Lewis O'Brien wants to stay

I don’t want to be negative but I don’t really see a lot of others seem to see in terms of his quality. He’s very industrious and always shows for the ball, but as said above he doesn’t impact the way we play or the game itself like Howson and Hackney do. I always thought he’d sort of played off the front for Huddersfield, more of a 10, akin to a free role, which was when he stood out. I don’t see him playing that role for us. I think we could do with upgrading him and Barlaser this summer tbh.
 
Redwurzel said:
He would have to take quite a bit less than £40k/week to come to the Boro more like £20k/week.
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Exactly. It's not uncommon for PL contracts to have wage reduction clauses as high as 50%. It is possible that his Forest contract will reduce to around 20-25k per week if they are in the Championship.
In which case we are more likely to be able to sign him.

If Forest are still in the PL, I think a loan is more likely or Forest would likely have to compensate him to incentivise him taking wage drop.
 
Id love him to stay but I cant see Forest taking a hit of £4-5m on him to allow us to get the deal done - I dont see us spending more than £3-4m on any single signing
 
Jonny Ingbar said:
I think there's zero chance of us going anywhere near £4m.

We'll have paid a loan fee already I guess, given Forest wanted a permanent move for him last summer, so that needs factoring in.

I'd think around £1.5 - 2m would be our ceiling, assuming his contract is doable.
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Was thinking it might depend on how big of a loss Forest are prepared to take on him - they bought him for £8m so us signing him for £2m would represent a significant loss, but again it will depend on how desperate they'll be to offload him.
 
O’Christ.

I don’t know, depends how much they want. He’s hardly pulled up any trees.
 
parmoboy said:
They might choose to offload the high earners who don't have that Championship experience.

O'Brien has proven himself at this level and that may influence their thinking.

Smallbone had seemingly been classed as being surplus to requirements by Southampton when they were in the Premier League, and so they sent him out on loan to Stoke, but he's been a first teamer for Southampton this season in the Championship.
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Yes, it's possible. But they'll want committed players too, and they've messed him about signing him, then not playing him, then not giving him a squad number then messing up his loans, then sending him out to the US because it was his only option to kick a ball in anger.

I think they have a squad of 40 players that they "own". There would need to be a huge cull, and many of those will be very difficult to shift due to having relatively high wages. It's not impossible we see Mowatt a regular for West Brom when it looked like his days there were over, but I'd be surprised, after they wasted two years of his career.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
I don’t want to be negative but I don’t really see a lot of others seem to see in terms of his quality. He’s very industrious and always shows for the ball, but as said above he doesn’t impact the way we play or the game itself like Howson and Hackney do. I always thought he’d sort of played off the front for Huddersfield, more of a 10, akin to a free role, which was when he stood out. I don’t see him playing that role for us. I think we could do with upgrading him and Barlaser this su
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I think he's got better through the last 10 games or so but you'd expect that after a nasty injury.

I'm not sure he's the right man in that midfield 2 though and I don't know where else he would fit in. I wouldn't mind seeing him in that LF position if we had Hackney and Howson available but that hasn't been the case has it.

I think the problem would be lack of goals if he played there. We need that position chipping in with goals
 
He's got better as the season has gone on I think so potentially he could get back to the Huddersfield version. I would prefer to spend the money on O'brien than a project.

On the other hand, he is not an upgrade on howson (but seemingly nobody is as we've been looking for ages). We desperately need to find another Boateng type to screen our defense. We currently concede way too many where out midfield has seemingly vanished and the opposition waltz through unchallenged.

Alternatively we need to sign a top top number 10 and just try and outscore the opposition as we did last season. We've had loads of games this season where we have conceded 2 or 3 and lost the game where as last season we may well have won it 4 or 5 - 2.

What I would love is for us to get Chuba back but he does not fit our model for spending money on so it would probably have to be a loan.
 
Right now he's performing at maybe 85% of how he was performing at Huddersfield 2 years ago when he was one of the best midfielders in the league. The question is whether he'll get that missing 15% back next season. If he does, he'll be a bargain at £4m. If not, he'll end up being another George Saville type who is busy, occasionally has a really good game but mostly just runs around and takes up space on the pitch.

The other thing is that he's not a Howson replacement. He can play Hackney's role as the more forward thinking of the two centre midfielders but Hackney is better.

On the plus side, he can play the left forward role. We're badly short there. Carrick has occasionally moved Hackney to an attacking midfield role with mixed results so having someone like O'Brien who is comfortable there or in one of the two centre mid roles seems like a good option.
 
B_G said:
I think we are more likely to be able to sign him if they are relegated because he will have a wage reduction clause. His wages will drop to something closer to what we can offer.
I'm guessing while Forest are in the PL he will be earning £40k+ with 2 years left on his contract. I doubt he's going to cut his wages that much.
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good points, although if they stay up, nobody will pay him 40k, so Forest have three choices,

1 - play him - not going to happen
2 - sell him at a big loss and part fund his wages. Possible but unlikely as the top he will earn in the champo is 15k, are they gonna sell him for 2m and still pay 25k of his wages?
3 - loan him, with a club paying half his wages, and hope he hits top form and they can sell next summer

I'd suspect option 3 will happen, kinda like is happening now.

parmoboy said:
Is he one of these types who's happy to sit on the bench, or not even make match squads and still pick up his high wages for two years?
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No, that's why he went to the states, because they messed up his previous attempts to get a loan and wanted to play, even if it meant moving to the US for 4 months.
 
