He won't be an international if he stays with us, the Polish coach has been pretty explicit with his views. That means he misses the world cup. I'm not sure what that does for his motivation. His wages will be a decent amount I suspect. If he's still here in January, I'd suspect he'd wait to leave on a free. I don't see why a team would spend a decent fee on a player with so little time left. Just sign him up on pre contract, player gets a higher wage and signing on fee and the buying club still saves. We need to save wages and bring in money. Either that or the owners likely need to stump up about £4m to get us through the season.
I like Vanessa, great on the radio, lovely woman She's also a good sport, went on Little Britain on 'Fat Fighters' episode.
Speaking selfishly, Helik would be a starter for every game when fit. He's our best centre half. Unfortunately, for his international career and our club, it's best for him to leave.
The Polish coach has picked him whist he has been with us & will no doubt select him again ,with the season going on until May the need to recoup your estimate of £4 million can still be done in january with half the season to go plus I believe clubs who are desperate in january because of their league positions will always pay more over the odds & lets be fair so far all through the summer the market has been pretty stagnant with no indication it is suddenly going to take off .
It's widely speculated since the Poland National Coach saying he'll only be at the World Cup if he's playing at a higher level. As far as I'm aware there's only Styles that has shot his load.
Even if he does stay and then gets picked for the WC realistically how many games would we get out of him? Perhaps all of Sept to get fit and then match fit and goes on International somewhere round start of Nov so perhaps 4-6 weeks? Better than nothing short term but what does it do to medium to long term for rest of season(especially if left in Jan). Talent wise still best CB at club though.
The polish coach made explicit comments that he expected his players to be playing at a high level to be considered for world cup selection. I can't recall the other player who got dropped because of it, but there is precedent, and rightly so. The market we'd likely be selling to is still suppressed, and will be in January and who knows for how much longer. So we're in the position of a gamble. Do we wait and hope that somebody comes along with magical money in January when nobody has got close to a valuation now? Do we hope playing him when we've denied him a world cup opportunity is going to add to our team, or be akin to his month or so of tanking and not even trying? The worst case scenario is we don't go up and Helik leaves for a free. If we don't accept whatever the best bid is this summer, that scenario becomes much more likely given the new climate below the top flight. If we get £1m-£1.5m now, I'll take that gladly. I don't see how we get more than that.
If he plays well for us the Polish coach may well change his mind. Has the Derby player that plays for Pokand moved to a championship club btw?
Yes, Bielik's gone on loan to Birmingham (meets 'championship' club definition vaguely ). I reckon Helik will be gone at the end of the window, it's just that right now there's no point buying him as you're paying him for being injured if you're the new club. Might as well wait until the end of the window and save a few bob. On the off chance he's still here come September and fully fit then absolutely he plays. We know a back three of Andersen, Helik and Williams were good enough for the Championship so we need to take advantage of having them while we do for League 1.
Might be another one as well but the player I recall being dropped and told he wouldn't play unless he moved was called Maciej Rybus and the reasoning was that he'd moved from one Russian club to another. Helik has to move in this window if he wants to go to the World Cup - I think others above are forgetting that Poland changed their manager in early 2022 and Helik has only been selected in one squad since, has only been an unused sub once and has not seen light of day on the pitch under the new guy.
There has been players playing in division one before who play regular international football & Barnsley are not denying him anything , according to Mr Duff last week we had not received any bids for Helick so you cannot turn bids down if there hasn"t been any in the first place , the fact is that he is contracted to us & until any realistic bids come in then he is our player or are you suggesting we should give him away because of the world cup ? we are not a charity & as you said earlier we have a shortfall in income so to be honest we need to act in the best interests of the club & again any sale is purely hypothetical at the moment because if there is no buyer then there is no sale. I think I will leave it there until something concrete happens because all we are doing is speculating what might happen & not discussing what is actually happening .
I believe comment was made a while ago that a bid/bids were received but they didn't meet the clubs valuation. I think Duff said no further bids had been received last week. And agree about speculation, and I'm sure things will be happening behind the scenes we just aren't aware of. The bottom line remains, we need to continue to move towards solvency. Selling Helik with a year left on his contract, I believe, would assist. Even if just getting his wages off the books with a modest fee.
I like Kitching, works hard, always has the effort, never backs out of a challenge. I love how he gets forward a lot. The problem is, he stops so many of our attacks by wayward passing, not only accuracy but the speed and power. Its as though he has a robotic leg he can't control when passing or crossing. Always overhit or a mile off his intended target. Defensively I think he's quite good, especially in this league. But as I said, so many potential chances go to waste because of it. Id love to see what Helik, Andersend and Williams could do in this league together
I'd hope that given time, our players start to evolve their decision making for the better. It's still very early days but there are obvious signs of what Duff is working on, especially in movement going forward.
