Why didn't we bring players in in January?

[JCONA]

To live within our means. Spending 10s of millions of pounds on footballers is outragous, especially given the current climate

However, spending a bit on wages for a loan player in a position we're short, isn't. They gambled two years ago by not bringing in players in the positions we were short, and we ended up relegated and losing far more money than we would have had we signed a decent central midfielder.

 

One point we went down by! One decent midfielder could have produced a bit of magic in a game we drew in, like Portsmouth at home, or Fulham. We gambled, looked terrible for the rest of the season and went down.

 

Im sorry but there is no way we got relegated by not having enough players.. We had plently of players, but they didn't play. We got relegated and got rid of a load of slackers and the best part of what was left got us back up- proof that we had plently of "players".

 

I was disapointed that we didn't sign another striker and a winger- we really could of done with one. And I was gutted we lost Carroll. But I do not blame our beloved owners for not loosing the plot and spending ridiculous sums of money.

Carrolls gone and we might never find out if it was the players or boards fault- it was probably a combination.. But would you really be happier if late on deadline day we decided to spend 20m+ on someone that simply wasn't worth it. Take Elmander for example, hes been good this season, would people really be happy if we continued the trend of ridiculousness and rushed through a £25m deal for him?

[brummie]

You signed quite a few players this window, though. Makoun, Bent, Bradley, Walker... your squad is still very large.

 

But I agree on the point that people seem very oblivious about how much wages, bonuses and fees add up to.

 

Our squad is tiny. We didn't even manage to name 25 players at the start of the season, we only names 23, and a good number of those were untried kids.

 

Our issue was a large number of players who contribute fuck all, but were on very generous, long term contracts, thanks to MON. For example, who in their right mind would give a 32 year old Habib Beye a 3.5 year 40k a week deal? How much will Habib Beye be contributing aged 35? Because he's going to be snarfling 40k a week, regardless.

 

 

[ohmelads]

Ashley's intentions are clearly short-term - to recoup every pound he's ploughed into the club and bail out. He obviously views selling assets and operating on a shoestring as the most viable means of achieving this, and not squad strengthening and aiming for Europe/trophy. And with Hughton gone and his puppet Pardew at the helm, he's got a manager he can walk all over to do this.

 

The best we can hope for IMO is making a good profit on the like of Tiote, Enrique etc, survival in the Prem and Ashley finally getting the money he wants to sell up.

 

I think you are probably right. Ashley is about recouping his money and getting out of town, and he'll gamble on the survival of the club with the minimal outlay to do that. Cashing in on players and scraping survival would make him a happy man, and even if we do survive he will do it all over again next season. Remember Given and N'Zogbia were sold months before relegation, with Ryan Taylor and Nolan coming in. An exercise which netted a few quid and probably trimmed the wage bill. The gamble failed as we went down. But he's doing it again.

 

Enrique, Tiote, Ben Arfa, any decent bids come in they'll be off, and the cycle begins again with us gambling survival on some substandard replacements who may or may not keep our heads above water.

 

His aim is to bring in cheap players and develop them. What he didn't say is that he will sell them on at a profit. But it's obvious that's the only way he'll quickly recoup at least some of his wasted money. It's not an Arsenal model, because they develop players for keeps. It is more like the West Ham model of a few years ago, when they had players like Carrick, Lampard, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand. All have won major honours since, but not in a West Ham shirt. I hope we won't lose the likes of Enrique, Tiote and Ben Arfa but sadly we probably will, once a decent bid comes in.

[Guest neesy111]

Since when has this 20k a week come from.  I'd be pretty sure that Ben Arfa is one of the highest paid players at the club now.

[junkhead]

Since when has this 20k a week come from.  I'd be pretty sure that Ben Arfa is one of the highest paid players at the club now.

 

Marseille generally pay big wages and he came there in a big transfer from Lyon. He must've been around 50k/week at OM.