Transfer News Transfer Window Summer 21

[Symp59]

Nobody wants to sell but where would we be if we had not sold players over the last 8 years with a landlord like ours. He certainly has not been a custodian like he promised. We are in a strong position with smaller squad sizes championship clubs have also got to cut costs. We keep finding gems and Iam sure there are a few more to come. All I can say is our fans should live in the real world well done the board. I for one are looking forward to the new players coming in.

 

[Left Wing Cross]

Very valid points BUT what then is our plan to get to the Championship and become a Top 30 Club?. Does it come with a realistic plan or more hope we can hit 6th place and overcome the lottery because that too is a ludicrous way to try to achieve what you keep stating is your aim.

It may well be the plan to get to the Championship etc. but am I right in thinking that you think this ambition should be completed in 2-3 seasons? That is not a realistic proposition.

 

[horseman]

It may well be the plan to get to the Championship etc. but am I right in thinking that you think this should happen in 2-3 seasons? That is not a realistic proposition.

No i did not say that

i am saying and always have that rather than breaking up the squad each summer / Jan to keep a squad together with the odd tinker and have a go for 2/3 seasons

there are no guarantees in football so you cannot just say this year we're going for it as an example.

 

[Oxford57]

The important thing about this transfer is that a championship club are prepared to invest in a young English player, rather than waste it on a player from another country who must be better cos he isn’t British approach as practised by most premiership clubs, you can guarantee that Spurs will start signing Portuguese players now
We benefit and so do Eastleigh, think back to the years when we didn’t find, develop, and sell anyone as our team was that poor, we are a selling club. , we take a bit of a gamble, add value so we all benefit, we can enjoy the performance of Roofe etc and benefit from the sales
Atkinson could have been a flop, could be a great player in the making , we will have made money out of the deal, money which the club haven’t made through gate receipts or the owners pockets,
There will be other young hopeful players that we pick up and sell for large sums of money, that’s what our trading model depends upon

 

[Jolteon]

Comparison in what is now a very inflated market is also odd don't you think?

I was merely providing the data to support someone else's question- £2m for a CB from L1 is a strong fee. And I don't think there's enough evidence to support a "very inflated market", certainly not at this level and definitely not this season.

The easiest comparison is to our own history with Dickie last season. Dickie was Atkinson a few years back - done pretty well but had big shoes to fill after Nelson left. He then gave us that extra season you want Atkinson to give us, and with all that extra experience and ability he sold for a whopping £1.9m. Pretty much exactly the same as we are looking like we're going to sell the one-season-pro Atkinson - and we also didn't need to sell Dickie because we sold Whyte that summer to cover our yearly losses, we've sold no one this season to help with that. Surely, as much as we want these players to grow with us etc. the sale of one player for almost enough to cover our season losses, is the smart move financially?

Trust me - if we sell anyone else, or don't bring in a replacement, I'll be pissed off too. I just think the reaction to getting what is a top 5 fee for L1 CB ever, is going way over the top.

 

[horseman]

The market as in cost of players has been very inflated for years Neydoesfuc*allmar 200m

Very Average players cost 30-40m these days

 

[werthersoriginal]

The market as in cost of players has been very inflated for years Neydoesfuc*allmar 200m

Very Average players cost 30-40m these days

Not at league one level though - most transfers are free these days.

 

[holdsteady]

Whilst understanding the disappointment at Atkinson going it does make me laugh that people are sad that we are selling a player for circa £2 mill with a hefty sell on clause. If he does a ‘Webster’ and Bristol sell him for £20 mill in two seasons time we are looking at another £4 mill if we have a 20% clause which we should be insisting on.
Christ if people said we would be regulars at selling 7 figure players back in the dark days when we bringing in the likes of Lee Jarman and Ian Mcguckin….. we like wouldn’t have been offered a bag of chips for the pair of them let alone £2 mill. It’s sh1t selling your best players but it’s what we do, we are a selling club and need to do so to survive, just be thankful that we now turn out players that others want to buy.

