Transfer News Transfer Window Summer 21

[horseman]

If you were a football player who's just left a Premier League academy and joins a third division football club, do you really think the sales pitch is 'join us and at some point you might play for us in the Championship'? Or is it 'join us and we won't get in your way if a Championship club comes calling'?

I hate to break it to you, but players signing for us who aren't local don't give two hoots about Oxford United. It's a job first and foremost, and if you were given a choice between joining a side who wants you to stay long term and another that has a track record of developing and selling young talent, you'd join the latter. If we tried to convince players to join based on realising their ambitions with this club, then we wouldn't have signed half the players we did.

Then stop the Bullshi* about ambitious club great facilities etc etc when they sign and forget about top 30 club because i hate to break it to you but selling your best players every summer and January weakens your squad and you'll need a helluva lot of luck to progress.
Keep breaking up the squad and hoping to find/have the next gem is a hoping scenario not a concrete plan towards where you state you aim to be.

 

[horseman]

“Best players walking out of the door every summer”

Moore, Brannagan and Gorrin have all been subject of interest over the past 12 months and bids were rejected. Eastwood too before that. Managed to keep our best player in Taylor last summer after his loan. The picture you paint isn’t reality.

You know fine well what i meant

 

[Foley]

Then stop the Bullshi* about ambitious club great facilities etc etc when they sign and forget about top 30 club because i hate to break it to you but selling your best players every summer and January weakens your squad and you'll need a helluva lot of luck to progress.
Keep breaking up the squad and hoping to find/have the next gem is a hoping scenario not a concrete plan towards where you state you aim to be.

You could argue that we have come close 2 seasons in a row and Peterborough have just gone up despite selling their best players every season?

 

[DavidB]

8Genuinely cant believe we're having the 'why are we selling our players?!' debate again.

Seriously, can we not just set up a separate 'Transfer Policy' thread and keep this one for discussing rumours / players and their likelihood of joining us? If you want to relive the 'we need to sell our players to stay solvent!' 'but we'll never get promoted like that!' debate can you not just go back and read the transfer threads from last summer, or the January before that, or the summer before that, or the January before that, or the summer before THAT? The comments are literally exactly the same!

Not having a go at anyone, just seems like this has all been said a million times before, and makes it very difficult to keep track of genuine transfer news

 

[DavidB]

Okay

 

[The mighty Aldo]

This doesn’t just happen at our club

Look at Sunderland, didn’t go up ,do you think Charlie Wyke will be there next season?
Even if you do go up there is no guarantee that you will keep players I see Yates of Blackpool is being touted by Forest and Clarke of Peterborough is also being looked at by other Championship clubs.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

And when players join any club, they are always going to talk about the club's ambition, facilities etc. They aren't going to say 'Well I have joined because the club think I can just about do a job and they might avoid relegation this year. The training facilities are manky and the coaches are shite, but I've got a mortgage to pay and a gambling habit to support."!

You just have to take it with a very large pinch of salt!

 

[OX14]

This doesn’t just happen at our club

Look at Sunderland, didn’t go up ,do you think Charlie Wyke will be there next season?
Even if you do go up there is no guarantee that you will keep players I see Yates of Blackpool is being touted by Forest and Clarke of Peterborough is also being looked at by other Championship clubs.

Spot on, We wouldn't be able to keep hold of our best players regardless if we were promoted. We can not compete with atleast half of the championship clubs at the moment, you would hope this would change once we have a stadium that we have control of and the brand grows not only in oxon but in the far east.

We have to be careful what we wish for in regards to money men pumping money in to the playing squad, it's all rosie while they are still here but as soon as they leave the club we could be in a similar situation to Bury .

 

[RyanioBirdio]

Since we’ve been promised a hugely exciting week or two, I can only assume that we’re about to sign at least two full backs. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.

 

[Shaun Rice]

Let’s put an end to this now
It really is quite simple this applies to any of our decent players
We have a very good player a Championship club comes in and offers a price, we could reject it but
Should we stand in that players way of improving his career?
The player is offered double or triple what we pay him.If we want to keep him can we offer that much?
The answer to both those questions are no
The only clubs who are not selling clubs in this country are probably Man City Man Utd and Liverpool all the rest could see players sold to bigger clubs eg Harry Kane
So if the right offer comes in for any of our top players we are likely to lose them

Interesting point but I would say of course we’re a selling club like everyone else. But we seem to make no proper effort to keep the best players. I don’t know how old you are but I would say we need to be more like we were when Matty Elliott was in demand. Give him a good contract and when teams come in give him a better one to keep him as long as possible then when you absolutely cannot afford him let him go for some proper money having contributed to the cause. With Whyte and baptiste to give two recent examples it felt like we couldn’t wait to move them on, to make a buck and try again. Whyte actually said in the press he wanted to stay here and improve! These players are under contract so unless there’s a massive problem we should be saying jog on son!
furthermore if teams know we want to sell then the price goes down!
Now if that’s the game then fair enough. The clubs stance should then be we’re basically a club trying to do our best making ends meet with some transfer activities and doing as well as we can in the league. But they’re chatting about being top 30? well the actions need to meet the aim and not just off the field.

