Summer Transfer Window 2023

[Jimbo]

7 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

Do you know what happenings when players sign new contracts? Eg JWP must have received a large signing on fee when he agreed to his 7 year contract. Is the cost of the signing on fee swallowed in the year of signing or is it amortised in the same way as transfer fees?

At signing.

Capitalise and amortise the cost of acquired players, not development costs (inc signing on fees/youth development costs etc) of internally developed players.

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, farawaysaint said:

We shouldn’t be “making do” we should be one of the automatic promotion favorites. Anything less really is just moving backwards for no discernible reason except possibly a financial one. 

Agreed. We are probably a couple of signings away from that as it is. If we are going to accept more first team departures, then we would need to replace them as well. 

[Saint_Ash]

12 hours ago, MarkSFC said:

How you doing mate?😂😂

Good mate, enjoying the fun? You getting to the northern games?

[MarkSFC]

3 minutes ago, Saint_Ash said:

Good mate, enjoying the fun? You getting to the northern games?

Always fun in transfer season!! Might get to one or two but very busy!! Went down for the Norwich game.

[Granite_City_Saint]

1 hour ago, Jimbo said:

 

 

Granite and Tame are correct. It isn’t £150m profit, it’s £150m less the unamortised cost of the players sold.

however, the unamortised cost of the players that have been sold is pretty low, so it will be relatively high profit, just not quite £150m.

eg JWP & Tella cost is nil, Salisu is c£3m (signed for £11m 3 years ago on a 4? Yr contract). By the same logic, tino, Lavia Carrrying values will be <£15m combined.  

 

 

The £150 million is also likely to be amortised.  It isn't logical to amortise the outgoings but claim all the incomings in the current year

[hypochondriac]

Looks like Adams off and Ross Stewart in. Huge risk this and my only hope is that he is less injured than first reported and back sooner than expected. If this is our new forward to lead the line then we are really going to have a big hole over the next month or two. 

[farawaysaint]

7 minutes ago, Granite_City_Saint said:

 

Edited 30 August, 2023 by farawaysaint
Meh

[Give it to Ron]

8 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Looks like Adams off and Ross Stewart in. Huge risk this and my only hope is that he is less injured than first reported and back sooner than expected. If this is our new forward to lead the line then we are really going to have a big hole over the next month or two. 

I totally agree and trying not to panic - found it odd we were touting Mara yesterday. We don’t have enough forwards as it is.

Why is it a position we always have issues with to point of blindness.

Edited 30 August, 2023 by Give it to Ron

[Turkish]

Just now, Give it to Ron said:

I totally agree and trying not to panic - found it odd we were touting Mara yesterday. We don’t have enough forwards as it is.

It's not like we'll miss Mara though. Who much has he played this season? I can only remember one sub appearance. 

[notnowcato]

Just now, Give it to Ron said:

I totally agree and trying not to panic - found it odd we were touting Mara yesterday. We don’t have enough forwards as it is.

As much as I wanted Mara to work it doesn’t look likely. Losing him and Che isn’t a huge difference compared to just losing Che. 

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, Give it to Ron said:

I totally agree and trying not to panic - found it odd we were touting Mara yesterday. We don’t have enough forwards as it is.

Why is it a position we always have issues with to point of blindness.

To put it bluntly, I'd much rather have had Piroe. We fucked up not getting him. 

[Give it to Ron]

1 minute ago, Turkish said:

It's not like we'll miss Mara though. Who much has he played this season? I can only remember one sub appearance. 

Came on Saturday to allow Armstrong to move to a better position though we have no-one else to do that if Che goes as looks likely

Edited 30 August, 2023 by Give it to Ron

[egg]

Just now, hypochondriac said:

To put it bluntly, I'd much rather have had Piroe. We fucked up not getting him. 

But we didn't, and keep bringing it up changes nothing. Piroe is not the only capable striker out there. 

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, Turkish said:

It's not like we'll miss Mara though. Who much has he played this season? I can only remember one sub appearance. 

Over the season he will probably get a decent amount of game time if he's here. Would be good to have an alternative to this bloke (especially because he is injured) who actually looks like he might score a goal or two. 

[Smirking_Saint]

12 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Looks like Adams off and Ross Stewart in. Huge risk this and my only hope is that he is less injured than first reported and back sooner than expected. If this is our new forward to lead the line then we are really going to have a big hole over the next month or two. 

Im at work and just genuinely asking, do we have reliable updates on this ?

[hypochondriac]

Just now, egg said:

But we didn't, and keep bringing it up changes nothing. Piroe is not the only capable striker out there. 

