Summer transfer/exodus window 2026

[UpweySaint]

6 hours ago, Baird of the land said:

He was good for us in the prem but that was years ago. He’s 31 now and yes legs do go as players get older, especially one who’s whole success was covering every blade of grass. His fall from grace at WH, forest and Burnley isn’t some glitch.

31 for a player who looks after himself isn’t necessarily an issue. Hard to know his current level with his lack of consistent game time of late. It may indicate he’s gone to shit or it might just be he’s not pushed his way into starting 11s. My guess is he would look very good in a championship side under the right manager. There is a bit of sentiment in there but it’s not exactly jobs for the boys. Taking his name out of the equation if you told me Jander and Charles would leave I wouldn’t be too gutted about signing a 31 year old centre mid with a lot of prem experience, an eye for a pass and the sort of dead ball delivery many of ours would potentially thrive on. We have been stung before ‘getting the band back together’ but some of the bashing he gets on here feels OTT. I do wonder if he suffers somewhat by association- he was the captain during some shite seasons. Quite how much of that he should be accountable for is up for debate but it certainly seems to impact some views on him.

[RedArmy]

14 hours ago, Hodgey said:

We need to play the loan system, was a big mistake not doing so last summer.

 

 

You put yourself at an immediate disadvantage when you get promoted as we found out last time having to spend the best part of £40m on THB and Downes just to stand still. 

[skintsaint]

3 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Oh FFS. first we get dumped out of the playoff final, then this!!!

 

Decent Hayden replacement that, make it so Boro!

[skintsaint]

16 minutes ago, RedArmy said:

You put yourself at an immediate disadvantage when you get promoted as we found out last time having to spend the best part of £40m on THB and Downes just to stand still. 

Just don't agree to mandatory purchase loans on promotion, do them as an option to buy instead.

[Pwoite]

3 hours ago, Saint86 said:

I would expect the club to maximise saleable assets - partly to balance the books, partly to free up funds for reinvestment.

I reckon Scienza and Jander will both be sold, and for at least double our initial outlay which is much needed from a PSR perspective - reasonable to expect £40-45M for those 2 i think?

Charles will also be sold due to contract situation, hopefully another £15M.

That's a likely £55-60M for those 3.

Ramsdale for circa £10-15M if we are lucky. Plus £100k/wk (£5.2M/yr) wages.

A potential £65M-£70M if we sell Ramsdale

If anyone will give us a profit on THB then i expect he will be sold as well. The reality is that having a £20M CB is a luxury in this league - i rate him and think he's a brilliant CB for the championship, but if someone offers us £25M to replace him and strength elsewhere, we will take it...

So potentially £85M-90M sales just on those 5players.

Rumours of a sell on fee for Fernandes - so hopefully a small bonus there as well.

Against that, we need to offset a circa £15M drop in parachute money this coming season.

Plus we need to make sure we balance the PSR 3year loss limit of £61M - for which, we don't know where we stand for the season just gone.
 

All in all though, i think we could have a tidy pot to reinvest this summer.

Larin for £3-4M isn't a bad buy - but crucially he will have no resale value. And Stewart will be similar in that he's going into his final year on his contract. Having those 2 as our strikers leaves us staring at an issue in a couple of seasons where we may be needing an entirely new front line and have no parachute payments etc., to replace them. If any championship teams are in for Ballard, given our sell on fee (discount) we should at least be considering joining them...

I hope this is cautiously optimistic. Does anyone know what the sell on for Fernandes might be, if talks of a £80m sales are to be believed.

Add to this our wage bill should be reduced with Aribo, Romeu, McCarty and Ramsdale gone, freeing more cash.

Maybe some of this will be put towards the ‘appeasement fund’, as a bonus for players who stay till September 1st but who missed on on a promotion bonus this season. For example, those four players leaving will save c£7.5m in wages. Spread that over 15 players sticking with the club, is a sizeable £500k thank you/loyalty bonus, and eliminates the risk of having to buy and replace the likes of Bree, Downes, etc, as well as next season giving them the opportunity of another promotion bonus.

[Hodgey]

10 hours ago, Saint Garrett said:

It's a tough one, as it was also the reason we were completely hamstrung when we got up...

