Akpom's Instagram Story

[Andy_W]

Andy

I can understand some reasons for the higher Gyokeres fee - for example

There is closer to 3 years difference, Chuba was born in Oct 1995 and Gyokeres in June 1998 and those 3 years are the very peak years of a player's career. If each peak year is worth 3m Euros that's worth almost £8m to 9m Euros. Sorry I don't accept the average player is lasting a lot longer. Peak age is still 27 for a typical forward. The game is getting faster.

Gyokeres goal scoring over last 2 years is 38 goals to Chuba's 33 league goals. Both are excellent record btw

Gyokeres is able to play as a lone striker, which allowed Coventry to overload midfield, but he can also create goals for others as shown against us in the play offs. Chuba did complete some assists, but not to the same degree.

Gyokeres is a regular Swedish International and has scored 3 international goals (FIFA Ranking 23rd). Chuba has said he would play for Nigeria, but they haven't shown any interest that I am aware of. (FIFA Ranking 40th)

Chuba goalscoring did benefit from having more creative players in the Boro team relative to the Coventry team.

Coventry supposedly was asking £20m in the summer of 22 for Gyokeres, I am sure this Board would have sold Akpom for £2m or less in the summer of 2022.

Overall as said I would have liked £15m for Akpom if we had to sell him, but we all are a bit greedy for our own player.

Merson was a England International (played against Argentina in 1998 quarter finals) and had won the equivalent of a Premier League, FAC and League final medals and played in two European finals. Different league to Chuba. It was also on about £120k/week in todays money.

Nano - the fee Coventry received was in Euros not pounds. The have received 8m Euros more than us plus 2m potentially for add ons. But as shown above Gyokeres has a number of factors that increase his value.

Don't disagree with most of that, but my views are slightly different. See if I had to have Akpom, Gyokeres or Merson (boro version), I'd pick chuba every time. The only other player in the champo we've had who was possibly more of a threat or worth more was Traore, but he was playing on his own. We cocked up the contract on him too, considering the risk we took paying ~9m for him.

Gyokeres got 17 and 21 though, chuba didn't even play in the champo and then got 29, as a 10. I don't think anyone has ever done anything near this as a 10 or second striker? Sure Gyokeres was doing plenty which enabled the whole team, but almost every attack was linking through chuba too, even when he wasn't scoring etc. Coventry were not a bad side, they got to the play-off final, and he had Hamer in there with him and a few others, who are certainly no mugs.

Different players, but chuba peaked higher than gyokeres, despite only being back in the fold a year and with a manager who had lost the plot and a new guy in his first proper job. Gyokeres certainly suited cov more, and chuba suited us more, especially when he had a competent striker in front of him and better wide players, like he had later in the year.

Coventry could ask what they like last year, they didn't get it and nobody was offering that. They might have got 12-15 though, but didn't have to sell as he had an extra year left. Obviously doing that two years in a row, and slightly better will have improved his value. His best game against us was still the one where he destroyed us in 21/22 though, he was quiet against us 22/23 I think.

Players last longer as treatment of injuries and sports science is miles better, helping them from when they're 15-40 or whatever. Sure, players are expected to run more, but they're also not drinking 30 pints a week and smoking either, and we know how both of those can hurt careers and age the body.

People were thinking 27 was a player's peak in the 70's, it doesn't apply to the 2020's. 25 year old players also have another 15 years of advancement on today's 40-year-olds.

I don't want any of this to read as disrespect for Merson, as he was quality, our best player, and I had the Merson 10 shirt till someone stole it off the washing line. But Merson was 29 when we bought him, and sold him when he was 30. He was a bit part international/ sub, who got most of his caps in 92 and 93, when we didn't qualify for the Euro's or World cup. When he played in 98 he was pretty much a sub or friendlies only in another under-performing or poor England side. The England teams after and since have been a lot better, mersons time was a low point for English football. The boro Merson wouldn't get near the current England team, like Chuba won't. He only got 1 cap after we sold him, a friendly. We won 5 games in the caps he played, which for England is awful. He only had a 1000 minutes total, Barmby had more than that, in better England sides.

