up by the Daily Fail.

[Chez]

2 hours ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

I see your logic but i guess they could argue he performed at a level they wanted and paid for at the time and the reason for getting rid is they now want a player at the next level up. Therefore they want want they paid for him. 

In which case, that's us out. But who has got £30m going spare and sees him as a good signing? I don't think they have a cat in hells chance of getting what they paid for him.

 

[Smirking_Saint]

I can’t see us signing Bazunu and Pope/Henderson… I just can’t, even by modest projections you’re looking at 30-40m and we frankly have too much work to do everywhere else

Im not completely comfortable with MGW/Benrahma or Minamino either.. I think there is potentially better on the continent: Sinisterra for example

[woodsaint1]

1 hour ago, SaintJackoInHurworth said:

I think we need to calm down and wait to see what happens! We have no idea what is going on so we can enjoy speculating all we like, but it's a bit soon to start analysing the speculation as if it is absolute truth! Who knows maybe the truth is something like this:

• We sign Bazuna to compete with McCarthy.
• We then sign Pope or Henderson or other quality keeper as our first choice keeper - Bazuna continues to compete with McCarthy for the spot on the bench as substitute keeper.

Until we know for sure let's just enjoy seeing how things shape up and enjoy trying to guess which bits of speculation are true, which are just smoke screens to hide the real activity and which are just stories made up by the Daily Fail.

Bazunu is an established internatinonal and needs first team football. Theres no chance hes agreeing to come here to compete with McCarthy for a place on the bench.

Ideally we signed Pope and moved McCarthy on. Pope and Bazunu would be great upgrade on Forster and McCarthy but its not going to happen. It will very likely be Bazunu and McCarthy competing for the no1

[verlaine1979]

McCarthy as number 1 cannot be the plan. He's just unbelievably dreadful with his feet, and alongside Bednarek being unable to pass more than five yards, it screws up 20% of our back-line build up. If he was an incredible shot stopper like Niemi, you might put up with the shortcomings in linking play, but as it is, he brings pretty much nothing to the table.

[Streaky]

5 hours ago, verlaine1979 said:

McCarthy as number 1 cannot be the plan. He's just unbelievably dreadful with his feet, and alongside Bednarek being unable to pass more than five yards, it screws up 20% of our back-line build up. If he was an incredible shot stopper like Niemi, you might put up with the shortcomings in linking play, but as it is, he brings pretty much nothing to the table.

Yes Mccarthy distribution against Liverpool was horrendous. If I had my way he would never play for us again. Never rated him.

[CB Fry]

7 hours ago, SaintJackoInHurworth said:

I think we need to calm down and wait to see what happens! We have no idea what is going on so we can enjoy speculating all we like, but it's a bit soon to start analysing the speculation as if it is absolute truth! Who knows maybe the truth is something like this:

• We sign Bazuna to compete with McCarthy.
• We then sign Pope or Henderson or other quality keeper as our first choice keeper - Bazuna continues to compete with McCarthy for the spot on the bench as substitute keeper.

Until we know for sure let's just enjoy seeing how things shape up and enjoy trying to guess which bits of speculation are true, which are just smoke screens to hide the real activity and which are just stories made up by the Daily Fail.

Bazunu is not "a story made up by the Daily Mail", that's pretty clear now.

And its not about "calming down", it is obvious that we are not going to spend £10m on a young keeper with genuine expectations of first team football and then immediately sign another Premier League regular, established starter on top of that. We are not going to have three potential first choice keepers. 

The Bazunu deal can still fall through, or we get gazumped or whatever. But let's not get distracted by pie-in-the-sky scenarios that won't happen.

[DT]

6 hours ago, verlaine1979 said:

McCarthy as number 1 cannot be the plan. He's just unbelievably dreadful with his feet, and alongside Bednarek being unable to pass more than five yards, it screws up 20% of our back-line build up. If he was an incredible shot stopper like Niemi, you might put up with the shortcomings in linking play, but as it is, he brings pretty much nothing to the table.