If a bag of chips was on the table with Lee Jarman around it wouldn’t of lasted long so we wouldn’t of even got that.

 

[Left Wing Cross]

No i did not say that

i am saying and always have that rather than breaking up the squad each summer / Jan to keep a squad together with the odd tinker and have a go for 2/3 seasons

there are no guarantees in football so you cannot just say this year we're going for it as an example.

Sorry, if I misread your point.

There are no guarantees in football as you say but "having a go" is not a prudent way to go about it. If we shoot and miss; debt goes up, investors lose interest after their money is "squandered" and then we're in the sh*t.

 

[Jackinthebox]

I blame the person who put RA into lg 1 team of the season.

Only leaves the Sunderland players left in L1. I think Wyke is next out from TOS!

 

[Jolteon]

The market as in cost of players has been very inflated for years Neydoesfuc*allmar 200m

Very Average players cost 30-40m these days

We're in League One. Things work differently down here and using Neymar and Premier League players as a comparison is ridiculous. The record sale in League 1 is over 10 years old and is around £8m, the inflation you're talking about hasn't happened at this level. Kemar Roofe is still in the top 20 of sales from L1 at £3.1m, and there are several players in that top 20 who were just players fleeing the freefalling Sunderland.

 

[Mad Dog]

Person my, I don’t feel nearly as disappointed with losing the player as I did with Nelson or even more so, Dickie.

Simply because the two of them were better than him.

Totally agree, he's nowhere near the standard of those Dickie or even Nelson, he's good in the air, powerful, and very good at bringing the ball out of defence, but he's very naive defensively, as are most modern day CB.

However, we live in a world where overrated players sell for huge amounts of money, and in a years time, we could have got even more for him, especially if we get promoted, and could've been laughing all the way to bank, but instead, once again, we're the ones who have had our pants pulled down.

 

[Left Wing Cross]

The market as in cost of players has been very inflated for years Neydoesfuc*allmar 200m

Very Average players cost 30-40m these days

This is a more deflated market at the moment, even in the the upper reaches of the game. For example, Sancho was £100M+ last season but this season he's £76M. Barcelona and Real Madrid are only signing free agents.

Championship teams have only had the TV revenue to prop them up for the past year-and-a-half and have been shedding players as free agents.

 

[Jolteon]

Totally agree, he's nowhere near the standard of those Dickie or even Nelson, he's good in the air, powerful, and very good at bringing the ball out of defence, but he's very naive defensively, as are most modern day CB.

However, we live in a world where overrated players sell for huge amounts of money, and in a years time, we could have got even more for him, especially if we get promoted, and could've been laughing all the way to bank, but instead, once again, we're the ones who have had our pants pulled down.

This is where I'm struggling a bit - there's no evidence of this and actually the evidence suggests it's not true. Rob Dickie gave us that extra year you want from Atkinson, and was a much better player at the time of selling, and we got £1.9m for him - not dissimilar to what we're getting for Atkinson in the deflated post Covid market. Only 2 CBs in the last 5 years have sold for more after a L1 season; Matt Clarke and Ezri Konsa.

I agree if we got promoted his value probably would be higher - but there's zero guarantee of that and his sale funds most of our loss for the year. It's not ideal, but financially it makes sense as long as he's the only major sale.

 

[horseman]

We're in League One. Things work differently down here and using Neymar and Premier League players as a comparison is ridiculous. The record sale in League 1 is over 10 years old and is around £8m, the inflation you're talking about hasn't happened at this level. Kemar Roofe is still in the top 20 of sales from L1 at £3.1m, and there are several players in that top 20 who were just players fleeing the freefalling Sunderland.

dear me i'm stating the market is inflated where once you could get an average player now it costs 30-40 adjust the scale accordingly as you go down the league, why is that difficult to understand that's what i'm meaning.

 

[ljs]

You’re not wrong - that was a lazy example to be honest! Does make me laugh though when people think we can just hold onto players for eternity and expect that to work out for everyone.

The second year of a three year contract, of a 23 year old, is hardly eternity.

