Players hold all the power.

What everyone seems to forget is that if a player wants to leave then we are powerless to prevent it.

Player X wants to leave for better wages than we've offered, we say nope you're under contract, player thinks stuff this I'll just do **** in training that'll teach em. So we end up paying £5k a week to a player who's not even making the subs bench and then lose them for nowt in 12 months.

If we could afford to offer big wage contract extensions then we would, but we can't, so teams such as Brentford and Stoke (who have more available cash than us) do.

Think about it, just for a second.

Would you rather that or cash in, get £3m and buy 2 or 3 players to bolster the squad?

 

Yes, the owners had no way of knowing he was moving into his last year of his contract over the preceding season. Out of their hands.

 

They offered an improved contract, he declined. The board have quite openly said if a player is in their final year and won't sign an extension they will be sold. Makes good business sense to me.

 

Of course it does. I don’t see any benefit to keeping a player that doesn’t want to be here, and risk losing him for nothing, when you can cash in. The frustrating part for me is the rumoured fee, but what do we know.

 

We should have signed Cranie while we had the chance.

 

Doesn’t matter if you’re Man U, Madrid, Barnsley or Barcelona if a player wants to leave he’ll leave. Days of managers saying rot in the reserves are long gone

 

Should do what estate agents do... "offers invited in excess of £5M. Viewing by appointment saturday 27July 3-5pm."

Get several bidding against each other.

 

Deceptively spacious knees

 

They offered him one now, yes.
Good business sense isn't 'sell what you have at the cheapest cost to get rid of it', though I know I'm wasting my breath.

 

When would you have offered it? February, when there are 3 months of the season left, could have not got promoted or he could have broke his leg... Then we're stuck paying a player on championship wages in league one.

Worked out fine for Sunderland that method didn't it.

 

Earlier than that, we knew we had a great asset that needed tying down regardless of what league we ended up in.
Again, I know I'm wasting my breath.

 

We. Can't. Afford. To. Tie. Players. Down. On. Big. Wages. Regardless. Of. What. Division. We're. In.

Are you nuts? I've got to the point now where I think you're just a wind up.

 

Don't think we have a problem OFFERING contracts to the players we want to keep. It's the quality of contract that is obviously the problem. No, I don't want to see us in financial freefall, no, I don't want boom or bust but yes, I want to see a little bit of a 'speculate to accumulate' attitude and at least compete with some of the lower half Champ sides going forward.

 

Fair enough, but the galling thing about the above, is that if it is true what you say, then Brentford have more 'available cash' due to transfer business. Why can't we do the same? We know we are going to sell but why does it always appear we have our pants pulled down? A club who's highest attendance last season was 12,225. having more available cash than us?

Summat's got to give.

 

It’s obvious that in football, contracts don’t work. Imagine a world where there’s no contract, no transfer window, no transfer fees. Players could move from club to club just as human beings can move from employer to employer. The players would then be on the receiving end of the “loyalty” they display themselves. Bad attitude Mr Pogba? Si thi. Injured again Mr Carroll? P45 waiting, drink problems Mr Adams? Need I go on??
There’d certainly be a lot of out of work badge kissers wondering where it all went wrong!
I don’t blame the players or the clubs,,, the system stinks the world out!!

 

Their owner spends his money same as bristol city. Ours won't chip ten bob in.

 

The difference between them and us is that they have firstly established themselves as a solid Championship club over the last few years and they regularly finish in top 10 which is an attractive proposition for players but also means they are fairly secure as a club knowing they wont go down.

Secondly, they operate a similar model to us in terms of recruitment and have been doing it for a while and have had big success from it which means they have earned a lot over the last few years which allows them to spend more. They sold Mepham for over 12 mill, Hogan was 15 mill as well as some others. That large incoming allows them to do more outgoings than we do without any risk of FFP.

 

Which is fair enough. And they have ramped up the level at which they both buy and sell. I know we have too, to a degree (longer contracts / better quality purchases) but if there was ever a time to speculate then this was the season to do it. As I say, no need to deviate all that much, and no need to spend beyond our means, just let's get to that next stage where we are selling for Mepham / Hogan money and not Lindsay / Pinnock money.

 

Are you seriously suggesting we shouldn't have offered Pinnock a contract extension before the end of the season?

 

They have only ramped it up recently though due to the extra income they have received. We will get to that stage soon hopefully but it would be too much of a risk currently to start spending 15k + a week on wages and 2 mill plus on players now after just coming up. I would love us to do that don't get me wrong but last thing I want is for us to chuck money around and then it jeopardise the clubs finances going forward like with Sheff Wed, QPR, Brum etc.