 

[horseman]

Spot on, We wouldn't be able to keep hold of our best players regardless if we were promoted. We can not compete with atleast half of the championship clubs at the moment, you would hope this would change once we have a stadium that we have control of and the brand grows not only in oxon but in the far east.

We have to be careful what we wish for in regards to money men pumping money in to the playing squad, it's all rosie while they are still here but as soon as they leave the club we could be in a similar situation to Bury .

So effectively then we just drift on, nobody has said they expect shed loads of cash pumped into the squad BUT as i've raised before Owners tend not to hang around too long and the playing side will still need investment, A nice new stadium is one thing but if they do up sticks once the cash tills are ticking over in the retail outlets what's the attraction for any new Owner? Other than hardcore fans once the novelty wears off new fans wont go to watch a side sat mid table League 1 or worse only you'll have a 2 3rds empty stadium every fortnight.

 

[Shaun Rice]

We had injuries to Ruffels, Gorrin, Atkinson and Mous right at the beginning of the season. A season where we were restricted on the number of senior players and the amount we spent. Dickie staying may have helped, but what if he'd have got injured instead of Atkinson? Would we have been any better off?

I know your eternally positive scotch (and fair play for that) but even you must admit the recruitment of the defensive unit last season was poor. Inadequate players and cover. KR himself was banging on about a centre half for what seemed like all summer and I think also cover for Ruffs.

 

[OX14]

So effectively then we just drift on, nobody has said they expect shed loads of cash pumped into the squad BUT as i've raised before Owners tend not to hang around too long and the playing side will still need investment, A nice new stadium is one thing but if they do up sticks once the cash tills are ticking over in the retail outlets what's the attraction for any new Owner? Other than hardcore fans once the novelty wears off new fans wont go to watch a side sat mid table League 1 or worse only you'll have a 2 3rds empty stadium every fortnight.

We aren't sure what the new owners ambition is or how long they are planning on hanging around. Depends how far they are willing to take us on and off the field.

 

[SteMerritt]

Since we’ve been promised a hugely exciting week or two, I can only assume that we’re about to sign at least two full backs. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.

Knowing us, we will probably sign one very large one.

 

[Marked Ox]

Interesting point but I would say of course we’re a selling club like everyone else. But we seem to make no proper effort to keep the best players. I don’t know how old you are but I would say we need to be more like we were when Matty Elliott was in demand. Give him a good contract and when teams come in give him a better one to keep him as long as possible then when you absolutely cannot afford him let him go for some proper money having contributed to the cause. With Whyte and baptiste to give two recent examples it felt like we couldn’t wait to move them on, to make a buck and try again. Whyte actually said in the press he wanted to stay here and improve! These players are under contract so unless there’s a massive problem we should be saying jog on son!
furthermore if teams know we want to sell then the price goes down!
Now if that’s the game then fair enough. The clubs stance should then be we’re basically a club trying to do our best making ends meet with some transfer activities and doing as well as we can in the league. But they’re chatting about being top 30? well the actions need to meet the aim and not just off the field.

Didn't we do just that with Cam Brannagan and before that Rob Dickie?

 

[werthersoriginal]

Interesting point but I would say of course we’re a selling club like everyone else. But we seem to make no proper effort to keep the best players. I don’t know how old you are but I would say we need to be more like we were when Matty Elliott was in demand. Give him a good contract and when teams come in give him a better one to keep him as long as possible then when you absolutely cannot afford him let him go for some proper money having contributed to the cause. With Whyte and baptiste to give two recent examples it felt like we couldn’t wait to move them on, to make a buck and try again. Whyte actually said in the press he wanted to stay here and improve! These players are under contract so unless there’s a massive problem we should be saying jog on son!
furthermore if teams know we want to sell then the price goes down!
Now if that’s the game then fair enough. The clubs stance should then be we’re basically a club trying to do our best making ends meet with some transfer activities and doing as well as we can in the league. But they’re chatting about being top 30? well the actions need to meet the aim and not just off the field.

We sold Elliott cos we were totally broke after Maxwell fell off the yacht, remember? If we want to be top 30 obvs we'd need a lot more investment, which could only come from having a ground that brings us significant returns.

 

[The mighty Aldo]

Didn't we do just that with Cam Brannagan and before that Rob Dickie?