We were loaded back then, compared to other teams of similar "size", not the case any more unfortunately.

 

[Redwurzel]

Ref Peak Years for strikers (now)

Example Jordan Rhodes has been a striker in the Championship from 2012 to 2023, with 5 different clubs. He was born Feb 1990.

His peak year for Championship goals were clearly 2012-2016. (age 22-26) see below.

Physios have kept him playing until he is 33. I don't know if he has retired yet but its probably close

Every player is slightly different, but not radically different. Jordan probably peaked two years earlier than the average, but has struggled for goals since 26.

Jordan Rhodes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It pains me to write it, but Gyokeres created the goal that put us out of the play offs. He certainly has something about him that make him worth that bit extra. Even on his own at the Riverside he was a handful and allowed Coventry to pack out the midfield. I was surprised no EPL teams were willing to pay around £18m for him.

I absolutely loved Chuba last season, but if I was offered only one of them for say the next 4 years, I would go Gyokeres.

 

[Laughing]

Akpom is only worth what someone will pay. He had, up until last year, been worth about 2m. One outstanding season doesn't garuantee he follows that up the next season.

We got a good fee for him and I expect all parties are happy.

If he was worth 15 million some other club would have come in with a higher offer than ajax. They didn't because he isn't.

 

[Andy_W]

Ref Peak Years for strikers (now)

Example Jordan Rhodes has been a striker in the Championship from 2012 to 2023, with 5 different clubs. He was born Feb 1990.

His peak year for Championship goals were clearly 2012-2016. (age 22-26) see below.

Physios have kept him playing until he is 33. I don't know if he has retired yet but its probably close

Every player is slightly different, but not radically different. Jordan probably peaked two years earlier than the average, but has struggled for goals since 26.

Jordan Rhodes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It pains me to write it, but Gyokeres created the goal that put us out of the play offs. He certainly has something about him that make him worth that bit extra. Even on his own at the Riverside he was a handful and allowed Coventry to pack out the midfield. I was surprised no EPL teams were willing to pay around £18m for him.

I absolutely loved Chuba last season, but if I was offered only one of them for say the next 4 years, I would go Gyokeres.

Don't disagree with that, but I think they're horses for courses, I'm not convinced we need a lone target man, as we don't play in that style, we play a style which is aiming to hold onto the ball and link in, link out and try and move their players around to create space for a rapid forward. This works when you have Chuba and Archer, and other creativity with Giles etc, and had Archer been here all year he would have outscored Gyokeres for Coventry I think.

Don't get me wrong mind, I'm sure Gyokeres could play a different role to the one he had at Coventry, as he's a class player, but he was absolutely perfect for that role, like Chuba was for our 10 role with a pacey forward. I suppose if we had him we wouldn't play a lone forward, expecing him to hold the ball 10-20 seconds whilst the rest of the team got up the pitch. I think we would end up playing a more "two up top" style, and sacrificing some possession, but that changes a lot. That seemed a bit more like a wilder style, if he had the players.

Last year, before going into the new season I was saying we should break the bank for Gyokeres (repeatedly), pay up to 15m, and people were saying I was mad, yet going after Jorgen Strand Larson for ~12m was ok? Well, we would have got in a striker much better than other targets, for the whole season and had him tied in on a 3-4 year contract and could have sold at a healthy profit. Gyokeres just got two in his first game also, good player.

I think our game has changed now, under Carrick, and we need a Chuba or an Archer, but that is assuming one of the other lads can step into one of the other roles, or we get someone else as good (difficult).

 

[Andy_W]

Akpom is only worth what someone will pay. He had, up until last year, been worth about 2m. One outstanding season doesn't garuantee he follows that up the next season.

We got a good fee for him and I expect all parties are happy.

If he was worth 15 million some other club would have come in with a higher offer than ajax. They didn't because he isn't.

He's also worth what he is to the club in the time he has left on his contract, the value of this depends on what your aim is, what other targets you think you will get etc.