Interesting but I don’t get this. If THB and Downes were terrible I’d agree - but they aren’t. So are you saying we overpaid for them, or that you think without the options to buy we would have found far better or bought in different positions ?. Im putting this in context of us buying utter gash such as Archer : bbd etc (ie our recruitment dept were incapable of finding gems rather than if they had another £40m they would have found better players)

interested in your thoughts here

[wild-saint]

On 25/05/2026 at 23:28, kitch said:

Great read, that.

 

On 26/05/2026 at 00:07, Saint86 said:

Is this true? I haven't seen the actual evidence for it as yet.

"Bullying" (etc) wasn't a listed charge. The use of junior staff was a reprimand.

This is the quote (below) that relates to it, it doesn't mention tonda - which, given he is named for other charges, is an explicit/interesting omission I would say. To me, that omission suggests that any evidence (if any) relating to pressuring staff / bullying is lacking and/or doesn't actually show tonda is guilty of bullying. Has it instead been added as a nefarious "doesn't this sound bad" to back up / hammer home the punishment without really being proven - because I cannot see any hard evidence of it? Happy to be wrong and shown it?

It's feasible this could have been part of a plea style deal for Salt after the fact. The reality is that it is very likely he did the dirty on us after getting caught to save his own skin. The EFL had one oral witness (which is almost certainly salt), and 4 witness statements it total - and someone gave us up for the Eastleigh/Ipswich spying after the initial offence (and Ipswich weren't aware of it) - this cannot have been taylor. Boro only knew about Oxford from the start (on the same day salt rocked up at their training ground). Which we all know was very fishy anyway.

The report appears to go on and mention salt (without naming him), and him saying verbally in the his oral witness statement that he felt under pressure. But this is oral evidence after the fact and initial charges, and from someone accused / admitting to wrong doing for the initial charges - it is seemingly not backed up by any messages (text/email) and it's essentially a case of "he said, she said". And frankly, he just isn't a credible witness at this point as he is basically saying whatever the EFL want to protect himself.

So as above, I am happy to be wrong on this, but I haven't seen actual evidence that tonda bullied Salt into spying against his will yet 🤷. And yet the story from the media (and Blackmore has said this incessantly ) is that tonda bullied salt. It looks like a further trial by media, and people choosing to interpret the report to hammer eckert. But I'm afraid that in the "bullying" accusations, Eckert has to be given the benefit of doubt and be treated as innocent until proven guilty - and people, especially journalists, and club journalists in particular, should keep that in mind. Sadly it's been a witch hunt since the start..

In fact, it's all a little bit dubious that the report puts so much weight on oral evidence of a whislteblower (again, almost certainly salt - guilty of multiple incidences of wrongdoing himself) to justify such a disproportionate punishment after the fact... Whilst also the same report outright dismissed the oral evidence of our 4 witnesses when convenient. Thats a kangaroo trial in my book.

 

4 minutes ago, Hodgey said:

Interesting but I don’t get this. If THB and Downes were terrible I’d agree - but they aren’t. So are you saying we overpaid for them, or that you think without the options to buy we would have found far better or bought in different positions ?. Im putting this in context of us buying utter gash such as Archer : bbd etc (ie our recruitment dept were incapable of finding gems rather than if they had another £40m they would have found better players)

interested in your thoughts here

I think the point is we had a budget of circa 100-120m to spend but 45 or so of that was spent on securing 2 players without improving the squad. This time round we would have had a largely better permanent squad and the c120m could have been spent improving it.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

11 hours ago, Saint86 said:

I would expect the club to maximise saleable assets - partly to balance the books, partly to free up funds for reinvestment.

I reckon Scienza and Jander will both be sold, and for at least double our initial outlay which is much needed from a PSR perspective - reasonable to expect £40-45M for those 2 i think?

Charles will also be sold due to contract situation, hopefully another £15M.

That's a likely £55-60M for those 3.

Ramsdale for circa £10-15M if we are lucky. Plus £100k/wk (£5.2M/yr) wages.

A potential £65M-£70M if we sell Ramsdale

If anyone will give us a profit on THB then i expect he will be sold as well. The reality is that having a £20M CB is a luxury in this league - i rate him and think he's a brilliant CB for the championship, but if someone offers us £25M to replace him and strength elsewhere, we will take it...

