Keegans Export

You're right. Clearly our current strategy will render us unable to sign any players of real quality. Like Bruno. Or Botman. For a combined SEVENTY MILLION POUNDS. Jesus...

Everything I've read about how transfers work these days tells me that speaking to agents/representatives is the first step, not the last. Us meeting with the agent is consistent with Hope's claim that we are "exploring" a deal.

The "compensation" rules seem so out-dated. For example, if we end up getting that young lad from Sunderland (Rigg?) then any compensation is based purely on the costs incurred training and developing that player. Nothing to do with how good he is or "market value" or whatever else. I'm not sure what the alternative would be but when you look at the money being quoted for good quality 19-20 year olds (10s of millions) if you can pick up a bunch of talented 14-16 year olds for a fraction of that, is it any surprise we're seeing it become more and more commonplace?

Although there is an argument that finishing 10th next season doesn't actually put us in a better position to attract our top targets than we are now. Still not in Europe, still midtable. We also know that we can spend more than we are currently even without the increased sponsorship money because FFP is run in three-year cycles & there is a fair amount of slack in the system due to the chronic lack of spending during the Ashley years. Put it this way - if what we really want are the likes of Diaby, Osimhen etc I don't think they're any more achievable next summer after finishing 10th than they are now, even if we do end up with a boatload more sponsorship money.

It's a fine line. I guess it depends what we are really aiming for next season and how attractive that would then make us to the next tier up in terms of our transfer targets. If you assume the top 6 is currently sewn up (obviously that's not guaranteed but for arguments sake) then you've got West Ham who seem to have invested well, Leicester without European football as a distraction & Villa who have also made a couple of decent additions. Brighton and Wolves I guess would be up there but I'm not sure how much they've improved from last season. Currently I'd have us behind West Ham and Leicester in terms of squad quality & depth so if our aim is 7th/8th then we might have to bite the bullet and spend a little more than we are comfortable with.

He's playing like someone who knows he has a limited opportunity to show he's worth keeping around

The gap in quality between the likes of Trippier and Bruno and the fringe guys is quite something. At least pre-January they were all mostly crap so it wasn't so obvious.

They're not making a new CF and RW look any less necessary are they

Right-footer who plays on the left, doesn't seem to match with what we're after? Unless it's just a talented youngster we think we can pick up at a decent price.

This is my opinion too. Obviously you'd like to get the players you want early, get them a decent pre-season and be in before the first game. But if that isn't happening, they'll probably think "Well, there are five games before the window closes, we'd rather sign the player/players we really want and have them miss those five than panic and bring someone we don't rate as highly just to get an extra few fixtures out of them"

I've been doing the same, but I'm currently settled on the opposite. I think if you bring in a quality RW you're improving the team for 38 games. If you bring in a backup to Wilson, you're improving the team for however many games Wilson misses. Obviously, Wilson could do his knee and miss the whole season or the new RW could break their leg in September but the likely outcome is that you're going to gain more from a starting RW than you would a backup CF. Check back in with me tomorrow when I'll have changed my mind and be arguing the exact opposite point.

I'm fairly sure Watts would need to be one of the 25 (he's 22, 23 in November)

I guess it's a bit old-fashioned but I've always thought that if you want your wingers to provide assists you have a right-footer on the right and a left-footer on the left. If you want goal scorers then it's the other way round. We need the latter.

I think he's left-footed so presumably he'll play more as an inside forward (like ASM) cutting in on his stronger foot.

Agree with all of this. There was even talk that the club would rather loan him to a top League One team rather than a bottom-half Championship team on the basis that he'd be better served having as much time on the ball as possible. I'm still in the "loan him out" camp, at least until January. I just think he needs as much competitive football as possible and 90mins a tier or two down is going to help more than 20mins here and there for us. If he bosses it at Championship/League One level and there's a place for him then bring him back in January.

They wouldn't have a choice would they? As in, it's a compensation package because he'll be out of contract? I suppose they could donate the money to charity...

I reckon that's pretty much spot on. Ashworth will be doing his "centre of the wheel" thing, linking the various aspects of the football operations (first team, reserves/academy, women's team, recruitment/scouting etc) and Eales will be overseeing the financial & commercial side as you say. All looks very professional and well thought-out. Makes a change from Ashley (the hands-off owner) - Justin Barnes (role undefined) - Charnley (everything else)

But it might be that the forwards we really want (the Nunez, Osimhen types) we can't get until we start consistently pushing top 6 or so. If someone like Zapata (or Trippier...) can help us do that, then if they need to be replaced after a couple of seasons then great, we can replace them with a better calibre of player because we're a more attractive option. If you have someone like Zapata - and I'm just pulling numbers out of my arse here - £20m, three year contract on £100k. By the time he's given you a couple of seasons he's cost you about £10m in wages and he's worth about £6.5m on the books. Sell him for any more than that and you're making a profit in terms of FFP. At that stage we've got more money (increased sponsorship) and are hopefully a more attractive option for whichever striker we really want. Obviously the ideal situation is you get a load of Bruno's who can come in, improve the squad straight away and still be part of that hypothetical top-four squad, but if we can't get those, then there is a justification for moving on to stepping stone players.

I'm not sure if this is the right thread or whether it should be in the Realistic Targets one, but I think we could do a lot worse than Cornet/Sarr for £20-25m & Kalimuendo £15-20m. That's £35-45m, on top of the £50m(ish) we've spent already which keeps us within the mooted budget for the summer, you're getting a starter plus cover across all three forward positions and they've all played multiple seasons in the top flight (France/England). They're all early/mid 20s so you're bringing the average age of the squad down (which is something we're keen on apparently). Both deals can be wrapped up swiftly and allow them to bed in with a decent amount of pre-season behind them. Revisit the likes of Diaby, Paqueta, Isak next summer when we've (hopefully) had a successful season and a raft of new sponsorship deals in place.

Probably a profit in FFP terms though (amortisation etc)

Reminder - FFP didn't exist then. It does now.

I can't say I know anything about him but that's exactly the profile of striker I thought we'd be after - someone young who can backup Wilson or play out wide, but still be capable of leading the line if Wilson is out. Still every chance it's the selling club (or agent) trying to flush out more interest.

Can we get this pinned to the top of the thread or something?

Just some rough calculations here, but let's say they drop 30k tickets by a tenner. 30,000 x 10 = 300,000 x19 home games = £5.7m Consider our Fun88 deal is supposedly worth £6.5m/season they're not going to write off nearly £6m just for goodwill when the demand already greatly exceeds supply.

To be fair, Diaby would be a gamble too - you can look at his 21/22 season and compare it to Isak's 20/21. Obviously a quality player but what's to say Diaby will repeat it next season? Or in a superior league? I think (to an extent) we're going to have to take a gamble on one of those spots (RW/CF). Those slam-dunk signings like Osimhen are just out of reach for us at this stage so we have to look at potential (Diaby) or someone who has had an off-season (Isak, DCL).