Clubs won't pay 15m for a player when some other club has just had an offer accepted for £10m (lens). We accepted that as it was getting late in the window and we crapped our pants. They will just pay £10.5 and some add-ons which may not materialise, and offer him more wages, or a bigger club. There might have been 10 clubs who were interested once word got out that we were taking £10m. Some smaller clubs than Ajax might have been willing to pay more, but no chance of getting that once you've accepted 10m and there's a big club in at that price. It's like any negotiation, you can't go up as the seller, you only go down.
Loads of clubs might have thought we wouldn't sell for that, as they assumed we would have been promotion contenders.

We clearly value taking in £10m, and spending £5m on an unknown. It might work out or he might end up a dud like many strikers we've bought. A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush, every day of the week. It's worth more than 4 in the bush, when you've not had a 20-goal bird in your hand for 16 championship years, and you've been trying to catch one every year. Never mind the one in your hand just got 29, not 20, as a No 10.

I just think had we thought we were going to be pushing for promotion then that £10m becomes peanuts compared to what you gain (never mind what we've recently recouped). It's not like you have to get zero if it doesn't work either, we could have got him on a new contract before Christmas, I'm convinced.

Sure, Chuba's season might have been a complete one-off, but even half the goals as a 10 could still be worth an absolute fortune to us, if we also had other players in to get us promoted. How often do players go from 29 goals to being a dud? Can't think of any as all the ones who recently got more than 25 are now in the prem.

We might just be skint, and if that's the case, that's fine, gotta do what you gotta do.

I don't buy the model of selling your best player cheap (or allowing a contract to get to that) and risking 4-6m on largely unknown players, multiple times, that you're not good at picking out though.

23/24 +3m
22/23 + 17m
21/22 - 11m
20/21 - 4m
19/20 + 11m
18/19 + 27m
--------------
Balance +40m since coming down from the prem, plus parachute payments (which probably got wiped out by wages) etc.

What have we got now, other than a small squad with no players who get in every side in the division? We have lots of good players, but good isn't good enough when you have some spots below par, and you need a very good average or some absolute stars to carry the team to go up.

 

[Laughing]

He's also worth what he is to the club in the time he has left on his contract, the value of this depends on what your aim is, what other targets you think you will get etc.

Clubs won't pay 15m for a player when some other club has just had an offer accepted for £10m (lens). We accepted that as it was getting late in the window and we crapped our pants. They will just pay £10.5 and some add-ons which may not materialise, and offer him more wages, or a bigger club. There might have been 10 clubs who were interested once word got out that we were taking £10m. Some smaller clubs than Ajax might have been willing to pay more, but no chance of getting that once you've accepted 10m and there's a big club in at that price. It's like any negotiation, you can't go up as the seller, you only go down.
Loads of clubs might have thought we wouldn't sell for that, as they assumed we would have been promotion contenders.

We clearly value taking in £10m, and spending £5m on an unknown. It might work out or he might end up a dud like many strikers we've bought. A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush, every day of the week. It's worth more than 4 in the bush, when you've not had a 20-goal bird in your hand for 16 championship years, and you've been trying to catch one every year. Never mind the one in your hand just got 29, not 20, as a No 10.

I just think had we thought we were going to be pushing for promotion then that £10m becomes peanuts compared to what you gain (never mind what we've recently recouped). It's not like you have to get zero if it doesn't work either, we could have got him on a new contract before Christmas, I'm convinced.

Sure, Chuba's season might have been a complete one-off, but even half the goals as a 10 could still be worth an absolute fortune to us, if we also had other players in to get us promoted. How often do players go from 29 goals to being a dud? Can't think of any as all the ones who recently got more than 25 are now in the prem.

We might just be skint, and if that's the case, that's fine, gotta do what you gotta do.

I don't buy the model of selling your best player cheap (or allowing a contract to get to that) and risking 4-6m on largely unknown players, multiple times, that you're not good at picking out though.