Terrible keeper. Crazy decision. Has hamstrung everything else. Hope McCarthy never plays for us again and that the City lad can step up

[S-Clarke]

Maybe slightly too early to say this, but based on our links and rumours thus far it does seem as if we're still fixated on the £10-15m Market. That's why Pope for £20-25m was never a goer. Our seemingly fixed budget won't get you much other than unproven up-coming players, or maybe if you're lucky a star from a lesser league (but that's pretty rare, as even those level of players cost upwards of £15m now).

It's a huge risk when the experienced players we have are all pretty shit bar 1 or 2.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

3 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Maybe slightly too early to say this, but based on our links and rumours thus far it does seem as if we're still fixated on the £10-15m Market. That's why Pope for £20-25m was never a goer. Our seemingly fixed budget won't get you much other than unproven up-coming players, or maybe if you're lucky a star from a lesser league (but that's pretty rare, as even those level of players cost upwards of £15m now).

It's a huge risk when the experienced players we have are all pretty shit bar 1 or 2.

If we don't have the money though then it's as much of a risk to spend bigger

[EBS1980]

Just because we don’t sign someone doesn’t mean we weren’t interested in them. Maybe they choose another club over our offer (Maddison for example) maybe they want to stay close to where they live now and don’t want to relocate their family. 

You lose players to other clubs. Some players we aren’t interested in. Let’s just see what squad we have when the window closes hey…

[S-Clarke]

4 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

If we don't have the money though then it's as much of a risk to spend bigger

Yep, that's true. If that's the case then sadly this league is way too rich for us and we're better off out of it, as it'll be miserable otherwise.

Any team in this league, bar Norwich and Burnley, has the means to spend more than £25m on a single player. And we know what happened to Norwich and Burnley. As crap as it is, money is needed at this level and without it you're hanging by a thread.

I just find it staggering how we're in this position though. 10 years of PL money, 10 years of TV revenue, over £150m in player transfer fee's. Two takeovers.

Hopefully I'm wrong and we do put some decent money down for a CB or an CM/Number 10!

Edited 9 June, 2022 by S-Clarke

[saintwbu]

Personally couldn’t care less how much we are spending on players, given we’ve seen over the years how transfer fees do not always equate to quality. I just want good players. 

I also find it strange how people get so uptight about us not signing players like Phil Jones, Nick Pope, Dean Henderson, Tarkowski etc. Not because I don’t think some of those players would be good signings, but it’s just not something we do or have done for years? Surely we all know by now, so why bother getting frustrated by it, it’s just the way the club is. 

[nta786]

20 minutes ago, saintwbu said:

Personally couldn’t care less how much we are spending on players, given we’ve seen over the years how transfer fees do not always equate to quality. I just want good players. 

I also find it strange how people get so uptight about us not signing players like Phil Jones, Nick Pope, Dean Henderson, Tarkowski etc. Not because I don’t think some of those players would be good signings, but it’s just not something we do or have done for years? Surely we all know by now, so why bother getting frustrated by it, it’s just the way the club is. 

I think some of us had hopes that things might change slightly under new owners that is all.

I don't want to think come end of the transfer window we just have a Gao MK II

[Neef]

tbh I think Pope not signing is about more than just the money (though a high fee is part of it I'm sure). Clearly a brillaint shot stopper, but not comfortable in possession at all really. A big part of the issues we've had with Forster & McCarthy has come from that. 

People may baulk at that, but it's needed in this day and age, and the profile of 1st team GKs you find in the Premier League today reflect that. 

It'll be interesting to see where Pope goes, as I don't think a top 10 team can facilitate for that weaker part of his game (as a 1st choice GK).

[saintwbu]

13 minutes ago, nta786 said:

I think some of us had hopes that things might change slightly under new owners that is all.

I don't want to think come end of the transfer window we just have a Gao MK II

It feels like they’ve been pretty clear that not much would change in that regard, just that we would have the cash to potentially buy first before selling. If we sign Bazunu without selling anyone, then they’ve been true to their word. In previous summers we would probably have wanted Bazunu, but had to wait until we sold Bednarek for example, and if that took a while then we probably would’ve missed out on Bazunu and had to go for a back up target. I think Semmens said if the takeover had been last summer we’d have signed Broja, instead we had to loan him and now can’t afford to keep him. So hopefully times are changing in that regard.

