Summer transfer window/Firesale 2018

Not our player of course, but Grabban has now officially joined Forest. Bunn's being linked with Albion and Kodjia with Leeds. I suspect most of our transfer activity will be outgoings if not all of it, and things could start happening very soon, as the transfer window closes in early August this year.

Can we rename this thread.. "The Xia Asset Stripping thread"?

If Xia starts asset stripping it will be much worse than selling the players, hopefully it doesn't come to that.

Being linked with a loan move for Harry Wilson from Liverpool. looks a very exciting player, almost like a Snodgrass type but with more pace, can see some similarities with Grealish as well. So I can see why we'd be interested, but whether Liverpool would let him come here under the current circumstances is another question.

Wilson sounds ideal, also being linked with Sam Gallagher the ex Blue nose.

Looks like Jedinak might be on the way out, told he can leave, and it's being reported that he's found a new club in Europe... Obviously we don't want to rely on them, but it would be nice if this means our young midfielders like Doyle-Hayes and Jack Clarke get closer to the first team, both technically very good, and they're also in Portugal, so must be in the managers thoughts for the first team.

Hopefully that means Thor gets to stay in DM but I suspect it means we'll get to see every player in the Championship run rings round Whelan.

I don't have any issue with Jedi going, we need to take this opportunity to lose a lot of the old players and start to break in the youngsters. We've tried 'experience' and 'real men' and now need to sprinkle a little 'football', 'passing' and 'energy' through the team. And if Hogan's the only top class striker remaining at the club we're going to have to pass the ball on the ground anyway!

Thor being linked with Turkey too.

STO67 wrote:Thor being linked with Turkey too.

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

deadbuzzardalive wrote:Looks like Jedinak might be on the way out, told he can leave, and it's being reported that he's found a new club in Europe... Obviously we don't want to rely on them, but it would be nice if this means our young midfielders like Doyle-Hayes and Jack Clarke get closer to the first team, both technically very good, and they're also in Portugal, so must be in the managers thoughts for the first team.

The younger players have to be in the plans because they will be the only ones left! Look, we’re being forced to do what we should have done 2yrs ago. I’ve no problem with players such as Jedinak leaving as they’re on big money with no resale value if we keep them for the season. Somehow we have to seek to become a younger, more mobile team with a sprinkling of enough quality to allow us to compete. To date we really don’t know if any of our youth players are good enough as they’ve not been given any chance for any period of time. We THINK we have some quality in O’Hare, Green, Davis, RHM, etc, but we just can’t be sure and so can’t put all our eggs in one basket with them. The one glaring problem we have is the manager, as we know he simply does not do youth players and dynamic football. If the young players are to be used and Bruce sends them out as he always does then they will fall on their arses very quickly and we’ll struggle like hell. Maybe when all our summer business is done we can look at replacing Bruce, though I’m assuming he’ll get time unfortunately. Every player is for sale and I honestly think we’ve seen the last of Grealish, Kodjia, Chester, Thor, Jedinak, & Adomah. Those 6 going probably equates to around £8m annual salary savings, and we should be recouping around £50m in transfer fees. Add that to the salary savings of around £8m per annum that must have been made with the loans going and we have some big numbers. I think we’ll still only see frees and loans coming in but that should allow us to compete on salary with some of the better available loans and frees. Ideally Richards would have the decency to retire and McCormack would look to leave for the last years of his career, then we can save another £4m per annum in salary. Definitely not holding my breath on that one though. I haven’t even mentioned Hogan, who is apparently wanted by Sheffield United, though I read they are looking to loan, which surely we’d not be stupid enough to do?

Dean Marney, just released by Burnley, training with us, surely we have enough central midfielders. He'll be 35 in January as well, Bruce's obsession with slow past their best players continues... Despite all the talk of giving youth a chance next season, I wouldn't be surprised if Green and Davis are the only ones who Bruce gives any meaningful game-time to.

If it was an experienced central defender we taking a look at I could understand it, but not another central midfielder.

deadbuzzardalive wrote:Dean Marney, just released by Burnley, training with us, surely we have enough central midfielders. He'll be 35 in January as well, Bruce's obsession with slow past their best players continues... Despite all the talk of giving youth a chance next season, I wouldn't be surprised if Green and Davis are the only ones who Bruce gives any meaningful game-time to.

If it was an experienced central defender we taking a look at I could understand it, but not another central midfielder.

Crazy, do we never learn but certainly not unexpected with Bruce in charge!

We already have Whelan in the middle as Bruce's liability player, we don't need two slow and old midfielders there solely to cover each other. This 'real man' shit needs to go out the window but then maybe Bruce is going with 'try, try, try again' or 'third time lucky'.

