Watkins going down well at Bristol

How does a player force a move? They can say they're not going to sign a new contract and will leave at the end of it, as is their right, but the decision to sell rather than wait for that eventuality is that of the club's sin't it?

 

It is, but as the old adage goes, you don't really want an unhappy player in the squad. In such cases the club is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Grant the player a move, have a possibly uncommitted and unhappy player in the first team (admittedly there are plenty of players who just buckle down and get on with it), or let him rot in the Under 23's while still paying him a wage. The trick is for the club to be in a position where the players are happy and don't want to move. Sadly January 2017 showed us that being 7th in the Championship with a very real chance of having a tilt at the playoffs still wasn't enough to persuade certain players to even see out their contracts, which were going to end anyway four months later. Short of paying them absolutely stupid wages, I'm a bit stumped as to what they could have done.

 

We don't know that though do we. We weren't party to the talks. I think we can safely assume they weren't going to sign new contracts, but whether they were happy to wait until the summer to become a free agent (and receive a very hefty signing on fee from whoever they signed for at that point) and it was the club who chose to cash in, or they were throwing teddies and prams all over the place, I don't know. I do know that ultimately it is the choice of the club whether they sell or not.

 

TBH I always thought he was a decent player for the style and team we had at the time.
He looked ordinary in games where we played differently, he wasn't particularly prolific on the goals front and thought he was better than he was so I wasn't that bothered when he went.

 

As I mentioned in another post I heard that there was a split in the camp between those who wanted to stay until the end of the season and those who wanted to leave in January. Of course that's only hearsay, and in all likelihood we'll never know the full truth of what went on behind closed doors. Just the disastrous consequences.

 

You could well be right, I really don't know.

I do think those in charge underestimated how good we were. I don't believe they thought we could win promotion even if we kept the squad together. As such, why not cash in, because the players would leave in the summer for free and there was no way at that point we were going to get relegated. If they thought promotion was a possibility they would have just said "no", no matter what the players were saying. The players would have got the munk on for a bit, but good management could have convinced them if they play well and win games and keep scoring then they're going to get a bumper signing on fee in the summer. And if they do really well, that might be from us after winning promotion and they'll be playing in the Premier League.

Maybe the club were right, maybe we weren't quite good enough. I thought we were. I thought we were before the season kicked off.

 

Agreed. I don't think those in charge had any faith in the squad to get promoted.

 

Just reading that is making me feel really angry, as we clearly were good enough to get in the playoffs. Even without Winnall I reckon. The way we put Leeds to the sword without him showed that we still had goals in us. I'll be honest, Fulham and Reading were clearly better than us, but Wednesday were total pap. And anyway the best side doesn't always win the playoffs, as Huddersfield proved by going up through them despite being thoroughly unimpressive in all three games. Even if the odds were against us, we were very much in the mix, and surely it was a gamble worth taking? Despite my immense dislike of the Premier League and everything it stands for, I still want to see us play in it again. Otherwise what's the point?

 

Me too.

The rewards for playing in the Premier League are just enormous. Millions and millions. If we thought we had a chance of making it, would we have sold players for a few million, when keeping them, even if they were a bit pissed off, could have meant we received hundreds of millions? Even if you are relegated in the first season, the parachute payments add up to that. I don't think we would have done.

 

This might sound daft we could,nt afford to get promoted to the greed league

 

Why not?

 

What do you mean by couldn't afford? Couple of hundred million extra quid? Burnley are no different than us in terms of size but they havn't half done well out of it, plenty of others too.

 

No one was asking them to put any more money in. No further investment, just stick with what we had.

If you just look at this summer, we've sold four players (Pearson, Knasmullner, Mallan and McCarthy) . Three of whom we were told we've made a profit on. We were also told that every player had a relegation clause in their contract meaning they will be paid much less after relegation. I'll find you links to these if you need them. We've replaced these players with one first team acquisition. We've made further profits from the sales of Kayden Jackson and Afie Mawson. Our last last submission to companies house showed unbelievable profits, the likes of which no club outside the Premier League have ever posted. When are people going to start asking where the ******* money's gone?

 

You are right, it does sound daft .

 

I’m not sure how (probably by bairning to the manager) but I know when they do it..... When their agent tells them to as he’s lined up a move that gives him a cut.

 

You realise it costs money to run a premier league club, and without player sales the club would lose money every year? The money from sales most likely goes into running the club on a daily basis, just like every non premier league club who don't have a benefactor funding them.

 

We had already sold Mawson and got the Stones money. Many people including myself felt it was the time gamble, to twist, to have a punt on promotion. We were not desperate for the cash. In Football terms it was almost a free shot at the Premier league.
I appreciate we may well have failed and so would have been worse off. But what's the point in sport if you aren't going to take a shot a success when the chance is right in front of you.

 

Laughing

https://talksport.com/football/3763...ned-tv-and-their-final-position-180518283150/

And to start my retort how you started yours: You realise you're talking absolute sh*t?

 

I used to be able to understand this view in the days before the Premier League was formed, as it still required investment beyond our means to compete in the old First Division.

These days however, that statement is laughable. Promotion guarantees in excess of £100m in TV money alone(and that's for finishing bottom), plus any parachute payments received. We could have gone up, not spent a penny, took a hiding every week and come back down with enough cash in the bank to bankroll the club for the next 20 years, and that's without the ridiculous parachute payments that would be paid for the 3 years following relegation.

 

Typo in my first comment, obviously meant to say "it costs money to run a club", not a premier league club. As the second sentence clearly indicates. Your link doesn't address any non premier league clubs, which is the point.

If you want to focus on Barnsley specifically, then it's obvious that with our revenue streams and gates, we're going to lose money every year. Unless we sell players. £1 in sales doesn't necessarily mean £1 available to spend on other players. If we did that, the club would be bust.

Ideally we can increase our revenue streams with better commercialization, sponsorship, etc, over the next few years, but otherwise it's obvious that we need to use player sales to fund the actual running of the football club.