It's musical chairs. We are there to hoover up any poor lost souls who look like they won't have a chair when the music stops.
Yes they had money to spend but Burnley had a real reset last summer in terms of head coach, players and philosophy. I think Ismael has done well to change the mindset of the existing players but he's working with a severe lack of quality, even by Championship standards. It shouldn't be that difficult to pick up players on the cheap, for free or on loan that are right for the head coach, especially if you boast about having a great scouting network and have brought in a sought-after technical director (who was apparently a brilliant scout himself).
F for incomings currently, could rise to an A+ once the 3 or 4 quality Manga gems arrive in the next 48 hours
It's amazing that his contact book contains large numbers of Udinese fringe players. Same thing happened with Giaretta, Giraldi and Nani. Spooky.
Our deadline day signings have been appalling, for the most part. I think. Ndong, Zeegalaar, Ibarbo and Oulare all spring to mind.
I would like to know where this income we have made from transfers this Window have gone. We got a tidy sum for Sarr and 30M for Pedro. Sure, pay off some the debt with that, but the rest? Are we truly utterly that up the creak without a paddle that we cannot invest a few million more in getting a half decent replacement? Gino was squabbling over 250k when we were on the verge of signing Calum Styles. Surely, looking at from the outside looking in, careful dividends of the incoming could of pushed us over the line and got an extra body in at the time. Not to mention we got a little bit for WTE as well. Healy was a freebie, Ince cost 50K. Has Gino shoved the rest in Mogi's back pocket?
You say ‘pay off some of the debt’ - but surely we are beholden to whatever the debt agreement was. Not sure we can choose what we do and don’t pay off. The reality is we have taken out so many loans and also have instalments to pay on poorly chosen players, then it wouldn’t shock me at all if all our summer income AND parachute payment has gone on the above.
Most of the Sarr fee went straight to Rennes didn't it? I don't think we've actually made as much as people think this summer.
Makes sense, perfectly fits the narrative of Gino having taken us full circle back to where we started
Ah found it, it wasn't most of the fee but a large chunk. According to Mr Leventhal the initial fee we got from Marseille was £9.5m but £4m went straight to Rennes.
It’s simply rank incompetent ownership. Club was brought to its knees with poor control of expenses and huge agent fees built on a mountain of debt. Now every penny must go on debt repayment and making sure the leech Duxbury can continue to enjoy his mid Premier League salary.
Ibarbo was insanely good when I watched him for Roma on occasions. But then he did have Totti hitting killer passes with ease.
That puts an end to any hope of quality signings then, sadly. It's been a pretty appalling transfer window all things considered and I would be gobsmacked if that changes in the next 24 hours.
Outgoings: Very good. Incoming: Depressing. To get those fees and lose those wages, yet invest so little, shows we are well in the mire. No one we have bought is a thrilling prospect for the season. We now have the faint hope of a last ditch signing, hopefully some brilliant prospect from a Prem Team, on loan. Our destiny is not in our hands, that’s the unfortunate truth.
Are the outgoings even that good? We sold the two players we knew we were going to for expected prices, didn't renew loans that we probably couldn't afford anyway, didn't renew out of contract players and sent some players to Udinese. Good outgoings for me would be bringing in decent money for unwanted or underperforming players, not sure we've done that at all.
it's been squad stripping. In some cases undoing previously horrendous work, by dumping/negotiating mutual termination of some terrible signings but basically, it's cost cutting. Necessary, sure, but hardly positive. Means we have a cheap, crappy squad.
It's a good ruse, to be fair - massively reduce the quality and (necessary) size of the squad, whilst loudly proclaiming how the new look setup will be much better for everyone because the head coach has a 'style' and that will totally negate the fact that pound for pound the players are either much worse, or at least exactly as bad/unprepared for the league/injured. Twitter tells us there are still enough people buying it.
Depends on your definition of 'decent money' but bringing in fees for Okoye, Quina, Kabasele, Ekong and Hungbo would come under that umbrella, for me. I assumed they would be loaned out year after year, or fester in the background until their contract expired.
I agree it's been a **** window, but far from the worst we've had IMO. We've had windows where we've brought in the same absolute standard of dross we have his time, but paid into 8 figures for it. At least the garbage players we have now haven't cost us £5m+ each and haven't lined Mogi's pockets (I don't think?). So for me, it's terrible, but I've seen much, much worse. Particularly in some of our Januaries.
