Reality Check - BFC Transfer Sales

I think BFC is coming in for some unreasonable criticism here.

Recent transfer sales tell me (I may have interpreted this wrong, but it is my take on it):-

Vaz Te - purchased for free on short-term contract, would not extend contract so BFC forced to sell; West Ham knew this hence fee was ~£500K.

Butterfield - the lad had big expectations of himself and wanted Premiership football so would not sign new contract and wanted to leave, again so BFC had to sell in final year of his contract, thus fee was "low".

Davies - more or less what we say about Butterfield, except Craig has probably gone for the money rather than to further his career.

John Stones - totally differenet scenario in that he is young(er), on a longer contract (more secure for BFC) and is in England U-19 squad. Not forgetting the fact he has more potential than either of the three mentioned above. So let's see what BFC manage to secure with this transfer, as and when it happens.

The bigger issue is actually some of the sh!te we have purchased rather than what we have sold!

 

Vaz Te - should have been offered a contract extension before way before Xmas, when he was back from injury it was obvious he was a decent squad addition and worthy of another year.

Butterfield - Would have signed a contract earlier, common knowledge. One wasn't offered until the last minute...

Davies - not really fussed, happy with the 300k for him

Stones - Not for sale unless its silly money, simple as. The club will have to work for their money and look at themselves off the field to increase income, Huddersfield have improved over 30% off the field in the last two season prior to the Championship and their crowds went down last season so its not down to ticket sales.

 

That's only half the story though. In my view the club isn't failing to generate income from transfers per se, but they are failing to MAXIMISE the income from transfers:

Vaz Te - the failure to negotiate additional payments based on promotion has cost the club valuable additional revenue.

Butterfield - the failure to negotiate a contract much earlier in his career with us has also cost the club valuable revenue.

Davies - offering an out of contract League 2 a deal with a £300k sell-on clause smacks of small time thinking from an established Championship club. If there was such a clamour for his signature from other Championship clubs at the time, then I'm sure they'd have been able to out bid us on the salary front anyway.

Stones - no need to sell. The lad wants to stay and he's under contract. End of. Look at it in the summer when we know what division we'll be in.

Don and the club need to start seeing the bigger picture and displaying a mentality that fits our Championship status. We would be in a much healthier financial position if the above situations had been handled with more common sense.

 

The thing about negotiating is that the other party has to agree to them. I know Don wanted add ons and West Ham simply said 'no'. Vaz Te forced our hand - late in the transfer window, it was 500k or nowt.

Butterfield should've been offered one earlier.

Seems other clubs wanted Davies, maybe the 300k was the difference between us getting his 20 goals or not?

Stones - we need to sell to balance the books.

 

vaz te = too slow to update contract... partly due to hills constant "he needs to up his game" in press i feel didnt take him serious enough

Butterfield = simply our fault we stalled and stalled even when it was clear he would stay... left it too long got injured... Not same player now though anyway!

Davies= only thing we did wrong was not try to start a bidding war .... he was wanted by afew yet we publically stated we had excepted boltons bid... if clever enough im sure we could have got someone who would have been willing to up boltons bid...

stones = have to sell need money... people may shoot me down for this BUT the lads only had 20 games or so??? Hes still very raw and could still go either way league one could break him for all we know... wasnt flinders set to be best keeper around??? were is he now???

 

vaz te = Always lookng for a bigger move, it was open knowledge he signed to give himself last chance in the UK shop window. To cash in with £500K isnt a bad deal

Butterfield = We could have done more. Career never took off since, journeyman on loan at Champ level and seemed to be 5-6 players down the pecking order at Norwich

Davies= I would have like to have kept him and in todays crazy world 300K simply isnt enough. Must me a money move as the Bolton have potential but not full on promotion candidates yet. He hasnt figured in the squad since he went there let alone get a start.

stones = This is our real diamond. Young, showing maturity, regular first team, outplaying many 'named' opponents. Anything less than 3M is derisory adn will be a real signal of how good our board are. There is absolutely no reason to take less the value speaks for itself. Payment terms also should be loaded to upfront cash not sell on clause being 60% etc. Maybe 2.5M if we keep him till season end or a better payment terms. I would keep him if we are offered less.