I’m sure we make every effort to keep a player, an offer comes in and we may reject it like Dickie and Branagan but eventually if those players keep performing there will be other offers
This happened with Dickie and I’m sure it would have happened with Branagan before his eye injury
The fact is as KR and previous managers have stated we wouldn’t stand in a players way if he wants to further his career
It is then up to that player to push on. Dickie, Nelson, Lundstrum and Roofe have all done this, whereas maybe Whyte and Baptiste went a little too early.
Nevertheless all of them are on much more money and have the capacity to go even further
Back in the day if we hadn’t had back to back promotions with Jim Smith and fallen just short of reaching the top tier do we think Aldridge and Hebberd would have stayed?
Even when we stayed in the top division players still left for bigger clubs. We are Oxford United in general I would say we have been a top of third tier, bottom of second tier club in my 55 years of supporting them. But to think we can hold onto players is pie in the sky. We have always been a selling club but the more Joey Beauchamps and Paul Powell’s we can produce the better

 

[unification]

So effectively then we just drift on, nobody has said they expect shed loads of cash pumped into the squad BUT as i've raised before Owners tend not to hang around too long and the playing side will still need investment, A nice new stadium is one thing but if they do up sticks once the cash tills are ticking over in the retail outlets what's the attraction for any new Owner? Other than hardcore fans once the novelty wears off new fans wont go to watch a side sat mid table League 1 or worse only you'll have a 2 3rds empty stadium every fortnight.

Since I figure we're going around in circles here and agreeing to disagree is the only solution, I'll end with this.

We've been at the Kassam Stadium for 20 years. The first 15 years there were on the whole low points. A relegation from the league, non-league seasons, trundling around in League 2 with no real plan until Eales, MAsh and MApp came along. Since 2015, we've had a 'model' to make this club revenue and it has secured us a promotion, two playoff campaigns and seen us sell six players for seven figure sums. For a club thats income streams are mostly tickets, some merchandise, maybe a bit from the training ground now and benevolence from the owner (nothing from any other fixed asset), you propose cutting off a source of seven figure sums for a roll of the dice into the Championship.

Yes, we'd like to get there but we've also been on the edge of extinction due to financial mismanagement too. I don't mind playing in League 1 if the club is surviving, has the coffers stuffed with cash, has exciting young talent coming through and joining us through evidence-based and wise investment and has us at the least pointing in the right direction. Can you say the last two seasons have been 'drifting on' despite needing to replace Baptiste and Dickie? I wouldn't. Even if last season was not quite as good as 2019-20, KR even accepted that the occasional season would see a dip. It happens. Oxford United has had three promotions in 30 years so we're not a side for yo-yoing. We're building something here and it would be madness to throw that and the reputation that this club has developed for a mad season of risking it all on promotion only to see it not pay off or all the key talent depart even if it did.

 

[battman]

Then stop the Bullshi* about ambitious club great facilities etc etc when they sign and forget about top 30 club because i hate to break it to you but selling your best players every summer and January weakens your squad and you'll need a helluva lot of luck to progress.
Keep breaking up the squad and hoping to find/have the next gem is a hoping scenario not a concrete plan towards where you state you aim to be.

But it's only a gamble in the sense that every signing's a gamble. Due to the misstep of the EPPP, Premier League clubs have an abundance of talent that won't make it in the top flight - at least immediately - and that's where we step in to swoop them up. Mix that with our scouting of the lower leagues (Dunkley, Atkinson etc.) and our knowledge of NI (Whyte, Sykes, Cooper) then I don't think it's a hoping scenario.

We could sign a squad of journeymen in their late 20s-early 30s who are looking for a club to settle at for a few years and raise a family, but they'd be worth a lot less money if we wanted to sell players and generate revenue for the club.

It's the trade-off we have that we sell off one or two of our players every season to allow us to keep attracting these very talented young players. Simply put, if we didn't have this model in place, we wouldn't have attracted our 'best players' to sign in the first place and wouldn't have as good as squad as we currently do.

Also, I don't even think it is our 'best players', because it's not like we still don't have talent in our squad even with the departures in recent years. It's not like we haven't replaced Nelson with Moore, Dickie with Atkinson, Baptiste with McGuane etc. The squad is full of talent, and to say we're selling our best ones every single transfer window actually does a disservice to the talented players who are still at the club.

 

[Wallop]

Spot on, We wouldn't be able to keep hold of our best players regardless if we were promoted. We can not compete with atleast half of the championship clubs at the moment, you would hope this would change once we have a stadium that we have control of and the brand grows not only in oxon but in the far east.

We have to be careful what we wish for in regards to money men pumping money in to the playing squad, it's all rosie while they are still here but as soon as they leave the club we could be in a similar situation to Bury .

Is PRB leading the consortium? Wow - we’re paying him too much.