I'm not sure I said he was? This is a thread to talk about transfers and the imminent sale of our only effective striker and the possible purchase of a new striker with an uncertain injury record who hasn't played since January with an injury that has ended many careers seems like a reasonable time to bring it up. 

[hypochondriac]

Just now, Smirking_Saint said:

Im at work and just genuinely asking, do we have reliable updates on this ?

The Athletic are reporting apparently that we are about to sell Adams and a bid may have already gone in for Stewart. 

[Galway saint]

2 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

The Athletic are reporting apparently that we are about to sell Adams and a bid may have already gone in for Stewart. 

Sounds like a SR move. Sell your only credible striker and bring in as his replacement a guy who has had a very serious injury and isn’t able to play for some time. I really hope this isn’t the case. 

[manji]

10 hours ago, Saint Matty 76 said:

God these rumours are all depressing.

I know expectations have to drop slightly but if we’re looking at Drameh, Zeqiri and a currently injured Stewart to replace KWP, Tella and Che. Crikey. (Before somebody needlessly snaps at this, yes we don’t know if that’s the case as of yet. I’m just worried.)

The board, and even the club via social media have been very quick to tell us about having the means for serious reinvestment with the sales we’ve made. Combine that with RM’s comment about us looking stronger at the end of the window then last week… hoping for the best but consistently expecting the worst at the minute.

As you said RUMOURS 🙄

[James]

5 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

The Athletic are reporting apparently that we are about to sell Adams and a bid may have already gone in for Stewart. 

Where are you seeing that? Can’t find the report.

Edited 30 August, 2023 by James

[Dman]

6 minutes ago, egg said:

But we didn't, and keep bringing it up changes nothing. Piroe is not the only capable striker out there. 

Correct, but it was probably the least low risk and most obvious (with the ability to hit the ground running). 

This Stewart might be just as good or even better, but its a gamble and he's injured until October, which is a massive worry. 

[Smirking_Saint]

3 minutes ago, James said:

Where are you seeing that? Can’t find the report.

https://x.com/mwalker2771/status/1696781694131421237?s=46&t=MqpubAzkQD51r3m_v775zw
 

If true it feels a bit shortsighted 

[Saint_lambden]

5 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

Sounds like a SR move. Sell your only credible striker and bring in as his replacement a guy who has had a very serious injury and isn’t able to play for some time. I really hope this isn’t the case. 

He's back in training this week. 

[manji]

11 hours ago, Luke SkyWalker-Peters said:

Lots of rumblings about the money that should be spent or whether it can be spent.

On whether it should be, I wrote another post detailing why I personally believe this is a conscious strategy to save money now to spend more when promoted. I believe I first got the impression of this by a comment made by Blackmore, so I assume he has had conversations on the topic with those inside Staplewood. Link here. In short, they aren't wasting transfer money on Champioship players and instead are saving in for when we are promoted.

As for whether it can be, this is a great website for football finances as it goes through all the accounts.

It sounds obvious but we have loads of money available. Yes we have been relegated, but with the parachute payments that comes to about -£50m in TV revenue lost from the previous year. Some sponsorships will drop slightly, but the TV revenue will be the main drop of income plus perhaps an extra -£10m if being extremely pessimistic.

On the books, we will be very profitable this year. Even though we spent £130m last season that cost is amortised over the duration of the contracts for the players we bought. So that would have only been an extra (approximately) £30m paid per year over 4 years had we kept all those players (I'm just averaging out at 4 year contracts here for simplicity). But the players we sold will go down as immediate income. We have brought in £150m from player sales this summer.

Factoring in that our players have taken a 40% wage reduction due to relegation clauses (as confirmed by Semmens years ago and journalists this summer) and have lost most of our highest earners. From our approximately £60m wage bill last season we will be saving approximately £24m. In terms of total personnel cost savings (including bonuses etc I expect and perhaps other staff) most relegated clubs save far more than that (Norwich saved approx £50m).

Under Gao we were almost breaking even (approx -£10m per year). Being very pessimistic, we shall say we have lost £60m in income from relegation and we are paying an extra £30m for the players we bought last summer (I'm not even going to minus the ones we already sold). That puts us at -£90m. We have saved a minimum of £24m on personnel (honestly could be double) and made £150m in sales.

Using our previous seasons as a reference then : -10-60-30+24+150.... which would make us at minimum £74m in profit for this season.

In real cash terms it will be a different story, but there are plenty of ways of deferring payments (loans+obligations to buy). Just as our outgoings are paid in instalments over 1-3 years, so are our incomings. The club might be very honest about not having large amounts of cash available to sign many players (as my previous post said - I suspect they don't want to waste money on Championship players), but they absolutely could work around that if they wanted to as they will be very profitable by the year's end.

