January 2022 Transfer Thread

[Deutsch Wolf]

Well when the accounts are published end of Feb and we post the profit im expecting then hopefully Spiers or whoever actually asks some questions. Particularly when they’ve already admitted FFP wasn’t a factor this summer.

There will be a profit, no doubt about it. We haven't spent anything transfer wise, we have 2020/21's income due as well as residual Premier League and UEFA prize money from 2019/20.

It will also prove that gate money is a relative drop in the ocean and they had zero justification to ramp up prices, but what hope do you have when the head of sport at the regional paper sees those rises and says in seeming good faith "you have to give Vinny Clark credit"?

Timbo never has understood football finance so forget him. If I'm able to easily correct someone on anything other than German, you really have fucked up.

 

[Keef]

This is going to sound all tin foil hat conspiracy theorist but bear with me, we know fosun are a multinational company across many areas of business, they have accesible money and assets to use away from China but could there be a bit of subtle pressure getting applied to them to not spend on stuff classed as non essential by the Chinese government?
I know that sounds mad, but it's just strange that the wolves funding stopped quite suddenly( I know someone will say " but we spent £35 million on silva") but you get the idea, I'm not explaining this at all well, I know.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

If you want my guess (and it is a guess) it's simply that they had their Morgan moment. They saw how much it would cost to get to the next level and baulked at it.

I don't blame them for that, it's very easy to be free with other people's money. I'd quite like us to spend what the club naturally generates though and I'd also like it if they didn't lie to me and charge me more money along the way. Because I don't have a billion pound conglomerate behind me.

 

[Tony Towner]

If you want my guess (and it is a guess) it's simply that they had their Morgan moment. They saw how much it would cost to get to the next level and baulked at it.

I don't blame them for that, it's very easy to be free with other people's money. I'd quite like us to spend what the club naturally generates though and I'd also like it if they didn't lie to me and charge me more money along the way. Because I don't have a billion pound conglomerate behind me.

Yep, they are an investment business and it's all about risk reward. We could spend £80m on players each Summer and probably still not make the Top 4, or we could spend next to nothing and probably still stay up. Eventually that gets you to your Ashley moment of ageing squad and relegation, but I don't think they see that yet. It'll be interesting to see if and when they do and the reaction to it

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I suspect they see Everton/Arsenal as the cautionary tale, rather than Leicester as the example of what you can do (that said, as I've pointed out before, they've had more than their fair share of duds along the way).

It's the same problem as I felt we had six months ago. Where's the footballing expertise, where's our added edge, what makes us punch above our weight if we aren't going to throw money at it (which as I say is fine, other than when the club makes profit, we should be spending that, not banking it for nothing). Because that's the only way we progress.

At the moment it's a couple of mediocre marketing men who can't do PR, Jez Moxey's shitter twin, a Chinese fella who had barely watched a game of any kind five years ago and a competent-ish Academy guy. I'm not that hopeful. You can be lean and defy the market. You need good people though. We don't have them.

 

[Lycan]

Being linked to Vitinha again in a few places. He's been brilliant for Porto this season.

 

[Tony Towner]

Paying more for him in Jan than the Summer would be peak Jeff

 

[Wilf Wolf]

I think he could be fine in a back four with the right partner, i certainly don't think "there is plenty of evidence" to suggest he wouldn't be (as WW said), there is very little evidence, how many games has he played there? How many games has he played there with a correctly set up midfield and striker?

I also think that because his influence as a leader isn't tangible to us as fans, that its importance is hugely underestimated.

Coady is a player who has to play at 9 or 10/10 to get any praise, but any slight mistake is pilloried, people get bored of players in the same way they get bored of managers.

He is at best average in the air, doesn’t defend well when a player runs at him and is far from quick. That’s evidence from watching him over the last four seasons.

He makes a good sweeper covering and clearing up danger and his passing is good. He’s also a great leader and motivator but these qualities are not the core requirements of a good centre half. If Lage thought he was up to it I’m sure he’d be playing him in a four alongside Kilman.

If money is tight - the summer window suggests it is - cashing in makes sense to me if it allows us to bring in on players Lage wants. I don’t think Coady will get close to Doherty in being out of his depth in a different formation but if anyone buys him to play as a centre half rather than sweeper they’re going to be disappointed.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Are reading the game and passing not key components of playing as a CB in a back 4? There are dozens of very good CBs that lack pace, but Coady is far from slow anyway.

When you said "there's plenty of evidence" i thought you were going to give me examples of him getting torn apart whilst playing in a 4.

As i said i think with the right partner Coady would be a perfectly decent mid table CB in a 4, rather than this Championship clogger many seem to think he would suddenly turn into just because he has 1 CB next to him rather than 2. There's actually far more evidence for the former, than the latter. Like the 150 odd games he has played at the top level.

 

[Del Woppio]

Tbf coads is far from the only player that's stopping us playing in a 442, I don't think we've got a single defender or cm that could do it!

On the money sitch, it'll be an uproar when these accounts are published and people actually see in black and white that they've been lied to, and that Fosun have checked out. There'll be the perfect storm of poor performance on the pitch, another shit transfer window, and plenty of money that could've been spent

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

They are an investment body, not a philanthropic organisation.

At the moment we are useful, they are marketing us to raise other investments, some careful expenditure to raise our profile will be made, with hopefully a few bargins in that.

If these other ventures fail, come to fruition or a good offer is made then they will of course off load.

