2Morrow

Or did we play better today as we struggle against route one merchants like a Lincoln side raising their game at the start of the season? Were Larin and Scienza more effective as they weren't burnt out from playing the full 90 at Lincoln? Feel free to make wild statements based off of an outcome rather than a process. For me, Tonda excels when there is an opposition structure to counteract with, and struggles to use tactical acumen to beat a physical contest that our players to date haven't been able to match. If you discount Watford as a bad day at the office with two big individual errors, we have largely been excellent and were inches from Scienza putting us two up at Lincoln and game over. We were purring last night, and barring an injury crisis which would derail any of our rivals (Bowen, Lankshear, Fer Lopez, Larin) we will be in the top 2 hunt come May.

JWP Assist. Some of you dont know ball 🤫😂

Reality is less fun. I think the consensus is mostly spot on - a great squad that is one of the favourites for promotion, but one with flaws that could (should?) have been addressed. I presume a calculated risk that the promoted teams last season had Oshea/Greaves, Thomas / Kitching, Egan / Hughes as their starting CBs, so not unreasonable not to have £10m plus on CBs. Larin is scoring around a goal per game, so let's hope he plays 35 plus games this year and we should be okay. Cover is light and worries me, but look how much Hirst cost. We have got stuck with a load of surplus players over the past 5 years, so a slimmer squad will help Spors buy more Azaz/Scienza/Larin/Janders in Jan and next summer. A good window purely on larin/peretz and keeping Scienza/Jander/Azaz/Downes.

Abbott in as Bree cover and to replace stephens (wood?) from next summer if it works out Falchener as THB replacement 3rd choice keeper from the national league Wildcard forward / winger Dragan special like scienza Reality - the kid and the lower league keeper !

Wonder what they are doing with the money instead .... I was against Abbott, but hes consistently been on forests bench and rotated in their European games, so might be a gem. Spors has earned the right to make this call

West Ham have been trying with limiited success to sell a large 'bomb squad' of players (Alvarez, Todibo, Fullkrug,JWP). They are now accepting loans and more favourable (for the buyers) terms, which i imagine we could have been waiting for. JWP is in the last year of a chunky wage, I would guess we want a loan on subsidised wages ahead of signing him on a free next summer - or a free transfer now if JWP wants the security of a multi year deal

His book value will be £10m amortisation cost, which means a fee above that minus the City sell on % will be profit on this year's accounts. Hypothetically speaking, a £20m fee would be £10m profit. In a vacuum that would be 2 players signed for £20m on 4 year contracts at (£10m amortisation combined per year). In reality that would need £10m profit each year to fund those 2 players amortisation each year for those 4 years so we wont do that. We can however reinvest the £20m plus received for a decent level of replacement (£10m -£12m over 4 years would be £2.5-3m a year) and book the rest to cover minor outlays. I imagine the Charles fee accounts for the full lost income in parachute payment drops and the THB sale would fund two decent replacements for each at the above £10-12m mark (like Jander, Scienza, stretch to an Azaz, were). Dobbin was probably the £10m the owner can invest each year under the nrw SCR rules. Clearing out the unused players will reduce the wage bill, and let us do more in the future by reducing our losses on salary (BBD, Sugawara, Ramsdale, Baz etc.). If we weren't to sell THB, we are probably waiting to get rid of the hangers on to release the amortisation to replace Charles less riskily.

We expecting: Long Roerslav Quarshie Stephens Welington Bragg Downes Akachukwu (Archer) Dobbin Edozie Mubama

https://www.kumb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=192618&start=25720 This paints a very similar picture to this thread. Reality is on another day they cruise yesterday and it's all HMS piss the league. Fans are quite similar everywhere, and top end championship clubs either overpay (through add ons, obligation on promotion or sell on %) or wait for a deal last week of the window.

I can't believe that people think we can't have targets and plans for this eventuality, as noone could have predicted this was likely to happen.

That's not how football accounting works, Sheffield will have 'banked' the book profit on him when they sold him, so regardless of actual cash flow they would still show a incoming expenditure on this year's accounts.

https://x.com/JacobsBen/status/2088576185483616517?s=20 setting our stall out at 30m plus sell on. Seems reasonable, if disappointing.