For reference, when Fulham went down they made £12m in sales and just took the £60m loss on their accounts to go back up (having lost £100m the year before).

Anyone saying we don't have the money to spend is lying. We may not have the cash this moment, but that can be worked around. We are in an extremely healthy position.

Anyone saying we are at risk under FFP is lying. You can lose over £100m over a 3 year period while in the Premier League, we likely exceeded that last season but have more than made up for it this year. In previous Gao years we were at worst losing around £10m per year.

Sport Republic invested into the club, they don't need or intend to take that money out. I suspect they will make a profit on the £130m they spent on players last year having made almost half of it back on just one player already. I'm fairly certain I read that they also paid off our loan debt just after acquiring the club.

Excellent post but I suspect half the forum members lost track after a couple of sentences. Try something like this “  Wilcox is only good for recruiting donkeys “ you’ll get far more likes and laughs. Galway Saint is a good example. Don’t think he’s ever posted anything intelligent.

Edited 30 August, 2023 by manji

[revolution saint]

On a more positive note, Ross Stewart looks a decent player (when fit).  Big lad who would definitely give us an added dimension to our attacking options - feels like we haven't had that since Pelle.  If we do end up signing him and having to wait a bit till he's fit then I'd consider swapping Alcaraz and A Armstrong around and see how that works out.

[Lighthouse]

Piroe was available, affordable, is a proven striker at this level and knows Martin. He ticks every box, would have been willing to come here and yet it didn't happen. That can only mean that there's something more to it than what us internet dweebs are aware of. What that something could be is anyone's guess. Perhaps it was wage demands, perhaps we really are after better targets and thought he wasn't a priority, who knows. I've no doubt at all that we had the resources to push a deal through, if we really wanted to but we didn't, so I won't lose any sleep over it.

[disconnect]

Surely if we let Adams go and sign Stewart it'll be in addition to another striker. We know that Onuachu isnt going to play, Mara is not really in favour and Armstrong is much better playing off another striker. Would Sulemana play up top on his own?! I'll be shocked (in a good way) if he's still here in a weeks time though!

[Lee On Solent Saint]

1 minute ago, Lighthouse said:

Piroe was available, affordable, is a proven striker at this level and knows Martin. He ticks every box, would have been willing to come here and yet it didn't happen. That can only mean that there's something more to it than what us internet dweebs are aware of. What that something could be is anyone's guess. Perhaps it was wage demands, perhaps we really are after better targets and thought he wasn't a priority, who knows. I've no doubt at all that we had the resources to push a deal through, if we really wanted to but we didn't, so I won't lose any sleep over it.

Or perhaps Swansea really didn't want to do business with us. Unlikely I know, but maybe not as crazy as we would think. 

[hypochondriac]

14 minutes ago, manji said:

As you said RUMOURS 🙄

You were saying earlier in the summer that we were looking to get someone better than Piroe. That still the case? 

[Rebel]

16 minutes ago, Granite_City_Saint said:

The £150 million is also likely to be amortised.  It isn't logical to amortise the outgoings but claim all the incomings in the current year

the value of players on the balance sheet is amortised - so if you buy a player for £10M and give him a 5 year contract his value drops by £2M for every year of that contract until he is out of contract.

It doesn't matter whether or not his transfer value goes up or down until that is realised by selling him.

I am guessing that is why some players are going out on loan with the option/obligation to buy next summer as it means we retain their value on our spreadsheet for another years - whereas if we sold them for a lot less than we paid for them this year our balance sheet would take a hit.

Transfer fees are also normally paid in instalments which also affects the balance sheets.

But this is all management accounting dark arts and spreadsheet black magic.

It ignores the fact that Sports Republic have invested about £250M or more in Southampton - both in buying the club and loans or capital injections to fund buying players.  They want this back - or as much of it as they can get. Which means they will have to take it out through management fees, loans repayments or dividends.  I expect they will do this over the 3 years off the parachute payments - and will use that money and the money raised from player sales to do it. Which is why we don't have loads of money to spend despite player sales.

I could be wrong - and SR could be happy to write off the investment or they could be happy to bet it all on getting promoted this season.  .

Most investors would take the money out until what remains of the money invested equals the value of the club without parachute payments - which means on paper they haven't made a loss.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle - they are looking to recoup a large chunk of the investment but not all - and spend enough on the squad to give us a fighting chance of going straight back up - but not bet the house on it.  