So potentially £85M-90M sales just on those 5players.

Rumours of a sell on fee for Fernandes - so hopefully a small bonus there as well.

Against that, we need to offset a circa £15M drop in parachute money this coming season.

Plus we need to make sure we balance the PSR 3year loss limit of £61M - for which, we don't know where we stand for the season just gone.
 

All in all though, i think we could have a tidy pot to reinvest this summer.

Larin for £3-4M isn't a bad buy - but crucially he will have no resale value. And Stewart will be similar in that he's going into his final year on his contract. Having those 2 as our strikers leaves us staring at an issue in a couple of seasons where we may be needing an entirely new front line and have no parachute payments etc., to replace them. If any championship teams are in for Ballard, given our sell on fee (discount) we should at least be considering joining them...

It's a big summer for Spors - can he oversee the signing of more gems like Scienza and Jander or has he used up the knowledge he brought of underrated players in the German leagues?

[Lee On Solent Saint]

1 hour ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

It's a big summer for Spors - can he oversee the signing of more gems like Scienza and Jander or has he used up the knowledge he brought of underrated players in the German leagues?

You are presuming he will still be here?

[Matthew Le God]

2 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

You are presuming he will still be here?

There has been no indication so far that Spors was in any way involved in the spying. Even if you say he should have known... how would he if they tried to keep it a secret?

[Lee On Solent Saint]

39 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

There has been no indication so far that Spors was in any way involved in the spying. Even if you say he should have known... how would he if they tried to keep it a secret?

Guess the truth will all be revealed in the coming weeks 

[SNSUN]

1 hour ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

Guess the truth will all be revealed in the coming weeks 

I’d rather it was sorted in the coming days - the summer may seem long but it’ll fly and I’d like to think we’d be ready to go as much as possible by pre-season.

*remembers we support Saints*

…but we probably won’t be.

 

[St. Ciervo]

Only scalp I desire is Parsons. Not a man I want in my foxhole.  

[Whitey Grandad]

Nothing much will  happen whilst the World Cup is on.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

Frustrating as we need to get going to ensure we hit the ground running.

[Saint Garrett]

13 hours ago, Hodgey said:

Interesting but I don’t get this. If THB and Downes were terrible I’d agree - but they aren’t. So are you saying we overpaid for them, or that you think without the options to buy we would have found far better or bought in different positions ?. Im putting this in context of us buying utter gash such as Archer : bbd etc (ie our recruitment dept were incapable of finding gems rather than if they had another £40m they would have found better players)

interested in your thoughts here

I absolutely don't disagree with you. But this model basically we had to spend £50m odd just to keep our squad together from promotion (plus we lost 2 key players in Stu Armstrong & Che Adams.  But yeah, I much prefer what we did last season, by investing in Jander, Scienza, Azaz and then we can pull in likes of Larin & Peretz to improve the squad when needed. (though these postiions should have been dealt with last summer).

There is no 1 perfect way, but from a business sense, the likes of Scienza/Jander we can flip and make good money on them within 1 season which will enable us to reinvest.

[OldNick]

7 hours ago, St. Ciervo said:

Only scalp I desire is Parsons. Not a man I want in my foxhole.  

The stuff hes done in the commercial side has been very good I suggest

[Cuddles]

2 hours ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

Frustrating as we need to get going to ensure we hit the ground running.

TBF we thought we'd do that last season with Will Still and it was a total disaster. Better to take our time and get it right.

[AlexLaw76]

15 minutes ago, Cuddles said:

TBF we thought we'd do that last season with Will Still and it was a total disaster. Better to take our time and get it right.

given the protected nature of our transfer dealings, then deciding we needed to chop to a back 3 as we did not have the right players, suggests we did anything but try to start on the front foot

I cant imagine anything different this time. It is what we do

[skintsaint]

If we lose either Scienza or Azaz, then would like us to try and get Azeez.

Although Azeez and Azaz in the same team would confuse a number of fans.

[Whitey Grandad]

10 minutes ago, skintsaint said:

If we lose either Scienza or Azaz, then would like us to try and get Azeez.

