The Transfer Thread.

[BillyWoofs_shinpad 1,884]

I suspect they are worried that there will be loads of arguing if it stays open.  Thankfully that doesn't happen on other threads  :upside_down:

 

Oh yes it does....

[Boro 86 517]

I suspect they are worried that there will be loads of arguing if it stays open.  Thankfully that doesn't happen on other threads  :upside_down:

 

Oh yes it does....

 

Oh No it doesn't

[SmogDane 4,055]

[PompeySmog 109]

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11624450/the-top-free-agents-still-available-after-january-transfer-deadline-day

 

 

Should we go for any one here?

 

I will tell you something i had seen on monday and never posted as never seemed to come up anywhere.

 

I had to go into the riverside reception to get access to the staff car park (no2 son motorbike had broke down on sat after game) to recover it. Anyway, whilst i was waiting neil bausor (99% sure it was he) came from the directors entrance with 3 blokes, 2 all suited and one more casual. Having looked on that link, he didn't half look like rossi!!

 

It never registered as i just assumed all business was done from rockliffe

[Ash 167]

Basically sounds like the club are skint but why not say that instead of promising to sign attacking players? Looks like it will be all downhill from here now!

 

The club are skint, people have to realise that. I think if we had managed to move Gestede on, we would have maybe bought an attacker in, that fell through early in the day so the best bet was to go and have a few pints.

 

Millwall didn’t want to sign Gestede because they didn’t want to strengthen a rival. ;)

 

If we were 'skint' then moving Gestede wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference.

 

If we are skint why did we spend so much on centre midfielders and defenders that we don’t need over the last few windows. The money issue is obviously relevant, but do we have less then Brentford or Norwich? No. Are our recruitment team bloody useless? Yes. Don’t get distracted by Pulis’ bullcrap, we have executed terribly in the last few windows and there are no good excuses. Time for change.

 

That is true, however, we do seem to have been trying to ship people out. Maybe Gibson is just refusing to give out more money? I don't even think Rockcliffe was even open yesterday so definitely something fishy going on behind the scenes if we haven't even attempted to sign anyone! Ofc they haven't mentioned where the problem lies, so it could be a number of things.

[Ash 167]

Basically sounds like the club are skint but why not say that instead of promising to sign attacking players? Looks like it will be all downhill from here now!

 

The club are skint, people have to realise that. I think if we had managed to move Gestede on, we would have maybe bought an attacker in, that fell through early in the day so the best bet was to go and have a few pints.

 

Millwall didn’t want to sign Gestede because they didn’t want to strengthen a rival. ;)

 

If we were 'skint' then moving Gestede wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference.

 

Britt, Fletcher etc were also supposed to be leaving. I'm confused with the whole thing tbh because as per, the club aren't saying what the problem is!

[FamilyBoro 140]

Basically sounds like the club are skint but why not say that instead of promising to sign attacking players? Looks like it will be all downhill from here now!

 

The club are skint, people have to realise that. I think if we had managed to move Gestede on, we would have maybe bought an attacker in, that fell through early in the day so the best bet was to go and have a few pints.

 

Millwall didn’t want to sign Gestede because they didn’t want to strengthen a rival. ;)

 

If we were 'skint' then moving Gestede wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference.

 

Britt, Fletcher etc were also supposed to be leaving. I'm confused with the whole thing tbh because as per, the club aren't saying what the problem is!

 

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/full-transcript-tony-pulis-cant-15765894

 

If he is to be believed then he is saying what the problem is.... Spent too much going for it 50m+ in the summer of 2017 and now we can't sustain the wage bill. Yes ok profit has been made on recouping the fee's but still sounds like we have a long way to go before the wage structure is fixed. This is coming from all angles i.e. wanting high earners out the door, Downing not getting the extended higher contract and transfers failing because we struggle to lure higher calibre players when we aren't prepared to pay over the odds to come up here.

Unless we can stabilise quickly in the summer I feel like we are in for this treatment for another year before being able to slowly climb back.

 

We kind of knew this as the season started which is why we were happy to see the young players given a go with Fry, Tav and Wing... What is annoying is that this 'cutting the cloth' approach just doesn't fit with the style of football Pullis brings... I think I would be able to accept it more if youth was being played and we had a lets give it a go and see what happens (Newport in the Cup) attitude... but instead we are faced with a club cost cutting and a manger everyone is starting to become fed up with!

[Changing Times 12,343]

Downing not getting a contract at present either

 

I think that's because they can't agree so far rather than because they aren't trying.

[Dan1234 1,056]

Downing not getting a contract at present either

 

I think that's because they can't agree so far rather than because they aren't trying.

 

He shouldn't be anywhere near a contract. All this talk about players who aren't bang for the buck.

Downing is the epitome of this, 10 goals and 16 assist in 111 appearances in the championship. For a guy that takes the majority of set pieces.

[pikerman 1,121]

What I do not understand is how we can be in this position and yet Aston Villa seem to sail serenely on. When we met in the playoffs last year the word was that they were in big financial trouble unless they got promoted and FFP was going to cripple them. They are still in the Championship, refused offers for Grealish, and could afford to pay a half fit Bolasie 70k a week whilst still paying McCormick 50k a week for sitting on his backside. Yes I know new owners injected cash and they are a bigger club than us, but that should not affect FFP and we had the Prem money, and yet they are still buying players. It does not add up, anyone on here got any thoughts as it is baffling me and my mates, some of whom are Villa fans.

[Changing Times 12,343]

The money Monk got to buy players ... Was because Gibson felt bad about not giving Karanka any money for the January window in the Prem ...

 

We might have survived ...

 

Now the money is gone, and we tighten the belt to stay alive ..

