Didn't Brian Howard have a broken leg? Or at least some sort of serious knee injury? Well he suffered it after we signed him I believe but didn't start the season. He turned out alright. Sent from my WAS-LX1A using Tapatalk
It's always a risk signing players after bad injuries so it could go either way. We've been stung before but it can turn out ok
I would ******* well hope we're not shelling a million quid out for 1 player when we could have upped scowens wages and kept him for significantly less brass.
Everyone knows we've signed players in the past with broken bones, some have worked very well.. some have not.. That was not my point... my point was, for a club that throws its money abart like a man b'hart arms... a million pounds is a hell of a lot of money, for a player that hasn't kicked a ball for 5 months... loan first please
He could turn out to be an Ian Evans / Brian Howard or he could turn out to be a Phil Gridelet / Kevin Dixon. We'll never know unless we take a gamble. Sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate. I'm sure the club will have done due diligence around the medical and the insurance of him getting crocked again. What you have to ask yourself is would you like it to be us who takes the gamble, or would you like it to be a rival who shells out? You'll be faced with two options in 6 months ............ 1) Coming on here moaning that we've shelled out for a hop-along crock. Or 2) To come on here purring about the latest gem we have uncovered. The one million will be forgotten when weighed up against the rewards his performances bring and the potential sell-on £££££ . I for one trust the current recruitment team and their strategy. Whatever they think, I'll support.
Went down to the club shop earlier & he was getting out of Hecky's car, they both walked into the offices. So he could well be signing shortly..
I would have thought to keep Scowen we would have had to have broken the wage structure. So are you saying we should do that and then tell Hammill, Roberts, Yiadom, Macdonald, Davies etc etc to form an orderly queue outside Hecky's door to make their demand for similar increases? Or we could tell them no and blow the dressing room spirit apart.
Never quite got this school of thought. Not a pop at you BTW. But do we really believe that footballers don't appreciate that they are not all on the same money? Are they genuinely all going to bang Heckys door down if one gets a rise? The alternative view is that the players you mention may actually be pleased that Josh stays. And from a financial point of view it may give them a bit of bargaining power come their next contract negotiation, which I am sure the club will be happy to listen to IF the players form has justified him asking the question. Seeing a colleague get a pay hike as reward for a good couple of years just might give them an incentive? If they do want out purely because a colleague has had a pay hike .......... then TBH I'm not sure it's the type of player I want to see here.
Maybe not so much the players, but I'm sure they each have an agent that's willing to feed their head with sh*t.
I see your point Andy. I've always liked Josh and I'd have loved him to stay. However, I don't see him as more important to the team than Roberts, Angus, Yiadom. So I wouldn't blame them if they turned round to Hecky and said...hey, hang on a minute. If we had one player who was head and shoulders above the rest maybe the others would accept him getting more. I'd suggest Hourihane might have been a case in point but we could have blown our wage structure completely out of the water with Conor and still not been able to compete with Villa.
I probably look at it too simplistically and think they all think like me I'm in a team of 16, probably paid reasonably for me age / knowledge. Some are on more, some are on less. I don't think any of those on more are winging it - if they were I'd probably have a bit of a strop, but no, they deserve what they are getting. There's a younger lad doing superb, flying through exams, putting the hours in, taking the pressure off most of us daily - he's a star of the future in my line of work. Hoping and praying my bosses reward him and would I begrudge him a bigger wedge than me? Would I chuff. He is indirectly making me better too. Maybe footballers don't think like that, but even the less bright ones must appreciate that even at a poor paying club they are still making a decent living.
I agree with the sentiment entirely but matching the wages with the best paid is not breaking the wage structure.
Do you think Scowen is the best player, or equal to the best player in our squad. Either now or the squad we want to build? I really rate the bloke. Think he was a very good L1 player although couldn't displace Brownhill for CM spot or Isgrove for RW, but did a brilliant job filling in at RB. Think he was a good championship player. Got stuck in, had a bit of skill. Lacked goals or a Moncur type long range shot though for more advanced role. I just don't think he is worthy of the highest paid player in the team. If we had no need to budget for the long term as well as short term then yes I'd say pay him £8k a week that Hammill is on. Although reckon due to number of clubs after him he will be paid a lot more than that now. I think he's worth that. But not within the budget we are limited to sadly. Edit: I think most of our squad are probably worth more, after they've developed with us, than we can pay them. That's the problem! Too many good players! Provided we keep selling a number of players for lots more than we bought them, don't overpay, then eventually we'll be keeping these players longer. Or even using the money to recruit better, and selling them for even more. Long term.
I believe that's the plan isn't it? It's a very long-term one, but one I'm pretty sure will pay huge dividends if we manage to stay up next season. We certainly seem to have learned our lesson with contracts, hence all the new lads being signed on 3 year deals. I can't for the life of me fathom why we only gave Yiadom two years, unless it was him who insisted on that. Seems quite unlikely though considering where he came from.