Although Azeez and Azaz in the same team would confuse a number of fans.

Azif !

[Saint86]

1 hour ago, OldNick said:

The stuff hes done in the commercial side has been very good I suggest

His board room confession was certainly very good for boro and hull.

[Barton Saint]

£7M for Peretz has to be a priority 

[Turkish]

On 27/05/2026 at 16:18, RedArmy said:

You put yourself at an immediate disadvantage when you get promoted as we found out last time having to spend the best part of £40m on THB and Downes just to stand still. 

Don’t have an obligation to buy as part of the deal. Plenty of other clubs manage it

[Dan Johnson]

My Summer predictions\hopes.

Out of contract and leaving on a free

• Alex Mccarthy (GK)
• Oriol Romeu (MF)
• George Long (GK)
• Jamie Jones (GK)
• Joe Aribo (MF)
• Will Smallbone (MF)
• Charlie Taylor (DF)

Out of contract players I hope signing new Deals

• James Bree (likely)
• Ross Stewart (not as sure on this but really hope so 🤞)

Players That I think are most likely to leave depending on circumstances and estimated fees

• Shea Charles (£15m)
• Taylor Harwood Bellis (£25 - £30m)
• Casper Jander (£15 - £20m)
• Sam Edozie (£2m - 4m)
• Aaron Ramsdale (£15m but Maybe forced to stay if there's a keeper shortage)
• Cameron Archer (£7m)
• Juan Larios (nominal)
• Ben Brenton Diaz (£4m)
• Yuki Sugawara (£5m but Maybe forced to stay if Bree doesn't re-sign)
• 15% of Matty Fernandes profits from WHU 
• Estimated Total In: £95 > £120m

Players I think we will keep hold of but there will be interest

• Leo Scienza 
• Flynn Downes (cant see us letting all 3 of our MF players go)
• Finn Azaz

Players Likely to leave on season long Loans

• Gavin Bazunu 
• Damion Downs

Incoming Players required and fees

• Cyle Larin (if Tonda stays in charge)

Required signings

• 1st Choice Keeper 
• 2nd Choice keeper - Club may retain one or two of Jones\Long\McCarthy\Bazunu
• 3rd Choice keeper - Club may retain one of two of Jones\Long\McCarthy\Bazunu
• 1st Choice CB to replace THB
• 1st Choice MF to replace Jander
• 1st Choice MF to replace Charles - Club may already consider Bragg as ready made replacement 
• 2nd Choice ST to play under Larin\Stewart - Downs maybe given his opportunity as he fits the same mould as Larin\Stewart
• 2nd Choice winger to replace Edozie - Club may give Jay Robinson a clearer path to the first team

Realistic targets

• Abdul Fatawa - Leicester - if we lose Scienza 
• Gustavo Hamer - if we lose Azaz
• Jordan James - Rennes - MF replacement
• Femi Azzez - Millwall - if we lose fellows
• Peretz - Another Season long loan or purchase

 

 

[Midfield_General]

According to this article we currently owe £99m in unpaid transfer fees: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c8d82zn563vo

So having also missed out on the promotion money, and going into the last year of (reduced) parachute payments, it could be a busy summer trying to balance the books. 

Thank god we've got a safe pair of hands like Parsons and his crack team at the helm to guide us through it. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Midfield_General

[swedish dave]

On 27/05/2026 at 02:21, Saint86 said:

The defence doesn't need major work. Bree, manning, Wellington, roerslev, Stephens, wood, quarshie, THB (sold and replaced?), and sansa coming through. Doesn't have to be flash for the championship.

Bazunu is left. Ramsdale will leave. A new first choice Keeper is a must. Preferably Peretz 🤷.

Midfield sadly I fear for us a bit quality wise. Charles and Jander (both sold and replaced) are almost certainly gone. But at least we'll get paid well for them and they should get replaced with a similar quality of our scouting holds up. It leaves us with Bragg and Downes - clearly lightweight for a 46 game season without major strengthening.

Azaz, matsuki, fellows, scienza (sold and replaced?), edozie, and Robinson is okay for the attacking mid/wings - but for me we need one more for quality depth even with scienza staying. Should archer be included here?

