Fire sale as started

It's on the cards apparently

 

While I agree with the sentiment (to a degree) there's no way it was ever going to work out that way. If I go into a shop looking to buy a microwave there's no way I'll be leaving with a dishwasher no matter how much the salesman tries to tell me he has one that he'd like to sell.

Are there clubs that want Styles and Helik? I'd be surprised if there weren't but do those clubs have the cash to make the purchase? The budget to pay their wages? Do they need to move their own players on first? Does the player fancy a move to that club or country? So many factors play a part in transfer negotiations.

Brittain would not have been a player I was necessarily looking to sell. However, given our need to balance the books over the coming year I don't think we can reject reasonable offers for any of our squad.

I also think the term fire sale is a bit of an unfair criticism. My take on the phrase has always been that it's more a case of selling everything, as quickly possible, at prices that are massively under market value. Is £1.5m below the value for Brittain? I don't think so. We can't really comment on the fees for most of the other sales as the numbers haven't been released officially.

If our club is going to survive we have to trade and develop, much like we have for the majority of the time I've been a fan. For every big signing like Ward or Hristov we've developed many of our own players or bought cheaply.

The comparisons with other clubs (Derby et al) don't always fare well either. Many of those clubs are bought by very rich fans, sportswashers or are able to generate season ticket and other revenues (kit sales etc) far in excess of our own. Taking Derby as an example - they've sold over 10k season tickets which is almost as high as our average gate of 13k. Their average gate is 10k higher than ours. Of course they're going to have bigger budgets, pulling power and willing investors that we can't match. They also got relegated with a squad that was better than ours and therefore had a stronger starting position.

I haven't always trusted our boards. I do think the current one has the best interests of the club at heart and is looking to the long term. That may mean that we have to handle some poorer times in the short term and may be at this level for a couple of seasons. I'd rather that than be a front for a country looking to wash dirty money or be reliant on a rich sugar daddy with the threat of the club folding when he dies or gets bored.

 

Well put across, great post

 

As usual, what was actually said has been twisted and is being used against the club. Duff said that there wouldn't be a fire sale, and we would only sell players when our valuations were met. Now we've sold a couple, people have jumped on the 'we said there wouldn't be a fire sale' part of the statement, and ignored the rest. The same happened with James Cryne last summer, with the devaluing of players quote, the same happened with Paul Conway and the 'best transfer window' quote. Everything is taken out of context to suit a way of thinking.

 

Kerching