Approach to Managing Transfers

Not posted for a while but regular, interested reader...

With all the inevitable speculation around who may be involved in transfers OUT of the club it strikes me that there are a few approaches that the club/players could take. I've listed them in my order of preference and wondered what you thought.....

1/ existing player (populate with any or all of Hourihane, Winnall, Watkins, Scowen, Roberts, Bree, Yiadom) signs a new extended contract with the reds

2/ existing player is signed by another club for some of the figures seen in social media (£8m etc.) and then immediately loaned back to us for the rest of the season

3/ existing player leaves for nowt at the end of their existing contract

4/ existing player signs a pre-contract elsewhere for the end of the season - separated this from point 3 as this would possibly change their approach to how they play for us

5/ existing player leaves now for nominal fee

I'm hopeful that the bond between the players and with the club (evident around gestures towards Rimmo and the way the players speak about Hecky) that they will all consider this when making decisions rather than looking purely at money.

All IMO of course

UTR

 

Just taking your last closing sentence.

Bonds are very few and far between.

Example. I was offered a month or so back a different job. 10k more per year. I refused. Because they didn't provide me with a Co. Car (which I get now) and it was purely office based.

That 10k would be swallowed up in juice every day as well as a new car. Currently if I move 1 mile away from my house to work I can claim it.

If they upped it to 20k more. I'd have been off.

Different scale with footballers.

If I was a player. Earning say 5k a week. And someone then offered me 15 or 20k a week. Loyalty doesn't even come into it. And it's hard to say why it would.

Shame but that's the reality.

Best we can hope if a player goes we get them back on loan and continue to pay equivalent of what we did.

 

I think it really depends on the players having faith that the club will honour their word - which is something I think most would believe about our club. As a footballer you can be riding the crest of a wave and then come crashing down to earth due to a bad injury. Hourihane, Winnall, Watkins and others could potentially get huge wages by making the move on a free transfer...but they could also get a bad injury and be out of contract with no club to help them rehabilitate.

If I was in their position, I'd sign a new and improved three year contract with an understanding (or clause) that we will release them if an offer comes in that meets a pre-agreed valuation. That way they have the security of a contract with an excellent club that cares for their well-being and helps them to develop, but also that we won't stand in the way of their ambition. It's happened to a lot of footballers (Butterfield as an example), and it will happen to others. Similarly, are any of them at a stage of their careers where they can afford to sit on the bench of a top Championship club? Certainly not if they have international ambitions like Conor does.

Loyalty in football is dead, but it is in any industry. However, we need to realise that football isn't like other careers - you need to keep developing and be constantly given chances to improve. That's something that players get at our club and they reap the rewards when the time is right.