The Summer Transfer Window 2025/26 Season - FREEEEEEEDOOOOOM!!!!

[Changing Times 17,679 24.5k]

7 minutes ago, TeaCider24 said:

Obviously Akpom only played for us that season because of failures to sign targets in the transfer market and the desperation for a striker before the season started, and the bulk of the credit goes to Akpom, but I do think Scott does get some slight credit, as he signed the players that ultimately helped him thrive in that season, without the likes Giles, Archer, Ramsey, Forss etc, I don't think he'd have done quite as well as he did.

Yeah that's a fair point.  Let me put it a different way then.  If the club had done what they wanted and gotten rid of him in the summer then he'd have never had that season at all.  Whether that was entirely down to Wilder not wanting him or the club just wanting him out I obviously don't know.  

[TeaCider24 21,192 25.6k]

10 minutes ago, LinoJo3 said:

How on earth was I crediting him? My exact words were “before Tav and Spence” not once did I mention Scott, I honestly have no idea how you got to that conclusion 🤷‍♂️ 

You were responding to Humpty, who was specifically talking about Scott's transfer business and recent sales, and complained that people will randomly say it doesn't matter, then mentioned Tav and Spence so either you were including them or you were just naming them for the craic.

[Changing Times 17,679 24.5k]

2 minutes ago, LinoJo3 said:

I mean that it wouldn’t be the end of the world. After Carricks first season I was gutted we lost the play off game but was still optimistic for the clubs future regardless of what league we were in. In an ideal world we get promoted, if not then it makes zero difference to my life, I get that maybe people get more enjoyment from /put more importance on football than I do. I just don’t see the point in getting annoyed or stressed out over it for hours/days after a game.

Yeah I understand that.  My point was simply that lots of people clearly do care so to say what it does matter as you did, well it won't be an opinion that's universally shared will it?  So I think a lot people would be disappointed if it turned out that Scott's primary role here wasn't to help us win promotion.

[TeaCider24 21,192 25.6k]

6 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Yeah that's a fair point.  Let me put it a different way then.  If the club had done what they wanted and gotten rid of him in the summer then he'd have never had that season at all.  Whether that was entirely down to Wilder not wanting him or the club just wanting him out I obviously don't know.  

Yeah, it was obviously a quirk of fortune for us that it all worked out in the end, there was clearly no plan involved in Akpom succeeding with us that season, he even admitted himself that he'd rejected transfers away to foreign clubs, so we'd been trying to sell him, but I don't think it's quite the same as Spence and Tav, where they were hot property regardless.

IIRC, we'd rejected interest in Tavernier in the previous summer before his sale.

[LinoJo3 7,799 16k]

6 minutes ago, TeaCider24 said:

You were responding to Humpty, who was specifically talking about Scott's transfer business and recent sales, and complained that people will randomly say it doesn't matter, then mentioned Tav and Spence so either you were including them or you were just naming them for the craic.

No I was talking about pre Scott, hence why I never mention Roger’s etc.

[LinoJo3 7,799 16k]

5 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Yeah I understand that.  My point was simply that lots of people clearly do care so to say what it does matter as you did, well it won't be an opinion that's universally shared will it?  So I think a lot people would be disappointed if it turned out that Scott's primary role here wasn't to help us win promotion.

Honestly it wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t his ‘primary’ role. I said in another post I think he’s here not necessarily to make the club profitable as a whole, but almost certainly to bankroll transfer windows with player profit.
 

The facts are there that Gibson still puts in money to run the club and our out goings almost always equal our incomings with regards to transfers. So I’d say his primary role is to keep us competitive in the transfer market in a self sustaining way, meaning Gibson doesn’t have to throw any money in.

However I don’t think promotion will be far behind on the goals and I’d guess the ideal outcome would be as the players develop they’d be good enough to take us up at the same time.

My main criticism of Scott has always been he goes for projects over proven. I don’t mind the projects but I didn’t really want our main cm/howson/captain replacement signing to be a project. 
 

Everytime I start running the team through my head in posts like this I always realise just how average it is.

RB - ***

CM - *** depth 

LW - ***

#10 - not good enough 

That’s 3 pretty gaping holes in the team and one paper thin area. Then you start having a bit of sympathy for Carrick. Let’s be real he’s a football hipster and not a motivational fist clencher who’s gonna get players playing above themselves. So if you wanna employ that kind of manager you have to give him the right tools I guess.

