The 24/25 promotion charge starts here

[Paintolerance]

Why do you think this?

A) The club have proven they will accept bids that match their valuation. They don't have to be stupid

B) Hackney will rightfully consider any Premier League contract. He would likely be tripling his wages, he can put himself in a position to contest for the England squad and he can test himself at the top level. It would be ridiculous for him to not give that serious consideration. He may well get a top 6 club come in for him but if he doesn't and say a West Ham, Bournemouth, Brighton sort of club comes in, I'm sure he'll take it.

Agree with this. I will be astonished if Hackney does not get sold in the summer. And I think it will be to a top 6 club.

With RVB, I really hope he stays...but I would think his ridiculous potential is clear to any scout who watches us. I think bids are inevitable.

 

[Glover_elbow]

I'm almost at the "season is written off" stage, I think there's no more than a 5% chance of promotion, injuries have hamstrung us (pun intended).

So, with an eye on next year, the last two seasons have been ruined by poor poor starts, we can't do that again. What should we do in the next 14 games to get as ready as possible for next year?

I guess we need to look at the squad and who will be here:

Here net year: Dieng, Glover, Smith (if fit), Rav, Clarke, Fry, Bangura, Lenihan, Engel, Hackney, I Jones, Azaz, Lath, Silvera, Coburn, Forss (16)

Open to offers: Barlaser, McGree, Gilbert (3)

Fighting for a contract: J Jones, Ayling, Thomas, Howson, O'Brien, Greenwood (5)

Out: Dijksteel, McNair, Crooks, Hoppe (4)

This is what I suggest:

1 - That core 16 need melding into a team, ok Smith, Bangura, Lenihan aren't going to play, but we need to make sure Rav plays every game to get his experience up, he should be first choice next year.
2 - Dieng needs to be back in goal to get the relationship with the defence.
3 - Hackney has to be in his proper position CM to build around
4 - Lath needs a run up front once fit to learn the english game more
5 - The McGree conundrum. If he is out the side because of fitness, get him out completely and let him get 100% fit for next year. Take the opportunity to give Silvera and others game time to learn for next year. If McGree is out of the side because Carrick doesn't fancy him (possible because we did sign Ramsey last year to take his place) then it's pointless playing him and taking game time from others like Silvera who have a future here.
6 - I guess we need that agreement with Dael for an extra year OR, do we sell and buy a top quality replacement? If we are going to sell, I'd look at playing Rav RCB and Clarke alongside
7 - Give Thomas a go and talk to him about signing long term, he looks way better than Engel.

Looking at that core 16, it's pretty obvious what we need to be signing in the summer:
1 - First choice RB
2 - A LB if we are writing off Engel
3 - A backup CB or a first choice if Fry is sold
4 - Howsons replacement, a top quality CDM
5 - competition at CM
6 - A quality wide forward or sign Greenwood and improve him
7 - A quality CF

Could take 15m investment to get this where we want. Or 10m and a couple of good loans. At least we have loads of FFP room to invest and 7-8 signings instead of 11 (plus 3 in january)

Latte is backup at best two new strikers in with Greenwood out

 

[Jedi boro]

We all know January is the toughest window to recruit and in January the prices of players - especially strikers - can be ridiculous.

Well villa managed to get us to sell after barely 6 months so depends on the club.

What was the excuse not replacing Chuba in the summer then I’m just frustrated with our obsession not to buy a proven striker latte lath isn’t that btw

 

[Bruce]

Why do you think this?

A) The club have proven they will accept bids that match their valuation. They don't have to be stupid

B) Hackney will rightfully consider any Premier League contract. He would likely be tripling his wages, he can put himself in a position to contest for the England squad and he can test himself at the top level. It would be ridiculous for him to not give that serious consideration. He may well get a top 6 club come in for him but if he doesn't and say a West Ham, Bournemouth, Brighton sort of club comes in, I'm sure he'll take it.

If we accept a bid of £15-20m for Hackney from the equivalent of Palace in the summer and replace him with a couple of development punts from overseas, then I'll know we're not serious about promotion anytime soon. We can get more if we wait and Hackney can get a better move if he waits. Bottom line is that it is our choice. If we get a bid of £30m from someone like Spurs that's a whole different thing. At that point, we have to let Hackney have the option.

I'm of the opinion that we are trying to build a team for promotion. That requires some buying and selling each summer but assuming we sell McGree we will have sold everyone we need to in order to replace them with better. You aren't ripping out the spine of your team each summer and building a brand new one.

