January 2022 Transfer Thread

[PuntsWolf]

Mendes runs the show. He will make it happen regardless of what any paperwork says, as that’s what has been agreed (I imagine, can’t possibly not). Even though they can’t say it because of the legal situation.

 

[Donegal Wolf]

I'm choosing to believe they have to, be it an agreement in invisible ink, otherwise Jeff and co are ridiculously incompetent. I don't think they are that stupid

Spanish FA now use a complicated stringent formula to calculate FFP and unlike other places they don't bend the rules on it and have teeth to make sure rules are stuck to . Hence Messi going.
Barca can't say that they are going to buy him (until a certain date) as it means they fall foul of the FFP, also probably explains why he isn't on big money.

 

[The Bear]

Given that Barca have already made noises about intending to make it permanent, then it's fairly obviously a swap deal in all but name to reduce their wage bill a bit.

Means we're definitely signing Trincao too which I'm not worried about. I think he's just staring to come into a bit of form. His performance against Saints was pretty decent IMO.

 

[Alan]

He was key in both goals IIRC. Certainly in the build up to the pen RAN won.

 

[The Bear]

Agreed. I saw an interview with Bruno saying he's the only true link player he has between Midfield/Attack.

 

[Quirkafleeg]

Given that Barca have already made noises about intending to make it permanent, then it's fairly obviously a swap deal in all but name to reduce their wage bill a bit.

Means we're definitely signing Trincao too which I'm not worried about. I think he's just staring to come into a bit of form. His performance against Saints was pretty decent IMO.

We made a massive mistake with Vitinha in my opinion, lets not make it happen with Trincao, there is a fantastic player waiting to shine and hopefully for us.

 

[The Bear]

Yes I would have signed Vitinha too. He had enough about him IMO even just playing bit parts for us.

 

[Alan]

I wonder what the club would say about him with the benefit of hindsight (although I'm not all the way convinced that he's not just playing so well because he's in a weaker league).

 

[Del Woppio]

Nah you could see it in him even in his bits and drabs of minutes. The way he found space, received the ball...i thought it was a no-brainer at £15m tbh, would've been the perfect succession planning for Joao

 

[Haggstone]

Genuine question as I don’t recall the details….Do we know it was our decision not to sign him? Maybe the player and/or his agent felt he’d be better off returning to his parent club where he would play more games? They’d be right in thinking that too by the looks of things.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We never said owt. He and Willian Joke left without even a token "we thank them for their efforts and wish them all the best" on the official site. It was odd. But we do odd things.

We chose not to sign him, essentially. Jinky will blame Jeff, everyone else can take their pick.

I would have signed him, personally.

 

[WsWolf]

I'd have also signed him, however I'm assuming this would have been discussed with Bruno and he was the person who decided against doing it. Maybe he doesn't feel Vitinha was a fit for what he wanted our CMs to do.

 

[Tony Towner]

Given who his agent is, if we wanted him he'd be here

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Vitinha is a classic Catch 22. We sign him and he barely plays so doesn’t develop. We don’t and he gets plenty of time on the pitch at a good level and starts to look the player we saw glimpses of. We’re now in same dilemma with Trincao, though he should get more game time if we do sign him.

 

[Jinky]

I remember at the time there were noises from the player that he was happy to stay. I mean, he’s not going to play for a club in England where it will feel more like being at home than us, given the Portuguese contingent. We definitely decided not to sign him, which is mad considering a) we’ve employed a coach with a good track record of developing youth & b) it’s an area of the squad we’ve been lacking in numbers for a few seasons now.

It’s another one to add to the list of “poor business decisions”, alongside Pedro Gonçalves etc. I won’t directly blame Jeff, but whoever is advising him to make these choices has made more rickets than good choices in recent history.

