Were Club Brugge in as much financial trouble as we are now? Our desperation to sell our increasingly small number of valuable assets might drive the price down
I was excited when we signed Belkalem, but ended up being flabbergasted when he ended up on a World Cup pitch next to Park Chu-Young
Something else you haven't considered though - De Ketalaere had 2 just years left on his contract with Bruges, whereas JP has 5 years left with us.
Plus they only pay premier prices for clubs that have the player signed to a good contract and top flight football indeed European football. Like Tomori and Leao. Those they sign from second tier clubs are correspondingly second tier values. No one else at the moment seems interested in Pedro. Maybe Everton if they stay up and I hope they don't.
Who have Milan signed from second tier clubs in recent years? Besides, even if he’s with us, JP is a first rate talent on a very long contract. We know Newcastle and Milan are interested. I’ve heard Brighton like him too. I don’t see why many other sides wouldn’t be interested in him too. He is such a young and versatile player that he could be moulded into whatever the acquiring club wants. We should easily be able to get a bidding war started and get £30m in my opinion.
It was Pozzo's decision to sack Bilic, but he handed the pleasure of doing so to Manga. Next season will be no different, he's already proven who still calls the shots despite all this nonsense being spouted in the observer. This is literally just Duxbury sending him out to talk to the press as a PR stunt. The timing is impecible.
How so? One way or another I thought it would have been highly likely that Ubenga would bring in his own man to be manager for next season; it doesn't really matter whether Bilic or Wilder were the last manager to get the sack this season prior to the new manager being installed in the summer. I don't think a judgement can be made on that until we see who the manager is that Ubenga seemingly brings in and how long they're given.
The club, his former club, the media and it seems the man himself are more than happy to call him Ben. But for a reason I can’t figure out some on here have taken to calling him by his full name. It’s odd and pretty disrespectful.
I have serious doubts too that Gino can keep his nose out and let Manga just get in with it , but and maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel positive …. Gino might be arrogant , narcissistic , pig headed and at times desperate etc ( I don’t know him so just speculating ) but I don’t think he’s stupid . He has a rapidly depreciating asset and merely appointing Manga shows he must know things need to move in a different direction . So with that in mind I hope he has the self realisation that he needs to let Manga do what he’s good at and build things.
This Manga dude is gonna be a massive flop, it’s not even his fault either, there’s no way he could live up to expectations being pinned on him by our desperate fansbase
Yeah what expectations are those? Most on here seem like they'd be pleasantly surprised by us merely having a team next season that plays like their care, along with a manager that lasts more than half a season.
I tend to agree nothing works under GP. Also (and I don't know true facts) but according to a list on here showing loads of great purchases he's previously made (and sold at huge profit) I don't see how his skills fit with our needs? He just won't have 4 x £7m to spend in order to bring in say 4 decent players, our total budget will probably be net £5m so he's going to be expected to sell our crap and then find future stars for £1.5m a pop. I think there's probably some far better uk managers around that could dig up cheap diamonds to mould if we truly want to go that way (GP won't).... It's not a match made in heaven....
There will be some who still expect promotion / winning most weeks and will react as so but in reality those demands will have to be tempered somewhat by both club and fans .
If you look at our historic spending record in the Championship over the years, I doubt we will even be buying many players for money at all. Pipe-Dreams of ‘we have clear the decks’ are exactly that. The reality is many of this bunch of losers will still be here next season. And will be supplemented by a few loans, a couple of free transfers and some other tat paid for by dodgy means. Manga will be tasked with hiring a manager to make all that work. And will be held accountable very quickly when it’s not possible.
It seems like you're misusing the term "net" here - if "our total budget will probably be net £5m" then considering we're already selling JP for about £30m that would imply we'd have £35m to spend.... I also very much doubt we'll only spend about £5m, if that's what you're suggesting - as has been mentioned before it seems unlikely Manga would have joined us in Jan and brought along his scouts without the expectation that we'd actually have a bit of money to spend to bring players in, plus in his interview with the WO he suggests there could be a relatively sizeable turnover of players and that's not going to happen with just £5m to spend. £5m (or £1.5m ish per player) really would get us nothing over the summer nowadays - I mean, we already spent supposedly around £7mil on Kone and £2mil on Ferreira in Jan. Asprilla cost us £2.5mil and JP cost £10mil. My guess would be we'll put about half, or slightly over half, of the money we bring in on player sales towards the debt, and reinvest the rest. So say we bring in around £30mil from JP, £10mil from Sarr, and £5.5mil from Louza, then maybe we'd put about £28mil towards the debt and spend £17.5mil on 5 players at an average cost of about £3.5mil each. We might then top up those 5 with a couple of free transfers and a few loan signings.
We spent £10mil on 4 players this January alone. Also, have we ever received anywhere near as much in transfer fees in the Champ as we're likely to receive this summer?!
This January was in the past, right?!... And as per my question, when else in history have we brought in the c.£40-45mil in transfer fees we probably will do this summer? That will have a bearing. I also presume your "tat paid for by other means" comment is in relation to Bayat - even though the transfers from this January, combined with Manga's comments, also indicate that the use of him will be minimal at most going forwards.
I agree with this. Some people want to paint the bleakest of bleak scenarios. Maybe that would be true if Pozzo was Dr Evil intent on running the club into the ground, but I don’t believe this is the case. He wants success and wants to make money fundamentally. So I will expect funds raised to be used to pay off some debt, but also signing a couple of affordable potential stars, like the next Pedro, who will make us money further down the line. I suspect we’ll be getting in a few free transfers. Jake Livermore could well be on that shopping list. If Manga is as good as we hope, then it’s doable to create an effective team that should make the playoffs. I know everything is crap right now, but I’m actually quite excited and looking forward to this summer’s activities.
Wasn't £8m of that on Koné? There have been murmurings that he'll go to Udinese in the summer, which wouldn't surprise me as that fee is the most we've paid in the Championship by far, at a time in which we don't have much to spare. That said, apart from JP and Sarr, who else is *certain* to go? We might get 'decent' fees for Sarr, Louza and Asprilla, and an accumulation of loose change for others, but I'm not sure it'll be the ~£60m we got in the 20-21 season or even the ~£40-50m we got last summer
Which is all fine. If you believe what you’re being told. Many of us have seen through that often enough now to want to see them earn our trust back, rather than be given the benefit of the doubt once again. It’s up to you which side you want to be on in that debate - frankly I don’t really care! But more fool you if you think anything other than a nominal amount of our incoming transfer fee(s) will be used for incomings. And yes. Obviously January was in the past. But since the Pozzo’s came in, our only time in the Championship hasn’t just been from January 2023 onwards has it? So when a comment like ‘historical spending history in the Championship is made’, it’s pretty clear what was meant even if you didn’t get it.
I mean I didn't ignore it - I clearly said 'But more fool you if you think anything other than a nominal amount of our incoming transfer fee(s) will be used for incomings.' If you need me to elaborate, it's very evident that the bulk of whatever money comes in, is needed to pay off debt.