We won't be signing Harry Wilson on loan, he's gone to Derby County.

deadbuzzardalive wrote:We won't be signing Harry Wilson on loan, he's gone to Derby County.

Good grief he is 21, far too young for us!

Like I said, for the all the talk of us having to rely on the youth next season, I wouldn't be surprised if Green and Davis are the only two who get a serious run in the first team.

deadbuzzardalive wrote:Like I said, for the all the talk of us having to rely on the youth next season, I wouldn't be surprised if Green and Davis are the only two who get a serious run in the first team.

The Doctor and Bruce said at the start of last season that we would be using a mixture of youth and experienced professionals and it didn't happen, as Bruce does not do youth!

I know one of them is a youth himself in Šarkić, but last night for example Bruce had two goalkeepers on the bench, when one of those places could have been given to a youth player. I know the u23s played Coventry's first team earlier in the day, but our youngsters also need experience playing alongside our first teamers, and being in match day squads.

I think I was most disappointed to see Blackett-Taylor not involved, hardly encouraging for him, after a good display against Telford.

deadbuzzardalive wrote:I know one of them is a youth himself in Šarkić, but last night for example Bruce had two goalkeepers on the bench, when one of those places could have been given to a youth player. I know the u23s played Coventry's first team earlier in the day, but our youngsters also need experience playing alongside our first teamers, and being in match day squads.

I think I was most disappointed to see Blackett-Taylor not involved, hardly encouraging for him, after a good display against Telford.

We already have too many RBs - Richards, De Laet, Bree, Hutton and Elmo. They all have to be used somewhere, bearing in mind we won't be able to sell them, and I think that's why we didn't see Blackett-Taylor or any other right winger. I really like the look of him and hope he breaks into the first team (I wanted to see him there last season but never mind). Elmo wasn't much cop on the wing (and besides, I think he was at RB because of a previous partnership on the right with Snodgrass), Bree is last in line for that place and Richards isn't even in the pecking order. That leaves Hutton, who plays well on the left, and the option to go for a much more attacking formation with Chester*, Elphick and Hutton as back three and De Laet as wingback on the right and a choice of Taylor or Hutton on the left, or even Adomah* or Green. It's easy then to slot into a 4-4-1-1 by putting De Laet at RB, shifting everyone else in the back line across and adding another midfielder (or if Green or Adomah are already playing at left wingback they stay there as winger).
It's a nicer formation I think than we played last season but only if Chester stays.

*subject to us keeping them. I wonder if Bruce considered Richards playing in Chester's place if the latter does leave!

Well todays news seems to be that Spuds are in talks with us for Jack according to Sky but according to Radio WM no official offers have been made yet? Thor is of interest to Pulis at Boro? The Doc had still said nothing since arriving in the UK! We have big bills soon and no money or assets left?

Proud history, grim future!

A lot of the news is basically the same story that's been repeating all summer, yet nothing seems to actually happen, but HMRC are due to be paid again next week, so before then expect to hear that we've either sold a player, presumably either Chester or Grealish, taken out another loan against assets, or news of investment/takeover, if none of those things happen, administration will be inevitable.

Sawiris's brother Sahib, owns a football team in Egypt and also part owns FC Luzern in Switzerland, I wonder if we could use those kind of links to get a few of our players of the wage bill, obviously players have got to want to move their first and managers of those clubs want them, but could be worth a try.

From everything I’ve read it would seem that FFP doesn’t kick in for us until March 2019.............so I say that we do what others have done before and say fuck it, carry on with what we have. If we go up next May precedent says we’ll get a fine. Nobody has yet been given a points deduction.

John Percy saying that Grealish is going to ask us to allow him to join Tottenham, Here.

I always thought this thing of him wanting to stay but him having no choice but to leave because of the club's difficulties was a bit of a myth, used as an excuse to bash Xia with; just because he grew up a Villa fan doesn't mean to say he'd rather play for us, than a team in the Premier league who will be challenging for the Premier league title and competing in the champions league, it will also increase his chances of getting into the England squad, and not to mention he'll probably more than triple his wages.

The good thing for us is that Bruce has come out and said that the new owners have told him if any of our players leave then the buyers will have to pay a premium price. I personally would want at least £40m for him, that might seem unrealistic but I'm convinced he'll be worth closer to £60m if not more after a season or two in the Premier league.

I know he had his critics, but I wouldn't mind Onomah back on loan either, he didn't always play well, but when he did he was easily one of our better players, kind of reminded me of Grealish before last season, you can tell there's a good player in there, just needs to get some consistency going. As it happens he hasn't gone their tour of the US.