Conjo

I'd be satisfied with 3 players as long as one of them was a quality central midfielder, but based on the most notable/acknowledged rumours this does not seem to be a priority which concerns me. Up until Wilsons injury, CM should have been the top top priority. Now we've got Wood, CM should again be our main position to strengthen.

Do we even have a choice to pay in installments when it's a release clause we are activating? I doubt it. In theory we could pay the fee in installments over the course of 100 years or something daft as long as the total was met

Have I missed something the last few days? I thought Trippier fee would rise to 25m if we stay up, and Woods release fee allegedly was 25m as well. If we stay up it'll be worth it regardless. 25/3=8.3. fwiw his market value on transfermarkt is €6m. Anyway, Wood is in a bit of a weird spot where his worth to Burnley is higher than anyone normally would be prepared to pay for a player with fairly limited ability and few years left in him. Normally in these situations the players stay with their clubs unless their contract is close to expiring or they are actively pushing for a move for whatever reason (thus reducing the amount selling club would be able to command).

That's a good point. Someone on the Burnley forum I browsed through said the same: However you also got takes like these:

They signed him when he was 28. We are signing Wood at 30 was my point Could be less but didn't care to calculate the months etc.

2 years younger at the time of purchase with a better recent goal scoring record.

Nah it's not like. It's looking at what other clubs pay for players. Find me one single example of a similar deal like this.

Burnley fans seem really happy about this news which is always a dangerous omen They want Tarkowski out as well, as the general consensus seems to be that Collins is a ready made replacement which allows them to strengthen other areas with the Tarkowski money. The only positive about this signing is that we will have a striker with PL experience who's name isn't Gayle available against Watford, while Burnley will be without Wood and Cornet against Leicester, so if we win and Burnley lose we are all of a sudden out of relegation zone and in the driving seat so to speak. Wether that's worth 25m we shall see in May

We're paying 3x what he probably worth. To those saying it will make Burnley weaker - you know they now have the means to improve on a very limited player, and it could come back to bite us?

Buying Wood for 25m could potentially strengthen Burnley tbf

I'm torn between "good enough old enough" and "need experience, not fair to put such pressure on a young kid". I can understand the urgency of just getting someone in as long as they are marginally better than our current back-up options, but can also understand that regardless of relegation predicament, management and owners surely don't want a bunch of average soon to be past it players on long, big contracts taking a birds eye view of where we want to be in a few years. If pressed, I'd probably go for good enough old enough and prefer we gambled on talented youth. I don't think it's wise to focus on getting a back-up for the back-up, or realistic to expect two strikers in January considering how important it is that we get a CB & MC in as well.

Seems like a carbon copy of loanee Willock based on those clips. Not particularly strong, fast or skilled, but good at turning up in the box to score a goal. How is his general play? Would he add any much needed bite to the midfield?

And completely ott unneccessary to avoid relegation. If we get a one CF, CM & CB we're golden. The most important thing is to get them in ASAP so we're not bedding players in until march.

Did we now? The other one is currently still contracted by Cardiff, on loan at Preston North End

So glad I missed all of this and only checking in here during the aftermath. Good that Trippier got his debut, and this abysmal result will certainly be used to motivate the players ahead of Watford. Would be nice if we had a new striker lined up before next week though

It's far from madness. He needs to be able to perform asap. Cambridge is the perfect opportunity to get him started and get more familiar with his role and duties ahead of his first PL game for us, which happens to be a vital 6 pointer.

Genes can be a helluva thing. Doesn't look a day over 30 in that picture. Contrast that with this picture from 2014 of a 29 years old Charlie Adam

He'd struggle even today if he kept being put out on the wing like Bobby did.

So thoughtless by Xhaka holding the shirt for the penalty, and what on earth is Gabriel thinking there after having just received a yellow?

Martinelli seems like such a waster.

I wish it was possible to assess situations like that so they could give Silva yellow for diving instead of penalty to City.

Transfer fees are partly based on resale value, so yes it is, simply due to his age.

If they aren't brought in within the next week you can forget about more than one of them actually being used for the Watford game. It would be amazing if we could have some players ready for Cambridge so they can get a soft introduction to our team and tactics. Find it hilariously ironic that the people who are saying we need 6-7 players this window in order to stay up are some of the same who also are now saying that there's no rush in getting players in this early and that people who are saying we should have had signings ready by now are unrealistic/unreasonable. I mean even if we get proven quality in, it's not reasonable to expect half a new team to perform, battle and deliver results immediately.

We should have lined up a body or two ahead of the window opening so they could run through the doors in 16 hours and start working with Howe to be as prepared as possible to contribute in a very important set of "6 pointers" in January against Leeds and Watford. It will be chaos if we bring in 4-6 first team members in second half of January and expect them to perform as a team immediately while not having picked up important points in January due to lack of quality/cohesion. That's not panic, just common sense.

Tbf, that's just football. Just browse through the Joelinton thread for the same opinions on here. Myself included probably.