[Turkish]

8 hours ago, verlaine1979 said:

McCarthy as number 1 cannot be the plan. He's just unbelievably dreadful with his feet, and alongside Bednarek being unable to pass more than five yards, it screws up 20% of our back-line build up. If he was an incredible shot stopper like Niemi, you might put up with the shortcomings in linking play, but as it is, he brings pretty much nothing to the table.

If it is the plan then the plan needs ripping up and starting again.

[Suhari]

20 minutes ago, Turkish said:

If it is the plan then the plan needs ripping up and starting again.

Hopefully the Man City kid is able to step up and claim the no 1 spot.

Tough thing to do, but Tino managed it. (Of course it's a little different with a 'keeper).

I have this hopeful fantasy that we'll sell McCarthy and bring in the polish dragon guy.

[sadoldgit]

19 minutes ago, Suhari said:

Hopefully the Man City kid is able to step up and claim the no 1 spot.

Tough thing to do, but Tino managed it. (Of course it's a little different with a 'keeper).

I have this hopeful fantasy that we'll sell McCarthy and bring in the polish dragon guy.

The dragon guy who let in 6 goals last night? Should fit right in 😉

[Lee On Solent Saint]

35 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

The dragon guy who let in 6 goals last night? Should fit right in 😉

Him and Bednarek in the same starting line up for that game too! 

[igsey]

1 hour ago, nta786 said:

I think some of us had hopes that things might change slightly under new owners that is all.

I don't want to think come end of the transfer window we just have a Gao MK II

Why would you have those hopes? They were very clear about how things would change (or not) when they came in. Similar transfer model, but now we don't necessarily need to sell to buy.

[Chez]

2 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Maybe slightly too early to say this, but based on our links and rumours thus far it does seem as if we're still fixated on the £10-15m Market. That's why Pope for £20-25m was never a goer. Our seemingly fixed budget won't get you much other than unproven up-coming players, or maybe if you're lucky a star from a lesser league (but that's pretty rare, as even those level of players cost upwards of £15m now).

It's a huge risk when the experienced players we have are all pretty shit bar 1 or 2.

If the philosophy is buy young and relatively cheap (we will know come the end of the window) and then use those signings to `slowly' replace the older more experienced players that are sold on/released, that perhaps makes sense given our budget and status in this league, but as you say, the issue is if the older/experienced guys aren't great. The young players don't have time to develop and our reliance on them can be too great. Doesn't mean it can't work. Several teams with almost all young players have done well. But those young players need to be bloody brilliant. 

 

 

[SuperSAINT]

Still linked with Lewis O’Brien

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/west-ham-united-southampton-and-crystal-palace-enter-the-race-for-huddersfield-town-star-leeds-out-of-the-race/

[Ex Lion Tamer]

2 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Yep, that's true. If that's the case then sadly this league is way too rich for us and we're better off out of it, as it'll be miserable otherwise.

Any team in this league, bar Norwich and Burnley, has the means to spend more than £25m on a single player. And we know what happened to Norwich and Burnley. As crap as it is, money is needed at this level and without it you're hanging by a thread.

I just find it staggering how we're in this position though. 10 years of PL money, 10 years of TV revenue, over £150m in player transfer fee's. Two takeovers.

Hopefully I'm wrong and we do put some decent money down for a CB or an CM/Number 10!

I agree that I don't fully understand why we have so little money compared to others

[Chez]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

If it is the plan then the plan needs ripping up and starting again.

It really is the plan. 

1 hour ago, Suhari said:

Hopefully the Man City kid is able to step up and claim the no 1 spot.

Tough thing to do, but Tino managed it. (Of course it's a little different with a 'keeper).

I have this hopeful fantasy that we'll sell McCarthy and bring in the polish dragon guy.

Fantasy is a good word. I just can't see who is going to sign him. If we had not given him a contract, I wonder where he would have ended up? Everyone in the Prem seems set. Forest maybe looking for a keeper, but I don't see McCarthy going anywhere. Ralph made his choice, McCarthy has the contract and that's that.