CF - Larin (signed), Stewart (extended), downs, BBD. It's not bad for the level in truth? But being greedy I'd want one more.

Can tonda get the best out of downs?

Anyone know whether there are any more good youth prospects coming through?

Historically, very few Academy lads make it through to be first team regulars. The difference between

U21 football, and the Championship (not to mention Prem. level).. is enormous for youngsters to adjust to.

Last season was the first real showing of young talents in the last ...10 years?  When JWP headed up a group that

included; Stephens, McQueen, Targett and Reed, (some of whom were stuck behind Bertrand as first choice).

 

Now we saw Cam Bragg establishing himself and new names like  Oyekunle, Williams, Sillah Dibaga also

getting minutes. They might not be on the bench quite so often yet, but they've taken the first steps.

Our biggest challenge will be getting replacements for those who leave, and a few new names who might come

to the club - depending on who the manager is by August. 

[OldNick]

9 minutes ago, Dan Johnson said:

 

Players That I think are most likely to leave depending on circumstances and estimated fees

• Shea Charles (£15m)
• Taylor Harwood Bellis (£25 - £30m)
• Casper Jander (£15 - £20m)
• Sam Edozie (£2m - 4m)
• Aaron Ramsdale (£15m but Maybe forced to stay if there's a keeper shortage)
• Cameron Archer (£7m)
• Juan Larios (nominal)
• Ben Brenton Diaz (£4m)
• Yuki Sugawara (£5m but Maybe forced to stay if Bree doesn't re-sign)
• 15% of Matty Fernandes profits from WHU 
• Estimated Total In: £95 > £120m

Realistic targets

• Abdul Fatawa - Leicester - if we lose Scienza 
• Gustavo Hamer - if we lose Azaz
• Jordan James - Rennes - MF replacement
• Femi Azzez - Millwall - if we lose fellows
• Peretz - Another Season long loan or purchase

 

 

I think I and the club would be diappointed with 15m for Shea.

Jander likewise

Jordan James would be good, Fatawa but I expect others higher in the food chain will get him

[Turkish]

9 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

According to this article we currently owe £99m in unpaid transfer fees: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c8d82zn563vo

So having also missed out on the promotion money, and going into the last year of (reduced) parachute payments, it could be a busy summer trying to balance the books. 

Thank god we've got a safe pair of hands like Parsons and his crack team at the helm to guide us through it. 

These things are always bit skewed as yes we’ll owe money but we’ll also be owed money too. We made more than double what we spent on transfers last season, plus this summer will be the same with many of the departing players sold at a nice profit unless somehow they can be convinced to give us one more season, although highly unlikely they will 

the big concern is the wage bill and this being the final parachute payment. If we don’t go up this season anything that isn’t nailed down will be sold and we’ll be cutting our cloth like most Championship team do. 

[chuz]

35 minutes ago, Dan Johnson said:

Players I think we will keep hold of but there will be interest

• Leo Scienza 
• Flynn Downes (cant see us letting all 3 of our MF players go)
• Finn Azaz

 

Not a popular opinion perhaps but I'd rather see Downes leave if it meant we could keep either Charles or Jander...

[skintsaint]

54 minutes ago, Dan Johnson said:

 

• Aaron Ramsdale (£15m but Maybe forced to stay if there's a keeper shortage)

Required signings

• 1st Choice Keeper 

 

 

I wonder if AR will have a moment to realise he is benchwarming in the PL and not in England plans, a good season for us in the Championship, hopefully winning promotion and playing regularly would appeal more. Imagine he would be on good wages though but won't matter if we go up.

[skintsaint]

39 minutes ago, Turkish said:

the big concern is the wage bill and this being the final parachute payment.

Think there is one more year after this one...although smaller?

 

[for_heaven's_Saint]

16 minutes ago, skintsaint said:

Think there is one more year after this one...although smaller?

 

I think that because we went up and then back down again, ours is only 2 years. But could be wrong. 

[Saint Mikey]

16 minutes ago, skintsaint said:

Think there is one more year after this one...although smaller?

 

Nope. That only applies if you stay in the Prem for more than one season. If you go straight back down, you only get 2 years.