 

[VestasBoro]

If we accept a bid of £15-20m for Hackney from the equivalent of Palace in the summer and replace him with a couple of development punts from overseas, then I'll know we're not serious about promotion anytime soon. We can get more if we wait and Hackney can get a better move if he waits. Bottom line is that it is our choice. If we get a bid of £30m from someone like Spurs that's a whole different thing. At that point, we have to let Hackney have the option.

I'm of the opinion that we are trying to build a team for promotion. That requires some buying and selling each summer but assuming we sell McGree we will have sold everyone we need to in order to replace them with better. You aren't ripping out the spine of your team each summer and building a brand new one.

Can't wait if a club shows interest and he says he wants to leave. If anyone such as Palace, Brentford, Bournemouth etc make a move for Hackney he'd be daft to not be interested and the club won't stand in his way. Bournemouth or Brentford for 10m is my guess, and he'll tell MC he wants to leave and i just hope we can get it done quickly so we can bring players in rather than having it dragged out all summer which hampers out incoming business.

 

[B_G]

Can't wait if a club shows interest and he says he wants to leave. If anyone such as Palace, Brentford, Bournemouth etc make a move for Hackney he'd be daft to not be interested and the club won't stand in his way. Bournemouth or Brentford for 10m is my guess, and he'll tell MC he wants to leave and i just hope we can get it done quickly so we can bring players in rather than having it dragged out all summer which hampers out incoming business.

We'll get more than £10m like. £18-20m is about right valuation for Hackney. Similar to Wharton. They got £21m for Wharton in the end and I think we'll be pushing for a similar fee.

 

[VestasBoro]

We can ask whatever we want, but id be surprised if we get anywhere near the fee for Wharton. He's been talked about for ages and had been playing well, was in public eye and media was talking about him. Hackney not so much.

 

[Boro4life]

Maybe Carricks playing Hayden in the number 10 so scouts who turn up to watch him go away thinking he's rubbish

 

[Blf]

24/25 25/26 26/27 seasons will be exactly the same as this one. Little bit of hope we can get to the play offs , sell our best 2 players and finish around 10th.

 

[BoroMart]

Yes we built a big squad, but one that is proving nowhere near good enough.
We need to recruit quality, we need to get up and out of this league and revenue world.

It was big on numbers but very short on experience

So if we spend 10m this summer it needs to be on two top quality players,plus some cheap signings, frees and loans. That's do-able.

If we lose McGee, Hackney and Rav, then we will be one of the top 3 spenders in this league and can probably sign 5 high quality players, plus another 5 projects/backups

Either way, I'm confident we take another step forward.

 

[Glover_elbow]

It was big on numbers but very short on experience

So if we spend 10m this summer it needs to be on two top quality players,plus some cheap signings, frees and loans. That's do-able.

If we lose McGee, Hackney and Rav, then we will be one of the top 3 spenders in this league and can probably sign 5 high quality players, plus another 5 projects/backups

Either way, I'm confident we take another step forward.

I will bare my **** in binns window if we manage to get 10 through the door. We are very slow at closing out deals hard bargaining playing tough with greedy agents etc it all makes moves slow.

 

[Quicksilvera]

We are still in the 23/24 promotion race, let’s have it.

 

[viv_andersons_nana]

We can’t afford to lose Hackney, McGree and Rav in one window. That would be complete madness. You’d have to replace the three of them as well as strengthening areas that already needed investment, on the back of losing Rogers, a couple of out-of-contract senior players and the loan players going back to their parent clubs.

If last season was about building the squad, then next summer should be about strengthening the team. I don’t see how selling three of your best players in a single window helps with that. One, okay, I can understand that. But three? Come on. We went into the winter window knowing exactly what we needed to do and apparently with all the plans in place and ready to go. We came out of it weaker.

I’m onboard with a longer-term view, developing players, allowing the club to build a promotion-winning team over several transfer windows, but I can’t accept that ripping the heart of the team out so we have money to strengthen said team is anywhere near sensible.

We’ve struggled to strengthen one area with several months worth of planning time and money to spend. How on earth can you expect them to strengthen 7 or 8 parts of the team simultaneously. It’s too big a job.