 

[Bad Wolf]

11 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

I agree that I don't fully understand why we have so little money compared to others

We don't. We're just more cautious. The books released last year showed that the finances are in a very healthy state all things considered (Covid)

[Toussaint]

2 hours ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

If we don't have the money though then it's as much of a risk to spend bigger

We don't have the money to get relegated either (can't afford to), so if the strategy, as previously suggested by the new owners, is just  to avoid relegation, then assembling  the minimum squad to stay in the league is a very high risk strategy.

[Chez]

12 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

I agree that I don't fully understand why we have so little money compared to others

Its a fair question.

Maybe we are more wasteful with our monies than others?  Paying Forster £5m to sit on the bench for a few years is one example of waste. Buying Carillo for £20m and letting him go for £0 is another. Our £114m wage bill is part of the reason. Our outgoings are a lot more than that by the way and our income hasn't been great.You can only spend what you have. And we obviously have had no owner gifts/loans. I was going to say others may have built up a bigger debt to find transfers, but ours seems to be pretty big.

We may spend a few bob this summer. We have some funds to come in from players sales, although how much of the debt we pay down will be interesting. 

[Ex Lion Tamer]

6 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

We don't have the money to get relegated either (can't afford to), so if the strategy, as previously suggested by the new owners, is just  to avoid relegation, then assembling  the minimum squad to stay in the league is a very high risk strategy.

Spending within your means and managing your costs if you get relegated is definitely less risky than overspending and going out of business if you get relegated anyway

[Ex Lion Tamer]

3 minutes ago, Chez said:

Its a fair question.

Maybe we are more wasteful with our monies than others?  Paying Forster £5m to sit on the bench for a few years is one example of waste. Buying Carillo for £20m and letting him go for £0 is another. Our £114m wage bill is part of the reason. Our outgoings are a lot more than that by the way and our income hasn't been great.You can only spend what you have. And we obviously have had no owner gifts/loans. I was going to say others may have built up a bigger debt to find transfers, but ours seems to be pretty big.

We may spend a few bob this summer. We have some funds to come in from players sales, although how much of the debt we pay down will be interesting. 

I did think we were going to be coming out of that period by now and our wage bill doesn't look that high anymore.

I do take the directors at face value though when they say this is what we can afford - I don't think they're on the grift

[Chez]

6 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

We don't. We're just more cautious. The books released last year showed that the finances are in a very healthy state all things considered (Covid)

Really? was that the general consensus? I thought part of the reason Drago got the club so cheap was the amount of debt it was carrying?

£140m of combined losses over the last three years and pushing towards £100m of debt, when it was next to nothing not so long ago. COVID has a lot to answer for...and some woeful scouting.

I know debt is not always the great enemy for businesses, and profits/losses at a football club depend largely on players sales (and if you sell you top guy every three years to balance he books the proceeding years are always going to look a little ugly).

[Bad Wolf]

1 minute ago, Chez said:

Really? was that the general consensus? I thought part of the reason Drago got the club so cheap was the amount of debt it was carrying?

£140m of combined losses over the last three years and pushing towards £100m of debt, when it was next to nothing not so long ago. COVID has a lot to answer for...and some woeful scouting.

I know debt is not always the great enemy for businesses, and profits/losses at a football club depend largely on players sales (and if you sell you top guy every three years to balance he books the proceeding years are always going to look a little ugly).

Granted, if you look at the reports in isolation and look at nothing else, it may seem a bit worrying however if you then look at Burnley, Leeds, Palace (I think they're better now but at the time they had a huge wage bill) etc it looks a lot brighter and you definitely have to factor in Covid as well.

You know what they say, if you take text out of context, you're left with a con!

[Toussaint]

6 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

Spending within your means and managing your costs if you get relegated is definitely less risky than overspending and going out of business if you get relegated anyway

Your damned if you do, your damned if you don't, my point is they cannot target fourth or fifth from bottom.

[Chez]

1 minute ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

I did think we were going to be coming out of that period by now and our wage bill doesn't look that high anymore.