23/24 +3m
22/23 + 17m
21/22 - 11m
20/21 - 4m
19/20 + 11m
18/19 + 27m
--------------
Balance +40m since coming down from the prem, plus parachute payments (which probably got wiped out by wages) etc.

What have we got now, other than a small squad with no players who get in every side in the division? We have lots of good players, but good isn't good enough when you have some spots below par, and you need a very good average or some absolute stars to carry the team to go up.

Too much opinion in there Andy that I don't agree with. We'd go back and forth endlessly.

What I will say its your paragraph about nobody is going to offer more than 10 million once we accepted 10 million is nuts. It presupposes that was the first offer we got, it wasn't. It also assumes we could just say no, hang on to him and lost him for nothing. As a club we couldn't afford to do that.

Finally your last paragraph is insulting to the entire team. We will finish top 6 this season with what we have. We may be marginally weaker than last season but we are stronger than the squad that belonged to us last season.

 

[Nano]

Too much opinion in there Andy that I don't agree with. We'd go back and forth endlessly.

What I will say its your paragraph about nobody is going to offer more than 10 million once we accepted 10 million is nuts. It presupposes that was the first offer we got, it wasn't. It also assumes we could just say no, hang on to him and lost him for nothing. As a club we couldn't afford to do that.

Finally your last paragraph is insulting to the entire team. We will finish top 6 this season with what we have. We may be marginally weaker than last season but we are stronger than the squad that belonged to us last season.

I can't see this squad being good enough for top 6. There are too many weaknesses, especially outside of the first 11. One injury to Howson who is 35, Hackney, Engels (who himself is an unknown), whoever plays 10 (likely an unknown), Latte (who is an unknown) and we've got incredibly weak back-ups. Most of the squad is completely untested at this level. They could be good but equally they could be poor. We need our unknowns to all be hits and to not get injured or we end up with Coulson, Barlaser or Crooks playing. Far too many unknowns to be confident of anything.

When he played in 98 he was pretty much a sub or friendlies only in another under-performing or poor England side.

England weren't weak in 98. That team was very good and he was competing with players like Beckham, McManaman and Scholes in the centre or Sheringham, Shearer and Owen up front.

 

[Andy_W]

I can't see this squad being good enough for top 6. There are too many weaknesses, especially outside of the first 11. One injury to Howson who is 35, Hackney, Engels (who himself is an unknown), whoever plays 10 (likely an unknown), Latte (who is an unknown) and we've got incredibly weak back-ups. Most of the squad is completely untested at this level. They could be good but equally they could be poor. We need our unknowns to all be hits and to not get injured or we end up with Coulson, Barlaser or Crooks playing. Far too many unknowns to be confident of anything.


England weren't weak in 98. That team was very good and he was competing with players like Beckham, McManaman and Scholes in the centre or Sheringham, Shearer and Owen up front.

Yeah, I'm a bit disheartened when I'm usually full of optimism. Looks like we're leaving a lot to the loans, which will be tough, especially if the players look at us and think we look kind of weak/ thin. We look much thinner this year than last year, and last year was thin!

I expect Carrick will get a better tune out of the team than the squad would get otherwise though, current bet is 8th.

I'm not so sure, at the time I thought we were alright but looking back it seems a lot of very good players but early or late in their careers. The average age of the squad was good, 27.5 years old, but only 5 players in the squad from 25-30. Two of those were batty and anderton, both who were not good and both got a lot of minutes. Merson wasn't really competing, he was cover in friendles and only got 42 mins at the world cup where we went out before the quarters, and the team who beat us went out in the quarters. Our wolrd ranking was very low for most of 93-98, averaging about 15th. Did alright in the Euro's but Merson didn't go (because of his boozing).

 

[Andy_W]

Too much opinion in there Andy that I don't agree with. We'd go back and forth endlessly.

What I will say its your paragraph about nobody is going to offer more than 10 million once we accepted 10 million is nuts. It presupposes that was the first offer we got, it wasn't. It also assumes we could just say no, hang on to him and lost him for nothing. As a club we couldn't afford to do that.