Idk the whole club is a mind *** rn and it’s to hard to fully blame anyone. Is it Carricks fault we look disjointed, or is it Scott’s fault that we didn’t bring in the right players, or is it just terrible luck that both our best wing options got long term injuries. I mean in the summer you’d have assumed McGree, Azaz and Doak would be a pretty good 3 behind the striker.

 

[Changing Times 17,679 24.5k]

3 minutes ago, LinoJo3 said:

The facts are there that Gibson still puts in money to run the club and our out goings almost always equal our incomings with regards to transfers. So I’d say his primary role is to keep us competitive in the transfer market in a self sustaining way, meaning Gibson doesn’t have to throw any money in.

The thing is that Gibson doesn't put money in for transfers or rather he hasn't done so for about 10 years now.  2015/16 and then 2016/17 was the last point where he was really doing this.  The last 8 seasons we are in profit at least in terms of transfer fees.  If Gibson wants Scott to actually improve the profitability of the club then we aren't doing that at the moment.  We're spending too much money in the transfer market quite frankly so there's no benefit from that side of things, and we're also increasing the wage bill at the same time, so we're doing the opposite of what you'd be doing if that was Scott's remit.  You also don't bring in loads of fairly expensive players in on loan if you're trying to more sustainable either.  You do that cos you're trying to reach the Premier League otherwise it's just a large expense with absolutely no benefit.  If in the summer we hardly spend anything or let's say we sell VDB/Hackney and spend only a fraction of what we've brought in then that would/could be evidence that we are prioritising the financial side of things though certainly.  That then brings me back to what I was saying before about people being annoyed because I think if we sold those types of players and then tried to replace them on the cheap then it would *** people off - at least if it wasn't successful.  If we stormed to promotion nobody would give a crap of course.

[BoroNBred 213 463]

4 hours ago, Nobby Barnes said:

Why do you think ? 

So nothing then? 

[LinoJo3 7,799 16k]

3 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

The thing is that Gibson doesn't put money in for transfers or rather he hasn't done so for about 10 years now.  2015/16 and then 2016/17 was the last point where he was really doing this.  The last 8 seasons we are in profit at least in terms of transfer fees.  If Gibson wants Scott to actually improve the profitability of the club then we aren't doing that at the moment.  We're spending too much money in the transfer market quite frankly so there's no benefit from that side of things, and we're also increasing the wage bill at the same time, so we're doing the opposite of what you'd be doing if that was Scott's remit.  You also don't bring in loads of fairly expensive players in on loan if you're trying to more sustainable either.  You do that cos you're trying to reach the Premier League otherwise it's just a large expense with absolutely no benefit.  If in the summer we hardly spend anything or let's say we sell VDB/Hackney and spend only a fraction of what we've brought in then that would/could be evidence that we are prioritising the financial side of things though certainly.  That then brings me back to what I was saying before about people being annoyed because I think if we sold those types of players and then tried to replace them on the cheap then it would *** people off - at least if it wasn't successful.  If we stormed to promotion nobody would give a crap of course.

That was my point I don’t think it is. When I said Gibson is putting money in I mean it seems to be purely running costs , not transfers. 
 

When I talked about self sustaining I meant Scott’s remit (I think) is to make the transfer kitty self sustaining but at a competitive level. I don’t think he has to make the club profitable at all and from the figures it looks like whatever he brings in from player sales (or at least most of it) he’s allowed to spend on incomings.

[Nobby Barnes 1,388 2.2k]

58 minutes ago, BoroNBred said:

So nothing then? 

Have you tried painting by numbers ?

[Changing Times 17,679 24.5k]

2 minutes ago, Nobby Barnes said:

Have you tried painting by numbers ?

Better to use a brush I've found.

[BoroNBred 213 463]

8 hours ago, Nobby Barnes said:

Have you tried painting by numbers ?

