Ross Wilson (Sporting Director)

[Miggys First Goal]

Gone all quiet on the transfers front since Gordon boarded that private jet. 
 

Howay, Wilson. Tick tock motherfucker. Pre-season will be here before you know it. 

[Mike]

This lazy cunt on vacation or sommat.

[Ben]

1 minute ago, Mike said:

This lazy cunt on vacation or sommat.

 

Half term init 

[Mike]

10 minutes ago, Ben said:

 

Half term init 

 

Cunt trimming his azaleas while half the team fucks off to the continent. 

[Interpolic]

10 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

It’s usually buying where the issues start, not selling

 

"Usually" 

 

Our hit rate before last summer was very good. 

 

So what's "usually" - just last summer where the circumstances were extremely unusual? Even that window we ended up with a couple of canny acquisitions in Thiaw and Ramsey. 

 

People are really settling into their cosy little misery pits for the summer ahead, eh. 

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

28 minutes ago, Interpolic said:

People are really settling into their cosy little misery pits for the summer ahead, eh

 

Buckle up.

[Gottlob]

I think everything is too black and white when it comes to transfers. Thiaw had a good season and has some outstanding attributes but I don't think you could call him an unmitigated success at the moment, while Ramsey showed enough to suggest he can be a good squad player and I think even Elanga could come good though provisionally you're probably looking for him to start using his pace in a more limited role.

 

Who knows what the situation will look like a few years down the line. What you can say is that the transfers we made last summer did not set us up for a good season. And you can argue that has actually been a constant for us since the first summer of Saudi ownership where we signed Isak, Botman and Pope. The next crop of Tonali, Barnes, Livramento and Hall for various reasons made a slender contribution to the 2023-24 season. Then the following summer we signed few players of note.

 

Last summer three senior footballing figures - Eddie Howe our highly experienced and hands-on manager, Andy Howe who has been working with him for the last fifteen years and was so highly thought of that he was promoted to oversee all incomings, and Steve Nickson our head or recruitment for almost a decade - led the process as we spent £250 million on players who largely appear to have been near the top of our list of targets. Having missed out on several strikers we then took a gamble on Woltemade, whose signing was still seen as something of a coup.

 

Those transfers by and large did not work out over the course of the season. We signed the wrong players or for one reason or another couldn't get enough out of them on the pitch. Some will remain works in progress but to have a successful season next time around it feels like we are going to need a few signings who are ready to hit the ground running. At the very least a new goalkeeper and something to radically improve the quality of our attack.

[TheBrownBottle]

1 hour ago, Interpolic said:

 

"Usually" 

 

Our hit rate before last summer was very good. 

 

So what's "usually" - just last summer where the circumstances were extremely unusual? Even that window we ended up with a couple of canny acquisitions in Thiaw and Ramsey. 

 

People are really settling into their cosy little misery pits for the summer ahead, eh. 

FFS - that’s not what I meant.  Our hit rate was close to 100% in terms of transfers until last summer; I’ve never said anything except that.

 

What I was saying is that selling is much, much easier than buying.  So selling a player isn’t ’acting fast’.

 

If anything with the way football’s finances work selling before 1st July isn’t smart, unless of course our finances this season are much worse than we currently understand.

[timeEd32]

1 minute ago, TheBrownBottle said:

FFS - that’s not what I meant.  Our hit rate was close to 100% in terms of transfers until last summer; I’ve never said anything except that.

 

What I was saying is that selling is much, much easier than buying.  So selling a player isn’t ’acting fast’.

 

If anything with the way football’s finances work selling before 1st July isn’t smart, unless of course our finances this season are much worse than we currently understand.

 

I am now perpetually worried about this. 

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, timeEd32 said:

 

I am now perpetually worried about this. 

Likewise - we don’t have a stellar record; and I’d bet my house that our forecasts weren’t allowing for the reduced prize money from a bottom-half finish 

[Miggys First Goal]

This cunt fucked up the Gordon deal?

[Leemond]

Probably couldn't have handled the Gordon transfer any better. Absolutely great deal for everyone involved.

 

 

Edited Friday at 22:04 by Leemond

[Ikon]

4 hours ago, Leemond said:

Probably couldn't have handled the Gordon transfer any better. Absolutely great deal for everyone involved.

 

 

 

Sí

[Skeletor]

Start signing players please.

[OpenC]

 the season has been finished for five days, I reckon they're on it this time

[BennyBlanco]

Early days until we start actually making some signings but, I dunno, I just feel that there’s actually some structure and something actually resembling a plan this summer. 
 

