Transfer Rumours City Transfer Thread

so roughly 24 hours to go and are we any closer to signing anyone? are we ****.

 

Is that an Allam 24 hours or a real 24 hours?

 

Yes, but even if we pay say 20/25% it's still a saving to them isn't it. Obviously they will want him of the wage bill completely but worse case for them any saving is better then none

 

Who will be this window's Yannis Salibur?

 

Maybe Yannis Salibur???

 

Yes, fair comment. But I think he may be holding out for his contract to be paid up as they did with Rodwell. If so, maybe any wage offer from City will be acceptable, But I still don't want him here.

 

Wolves seem to be signing a lot of players, ditto Fulham, maybe they've got some leftovers we can have. Cardiff haven't done much, but there's a couple I'd take.

Zyro, Graham, Pilkington, Damour, Healey, Ward, Kamara, Ayite, Woodrow...there's a few that'd be welcome additions.

 

Too tall.

 

Fascinating article

Brentford happy to do it their own way in quest for promotion
Ben FisherWed 8 Aug 2018 10.01 BST
Using statistical analysis to sign players, ditching their academy and scrapping the captaincy are some of the innovations that have turned Brentford into Championship contenders

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Brentford kicked off their season with a 5-1 win over Rotherham on Saturday as they bid for promotion from the Championship. Photograph: TGSPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
With the transfer deadline looming on Thursday, you could forgive scurrying rivals for peering over the wall at Brentford in envy. It may seem an odd thing to say given they have lost their captain, John Egan, and the winger Florian Jozefzoon to Championship competitors this summer but few clubs navigate transfer windows better.

Brentford do not panic but rather rebuild and, once more, Dean Smith’s stimulating side – top of the tree after a thumping 5-1 first-game win – have plans of surprising the field.

They are comfortable in their own shell, happy at being different from the rest, visionaries of sorts. Brentford cross-reference potential signings through the owner Matthew Benham’s statistical-analysis company, SmartOdds and ditched their £2m‑a‑year academy two years ago. This pre-season the manager, Smith, scrapped the captaincy altogether – long before the £4m sale of Egan to Sheffield United – preferring a leadership group. Smith is intrigued by rugby, particularly the freedom for players to get involved in the tactics of the game. He has gathered titbits from visits from the French Rugby Federation and London Irish, while he has an invitation to watch Eddie Jones’s England team.

“I think we’re not afraid to break the mould,” says Smith, who left Walsall for Brentford in 2015. “I’m not sure the model of having one captain fits within football now. Sometimes when you have a captain you end up with more followers than leaders, and we want to create leaders. I like the way they think in rugby and I think that’s something we can learn from as well. We work on set pieces in football and the players are struggling at times to remember 12 different routines but in rugby you can have 120 different lineout calls and they’re expected to remember them.”

A hybrid of intrinsic planning, forensic scouting and sage spending is fundamental to their recruitment, headed by the technical director, Robert Rowan, in tandem with the co-directors Rasmus Ankersen, also the chairman of FC Midtjylland, the Danish club owned by Benham, and Phil Giles, a maths graduate with a PhD in statistics. Brentford buy not only by numbers but personality; they do their homework, extensive due diligence and referencing.

They are scavenged for their best players season-on-season but successfully replenish their squad in a similar way in which Southampton, in the Premier League, and Peterborough, in League One, have done; they invest in potential, create value and, more often than not, sell for a healthy profit. When the top‑scorer Clayton Donaldson left for Birmingham in the summer of 2014, they signed Andre Gray for £500,000 and Scott Hogan for £750,000 – players they sold for £9m and £12m respectively in 2015 and 2017.

Two years ago, they sold the future England defender James Tarkowski to Burnley. Sometimes it is a roulette of calculated risks; last summer, the sales of Harlee Dean, Maxime Colin and Jota – who left for a total of almost £12m – were countered by the arrivals of £1.8m Ollie Watkins, £1.6m Neal Maupay and Kamohelo Mokotjo, for £880,000. The list goes on and on – in total it is estimated they have made a profit of £50m by selling 11 players since 2014. This summer, Ezri Konsa, the England Under-21 defender, replaced Egan, while Julian Jeanvier arrived from the Ligue 2 champions Reims.

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Manager Dean Smith joined Brentford from Walsall in 2015. Photograph: TGSPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
Brentford are not naive, they know if a bigger fish comes calling for Chris Mepham, the Wales international and a graduate of the B team who replaced their academy side, or Watkins, they could be blown out of the water. Bournemouth admire both, Leicester particularly the former, while Ryan Woods, a £1m buy from Shrewsbury in 2015, will likely leave for seven times that amount if Swansea meet his valuation.

“There has to be a balancing act, we cannot keep selling our best players all of the time and we have to stand firm sometimes at what can be head-turning finances for some of our players,” Smith says.

Brentford are fluid, teeming with pace and power, typified by the zest of Romaine Sawyers or Rico Henry, the England Under-20 international who has returned to light training, kicking a ball again following a serious knee injury. Watkins, who was on loan at Weston-super-Mare from Exeter only three years ago, was the pick of the bunch last season, scoring 11 goals.

It was no surprise he handled the step up but the 22-year-old did have a shock when Smith knocked on the door of his apartment. “With a lot of the new players, I like to go and visit them, to make sure they have settled into the new area,” Smith says, laughing. “Ollie had moved in and he said you can only come around if you bring me a moving-in present, so I surprised him with a fish tank. And I believe he got some fish named Dean and Richard, after myself and Richard O’Kelly [the assistant manager].”

A slow start hindered Brentford last season – they did not win in the league until 23 September – but they went on to secure a fourth consecutive top-10 finish since promotion in 2014. For a team who have quietly unearthed tomorrow’s stars, on the pitch, Brentford are making a case to be heard. Now, in their last full season at their 104-year-old Griffin Park home (famously a stadium with a pub in each corner), there is an ambition to take the next step, with the trouncing of Rotherham setting the bar high for the rest of the season, including the trip to Stoke on Saturday.

“This season I think there is a lot more unknown in the league,” Smith says. “We don’t know how Frank Lampard will do at Derby, how Darren Moore will do at West Brom, Stoke have got Gary Rowett in, Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds, which may open it up for everyone. We feel we have been consistent over the past few years and it gives us an opportunity to go and compete in that top six.”

 

Brentford spendingthe type of money we can only now dream of.

 

We all know what happens in 24 hours in Allam-world. I'm betting no incoming for us and hoping there won't be any late surprise outgoings.

 

Indeed it is

 

Christ. Could you imagine the reaction from our traditional fans?

The bridge would be busy.

 

"Rico Henry, the England Under-20 international who has returned to light training, kicking a ball again following a serious knee injury. " Get on the blower to Brentford now Ehab, our favourite kind of target.

 

You’d think that wouldn’t you?
But with Ehab in charge.....


Doggidy Hey,
Doggidy Ho,
Doggidy Hoo Haa!

 

brentford have a new stadium next year n all

 

Is Darnbrough on holiday or hiding? Has he prepared his customary 12th hour begging e mail to send out to clubs?

 

See what happens but it's not looking good.
We need 4/5 players that can improve us.
Which won't happen sadly.
I think we will go down.
I wasn't going to go to games but I will now because Adkins and these young lads need our support.

 

The potential bad news is I feel that Re Bowen... a cheeky late offer may come in..... and Re Groswitski, the window doesn't close in Europe for two more weeks and if his old club are looking at him, or another, we have no way of responding...