I do take the directors at face value though when they say this is what we can afford - I don't think they're on the grift

It annoys me when people say `where has the money gone?' in some sort of insinuation that the owner ha been cyphering off large amounts for himself. The accounts tell you everything. Wages are massive and general operating expenditure is also massive. We lose a shit load on players that don't work out and we haven't be makign a huge amount on player sales for some time.

The wage bill is still high - not when compared to others of course, but as Forster and his monster wage departs JWP's new monster contract replaces it.

[St.Patrik]

Signing a goalie without having a goalkeeping coach seems odd? But what do I know? OR is he still around?? The GK coach of course : )

[Smirking_Saint]

3 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Yep, that's true. If that's the case then sadly this league is way too rich for us and we're better off out of it, as it'll be miserable otherwise.

Any team in this league, bar Norwich and Burnley, has the means to spend more than £25m on a single player. And we know what happened to Norwich and Burnley. As crap as it is, money is needed at this level and without it you're hanging by a thread.

I just find it staggering how we're in this position though. 10 years of PL money, 10 years of TV revenue, over £150m in player transfer fee's. Two takeovers.

Hopefully I'm wrong and we do put some decent money down for a CB or an CM/Number 10!

I do think, from the bits Ive heard around the club and other stuff in the media (2+2=5 probably) that we have funds available, we’re more likely to be shopping in the 10-20m bracket because we have significant work to do this year in multiple positions, so we probably can’t justify spending 30m etc on a single position as it won’t allow us flexibility in the others

We also, apparantly, will have funds available in January if necessary and if we appoint a new manager by that point he will be backed.. so theres that

Lets see what SR do this window before writing them off

[Golac's Cunning Stunts]

1 minute ago, Chez said:

It annoys me when people say `where has the money gone?' in some sort of insinuation that the owner ha been cyphering off large amounts for himself. The accounts tell you everything. Wages are massive and general operating expenditure is also massive. We lose a shit load on players that don't work out and we haven't be makign a huge amount on player sales for some time.

The wage bill is still high - not when compared to others of course, but as Forster and his monster wage departs JWP's new monster contract replaces it.

The scousers blab on about how Man City bought the league etc but they fail to mention their own wage bill which I saw quoted as bigger than Burnley, Watford, Norwich, Leeds and Brentford combined 

[Chez]

2 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

Granted, if you look at the reports in isolation and look at nothing else, it may seem a bit worrying however if you then look at Burnley, Leeds, Palace (I think they're better now but at the time they had a huge wage bill) etc it looks a lot brighter and you definitely have to factor in Covid as well.

You know what they say, if you take text out of context, you're left with a con!

Other clubs fucking up their finances doesn't make me feel any better, but COVID certainly played a big part in us having to take that loan out.

However, it certainly makes sense to compare ourselves with others, but that needs to be wages + transfer fees + player sales + other income + other costs and debt...and all over a three or four year period, not just before we sell JWP for £60m, or just after. 

In the end, the finances all comes down to buying the right players, getting the most out of them and selling them at the right time to maximise the return. Three years of buying Livramento and KWP-like talents is what we need. Lets hope this summer turns up a few of them

[Chez]

5 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

I do think, from the bits Ive heard around the club and other stuff in the media (2+2=5 probably) that we have funds available, we’re more likely to be shopping in the 10-20m bracket because we have significant work to do this year in multiple positions, so we probably can’t justify spending 30m etc on a single position as it won’t allow us flexibility in the others

We also, apparantly, will have funds available in January if necessary and if we appoint a new manager by that point he will be backed.. so theres that

Lets see what SR do this window before writing them off

Probably wont make anyone feel better, but every penny we spend on a keeper is a penny we can't spend on a striker...and we do need one of those, among other needs.

[swannymere]

6 minutes ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

The scousers blab on about how Man City bought the league etc but they fail to mention their own wage bill which I saw quoted as bigger than Burnley, Watford, Norwich, Leeds and Brentford combined 

 

 Whilst that is true, they have only spent a small amount when offset against their sales, mainly from Coutinho to Barca would be my guess.