[SIGNED perm] Josh King

Still, on the plus side it should mean we'll be signing Abraham next!

 

To be fair, there is a broad correlation between what you pay from something and what it’s worth.

 

I don't think they really care, he's been crap for the recently.

It would only likely annoy them if he does well, which is far from a formality.

 

From Adam Leventhal:

"King aims to compete with Watford’s captain Troy Deeney for the No 9 starting role, which could become a partnership depending on whether Xisco Munoz sticks to a 4-3-3 formation".

I think I just vomitted in my mouth a little bit.

 

What did you expect?

 

I agree - but also, let’s not pretend that the payment schedule on that £8m won’t likely be very generous given the parties involved and the length of the contract. He’s likely going to cost us little over £1m a year for 5 years.

 

That just isn’t true.
The actual truth still doesn’t paint him in a good light however - he downed tools to an extent in their last PL season because Eddie Howe denied him a dream move back to United around deadline day (for a frankly ridiculous fee because United were panicking for a striker). And then he decided he had no reason to pick up the tools again last summer when Bournemouth rejected over £13m from West Ham for him despite him having a year left on his deal and it being clear he wouldn’t sign a new one.

A poor attitude in that sense? Sure. But Bournemouth’s awful decision making played into it.

 

Yes whereas just a few £10m signings could have guaranteed we stayed up eh ? No worries about the debt situation and uncertain covid outlook as our guaranteed survival in the prem would have covered that eh ? "Best of the rest" etc ?

 

I would have said it has been obvious since the goings on of the previous close season how bad the finances are; last season would have done nothing to improve them either. This season's EPL money will be used to re-stabilise at best.

 

Wouldn't you be pi55ed if you found out Defoe & Afobe were valued more highly than you?

 

Yeah, I don’t disagree that it was obvious. But the club could still have come at this season from the angle of thinking spending money means a greater chance of survival etc.

My point is that I think the financial situation might be so dire that even the above just isn’t possible - so it’s been dressed up as ‘learning from our past mistakes’, rather than ‘we can’t afford it’.

 

Maybe those 2 comments are the 2 sides of the same coin.

 

Defoe no (even if he was in his late 50s), Afobe of course.

 

3 **** players cost the same as 1 good player; it's simply a matter of priorities, but we prefer quantity over quality, every time

 

It wasn't too long ago that Kings Value was around 20 million and Manchester United were hoping to sign him. He downed tools at Bournemouth when he couldn't leave. Additionally last season he did have a couple of injuries and he also contracted COVID. He can score goals in the Premier league, he scored 16 a few season back and then 12 in the 18/19 season, for me its a bargain. He can also play centrally and as a winger.

 

Yes of course, I just meant fans see the £8m compared to a free transfer and assume the more expensive player is better. Obviously I'm hoping Louza will turn out to be a great player for us but Etebo has played over here already, has plenty of international caps and on a loan could be a brilliant signing.

 

I have no problem with the Etebo signing - if he’s seen as a replacement for Carlos Sanchez and is here to bring depth to our options.

If he’s a budget replacement for Hughes or Chalobah however, then it doesn’t look so good.

 

When we got promoted last time out we managed both quantity and quality, without spending a huge amount. Some of the players we spent the most money on who many hoped would be good turned out to be crap, e.g. Jurado and Berghuis, and some of our cheaper signings/freebies who I suspect many held out little hope for turned out to be very good e.g. Prodl and Holebas.

I'm also a bit underwhelmed by our signings so far, but I'm pleased that we seem to be bringing in plenty of bodies who all have at least some chance of coming good. No doubt there'll be some flops, that's inevitable every transfer window, but there could end up being a few positive surprises as well.

As things stand I still expect us to get relegated and would like a few more players signed at the peak of their abilities or off the back of some hot form, rather than being passed it or out of favour, but it's not entirely impossible that a quantity approach works as well as it did last time (though I also reckon we'd need at least another 4 senior signings before I'll consider us as having taken a quantity approach again).

 

We're ****ed

 

But saying he ‘can score goals in the PL’ is the same as saying Gray or Deeney can score goals in the PL. They’ve all done it - but none of them recently. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since he last cut it in the PL.

And the bid from United was a deadline day panic move - he was never worth what they supposedly bid. But Bournemouth were in trouble and felt they couldn’t sell that late in the window. But let’s not throw around points that he was somehow worth that money - he wasn’t. United signed Ighalo instead and he barely featured - so that indicates how much King would likely have played. It wasn’t because he was good enough - they were desperate.

Like Rose, this is another punt which may or may not work. Like a budget Welbeck.

 

Big money does not guarantee quality as has been proven. But if you would rather spend all our money on one player that’s your opinion but I seem to remember you were very critical of the Sarr signing, saying we could have bought 3 other players instead.

 

Surely every signing we make is gonna be a punt to some extent with the money we have available
Young and raw,Prem experience but lost there way,talented but attitude issues,I don’t really know what everyone was excpecting
It does seem players want to play for our coach and he got the best out of a lot of players last year
So why not these so called risk signings.
Leaving the squad how it was would of sent us straight back down at least the owners are trying to make signings to keep us up

 

This is true.

Interesting to see that Brentford don't appear to have made a single signing yet this summer. Norwich have also only made signings to replace those they've lost (with inferior players).

There's a long way to go yet this window, but at least we're being proactive again more in keeping with when we last got promoted, as opposed to our relegation season when we seemed misguidedly overly content with what we already had.

 

I suppose we have to give him the benefit of the doubt that the circumstances he had at the time played a big factor in his downturn of form. Something went very wrong at Muff and quite a few previously good players looked ****. Callum Wilson suddenly found his form again when he got his move away. We just have to hope the same happens here.

This isn't a great signing for a PL club with a PL budget, but we just aren't anything close to that. We clearly don't have a pot to piss in and we are hamstrung by handing out ludicrous deals to ***** like Deeney, Success and Gray which we can't move on.

I think a lot of our business this window has been pretty awful, but I do think for a club that is clearly absolutely broke - this is a pretty good free transfer.

 

Yep. We got relegated after that signing, remember?

 

Can't say I've followed him too closely so any idea what the reason is for the loss of pace (injury issues?)

 

No, we’re just one of the favourites for relegation and that would still be the case if we spent an extra £20m but we’d have a bigger financial hole to fill.

 

Josh King with one leg is quicker than Deeney, Gray and Perica. Probably Success as well since he turned himself into the hulk.

 

Which suggests spending all your money on one player rather than multiple players isn’t a good idea which goes against what you’ve said in this thread!

 

Is everything black or white in your world? I either have to be in favour of luxury signings in a position of tertiary concern or want us to sign utter cheap shyte?

How about a nuanced view? That I'd prefer we address priority shortcomings in our team with players who don't come with a history of bad attitude and baggage and who aren't demonstrably on decline, but who don't all cost 40m? Is that something you can comprehend?

 

How utterly boring would all that be?

Send me as many nutters as possible, with stinking attitudes, and a promise that at least 4 of them will be right-backs.

This season will be the most fun we’ve had since Boothroyd assembled his squad of square parts and criminals.