Chez

The PL is not for the small spenders.

I also remember when we were in the same division and signed Fuller, Bart, Kosowski, Belmadi, Brenan, Wise, Powell, Hajto, Ostlund and Rasiak. I'm trying to recall if I felt more deflated in January 2006 than I do now.

Not sure I follow. If he didn't go to Burnley on loan, he'd still be paid by West Ham. The money he earns will be exactly the same, only Burnley will be paying some of it. So he is going there to play football not for a bit of cash. Good luck to him.

Feels a lot for a side that sold players to balance the books. I guess they are getting within touching distance of the promise land, so a Billy Sharpe-like signing might be an option, but they will have seen he can't cut it in the PL, so seems a stretch to spend £15m for half a season.

Yes. No reason for him to leave now unless someone matched his wage - and they wont - so may as well keep being paid by Saints. But his salary might not be "huge" ...unless SR dropped a Risdale type bollock.

Championship teams don't tend to spend £15m on players too often. Those that have, haven't always got the return they wanted. We paid £15m for him. At that point he was a 28 goal a season championship striker that we imagined would make the step up. Since then we have found he can't do it in the PL and he's become a 20 goal man and now maybe just a 16 goal a season striker. Not to be sniffed at. Does Archer get 11 goals of he got the same minutes? 18 months left of his contract. His value goes down from here.

AA just doesn't look to get in the six yard box enough. He hangs back waiting for the cut back, which works sometimes of course, but if you only have one striker, he has to be getting into the box more.

I've watched most of his games for us and I genuinely don't know if he is any good or not. He does some good stuff and then some bad stuff all in the space of a few minutes. I see him hold the ball up well one second and then fail to hold it up when we need him to the next. I see him finish well and then see him snatch at a shot. I see him chase hard, but then see him standing around doing nothing. Everyone talks abut hm needing a partner up front. Did he have one at Preston and Boro when scoring championship goals? Strange signing in the first place and strange that we didn't sell to Leeds (unless they were offering bobbins of course).

They're a more attractive option than us, assuming we were interested.

Maybe we did, but we didn't make a player trading profit the summer before. The player trading roughly evens itself out over the course of several years, but outside of that, the club has been losing money each year (for the last three or four years) due to the expenditure exceeding income. It will be interesting to see the 2025 accounts in a few months time.

Me to. Lascelles perhaps. I saw Amas, Collyer, Fer Lopez, Piroe, Fofana all mentioned on a Skysports article. I thought championship clubs could loan as many as they liked, but only have 5 in a match day squad.

I wouldn't have thought we would sell in this window, but there is 18 months left of his deal so it's around the time that talks between club and agent, other club and agent start happening. SFC wont want him leaving for nothing. He will want a new contract. Other clubs will see an opportuntty on the horizon etc.

Maybe, but it might indicate they haven't been able to find better than they have got within their budget. Alternatively it might indicate they think we already have the players that can make a push for the play offs or it might indicate they don't want to throw more money at this season and are saving it till next summer. Who knows.

We spent a sizeable amount of money the previous summer. If we had retained our PL status, we could have covered that outlay, but we didn't. This summer we have obviously balanced the books somewhat. By my fag packet maths, our player trading over the last two years evens out, but without player trading, SFC has made £25m and £35m in annual losses according the accounts. The massive outlay in the 22/23 season plus relegation crippled us and the wage bill we took down the championship will also have been a factor. Indeed, the owner had to inject £63m just to balance the books after the 2023 January window failure. It's worth noting that we haven't paid down the loan we took out during COVID (we paid some off then took another loan out), so there are debts to be paid too. It's all in the accounts, admittedly you never get a really up to date picture as they come out about 8 months after the year has closed. Birmingham have spent about £40m NET over the last two seasons, so if you are just using player trading as the measure, then it looks like their owners are doing more. They of course were in a real mess before Wagner and SCL acquired them, but they didn't have a monstrous wage bill dragging them down. I do know their transfers have been funded by a loan from the owner's parent company, which is charging the club 11% interest. By contrast, Dragon's capital injection was turned into shares, so isn't a company debt. Returning to your point about us not spending in this window, which is a valid gripe, I imagine they have been looking, but the squad is pretty bloated and they may see value in keeping their powder dry until the summer. For me, if we could loan out Archer, Edozie and Aribo and bring in say Lascelles and another attacking option on loan, that would make sense.

Is there no market for Archer? Surely someone would fancy him on loan.

How about Beto on loan from Everton. Can't hit a barn door for them, but as physical a number 9 as you'll get.

Agreed. Possibly has been all season. It's not a total loss of confidence, but he's not flying. Wrexham first game of the season he had several half decent chances and it's continued. He blows hot and cold. Somedays he is shooting straight at the keeper, others he is pinging the one chance he gets in the bottom corner. Very inconsistent, but at this level it tough to find players with the quality and then get them the chances they need.

97 goals in 271 games. 11 in 29 this season. Is 1 in 3 prolific? Maybe. IMO he should have about 14 or 15 this season. He hasn't scored as many as he should. But finding someone that would have scored those 15 goals is the challenge. I certainly don't want to see him sold until the summer at least. Finding the right partner for him is key and a bigger reason for our struggles.

not sure they do, do they?

And the club has used it to trim with Edwards and Fraser departing. I am sure they are not palming off bids for Aribo and Edozie either. If we not getting promotion, than loans are a pointless expense, but like you say, strengthening the squad still makes sense. Buy someone now, bed them in and see them fly next season. However buying players in January is pretty tough as clubs and players prefer to weigh up their options in the summer.

Someone that knows their footie stats better than me will need to explain how two one-on-one chances plus the snapshot from the Bree cross equals an xG of 0.90. From those three chances, my expectation would be at least one goal scored, but perhaps the expected goals from a one on one and less than you think. The skates xG was 1.48 by the way. The observer obviously felt their opportunities were better than ours.

He definitely hasn't been as clinical this season as he was in our promotion season. In our promotion season his goal tally pretty much matched his xG. He scored 24, while his expected goals scored was 23.94. This season he has scored 11, xG is 13.74. I'm not up on my football stats, but I read that as he really should have scored 14 goals this season, and obviously if he had tucked a few really tough chances away, he could have got a few more.

Agreed. If we were in the top two, that might help a fraction to get that better quality of player (like we did with Brooks), as a player could see themselves staying with the club on promotion. For someone like Piroe, who has made it to the PL, dropping down a division is bad enough, dropping down a division for a side going nowhere isn't all that attractive.

The club seemed to decide that it was better to buy young players like Quarshie and Downes to help build a side that would survive after getting promoted without having to sign a complete new team. Just two loans in the summer, with Peretz making it three. I doubt they will buy anyone in this window, but maybe a loan on the last day of the window if they find someone better than we have. Like others have said, if you are unlikely to get relegated or promoted this season, then adding wages doesn't make sense. We are only 7 points behind Wrexham in 6th with 17 games left. Does the club still see a chance of making the play offs? Will one loan signing make all the difference or is the reality that the current squad with a more comfortable back four, with Peretz, Wellington, Bree, Stewart and Charles returning get their act together?

You might be right, but I still quite liked seeing a game with a bit of physicality to it. Our little extra quality was still given the opportunity to shine through, AAs lovely first touch to create his chance for example, but sadly it didn't extend to his finishing.