Even if we were in the premier league I think they would want the money the put in to buy players back.

[egg]

22 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

I'm not sure I said he was? This is a thread to talk about transfers and the imminent sale of our only effective striker and the possible purchase of a new striker with an uncertain injury record who hasn't played since January with an injury that has ended many careers seems like a reasonable time to bring it up. 

I refer to the sensible words of Lighthouse up there  ^^^

Just because you wanted him, doesn't mean that we should have got him. 

[gio1saints]

Dont think there will be an announcement or announcements today. Tomorrow or Friday hopefully. 😎

[hypochondriac]

5 minutes ago, egg said:

I refer to the sensible words of Lighthouse up there  ^^^

Just because you wanted him, doesn't mean that we should have got him. 

If we sign someone better then it won't be an issue will it. 

[damers]

Could we be looking to bring in Stewart and Bojan Miovski?

[Ex Lion Tamer]

11 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Piroe was available, affordable, is a proven striker at this level and knows Martin. He ticks every box, would have been willing to come here and yet it didn't happen. That can only mean that there's something more to it than what us internet dweebs are aware of. What that something could be is anyone's guess. Perhaps it was wage demands, perhaps we really are after better targets and thought he wasn't a priority, who knows. I've no doubt at all that we had the resources to push a deal through, if we really wanted to but we didn't, so I won't lose any sleep over it.

Going on the evidence we have available, we just didn't try as hard as Leeds. We probably didn't want to push while we were still unsure if Che was leaving. 

[Saint NL]

Where's Che going?

 

Looks like Palace isn't an option

 

 

 

[Ralph Fastenbüttl]

Fuck me, I've gone from never having heard of the word "amortised" to reading it in what feels like every post. Suppose I should probably Google its meaning.

[SNSUN]

If our striking options going into this season are AA (better as anything other than a 9), Stewart (injured this entire calendar year) and Ballard (completely untested) then we really won’t have learned any lessons from last season. We would need at least another striker in or Fraser will be sending crosses in to nobody. Hell I’d even rather keep one of Tall Paul or Mara if that was going to be the case. If we get Stewart AND one of the Aberdeen lads then I suppose that would do but it would still be quite underwhelming.

[Smirking_Saint]

17 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Piroe was available, affordable, is a proven striker at this level and knows Martin. He ticks every box, would have been willing to come here and yet it didn't happen. That can only mean that there's something more to it than what us internet dweebs are aware of. What that something could be is anyone's guess. Perhaps it was wage demands, perhaps we really are after better targets and thought he wasn't a priority, who knows. I've no doubt at all that we had the resources to push a deal through, if we really wanted to but we didn't, so I won't lose any sleep over it.

Im fairly sure there will be something in the fact that Martin described Piroe as similar to Armstrong, and as such we havn’t moved for him

I’ll back this opinion up by the fact Stewart looks more in liking to Ché then he is to Armstrong, so for me, its clear we want a more physical frontman to allow Arma to play as a shadow striker 

[Jimbo]

49 minutes ago, Granite_City_Saint said:

The £150 million is also likely to be amortised.  It isn't logical to amortise the outgoings but claim all the incomings in the current year

No it isn't, £150m is recognised at sale, less any unamortised to date accounting cost for those players, which is deduced in full at sale (not the same as unpaid transfer fees).  

 the principle is you buy a player registration, and spread the accounting cost over the contract. If you sell part way through a contract, you no longer own the registration, and you book a gain/loss based on sale value less remaining cost on the books.

14 minutes ago, Rebel said:

the value of players on the balance sheet is amortised - so if you buy a player for £10M and give him a 5 year contract his value drops by £2M for every year of that contract until he is out of contract.

 

This

Edited 30 August, 2023 by Jimbo

[Miltonaggro]

31 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

To put it bluntly, I'd much rather have had Piroe. We fucked up not getting him. 

Only way that makes sense is if it’s like for like if Adams leaves and Martin and Wilcox have a preferred player in mind, a player they see as better than JP. Personally I agree, and would have taken the hit and gone for Piroe regardless as Mara and Donkey Giraffe aren’t feasible forward options in a team looking score the goals to bounce straight back.

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, Miltonaggro said:

Only way that makes sense is if it’s like for like if Adams leaves and Martin and Wilcox have a preferred player in mind, a player they see as better than JP. Personally I agree, and would have taken the hit and gone for Piroe regardless as Mara and Donkey Giraffe aren’t feasible forward options in a team looking score the goals to bounce straight back.

We should have either recognised that Adams was likely to go and signed him in advance or considered signing him with Adams. Losing out on him and strengthening a rival is a fuck up. 

