Maynard, Vaz Te and Morrison..... They must be confident of going up, it looks like a serious statement of intent that they are adding to their Premier League squad even further. It would be really funny if they fail to go up.
I agree. Be even sweeter if it's a poor result against us on the final day that does this. I wonder that if they do go up, will they spend even more money on the squad to remain in the Premier League? Because some of the players they have been signing are established Championship stars, but not sure on if Premier League quality. Its a huge investment for the owners.
I'm sure they will. Even without signing anyone they'll be shelling out a further £2.6m a year (basic wage only) to Ravel Morrison, who signed a £10,000 p/w contract with a 500% promotion wage rise. He's good but he's not quite £60k good just yet.
From a financial point of view, so long as they're able to pay the interest on long term debt and pay other bills as they come up there's no problem with them borrowing more money to spend on one offs like transfer fees. It's very rarely the debts themselves that cause problems, it's usually the cashflow associated. You can be sat with £200M debt and it's not a problem while the people you've borrowed it from are happy to just take the interest. Then you can have another club that's £40M in debt that's ****ed because they're due to repay it all in the next year.
This Morrison lad, what has he done that's so special? I don't get it, every so often these players come up who have a massive reputation but it doesn't seem to have been based on anything. I said the same thing about Mario Balotelli and Connor Wickham last season. I mean, he hasn't been in Man U's first team much has he? He hasn't been out on loan anywhere has he? He's been tipped to be a big England star but has he even been capped at U21 level yet? I don't doubt that the lad has talent but I just don't get where the reputation comes from.
He's played 1 game for England Under 16s, 3 for Under 17s, and 1 for the Under 18s. He has never made a league appearance for Utd, and has never been out on loan. Based on scout reports etc I suppose he'd be worth a £1m (ish) transfer gamble by a club like West Ham, but why they've promised him £60k per week upon promotion is beyond me. Utd refused him a new deal because he wanted £30k.
I've no idea, but you also find the same thing happens with one player each year who gets 20 goals in L1 or L2 and the press latch onto them. First time I noticed it was back when we were down in D3. There was Lee Trundle at £1M+ because of a load of tv coverage, and Leon Constantine being younger and matching him for goals was available for £100k, and a couple of other players not far behind (Burgess in fact got 19 that year didn't he) with no attention at all. The amount of times you see people on forums saying their lower PL or Championship club should be spending £2-3M on a L1/L2 player because they've got 20 goals is ridiculous as well. When you point out that they're just one of 4 or 5 players that year who've done it and the rest are going for £2-300k they'll insist that player is special and the others aren't, and you know full well they've never seen them play. We had it a few years ago with the P'boro 3 (CMS, McLean, and Boyd) where they were being touted around for over £3M each (Celtic offered that and were told £5M each if they wanted them). This was before they'd played at this level. I don't think I've ever seen someone at L1 level that's been impressive enough consistently enough to justify gambling over £1M on them as a guaranteed fee. I certainly wouldn't have done it with McLean based on what I'd seen of him before that. As much as McLean contributes a lot to the team, for his fee you want a consistent scorer and he's never shown it above L1. Brought in for about half a mill as a squad striker, you'd have him, Simpson, Fryatt, plus someone consistent at this level (or different) and then he wouldn't get half the flack he does. That extra cash would have been the difference last summer between Adebola and Iwelumo joining us.
Based on the fact Man U had kept him this long despite his off the pitch problems it must be assumed that their coaching staff think he's something special as well.
Still doesn't quite explain the £60k though, I mean, they could have just been holding onto a 'decent' prospect, ie, the next fletcher, anderson etc, and hoping that his attitude would improve with age - it doesn't necessarily offer the indication that he's the next Scholes.
Sorry I wasn't trying to explain that madness, I was just adding on to what you'd said about the justification of the fee because of the "what's he done to deserve the reputation" part of the question.
Ah, I see. I appear to misinterpreting absolutely everything this week at least this one hasn't led to a full page argument
West Ham Strikers Sam Baldock Carlton Cole John Carew Freddie Sears Frank Nouble Brian Montenegro Fredric Picquionne Ricardo Vas Te Nicky Maynard Hull City Strikers Aaron Mc Lean Jay Simpson Matty Fryatt Dele Adebola Josh King Mark Cullen
Looking at the photos the crowd looks further away from the pitch than they were at Brighton's old ground. Still, they're not getting it unless they win it this time round, 15 other bids they're up against.
He can do stuff like this... [video=youtube;I9Qy3KG9-hs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9Qy3KG9-hs&feature=related[/video]