This is where I don't get the complete hatred of the Allams. You end up trying to spin things to suit the agenda. There was a complete over-exaggeration when Burke left, people moaning that the Allams won't pay the money etc. But then when the Alfie Jones news came out, everyone was delighted and Burke leaving is much less of an issue.
Didn't the player who we 'lost' to Luton say he was moving regardless of the money we offered, the Milwall player was a second choice keeper, and who did we lose to Posh?
It has nothing to do with an agenda, it's fairly obvious that this season we're not going to be competitive with Championship wages. I don't even think we're making any secret of it, we're looking to sign players far closer to the League One average than the Championship one.
Well, Howden said that he thought he'd end up at Bristol City and then the Daily Mail ran a story saying that Luton had beaten them amongst other clubs. Two completely different sources but they tally up and DM was right about him signing for Luton...
I seem to recollect when we were first promoted to The Prem the club lost c£8m that season as they invested in players to hopefully secure promotion. Without promotion this was not sustainable. The approach now, albeit impacted by Covid, is to be sustainable at a time when gate revenues cannot be accurately forecasted. It clearly appears now they are hoping we 'punch above our weight' yet again, get in with a shout of promotion which will be a tough ask, or at the very least re-establish ourselves in The Championship during the coming season and perhaps push on from there. Will we pay big transfer fees for anybody, unlikely, as clearly we've shown our inability to keep such assets under contractual terms that work for the club, and they walk out the door invariably for nothing with few exceptions
I’m not against what the club are doing. Looking to sign hungry young players that can make the step up to this level and hit the ground running. I think for free transfers the 3 additions have been very good. I do feel we need a goal scorer to challenge and share the goal burden with Magennis. Hopefully we’ll strike lucky soon for a few more players. Life’s short and this is just football.
When you're using the example of Long going to Milwall as an example of us losing out on players I don't think it's unfair to say you're trying to suit your agenda. He's a L1 keeper and I don't think I saw anybody advocating that we keep him.
I don't care about Long going, we were never going to keep him anyway, but the fact is that the players that have left us and one that it looks like we've missed out on, are all going to be at clubs that traditionally figure at the bottom end of the Championship spending table. Bit daft to not think that's where we're operating as well.
Well low budgets or not I am pretty happy with the players we have signed. They obviously fit in with the mentality that the manager wants to instil in the team. The fact we haven’t made any other signings don’t bother me too much. Another good forward and a centre half and I’m cool with what we have done.
You don't care about long going and we weren't going to keep him anyway.... But then use him as a point of proof that others are beating us to signings.... You can't have it both ways
Why use Long as an example then if you aren't bothered? We all know we have a low budget but we couldn't match P'boro last season either. I know they had the Toney money but they reinvested heavily. On the flip side, we signed Wilks & Doch and had cash to spare for what they paid for Szmodics. I wouldn't like to try and predict the spending table this year, there's going to be an awful lot of clubs looking to cut costs and bring wage bills down. Quite how many clubs are going to offload top earners I don't know.
Some clubs are taking advantage of others being financially prudent and are spending a bit more, so the likes of Luton and Peterborough will perhaps spend more than they usually would to be competitive. The argument for our current working is sound because we won League One, so masses of additions aren’t needed and the three that have come in are decent squad additions at this level. I’ve yet to see anybody gripe about our squad not being good enough for the Championship, so I’m not sure why those people are worried about the state of play with transfers. In seasons past, it would be strange to lose players to Millwall and Luton because in previous seasons they’ve been relegation fodder, but that’s not currently the case. They don’t want to stick to a tight budget like us, but then we don’t know how much money they have, it could be more. Best to just wait and see; the start of the season is a way off yet and the players aren’t even back from pre season.
There's only two players we offered new deals to, who ended up going elsewhere, there weren't that many examples to chose from. I have no issue with us doing what we're doing, I'm just not going to pretend it's anything other than what it is.