Yeah its quite useful, unlike you

[Humpty 6,459 11.5k]

17 hours ago, Changing Times said:

Yeah the data is publicly available but what is it that you're actually wanting to know though?  The most we've made in one year from sales is the season after relegation where we brought in about £50m give or take but obviously we spent the same so there was no net gain.  The largest net profit we've made in a season is the following year when we sold Gibson, Traore, Bamford a few others where we made about £25m in profit.  This season by comparison we are just slightly in profit in the transfer market like a couple of million.  Last season we were about £9m/£10m up although that figure will be higher now with Rogers add ons being reached.  However we also sold Akpom for £12m, who we were obviously trying to give away the summer before.  I don't think I'm being unfair to say that his successful season had little to do with Scott, although he clearly benefited from the financial aspect of it because that money went to buy Lath.  However, we actually made about £9m/£10m profit in Woodgate's season in charge as a comparison, and I don't remember much excitement about that at the time.  The largest profit made under Scott came in the summer we sold Spence and Tavernier, and would have been about £15m.  If you want to broaden it out a bit, Scott's three years here have been less profitable from the transfer market than the spell of 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20 🤷‍♂️  And it's worth pointing out that none of that includes loan fees that we've paid out, which I believe have been quite substantial in some cases.  We've paid a good chunk of money out for loan signings over the last few years.

We've only sold two players that Scott has signed for good money so why would we be massively profitable under him - at least up until this point?  VDB will be the next one to go for good money and then we'll need to see what happens with the current players, and whoever we sign in the summer as well of course.  Again, all of this only works if you keep nailing the transfer windows because when you don't nail them then you've spent the money you brought in and you don't have much to show of it.  That's why last summer, and this January, may well have been more than an inconvenience for us if a few players don't begin to click.  

I didn't say we were massively profitable, i mentioned Scott improving the viability of the club through our recruitment process. I don't recall another period where we consistently made profit on players we brought in over a sustained spell. Obviously I'm not considering players like Gibson, Tavernier or Spence because they were brought through the academy. They're not really applicable to this discussion because that's a different set of metrics. 

I think it's quite clear Scott is and has brought in players that are going to be sold at big profits. Rogers, RVDB, ELL, Azaz and Morris have and will likely fall under Scott's remit in that regard. That makes the club more viable. It allows them to speculate on quality loans at the right time, improve us as a team and give us a better chance of promotion. It allows us to cut our cloth accordingly. Job done in that respect as we're not operating as close to line as we might otherwise have been or at least now we have the choice of whether want to operate close to the line or not.

Edited March 24 by Humpty

[Nobby Barnes 1,388 2.2k]

2 hours ago, BoroNBred said:

Yeah its quite useful, unlike you

Goodbye...

[Changing Times 17,679 24.5k]

9 hours ago, Humpty said:

I didn't say we were massively profitable, i mentioned Scott improving the viability of the club through our recruitment process. I don't recall another period where we consistently made profit on players we brought in over a sustained spell. Obviously I'm not considering players like Gibson, Tavernier or Spence because they were brought through the academy. They're not really applicable to this discussion because that's a different set of metrics. 

I think it's quite clear Scott is and has brought in players that are going to be sold at big profits. Rogers, RVDB, ELL, Azaz and Morris have and will likely fall under Scott's remit in that regard. That makes the club more viable. It allows them to speculate on quality loans at the right time, improve us as a team and give us a better chance of promotion. It allows us to cut our cloth accordingly. Job done in that respect as we're not operating as close to line as we might otherwise have been or at least now we have the choice of whether want to operate close to the line or not.

We haven't consistently made profit over a sustained spell though.  This is the bit I can't get my head around.  People acting like we've done it often when we've done it with two players only.  VDB will be the third and then that's probably it from the current group.  Azaz and Morris aren't going for big money, and at the moment there is nobody else that looks likely, and importantly for this plan, that includes the players brought in with the money raised from these sales.  The only thing that's quite clear to me is that people keep using a couple of examples as though this is now Boro.  At the same time any players sold at a loss are dismissed as if it doesn't matter.  If Scott has been brought in to buy players to be sold for big profits, which I'm sure will be part of his job, then that's fine but in that case we should view promotion as something we'd like but obviously aren't going all out for.  We haven't actually put together a squad capable of promotion but if what you're saying is correct then this is a secondary goal for Scott anyway, which possibly explains some of our signings. This coming summer will be absolutely massive for the club because if we end up with another season like this one in 2025/26 then I'd say it's all close to being done with.  Scott, or the recruitment team, have to nail the summer window, and Carrick, if he's still in the role, needs to have the best coaching/managerial season of his career so far.