Im basing this off social media noise, my own horrendous reading of a situation and next to fuck all by the way. 

[lovejoy]

On 28/05/2026 at 22:14, timeEd32 said:

 

I am now perpetually worried about this. 

The athletic article makes it sound like a perfect storm which led to it being done so quickly.

 

Gordon wants to go 

We want to sell 

Flick identified him in September as a priority and he was a ‘special request’ from the manager.

We’re keen to normalise asset sales and act quickly after the Isak clusterfuck.

Their bid was a bit of a surprise in terms of how quickly they reached our figure, something we’d been talking to Bayern for weeks about and they wouldn’t.

Barcelona needed to do it before July 1st ideally and both clubs were worried about the impact of the World Cup and an effect on value either way.

 

Time will tell of course, but I wouldn’t be overly concerned.

[toon25]

On 28/05/2026 at 22:14, timeEd32 said:

 

I am now perpetually worried about this. 

 

I've heard several of these football finance experts - Borson one of them - reckon we're in good nick this summer. 

[The Prophet]

26 minutes ago, lovejoy said:

The athletic article makes it sound like a perfect storm which led to it being done so quickly.

 

Gordon wants to go 

We want to sell 

Flick identified him in September as a priority and he was a ‘special request’ from the manager.

We’re keen to normalise asset sales and act quickly after the Isak clusterfuck.

Their bid was a bit of a surprise in terms of how quickly they reached our figure, something we’d been talking to Bayern for weeks about and they wouldn’t.

Barcelona needed to do it before July 1st ideally and both clubs were worried about the impact of the World Cup and an effect on value either way.

 

Time will tell of course, but I wouldn’t be overly concerned.

 

 

Plus after June 30th, PSR will be binned.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

On 28/05/2026 at 22:12, TheBrownBottle said:

FFS - that’s not what I meant.  Our hit rate was close to 100% in terms of transfers until last summer; I’ve never said anything except that.

 

What I was saying is that selling is much, much easier than buying.  So selling a player isn’t ’acting fast’.

 

If anything with the way football’s finances work selling before 1st July isn’t smart, unless of course our finances this season are much worse than we currently understand.

Selling a player fast is acting fast. 

[TheBrownBottle]

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Selling a player fast is acting fast. 

It’s not difficult, though - it’s easier to act fast when you’ve got a willing buyer and a player who’d jump at the move. 
 

Signing players is far harder - and if Gordon’s move is to go through before 1st July then I’m not at all convinced that this is a good thing; all of the transfer profit will drop into this financial year, so unless we’ve made an absolute arse of the books again, then it isn’t a good thing. 

[duo]

On 27/05/2026 at 22:55, CallumG6 said:

Give him the keys to the city

A bit early for that - needs to be judged on incomings.

[Mattoon]

59 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

It’s not difficult, though - it’s easier to act fast when you’ve got a willing buyer and a player who’d jump at the move. 
 

Signing players is far harder - and if Gordon’s move is to go through before 1st July then I’m not at all convinced that this is a good thing; all of the transfer profit will drop into this financial year, so unless we’ve made an absolute arse of the books again, then it isn’t a good thing. 

 

Surely by the same logic then buying players is easy if you have a willing seller and a player who would jump at the move?

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, Mattoon said:

 

Surely by the same logic then buying players is easy if you have a willing seller and a player who would jump at the move?

Buying a player involved negotiation with both the selling club and the player - and negotiating with the player was what went wrong for much of last summer.  
 

I’m sure there will be a lot of incomings, and Wilson’s performance can be assessed at the end of the window (and next season), but I don’t think selling a player to Barcelona is the most difficult of tasks. 

[Mattoon]

7 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Buying a player involved negotiation with both the selling club and the player - and negotiating with the player was what went wrong for much of last summer.  
 

I’m sure there will be a lot of incomings, and Wilson’s performance can be assessed at the end of the window (and next season), but I don’t think selling a player to Barcelona is the most difficult of tasks. 

 

Club and player, Mitchell burned bridges and the makeshift transfer team had no experience, I don't imagine selling a player to a team who wants that player and who wants to go to said team is very tasking, no, however extracting the deal that we did from a team who knew that the player was desperate to join them was good negotiation by Wilson. I do agree that bringing players in will be the real test of his mettle, but I also think if we're targeting the players we are rumoured to be then it should be just as easy to bring them in as it was to sell Gordon.