Finally your last paragraph is insulting to the entire team. We will finish top 6 this season with what we have. We may be marginally weaker than last season but we are stronger than the squad that belonged to us last season.

Rejecting offers of <10m isn't anything to praise, it doesn't even make the low bar. It would be like me rejecting an offer on my iPhone for £50, which doesn't deserve a pat on the back.

Agree a club not thinking promotion was possible could risk that, but one which thinks it will be top 3 should consider it well worth the risk. We'll risk more than £10m this year on players we know nothing about.

We only finished 4th last year with a much better side, one which got robbed of a few points, underperformed, overperformed and then found its level. We've lost our 4 best players, and no sign of any proven replacements. We will get some loans of course, but will we nail them like last year/ esp after Christmas? Difficult.

 

[theredrooster]

The bottom line is if he wouldn't sign a new contract it wasn't worth the risk. We'd be like Blackburn this year waving goodbye to an asset worth millions for nothing and having to start again (not to mention keeping a disgruntled asset who was denied a move). Far better to get some decent money and reinvest. We aren't rich enough to gamble on losing that amount of money.

Best scenario for me would have been Akpom agreeing to another years extension with a gentleman's agreement that if we weren't going up then we would let him go next January or in the summer for a fair fee (a bit like what alleged happened with Tavernier). However, that wasn't happening and I can understand it from Akpom's point of view, at 27, going on 28 he didn't really have time to wait another year to see if things would work out. Once Ajax came in it was a no brainer for him.

 

[Redwurzel]

I do agree we are not as strong as we were last season as we stand today. The betting exchanges have us currently around 9th/10th which confirms this. I would hope the team will be strengthened in the next 13 days. We have taken no loans to date and have at least 2 squad places available.

Realitically we were faced with giving Chuba a significant pay increase for his to extend his contract or sell. We have to make assumptions on what Chuba was offered at Ajax - Lets say £40k/week for 5 years (Ajax are a big club with alot of transfer money received of late). We do know its 5 years. If we match that its a £10m wage commitment with no value at the end. As a fan I would have wanted that, but I also would be concerned that the Club can take that gamble. It would be Ok if we get promoted, but if not it would limit any other purchases. We are not the Boro of 1998 money wise, more like Luton Coventry or Forest where we have to develop players. I remember when we had Britt on a big wage say in the years 2019-2021 and it felt like the squad was distorted with us bringing Bola, Brown and Djiksteel etc on low fees and wages to compensate for Britt's high wages. No other club would buy him neither for a fee. In those years we ran up large losses.

Ref no top goalscorers sold and top goals scorers do it year after year - Championship clubs who don't get promoted nearly always sell the Championship League's top goal scorer, the exception in the last 10 years was Daryl Murphy who scored about the same as Chuba and got Ipswich into the 2015 play offs. He stayed at Ipswich and did not repeat his feat and went to Newcastle in 2016/7 and got 10 goals in 35 games in their Championship winning season. Ipswich hung on to him and lost money (he was not young) and did not get into the play offs in 2016. (my ref for Murphy was the Sky Commentary last week).

Ref England being rubbish in 1998 - they reached a WC quarter final and were beaten on pens, In 1996 they reached the Euros Semis beaten on pens. I believe Merson started in that 1998 quarter final. Rubbish was the 1970s when England failed to qualify for 2 WCs in 1974 and 1978.

Ref setting transfer markers by accepting a fee - At some point if you want to sell you have agree a fee based on your/market valuation. We know Sheff United offered £8m and we said no. Ajax and Lens could have said 12m Euros and we could have said no, higher, and they could have said bye bye, we think you want around 18m Euros and Gyokeres was 20m and three years younger, ..you are out of touch and we are wasting our time. In the mean time, the two players we want, are sold, and we needed the Akpom money to buy them with.

 

[coluka]

Does that include winning the Champions League?

Probably, the trouble is they are in the Europa League play offs I think.

 

[Laughing]

Rejecting offers of <10m isn't anything to praise, it doesn't even make the low bar. It would be like me rejecting an offer on my iPhone for £50, which doesn't deserve a pat on the back.

