The Transfer Thread.

[LinoJo3 3,191]

It’s not like we are all sat here waiting for the announcement either

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

Pulis seems to want us to be more like Brentford in terms of buying and selling so it would be mad to nab a player from them for big bucks without expecting a much bigger return from it as a kind of 'next level on the food chain'. I don't know about you lot but I don't see us selling Maupay for more than he would cost us right now. I also don't see much between him and Britt right now to justify even discussing the possibilities of us selling Britt and but Maupay.

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

There is no chance we are signing Maupay!

 

We simply don't have the cash to spend on a big investment on players until we trim our wage bill significantly.

 

The Maupay story came from sky who said specifically we do have money to spend but balked at the 20m price tag put on him which I completely understand it's an insane price tag if we seriously entertained Maupay I'm guessing we'd have figured 10/12 million which means we could be in for a ride if we're splurging cash like that around on the 'right' couple of players.

 

Do not pay too much attention to this sudden wage bill talk I mean seriously after we tried to get Ritchie and Bolasie in the summer on 70k a week cry me a river about wage bills Tony he's doing what all managers do in the press, lie which is fine. You can't think we've gone from willing to pay Everton a transfer fee for Bolasie and bidding on Joe Bryan/Wallace/Freeman/Ritchie/Vokes/Waghorn/ to suddenly having no money 4 months later surely you haven't fell for that shtick, right?

 

Just out of interest, when did we say we'd pay £70k a week in wages for either of those 2 players? You mention this a lot and yet neither are here and I sincerely doubt Villa are paying Bolasie £70k a week either. Just because we wanted either permanently (if indeed we did) doesn't mean we didn't laugh at the wage demands either.

 

I don't think we don't have any money either. I think the problem is we probably won't have much money very soon unless things change in terms of us getting to the Prem and staying there or cutting back on what we have to pay out in the next few years as things stand. It's a long term problem that limits what we can pay for in the long term, not us saying we're skint literally right this second.

[Brunners 7,982]

Birmingham mail said villa are paying the full 70k for bolasie.

[Changing Times 12,343]

We have so many players on long-term contracts and wages higher than their ability merits, especially in attacking areas, so I think that's going to restrict our willingness and ability to sign many attacking players for permanent deals on three or four year deals. Gestede and Leadbitter still have 18 months left to run on their contracts. Assombalonga, Braithwaite, Fletcher and Johnson have 2 and a half years also. The majority of them are attack minded players, so I'll understand if we're going to think long and hard about the long term financial commitment of any permanent deals we'll make for attackers -baring in mind we are already carrying lots of excess baggage in them positions. Hopefully Pulis still has the budget to sign one or two exciting attackers on permanent deals (eg Maja and Lowe) if we're sure they're going to be shrewd signings for us as we can't just let good signings slip through our grasps.

 

Our transfer strategy has largely been based around loan deals since Pulis arrived, probably as we were stuck with the mess left by his predecessors in the transfer market, so I think that's still going to play a big role for at least the next 18 months or so while we ease the financial side of things. The splurge under Monk is akin to the splurge under Strachan where we threw money at chasing promotion but only created more problems in the long-term, which takes time to clear up.

 

I couldn't decide between codswallop and claptrap for this so I'm calling it clapwallop :upside_down: :devil:

 

Also, does Leadbitter really have 18 months left on his contract? :oops:

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

Birmingham mail said villa are paying the full 70k for bolasie.

 

So they did, I stand corrected. That doesn't mean to say we definitely agreed to pay that amount over the course of a permanent contract though, we might have been willing to pay for the duration of the loan I guess.

[Jamie-H 1,322]

Just out of interest, when did we say we'd pay £70k a week in wages for either of those 2 players? You mention this a lot and yet neither are here and I sincerely doubt Villa are paying Bolasie £70k a week either. Just because we wanted either permanently (if indeed we did) doesn't mean we didn't laugh at the wage demands either.

 

I don't think we don't have any money either. I think the problem is we probably won't have much money very soon unless things change in terms of us getting to the Prem and staying there or cutting back on what we have to pay out in the next few years as things stand. It's a long term problem that limits what we can pay for in the long term, not us saying we're skint literally right this second.

 

So there's 2 camps with these things I've noticed there's people who believe/trust reporting and there's people who think every time a Boro transfer's out there it's just a smokescreen to not spend any money it's a bit simplified but that's the general couple of camps. It was reported by the Gazette and another (maybe BBC or Nixon?)that we have the edge in the Bolasie race because we're willing to buy him permanently do you think he would take a pay cut when he had 3 years left to run on his contract that'd be lunacy. The Ritchie thing was pretty well reported his wage demands put off Stoke but apparently not us and the only reason he didn't come is because Newcastle wouldn't sanction the sale unless they got their target (Cavaleiro on loan I think).