If we beat Colchester then first game back after the 10 games would be Pompey... August and September banned.

West Ham have to make money before they can think of spending, their wage bill is significantly more than ours was when we first went down - plus they owe millions in transfer fees. Reportedly needed 150m to stay afloat, with no money for outgoings (which they roughly have done admittedly). Look at fernandes, 85m looks a lot for us, but half of that they had already paid us! That brings it down to 40m or so which we got for dibling. Similar for sommersville who they paid 30m for - £65m becomes £35m profit or fernanded territory. Amazing business, but it had to be by necessity of the fees they spunk on players (Fullkrug 30m, todibo 30m, Pablo 20m, tasty 20m, kilman 40m, JWP 30m.. plus all are on over 100k weekly, of which JWP was the only near for us)

Inclusive of playing first team football since he was 17. Last year he underperformed his XG by about 6, suggesting the chances he got were good enough to match a goal every other game. Over that small a sample size, it could be luck, and there arent many players who underperform to that extent across large samples. I presume we are betting he regresses to the mean next year and scores at the rate larin and stewart did with us.

For Azon you can't conflate appearances with starts and minutes on the pitch, and probably should include assists. Given his age, the stats look a lot better when you adjust for that - better than 1 in 3 g/a per match

JWP is adequate cover for Azaz and Downes & Jander/Charles. Good role model for Bragg breaking in. Can also do a job at RB, though a bit small more robust than Jelert was and it would give Bree a break. He broke through at RW/RM so in a long season could pop up there. I wouldn't want him to be the Jander & Charles replacement of both went, but sub CM is cool. For free or a subsidised loan for 1 season (ideal as could then be a free if it works out) its not exactly high risk. Leaves moolah for first choice CB if THB goes, a Stewart replacement, a winger or CAM cover to replace edozie and blank. Depending on who leaves, the main gaps are ST, CAM cover, LW cover, CB partner for THB, RB cover.

Hackney had a single year on his contract which greatly deflates the fee. Boro had to accept, or gamble on getting promoted with him. Now they can use thay money to have a player for 4 years, who they can sell again to keep 20m in the club. Keeping hackney meant they HAD to get promoted or lost 20m. Charles has 2 years including option, so we could wait another year and still get circa 15m for him I imagine. We are choosing to sell this year to get funds to keep others and go again this year, and as its our choice I imagine we will get 23m plus achievable add ons plus a sell on to negate the city 15% sell on.

Hackney is also 1 year left, whereas we have an option for another year on Charles so effectively 2 years.

They mean Jordan James

Think its being missed it was pretty widely reported we were trying to negotiate reduced terms on a longer extension and Stewart didn't want that. So no loyalty, hes left for the money. Fair play to him as ultimately its a career, but I can't criticise the club for not wanting to give him the same terms or a pay rise given his injury history. I am sure we would be critical of Spors if we gave him a 2/3 year deal on the same money and he got injured in September

JWP as CAM cover and CM? Azaz / JWP Downes/Bragg (Charles/Jander)/JWP If the moneys right we could do worse, he was still starting in the prem for Burnley back half of the season

There is no way a SPL side are paying more than we would, even on reduced terms. Been reported we have been negotiating reduced terms with him for a 2 year deal (i imagine with an option) since Jan. I imagine its either brinkmanship from him thinking we will blink given spygate, or he has an offer from someone he hopes we match.

If we are aiming for 60m then: Jander 25m plus (signed for over 10 plus length of contract) Scienza 25m plus (ditto) THB 25m ( we would want a profit) Charles 20m plus (2 years left) Ramsdale 15m -20m ( covers his amortisation, at the high end funds peretz) Sugawara 5m BBD 4m Fernandes 5m sell on Total sellable is around 120m, so if Dragan want to go for broke its probably 2 of Jander / Charles / THB / Scienza Plus the rest of that list to hit 70 -80m and have some to replace whoever leaves from the big 4. A third of the big 4 goes and we will probably use that to get a couple of big replacements. Might be naive, but given the noise I can't see all 4 being allowed to go this year, and if I was to guess I would say Jander and Charles go given the interest and numbers we would see for them.