Not that any of the above makes them automatically awful owners.

They are a business and any other talk is just shit marketing for the gullible. The whole Jeff buying pints before games was just really cringeworthy awful PR stunt.

 

[AndyWolves]

Re: Coady's ability in the air. According to FBRef he loses more than 1/2 of his aerial duels. Kilman & Saiss win between 60-70%

Obviously context is everything and I don't know where those duels occur.

 

[AndyWolves]

WRT spending I'm pretty sure we can spend without Fosun needing to fund it. Our transfers over the last few windows have been net 0 so we should be able to spend our profits right?

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Are reading the game and passing not key components of playing as a CB in a back 4? There are dozens of very good CBs that lack pace, but Coady is far from slow anyway.

When you said "there's plenty of evidence" i thought you were going to give me examples of him getting torn apart whilst playing in a 4.

As i said i think with the right partner Coady would be a perfectly decent mid table CB in a 4, rather than this Championship clogger many seem to think he would suddenly turn into just because he has 1 CB next to him rather than 2. There's actually far more evidence for the former, than the latter. Like the 150 odd games he has played at the top level.

The slow centre backs make up for it by good positioning and are generally bigger physically so they are generally paired with a quicker partner. Coady doesn’t fit either role. Clearly there’s little direct evidence of him playing in a four simply because he has played there so little, but that doesn’t mean the evidence of watching him play as sweeper for more than four years can just be disregarded.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Tbf coads is far from the only player that's stopping us playing in a 442, I don't think we've got a single defender or cm that could do it!

On the money sitch, it'll be an uproar when these accounts are published and people actually see in black and white that they've been lied to, and that Fosun have checked out. There'll be the perfect storm of poor performance on the pitch, another shit transfer window, and plenty of money that could've been spent

I think Semedo and Marcal would both be fine in a four. They could still get forward at times but defending would be their priority. If we got an additional player in midfield we would stop being reliant on nearly everything being created from wide positions so the need for full backs bombing forward would be reduced.

 

[Tony Towner]

I would imagine Del meant centre halves.
One of my worries about Bruno being employed was 442/a variation of and us being so many players short of being able to effectively play it. I didn't have any confidence in us recruiting to fix that. Even now we are a minimum of 2 players off and that's putting faith in Hwang as a forward, whoever you want as the +1 in CM and CH, none of which are a given. He deserves a lot of credit for seeing that so early in pre season and going to the 5 right away.

Asking for reasons why Coady can't play in a 4 using only examples of him doing so is difficult from such a small sample size. However I can give 4 examples from this season to show why he can't whilst in a 3. That's relevant because although still in a 3 we are expecting more of him. We are playing more with 3 centre halves rather than 2 plus a sweeper, so he's now relied on to engage more and out and out defend.
1) on his heals vs Vardy for Leicester's goal. Blame is more concentrated on whatever Moutinho and Semedo? were doing out wide, but a natural defender would have been a step closer to Vardy and prevented/blocked the shot
2) bullied and rag dolled all game by 5 foot 10 , Ivan Toney, in a 4 that would have been more costly
3) ball watching when Ings is put through one on one vs Sa
4) in no mans land when he does score, hasn't got a clue where Ings is and gives him a free header. Blame is concentrated on Saiss, but Coady could and should have still prevented the goal

They are just off the top of my head, I'm sure if you broke down every game there'd be others, but in there you have a combination of a lack of strength, anticipation and understanding of the position which I don't think you are fixing.

 

[AndyWolves]

I would imagine Del meant centre halves.
One of my worries about Bruno being employed was 442/a variation of and us being so many players short of being able to effectively play it. I didn't have any confidence in us recruiting to fix that. Even now we are a minimum of 2 players off and that's putting faith in Hwang as a forward, whoever you want as the +1 in CM and CH, none of which are a given. He deserves a lot of credit for seeing that so early in pre season and going to the 5 right away.

Asking for reasons why Coady can't play in a 4 using only examples of him doing so is difficult from such a small sample size. However I can give 4 examples from this season to show why he can't whilst in a 3. That's relevant because although still in a 3 we are expecting more of him. We are playing more with 3 centre halves rather than 2 plus a sweeper, so he's now relied on to engage more and out and out defend.
1) on his heals vs Vardy for Leicester's goal. Blame is more concentrated on whatever Moutinho and Semedo? were doing out wide, but a natural defender would have been a step closer to Vardy and prevented/blocked the shot
2) bullied and rag dolled all game by 5 foot 10 , Ivan Toney, in a 4 that would have been more costly
3) ball watching when Ings is put through one on one vs Sa
4) in no mans land when he does score, hasn't got a clue where Ings is and gives him a free header.

They are just off the top of my head, I'm sure if you broke down every game there'd be others, but in there you have a combination of a lack of strength, anticipation and understanding which I don't think you are fixing.

Coupled with that last paragraph Coady doesn't have the pace to mitigate those shortcomings either.

 

[prawnking]

I think Semedo and Marcal would both be fine in a four. They could still get forward at times but defending would be their priority.

This suitability for the more defensive side of the game seems to be widely accepted, yet both players have conceded crap penalties this season

 

[Paul]

This suitability for the more defensive side of the game seems to be widely accepted, yet both players have conceded crap penalties this season

Surely they were exceptions rather than the norm ?

 

[AndyWolves]

This suitability for the more defensive side of the game seems to be widely accepted, yet both players have conceded crap penalties this season

Do you think they're better suited going forward then?