Agree a club not thinking promotion was possible could risk that, but one which thinks it will be top 3 should consider it well worth the risk. We'll risk more than £10m this year on players we know nothing about.

We only finished 4th last year with a much better side, one which got robbed of a few points, underperformed, overperformed and then found its level. We've lost our 4 best players, and no sign of any proven replacements. We will get some loans of course, but will we nail them like last year/ esp after Christmas? Difficult.

Again Andy, just a lot of unsubstantiated opinion. If Chuba was worth 15 million, someone would have beat Ajax's offerr, they didn't.

What we can say, for certainty is that the club thought the deal they did with Ajax, was the best they could get. You don't agree, despite not knowing what went on. That's fine, but it has nothing to back it up.

 

[Laughing]

I can't see this squad being good enough for top 6. There are too many weaknesses, especially outside of the first 11. One injury to Howson who is 35, Hackney, Engels (who himself is an unknown), whoever plays 10 (likely an unknown), Latte (who is an unknown) and we've got incredibly weak back-ups. Most of the squad is completely untested at this level. They could be good but equally they could be poor. We need our unknowns to all be hits and to not get injured or we end up with Coulson, Barlaser or Crooks playing. Far too many unknowns to be confident of anything.


England weren't weak in 98. That team was very good and he was competing with players like Beckham, McManaman and Scholes in the centre or Sheringham, Shearer and Owen up front.

I may end up agreeing, However, we heard the same at the start of last season. The team we have now, is every bit as good as the one we started last season with.

It is, essentially carrick's job to take what he has and make the best of it. He may change tactics, he may not.

I think that Rogers will make a very good no 10. I think had we started with rogerrs at 10 and left crooks on the bench with forsse through the middle, we would have competed much better. Would we have won? I don't know, but we wouldn't ahve looked like we did in the first 45.

The new guys, I don't know yet, but you expect an improvement at left back, don't we?

The team will gel and get better and Carrick will find a way to play a) hist best 11 and b) how to get the best out of them.

 

[Andy_W]

Again Andy, just a lot of unsubstantiated opinion. If Chuba was worth 15 million, someone would have beat Ajax's offerr, they didn't.

What we can say, for certainty is that the club thought the deal they did with Ajax, was the best they could get. You don't agree, despite not knowing what went on. That's fine, but it has nothing to back it up.

It is an opinion, but it's not the first time we've seemingly had our pants pulled down, there's a pattern.
It's also an unfounded opinion saying £10m is a good deal, just because boro say it is, doesn't mean it is.
Same as saying we couldn't have got more, or saying we couldn't have got him on a longer contract (ensuring we could get more, and would not get forced) etc.

Yeah, they probably thought it was the best they could get then, for the circumstances they were in then, for the league position target they had at the time, that's fine, I just assumed we had higher aims or more bottle. The problem is the circumstance which led to us being in that position in the first place. Selling apple stock for £3 is fine when the market price is £3, and you've got no other money to pay the bills, you gotta do what you got to do. But if you got yourself in a better position where you don't need to sell, or can choose when you want to sell, then you'll do better, or you should, as you have more good options.

To be honest, with how hard the league is going to be to get a promotion this year, I don't actually blame us for cashing in if we didn't think we had a fair or good chance of going up. This is probably the only circumstance I can accept we should sell, but that still doesn't help that he only had a year left.

I didn't assume we would be good at getting contracts sorted though, we seem good at having to keep poor players on high wages, and poor at getting good or promising players nailed onto suitable contracts, or keeping them happy.

I also don't assume we will be able to spend all that money, or get particularly good value on what we do buy, as we've historically not been great at that either.

Hopefully we start to buck some trends, onwards and upwards (I hope), but the league is going to be exceptionally tough.

 

[BoroMart]

We clearly value taking in £10m, and spending £5m on an unknown

10m is about 30% of our revenue isn't it. Any business that is prepared to write off 35% of it's revenue won't last.

It might work out or he might end up a dud like many strikers we've bought.