 

[Tony Towner]

Goncalves is on Nuno or nobody. He wasn't getting on our bench, so either he needed to leave to develop into the player he now is or Nuno missed a trick by not doing so himself

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Vitinha is a classic Catch 22. We sign him and he barely plays so doesn’t develop. We don’t and he gets plenty of time on the pitch at a good level and starts to look the player we saw glimpses of. We’re now in same dilemma with Trincao, though he should get more game time if we do sign him.

Far too simplistic to say more time on the pitch = better player.

Perhaps the environment, the style of play, the balance with different team mates or many other things just suits him better at Porto and that's why he's getting more minutes?

He looked a tidy footballer in his limited appearances last season but it was never anything more than that. Think for the quoted price I would've wanted to see a bit more impetus. Few tidy give and goes, the odd sidestep away from pressure and that, it was nice to see but it was always in safe areas that didn't really achieve anything. If he'd been doing that closer to the opponents box fairly regularly, leading to situations like Moutinho's goal the other week, then I'd have been more convinced.

 

[Lycan]

The madness with Pote was that when he was in our youth team we were playing him as a central midfielder in a 3-4-3.

How nobody in our youth set up looked at him and thought to move him further forward given his extraordinary finishing, ability to find space in the box and knack of seemingly always making the correct decision in the final third is an absolute travesty. We had a truly special forward in our academy for 2 years, nobody realised it and then we gave him away for free and then bragged about including a sell on clause in his contact which earned us all of £3M? When he leaves Sporting it'll be to one of the biggest clubs in Europe for £50M+

Vitinha... I honestly think we just decided that we couldn't afford to pay £20M in the summer for a player who might not be starting every game. If we hadn't been able to negotiate down Aït-Nouri's purchase agreement, and if we had someone better at LB/LWB than Marçal, I think we would've made the same decision there and we can all see the talent that Rayan has now, he's got the potential to be genuinely world class. It's incredibly short sighted. Vitinha might one day be one of the best in the world in his position, he's that good. There are some obvious weaknesses he needs to iron out but his ability on the ball is unrivalled. Another who will go for £50M+ when he eventually leaves Portugal, and we actually paid Porto NOT to sign him.

 

[Johnny75]

The madness with Pote was that when he was in our youth team we were playing him as a central midfielder in a 3-4-3.

How nobody in our youth set up looked at him and thought to move him further forward given his extraordinary finishing, ability to find space in the box and knack of seemingly always making the correct decision in the final third is an absolute travesty. We had a truly special forward in our academy for 2 years, nobody realised it and then we gave him away for free and then bragged about including a sell on clause in his contact which earned us all of £3M? When he leaves Sporting it'll be to one of the biggest clubs in Europe for £50M+

Vitinha... I honestly think we just decided that we couldn't afford to pay £20M in the summer for a player who might not be starting every game. If we hadn't been able to negotiate down Aït-Nouri's purchase agreement, and if we had someone better at LB/LWB than Marçal, I think we would've made the same decision there and we can all see the talent that Rayan has now, he's got the potential to be genuinely world class. It's incredibly short sighted. Vitinha might one day be one of the best in the world in his position, he's that good. There are some obvious weaknesses he needs to iron out but his ability on the ball is unrivalled. Another who will go for £50M+ when he eventually leaves Portugal, and we actually paid Porto NOT to sign him.

I saw Gonvalves play on the right of the three for the youth team a couple of times and you could see the boy was absolute quality.

Indeed some members of this forum took this piss because I said he was good and should be in the first team squad.

That's down to Nuno and the coaching staff and he dropped a bollock there.

I agree on Vitinha, I think we've tried to renegotiate the deal and Porto told us to fuck off and pay the money and Jeff being the shit CEO that he is, bottled it.

I don't know how we've ended up with Jeff Shi but he's fucking terrible as a CEO and ultimate decision maker.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Also love the recent trend of saying clubs pay not to sign someone, no you pay a loan fee, you pay more to keep them permanently, it's not a penalty charge for terminating a deal.