 

Don't mistake me laughing at the pity party people sometimes put themselves in about how we're just little Boro trying to balance the books as me defending the practice of just throwing out money or that I think it's what we should be doing as a practice. Maybe a good way of cutting wages would be to not be in a position of having the gymnast and Leadbitter on 60k a week between them but we're a club ran with sentiment 'maybe this'll be the time he finally stays injury free' and 'well he deserved that new contract when we gave him it because of service to the club.'

 

The reason Aston Villa got Bolasie at the 11th hour is because they offered to pay his full wages just like they got Abraham by not only paying his Chelsea wage but topping up his Chelsea wage with an extra 10k a week for the loan duration. Again I miss the days of getting excited over splurging 1.3 million over Jutkiewicz as much as everyone else (people were very excited I mean it was Vossen levels) I just don't feign ignorance about the actual financial situation we're in with net spends/operating losses/a squad with 6/7 million pound reserves when we were losing 14+ million a season we needed to trim the wage bill whatever this situation is they're confident enough to put themselves in it in the first place so you have to trust they know what they're doing or we're all screwed and we'll have a firesale in 2020.

 

They're 18 months deep on this squad assembly they started post relegation they've had plenty of money back in over those 18 months I'd guess we have 15 millionish to spend in the window on the right couple of players which historically for us is a stupid amount of money. I've said it before take out the loans the squad we have is very good, very expensive and not too old so on the long term strategy of it all it's hard to declare this strategy a failure. We have a 6 million pound utility player and 13 million in a pair of strikers with maybe 6 league appearances between them and 1 league start I don't think belt tightening is a priority right now the club's never been in this position before I'm not sure it's bad or good that we have so much investment in the squad yet we need more it's a strange predicament for us to be in.

[Foogle 2,104]

Birmingham mail said villa are paying the full 70k for bolasie.

 

So they did, I stand corrected. That doesn't mean to say we definitely agreed to pay that amount over the course of a permanent contract though, we might have been willing to pay for the duration of the loan I guess.

 

Could also be one of the reasons he ended up at Villa, they might have gazumped us in the percentages of the wages they were willing to pay to Everton... didn't we cut off the Adomah deal because of wage demands as well?

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

Birmingham mail said villa are paying the full 70k for bolasie.

 

So they did, I stand corrected. That doesn't mean to say we definitely agreed to pay that amount over the course of a permanent contract though, we might have been willing to pay for the duration of the loan I guess.

 

Could also be one of the reasons he ended up at Villa, they might have gazumped us in the percentages of the wages they were willing to pay to Everton... didn't we cut off the Adomah deal because of wage demands as well?

 

Think that was the length of the contract, IIRC.

[Jamie-H 1,322]

Birmingham mail said villa are paying the full 70k for bolasie.

 

So they did, I stand corrected. That doesn't mean to say we definitely agreed to pay that amount over the course of a permanent contract though, we might have been willing to pay for the duration of the loan I guess.

 

Could also be one of the reasons he ended up at Villa, they might have gazumped us in the percentages of the wages they were willing to pay to Everton... didn't we cut off the Adomah deal because of wage demands as well?

 

He chose Villa because they're Aston Villa, outside of maybe 10 PL teams they're the biggest club in the country!

 

The Adomah thing made sense to me to sign him they had to pay him more than we would have been with his promotion hike and with his contract running down he probably wanted a 3 year deal with another pay hike which somehow means we'd have had to pay Adomah more than we would have if he stuck with us in the Prem on what would have been his prem wage +.

[LinoJo3 3,191]

Either way would bolasie have been cheap? Not a chance plus we’ve got at least some of braithwaites wage off the bill and if RAF smog is to be believed we can clearly afford to loan Traore back who also won’t be cheap.

[p_mards 1,365]

For Changing Times:

 

“I see my future here. I’m here until 2020, so I’ll keep doing what I do every single day. Let me tell you, that won’t change".

 

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/grant-leadbitter-i-see-future-15635870

[Changing Times 12,343]

For Changing Times:

 

“I see my future here. I’m here until 2020, so I’ll keep doing what I do every single day. Let me tell you, that won’t change".

 

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/grant-leadbitter-i-see-future-15635870

 

Yikes! :frown:

[Changing Times 12,343]

The Adomah thing made sense to me to sign him they had to pay him more than we would have been with his promotion hike and with his contract running down he probably wanted a 3 year deal with another pay hike which somehow means we'd have had to pay Adomah more than we would have if he stuck with us in the Prem on what would have been his prem wage +.

 

The thing is, when you put it like that, it's amazing that we didn't sign him.

[Duvel 2,446]

For Changing Times:

 

“I see my future here. I’m here until 2020, so I’ll keep doing what I do every single day. Let me tell you, that won’t change".

 

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/grant-leadbitter-i-see-future-15635870

 

Who thought it was a good idea to give him a contract until 2020?!

 

I suppose that interview could be Grant's way of pressuring the club to let him leave on a free, that's if we are demanding a few to interested clubs.