[Miltonaggro]

2 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

We should have either recognised that Adams was likely to go and signed him in advance or considered signing him with Adams. Losing out on him and strengthening a rival is a fuck up. 

‘With’ would have been preference.

[coalman]

I still think there's a player in Mara. Last season we recruited lots of players and then kept rotating them. Nobody got a chance to settle into the team which was reflected in performances on the pitch. Having a smaller squad and giving those players a run will give us an opportunity to see what they're really about. Writing someone off based on a few minutes here and there seems premature.

[OldNick]

I still cannot see the sense of waiting to sell Adams before buying another. Adams can be sold in Jan if we have too many players, or his contract ends. Ok we have to pay his wages but the extra we will have to pay as held to ransom as we've sold surely will not be much different

[hypochondriac]

3 minutes ago, coalman said:

I still think there's a player in Mara. Last season we recruited lots of players and then kept rotating them. Nobody got a chance to settle into the team which was reflected in performances on the pitch. Having a smaller squad and giving those players a run will give us an opportunity to see what they're really about. Writing someone off based on a few minutes here and there seems premature.

Equally though, we don't have the time to see if he comes good. He needs to make a significant contribution now. 

[Doctoroncall]

10 minutes ago, Miltonaggro said:

Only way that makes sense is if it’s like for like if Adams leaves and Martin and Wilcox have a preferred player in mind, a player they see as better than JP. Personally I agree, and would have taken the hit and gone for Piroe regardless as Mara and Donkey Giraffe aren’t feasible forward options in a team looking score the goals to bounce straight back.

It’s sad, but that made me laugh, not so good in an open office environment!

[Harry_SFC]

2 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Equally though, we don't have the time to see if he comes good. He needs to make a significant contribution now. 

Mara has a few decent attributes but it's clear he isn't good enough at the moment. Really needs a loan, but we don't have enough options to be able to do this.

[Chez]

The replacement at Sunderland for Ross Stewart is Nazariy Rusyn. It's been in the offing for a while, but he will require a work permit before he can join them. Maybe they will sell Stewart without a replacement being signed, but I am sure it would help if that deal went through.    

[Saint Fan CaM]

35 minutes ago, Rebel said:

the value of players on the balance sheet is amortised - so if you buy a player for £10M and give him a 5 year contract his value drops by £2M for every year of that contract until he is out of contract.

It doesn't matter whether or not his transfer value goes up or down until that is realised by selling him.

I am guessing that is why some players are going out on loan with the option/obligation to buy next summer as it means we retain their value on our spreadsheet for another years - whereas if we sold them for a lot less than we paid for them this year our balance sheet would take a hit.

Transfer fees are also normally paid in instalments which also affects the balance sheets.

But this is all management accounting dark arts and spreadsheet black magic.

It ignores the fact that Sports Republic have invested about £250M or more in Southampton - both in buying the club and loans or capital injections to fund buying players.  They want this back - or as much of it as they can get. Which means they will have to take it out through management fees, loans repayments or dividends.  I expect they will do this over the 3 years off the parachute payments - and will use that money and the money raised from player sales to do it. Which is why we don't have loads of money to spend despite player sales.

I could be wrong - and SR could be happy to write off the investment or they could be happy to bet it all on getting promoted this season.  .

Most investors would take the money out until what remains of the money invested equals the value of the club without parachute payments - which means on paper they haven't made a loss.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle - they are looking to recoup a large chunk of the investment but not all - and spend enough on the squad to give us a fighting chance of going straight back up - but not bet the house on it.  

Even if we were in the premier league I think they would want the money the put in to buy players back.

Good post. Serves to show where the strategic priority exists for SR. Promotion is of secondary importance and Wilcox has been charged with moving as many players out as possible irrespective of their ability to influence the success of this season. The bloated squad had to be thinned out, so if an asset has a heartbeat they’ll be sold/loaned if there’s an opportunity to do so. And that’s ok…most of them collectively were very poor last season, even against lower ranked teams.

Where Wilcox really earns his corn is knowing how to re-build the squad back to a level of quality that can do well this season. Martin is probably providing a lot of input to this, given his time in the Championship, hence the incomings being ex-Martin men he can trust. But to be promoted you need to better than the Championship, so the question is…are we seeing any evidence that the work is being done to achieve this? My concern is we’re still hearing of possible loss of influential players - Tella gone and Che closely following and there’s not much time left to repair these what have become gaping holes. Even if we manage to hold on to Che, we urgently need another very good, mobile striker/AM.

Edited 30 August, 2023 by Saint Fan CaM