Hamill, like Vaz Te he really wanted a bigger move. He got it and then the cards collapsed. Professional Loanee and hasnt impressed much anywhere he has been. We got an OK deal but given he was still young we perhaps could have negotiated a longer contract at the outset in return for the low sell on clause.

 

vaz te = Always lookng for a bigger move, it was open knowledge he signed to give himself last chance in the UK shop window. To cash in with £500K isnt a bad deal

Butterfield = We could have done more. Career never took off since, journeyman on loan at Champ level and seemed to be 5-6 players down the pecking order at Norwich

Davies= I would have like to have kept him and in todays crazy world 300K simply isnt enough. Must me a money move as the Bolton have potential but not full on promotion candidates yet. He hasnt figured in the squad since he went there let alone get a start.

stones = This is our real diamond. Young, showing maturity, regular first team, outplaying many 'named' opponents. Anything less than 3M is derisory adn will be a real signal of how good our board are. There is absolutely no reason to take less the value speaks for itself. Payment terms also should be loaded to upfront cash not sell on clause being 60% etc. Maybe 2.5M if we keep him till season end or a better payment terms. I would keep him if we are offered less.

Hamill, like Vaz Te he really wanted a bigger move. He got it and then the cards collapsed. Professional Loanee and hasnt impressed much anywhere he has been. We got an OK deal but given he was still young we perhaps could have negotiated a longer contract at the outset in return for the low sell on clause.

 

You think 500k is ok for Vaz Te but 300k isn't enough for Davies? Vaz Te will be a regular in a Prem side, Davies won't get anywhere near a Premiership side.

 

I think 500k considering he was out of contract, only played 20 or so games, was quite clearly a gamble and allegedly refused to play for us that 500k was the best offer we got. He was obviously a gamble for West Ham too.

Davies had 18 months of work with our staff, obviously got better, was on course to get into double figures for the second consecutive year and would have been rated at nearer £2 million 2 months ago.

 

Totally take your point about negotiation. However, it can't be coincidence that BFC always seem to come off worse.

My point about Davies is that if other Championship clubs wanted him then it's well documented that we can't compete on wages. He'd have gone to someone else at the time, like he now has. We were out-thought by his agent.

If we already need to sell Stones to balance the books, then the club clearly isn't being run as well as we are led to believe.

 

I think Freedman coming out and saying he wanted Davies means you can put 2 & 2 together. His agent probably did think 'hold up, let's bang something in here'. Maybe it was a compromise for lower wages, no signing on fee etc? Don't think we ever really know. 3 players in the last few years leaving because of clauses tells us something, though.

And RE Stones, you've got to admit it must be tempting considering the drop in revenue we'll have next year even regardless of division?

For the record, I don't think he'll go for that money.

 

I think we could have dug our heels in a little more over Vaz Te, big Sam couldn't wait to announce that he'd only paid £500k for him.

Do we actually know what we got for Butterfield? at the time it was rumored over a million, which I think is pretty good going for a player who had been trying to manufacture himself a move elsewhere long before Hill and Flicker were on the scene.

The club also made profits on other influential playets such as Hammill, Shackell and Muller.

 

Should have offered Vaz a contract earlier when we were on the winning run and he was coming off the bench scoring for fun, but Hill decided to be arrogant instead. With 18 months of his contract left l'm sure West Ham would have offered more than 500k whether the player sulked or not.

Can't see Davies doing much better than Bolton to be honest, but we'll see over the next 12 months. They've probably doubled his salary.

I think Steele's comments recently have highlighted the way our club goes about new contract negotiations.