 

We (Monk) spent £50m in that summer transfer window.  We sold players for about £40/41m that summer and then sold Christie and Forshaw for another £7m in the following January window.  What are we needing to recoup that we haven't already recouped?  None of that includes the players we sold last summer.  

 

That the wage bill will be too high can't be questioned, of course it is.  However I again repeat what I've already said over the last couple of days - we tried to spend more money last summer and in this transfer window.  Joe Bryan didn't go to Fulham because we couldn't afford him.  Bolasie didn't go to Villa because we couldn't afford him.  We'd have spent £10m on Saville and the other lad from Millwall if they hadn't refused.  We'd have spent £6m on Besic if his agent hadn't tried it on at the last minute.  Pulis wanted us to bring in Walters from Burnley, so there's another £30k per week we'd have been spending, on a 35 year old no less.  Just think about all of that.  If we were financially stuffed to the extent that we couldn't do any business over the last couple of days then why the *** did we sign Mikel?  Pulis wants attacking players allegedly.  We all know the team needs them so we sign another central midfielder?  Even on a short term contract we will be paying him decent money that could have been used elsewhere if things are so tight.  It's no good saying Mikel makes us better if he stops us from getting better in areas we are desperately weak in.  It's nonsense.

 

The club wanted to sign certain players and Pulis didn't.  Pulis wanted to sign certain players and the club didn't.  I believe this to be true, which indicates to me that the financial side of things was less of an issue than various people being on completely different pages as regards how and what needs to be done.  Pulis is apparently the highest paid manager in our history - again how does that match up with being skint?  If you're skint you don't generally sack a manager and staff a few months into a new contract either as it's going to cost you to terminate their contracts.

 

The squad is the way it is because instead of addressing our areas of weakness in the summer, we buggered about bringing in players we didn't need (Saville who Pulis absolutely wanted) and McNair (who I'm certain he doesn't give two ***s about).  We also missed out on players who could/would have strengthened some of those positions in fairness so there was an attempt to improve those areas.  On top of that we have a manager who refuses point blank to try and get the best out of certain players.  His only interest is in having everyone fit into his plan.

 

There's no question that Pulis and the club would like to get rid of certain players, there's plenty of Boro fans who feel the same. There's no doubt that some of their contracts will make that difficult.  But we agreed to those contracts just 18 months ago.  Monk didn't hoodwink the club or whatever. Gibson and Bausor agreed those deals/contracts so unless they did it somehow not knowing the club's financial position then you'd have to accept that we believed we could afford to carry those contracts.  It's also worth remembering that many contracts pre-date Monk being here like Gestede, Leadbitter, Clayton, Friend, Ayala etc.  We only really added 6 players to the wage bill under Monk - Assombalonga, Braithwaite, Shotton, Randolph, Howson and Fletcher.  I've got no doubt that they are collectively on some good money but there's no way that 6 players are crippling us in the way that Pulis is suggesting.  Braithwaite was out on loan for half the year and is out again.  Fletcher was out on loan as well for a while so how much were we even paying them over this time?

 

I would love to know the players Pulis apparently wanted this week.

[xathras 178]

There is a lot of uneducated guess - but nothing conclusive as to why we didn't sign anyone. Is it because we are not attractive club, manager, wages, finances? We will never know.

 

However - i do believe the club needs to be more transparent with us.

 

If we couldn't afford someone because of concerns on FFP regulations - than why don't the club just come out and say that unless we can move people out then nothing will be coming in. This completely sets the expectations with the fans.

 

If the salaries of the players are too high - then I question why are we even looking at trying to bring them in? It wastes money and valuable time.

 

If its because of the area - again question why we are looking at them. We've seen this with Jese, Bojan, etc.

 

I personally think summer of 2019 season we need to start again - top down. The club need to recognize the expensive gamble failed and we bought a bunch of people in it for the money and not in it for the football. I'd like to see more local talent, youth and players proven in lower leagues with a point they want to make an prove themselves in the bigger leagues. Other clubs have been successful with this model.

[Borodane 6,301]

Completely agree CT. Good post up there. As I alluded to earlier I hope it’s mainly because we are saving our money for when we have a new manager so that we can plan properly. Planning has been atrocious in the last few years and we haven’t addressed the obvious areas that needed improvement. I hope the club has looked at Pulis wishes and just thought “screw that, you’re gone in 5 months so make do with what you have, and we’ll give a new manager more room to maneuver”.

[FamilyBoro 140]

Completely agree CT. Good post up there. As I alluded to earlier I hope it’s mainly because we are saving our money for when we have a new manager so that we can plan properly. Planning has been atrocious in the last few years and we haven’t addressed the obvious areas that needed improvement. I hope the club has looked at Pulis wishes and just thought “screw that, you’re gone in 5 months so make do with what you have, and we’ll give a new manager more room to maneuver”.

 

At times this window I have thought this to be true and really it’s what we are all hopefull for and can certainly understand/back!!

but the only doubt is that when Pulis talks he seems to come across as if he is doing it all for Gibson and it’s his all his wishes. Obviously that might not be the case but it just feels like it sometimes.

[SmogDane 4,055]

Would be funny to see the players play really really awful... To force Pulis out tomorrow :D

 

Or another scenario.. They will get on a heater and play really really well, cause they want to show, that they deserve the high wages apparently damaging the clubs economy.

 

Or maybe something with aliens .. Gibson's body is being remote controlled by the evil race of Killboroians who cannot stand any form of success in MFC. They have been planning this for years.. The REAL Pulis is dead and buried .. They killed him and replaced him with a shape shifter, the day he was promoted with Stoke. So them damn aliens used WBA and Palace as test sited before the evil master plan could be executed on Tees side...