 

[BoroMart]

Latte is backup at best two new strikers in with Greenwood out

Latte Lath, it's difficult to say. It's his first season at this level, in a team that's had no cohesion, and he's had several injuries. He's only started 15 league and cup games and he's scored 7 goals. We can argue that he should have scored 10+ but that's why he's at this level. He could well step up next year, his scoring in his first season is certainly better than Akpom's was. His league goals per minute is a goal every 192 mins......Britts first and best season with us, with better players in the side was a goal every 208 mins, and people said he was a natural goalscorer. Latte Lath has promise but he needs to improve his finishing

 

[TeaCider]

I will bare my **** in binns window if we manage to get 10 through the door. We are very slow at closing out deals hard bargaining playing tough with greedy agents etc it all makes moves slow.

We signed 12 first team players in the summer.

 

[Blf]

It was big on numbers but very short on experience

So if we spend 10m this summer it needs to be on two top quality players,plus some cheap signings, frees and loans. That's do-able.

If we lose McGee, Hackney and Rav, then we will be one of the top 3 spenders in this league and can probably sign 5 high quality players, plus another 5 projects/backups

Either way, I'm confident we take another step forward.

That's not how this works now. If we sell 3 players for £20 million there's no way we will use that money plus whatever else is available.
We will sign 5/6 younger players with potential to do the same again in 2 or 3 seasons and bank the rest. Repeat ad nauseum.

 

[B_G]

We probably say this most seasons but I feel like this summer window is massive.

We know there's FFP headroom.
We know we've generated cash from some big sales. The question is are we willing to re-invest?

There's obvious holes in the squad and we've lots of time to find targets. I'll be really disappointed if we have a similar window to last season where we sign a barrage of unproven punts and sell another star player.

 

[BoroMart]

Writing the season off, after 30 games played, whilst sitting 6 points off 6th (with a game in hand) is absolutely ludicrous IMO.

I wouldn't entirely write it off, but we're a couple of defeats away from it, we certainly are approaching that point where we have to have an eye on next year.

We're in a bad moment, and in bad form....but we have seen it can change at the flick of a switch.

We have no cohesion, the team is chopping and changing week on week due to injuries and players returning from injuries......and of course no CF right now. It would take an enormous uptick in performances to get back into it.

There's a lot of catastrophizing going on. Bar a stupid bid for Hackney from a top 6 Premier league team, he's going nowhere. RVDB will be on various radars but we have no need to sell.

Absolutely this.....we don't NEED to sell but can CHOOSE to. The club now has a manageable level of debt and can finance commercial loans easily and of course the parent company can and will continue with permissible loans. From an FFP perspective:

- The sales of Akpom (10+), Tavernier (10+), Spence (12), Rogers (8-16), Payero (2.5m), Saville (1.5), Crooks 2m, Bola+Wood+Watmore+Morsy+Wing+Browne (1.5k) are all in the 3 year window. North of 48m in sales
- Spent about 28.5m so 20m player transfer profit+ in this FFP period.
- All the big earners from the Garry Spunk period will be off the FFP books at last, Britt and Fletcher will finally disappear from our calculation saving 7m, McNair and Howsons wages will save another 1.5m.
- Even without sales we will have one of the best budgets in this league, and I feel confident in that for the first time since our relegation, the numbers add up in our favour.
- The two players that will attract the most attention will both be enormous profits if Rav was just 200k and Hacnkey was youth, then the sale of either will go straight on our FFP allowance which will already be healthy.

We will be in a different market this summer, and I think the club assets are already significantly better than they were 2 years ago when this recruitment team came in

 

[BoroMart]

That's not how this works now. If we sell 3 players for £20 million there's no way we will use that money plus whatever else is available.
We will sign 5/6 younger players with potential to do the same again in 2 or 3 seasons and bank the rest. Repeat ad nauseum.

It's exactly how it works, you start of buying 10 players for 1m each when you sell one for 8m, then you buy 4 players at 2m, you sell one for 15m then you buy 2 at 7. Giving you a squad of players worth 7m x2, 4mx3, 2m x3 and 1m x9.

It's exactly what Brentford did.

We will be spending more around the Lath figure and maybe above this summer, and less around the 1m mark.

 

[viv_andersons_nana]

It's exactly how it works, you start of buying 10 players for 1m each when you sell one for 8m, then you buy 4 players at 2m, you sell one for 15m then you buy 2 at 7. Giving you a squad of players worth 7m x2, 4mx3, 2m x3 and 1m x9.

It's exactly what Brentford did.

We will be spending more around the Lath figure and maybe above this summer, and less around the 1m mark.

Piece of p*ss, this.