B_G said:
I wouldn't mind seeing him in that LF position if we had Hackney and Howson available but that hasn't been the case has it.
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I think there's a good case, if we stick 4-2-3-1 to put Barlaser and Howson in the middle and O'Brien as the LF for the final two games. He did play there quite frequently under Corberan.

On the other hand, I don't know what more Gilbert has to do to earn a start and the LF forward position is an obvious one for him too.
 
A quick check of whoscored ranks our CMs as follows this season, in terms of performances:
1. Howson
2. Barlaser
3. O'Brien
4. Hackney

Even if Hackney stays this summer I'd want to improve the quality in that area of the pitch, but as for who moves on - it's a tricky one.

As above, it's probably down to the recruitment team (and O'Brien's fee). If we feel we can get better quality for the same (or similar) price I'd probably pass up.
 
Colgates_shaving_foam said:
On the other hand, he is not an upgrade on howson (but seemingly nobody is as we've been looking for ages). We desperately need to find another Boateng type to screen our defense. We currently concede way too many where out midfield has seemingly vanished and the opposition waltz through unchallenged.
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It's the second most important signing this summer, as far as I am concerned. O'Brien isn't that player, he is a very good squad player, that can come in and cover for injuries, and not be a huge dip in ability in the team. If we do sign him, I think it signals the end for Barlaser. Hackney first choice, Howson and O'Brien backups, new CDM and then we don't need Barlaser.
 
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Colgates_shaving_foam said:
He's got better as the season has gone on I think so potentially he could get back to the Huddersfield version. I would prefer to spend the money on O'brien than a project.

On the other hand, he is not an upgrade on howson (but seemingly nobody is as we've been looking for ages). We desperately need to find another Boateng type to screen our defense. We currently concede way too many where out midfield has seemingly vanished and the opposition waltz through unchallenged.

Alternatively we need to sign a top top number 10 and just try and outscore the opposition as we did last season. We've had loads of games this season where we have conceded 2 or 3 and lost the game where as last season we may well have won it 4 or 5 - 2.

What I would love is for us to get Chuba back but he does not fit our model for spending money on so it would probably have to be a loan.
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I don't think we'd be signing him to be an upgrade on Howson in all fairness, it would be to either compete with Hackney, or replace him if Hackney does end up leaving.
 
BoroMart said:
good points, although if they stay up, nobody will pay him 40k, so Forest have three choices,

1 - play him - not going to happen
2 - sell him at a big loss and part fund his wages. Possible but unlikely as the top he will earn in the champo is 15k, are they gonna sell him for 2m and still pay 25k of his wages?
3 - loan him, with a club paying half his wages, and hope he hits top form and they can sell next summer

I'd suspect option 3 will happen, kinda like is happening now.


No, that's why he went to the states, because they messed up his previous attempts to get a loan and wanted to play, even if it meant moving to the US for 4 months.
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That gives me encouragement to think he may be willing to take a decent sized pay cut then, in order to stay here and play games.
 
Bruce said:
On the other hand, I don't know what more Gilbert has to do to earn a start and the LF forward position is an obvious one for him too.
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Slightly off topic but I was thinking last night about who could get a chance in these final games. I'd definitely give Gilbert a start or two on the left or 10. Bangura has to get starts. Law McCabe, Ajay Matthews, Sonny Finch might get 10-15 min cameos. I think that's about it. I don't see any others ready for an opportunity. I don't think O'Brien has the technical ability or pace to play that left role for us, yes he can do it better than Greenwood or Silvera, but he isn't the answer for next season which is effectively what we are trying to work out. I'd rather give Bangura a game at LW to be honest.
 
changingman said:
A quick check of whoscored ranks our CMs as follows this season, in terms of performances:
1. Howson
2. Barlaser
3. O'Brien
4. Hackney

Even if Hackney stays this summer I'd want to improve the quality in that area of the pitch, but as for who moves on - it's a tricky one.

As above, it's probably down to the recruitment team (and O'Brien's fee). If we feel we can get better quality for the same (or similar) price I'd probably pass up.
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Hackneys appearances have been very stop start to be fair and whoscored does weight scoring based on how the team performed too, Hackney was playing when the team were going through a tough spell because we didn't have a LB or CF which harms his rating. If we are comparing the two, I'd look at the raw stats on attacking and passing for the two players.
 
Again, what are his qualities? Going off WhoScored, statistically his main strengths are aerial duels and blocking. His weakness is concentration. His style of play is tackling and he gets fouled a lot. He’s your bog-standard combative midfielder. It sort of tallies up with my thoughts on him. Industrious, gets stuck in, doesn’t go missing but doesn’t really do much else. He doesn’t seem to do much with the ball.

Personally I don’t really think that’s enough to justify bringing him back unless it’s to replace Barlaser and we sign a real quality midfielder as well.
 
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