That happens with every player you sign, and, in fact every player you retain on a longer contract. Akpom may have had knee problems this year and not played, he might have lost his form, he might have been man marked out of games. We just don't know and have to make what appears the right decision for the club.

We might just be skint, and if that's the case, that's fine, gotta do what you gotta do.

IT's not about being skint, it's about playing the FFP game. We need to build up an FFP surplus to be able to go for it one season. Brighton and Brentford both have this in common, they built that surplus then signed a number of high profile expensive players to get them over the line. That seems the sensible and most effective approach for us.

I don't buy the model of selling your best player cheap

Cheap is relative. For us Akpom is the 8th biggest fee we have ever received. That's for a 27 year old with apparently one good season. We need to make those level of sales more regular so that it's a significant income stream and gives us scope for investment.

We'll get plenty of signings wrong, but we will get them right as well and the key is we have a proper department and analysis process, so expect improvements in recruiting. We've got great value so far from the team, with only Hoppe as a failure.

Forss was 3m with bonuses, must be worth at least that, possibly more
Hoppe was 2m rising to 3m which won't happen, probably get 1m back off him
Clarke 2m, good value but injuries held him back could easily be worth more though when fit
Lenihan was free and worth 3m
Smith free, worth 1m
Dieng at 2m looks a steal
Rav 500k, must be worth double
Silvera 600k early days but looks has potential to be worth 4 times that
Rogers 1m, again looks like the potential to be worth 4 or 5 times more in a couple of years.

11-12m spent, probably worth 17m today with the potential to be worth 25+

We've got remarkably good value for the money spent. Big questions over Engel and Latte Lath at 5.5m rising to about 7m, but no reason to be overly concerned about those fees. If one comes good it pays for both, if both come good were in a good position.

Glover and Gilbert must be worth 2m between them signed for up to 1m

 

[BoroMart]

Same as saying we couldn't have got more, or saying we couldn't have got him on a longer contract (ensuring we could get more, and would not get forced) etc.

Very few players in their final year get a high value sale, that's just the way it is. We need to be smarter with our contract management in future, and with the Hackney, Fry etc. contracts signed recently we are trying.

 

[Andy_W]

Very few players in their final year get a high value sale, that's just the way it is. We need to be smarter with our contract management in future, and with the Hackney, Fry etc. contracts signed recently we are trying.

Yeah, by that I more meant we could have got more if we had tied him down more. Or just listed him for sale straight after the play-offs if we knew we were going to accept a daft price. Stir up some interest and put a price tag of £18m, in the hope you get £15 or whatever.

No matter which way you do it, letting a league player of the year go for £10m is bonkers, even worse if they go for zero but there's no reason to let that happen.

 

[Redwurzel]

I didn't go today. I can't get to every game.

The all fellow FMTTM Board Members..

How did Latte Lath compare with a younger version of Akpom, say when we bought him in 2020?

Did you look worth £4.3m?

 

[Andy_W]

I didn't go today. I can't get to every game.

The all fellow FMTTM Board Members..

How did Latte Lath compare with a younger version of Akpom, say when we bought him in 2020?

Did you look worth £4.3m?

He looked really good, quite clever and very energetic/ quick, deservedly man of the match, but we were playing Huddersfield at home lets not forget, they not a good side. Akpom got a goal on his debut though, and one game is far to early to make any comparisons. Also Akpom’s best position clearly isn’t up front, where everyone thought it was for years, and his performances went from below average to POTY.

Suppose we need to be comparing him to Archer and he seemed to be a lot more involved than archer, despite having worse service, so that’s a good sign. If we improve the service, he’ll get a lot of chances and we just have to hope he can finish them off. At this minute if I had to spend £15m on archer or £5m on Lath, for this side, I’d probably go with the latter, but will have a better idea after 10 games or so.

Don’t recall much about his shooting/ finishing yesterday, as Silvera’s terrible finishing masked everything out.

Roger’s is going to need more time in Chuba’s position, but he’s a really young land so will hopefully improve quickly.