But we have moved away from quality recruitment and started signing anyone we can get our hands on. The squad is far too big. We could have signed fewer players on better contracts for the same money. Anyway, my point was that Keith wasn't brought in to develop players and sell them on as a profit as is often cited on here. That statement from PC backs that up.
But the point still stands, without signing players and selling on his playing budget declines significantly. So if he doesn't do that then the likelihood of us staying up each year gets worse. I agree we've moved away from it - I think that he's stuck between a rock and a hard place, a strategy that he brought in terms of development and patience and the unrest with the poor results which almost forced the loan signings. I'd much preferred we'd have not signed Tudgay, Greening etc and stuck with the original plan.
I think the sale of Vaz Te was pretty much forced on both the board and the management. He refused to play for us again. Take £500K now or he walks in the summer and he wouldn't play for us in that time anyway.
Maybe if we had signed quality instead of quantity the results wouldn't have suffered so much, we'd have won more games, the gates wouldn't have fallen off so much and the budget could remain the same.
Maybe. But considering he wanted to sign Jason Pearce, Dobbie, Norwood and Carayol but couldn't then maybe he realised he couldn't sign the quality of players he wanted on the budget we've got? Maybe. Possibly. He's gone down a certain route, I think he should stick on it but with fewer players.
From a conversation I had with one of the management team it was against there wishes and would be better to have him until the summer. I agree now but admitedly that is with hindsight
I wasn't aware that Vaz Te refused to play? Where did that come from? If that was the case I would be very surprised - and disappointed - he was out of work 6 months earlier. I do agree it was the wrong idea to sell him, said as much then. It was always a board decision, and they must be the softest touch in football. When you are facing relegation, £500k is not good business for you top scorer - even if he can walk for free in the summer. As with Craig Davies, slap a £2m price tag on him or forget it. He cost us nothing and he's earned his corn, we still come out even. Relegation WOULD be very bad business, why invite it?
I don't think he ever did, I think Jay was just saying that him being out of contract and the offer of £500k instead of nowt in the summer forced their hand. I have to admit at the time I understood why the club did it, but then I didn;t think the second half of the season would collapse so spectacularly. It will be interesting to see if the same mistake is made again. In fairness to the club and Davies though, why would he sign when he doesn't know what division we will be in next year, and can the club take the risk of paying a big contract to a player we wouldn;t be able to afford if we go down? Same with Steele. Maybe in this instance waiting til the summer suits all parties...The key for me is don't get in to this position in the first place and offer our best players deal with 18 months to go
According to Don Rowing last week Vaz Te refused to play for us again. If we hadn't sold him he would have remained with us but he wouldn't have played for us. Our hand was forced by the player.
I'm really surprised by that and disappointed. I know you have to grab your opportunities when they come along, but that is a slap in the face for BFC who threw him a career lifeline when no-one else wanted to know. Unless that is Don deflecting blame for what was a terrible piece of business. Funny Keith never said owt, apart from what a terrible bit of business it was, that is.
I don't think they would have sold him otherwise. Not for that much anyway. We had no choice. Vaz Te wanted a move and he made sure he got it. Unless Don was flat out lying to us. But he didn't strike me as the type of man to do that at all.
I suppose Vaz Te is just too fashionable for us. Personally, I would have called his bluff. He would have soon dropped off the radar back to obscure-ville. Marc Bosman has a lot to answer for.
The problem now is that everyone knows what it takes to engineer a move out of the Club. McIndoe did the same thing a few seasons before, so it's not an isolated incident. The only other example I'm aware of was Tevez at Man City. They took the hardline (easy enough when money isn't an issue) and look at the eventual outcome. There must be other examples at clubs of our size, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. The real problem is that the Football Authorities should intervene in situations like this, but either don't want to or are unable to. Clubs should be allowed to let players who refuse to play rot without pay indefinitely, but instead they're restricted to the two week wages fines, thanks to the PFA.
If there was any protests going on afterwards if we lose, i wud encourage it. The clubs is going backwards with these clowns and he shud have been sacked after the Leicester game