Why do people opposing a viewpoint often attribute wildly exaggerated statements to those actually made?

 

[The mighty Aldo]

We have allowed ourselves to be a very brief stepping stone for many players in recent years, who have all then gone on to bigger and better things, while we've been left treading water.

At what point do we start putting our own needs first, in order to move onto bigger and better things ourselves?

It's not gonna stop players wanting to come here, just because we've stopped being a soft touch, during Mapp's reign, we were far from being a soft touch, and players were still eager to come here.

As has been said, we'll always be a selling club, but we should show some backbone as well.

Mapp also sold players on, but you miss the point
All players have agents who are looking out for the interests of their clients and if they can get a better deal great, there is no loyalty in football anymore and you are one tackle away from ending your career.
What would you do if you work for a company who give you a chance and perform well, another bigger company sees what you are doing and offers you 2/3 times that salary?

 

[werthersoriginal]

The second year of a three year contract, of a 23 year old, is hardly eternity.

Why do people opposing a viewpoint often attribute wildly exaggerated statements to those actually made?

Yes, it wouldn't be unreasonable to insist he stayed for at least one more year, that wouldn't be trampling on a young man's dreams. It just looks like we've planned to make a player sale this summer, and I'm glad we're getting a big chunk for one replaceable player rather than less money for two or three players.

 

[Mad Dog]

Whilst understanding the disappointment at Atkinson going it does make me laugh that people are sad that we are selling a player for circa £2 mill with a hefty sell on clause. If he does a ‘Webster’ and Bristol sell him for £20 mill in two seasons time we are looking at another £4 mill if we have a 20% clause which we should be insisting on.
Christ if people said we would be regulars at selling 7 figure players back in the dark days when we bringing in the likes of Lee Jarman and Ian Mcguckin….. we like wouldn’t have been offered a bag of chips for the pair of them let alone £2 mill. It’s sh1t selling your best players but it’s what we do, we are a selling club and need to do so to survive, just be thankful that we now turn out players that others want to buy.

Very good points, all very valid.

But it's not about losing players to bigger clubs, that's a given for a club in our position, as like you say, we're a selling club, as are all clubs at our level, but it's about getting what they're worth, and not just selling to the first club that comes along with a half decent offer.

In another years time, more clubs would've been looking at Atkinson, once he'd had another senior season under his belt, and he'd be worth a lot more, and THEN would've been the right time to sell, when we'd also benefitted from his services on the pitch as well, maybe even getting promoted, which would've inflated the price even more.

We didn't stand in Roofe's way, but asked him to stick around until the end of the season, which he himself was happy to do, as he wanted to repay our faith in him and our hard work in helping him progress as a player, by staying and helping us progress as a club, so we turned down Leeds' offer, and he stayed for the rest of the season, and helped us get promoted, then Leeds came back with an even bigger offer, and we kept our promise, and let him go, and wished him well.

Roofe now has nothing but good things to say about our club, as do all the players from that era, who were brought in as kids with potential, and turned into very good senior pros, over the course of 2-3 seasons in some cases, helping us on the pitch as well, and then moved on to bigger and better things, with nothing but positive things to say about Oxford United, and players have still wanted to come here, again and again.

Like I say, it's not the fact we're selling Atkinson that bothers me, there will be other CBs out there, but it's the timing and the amount we're selling him for that bugs me, as yet again, we're being very naive, soft touches, when as history has proved, we don't need to be.

 

[Jolteon]

dear me i'm stating the market is inflated where once you could get an average player now it costs 30-40 adjust the scale accordingly as you go down the league, why is that difficult to understand that's what i'm meaning.

Because it's just not that simple. Different leagues have different ceilings, and the scale you're trying to use is not reality. The facts are that £2m is a very high fee for a L1 CB, and puts Rob Atkinson in the top 5 CB sales from this league ever. Just because Premier League teams are willing to spunk 30m on average players (all of whom are far better than L1 quality) doesn't mean we should expect Atkinson to be worth significantly more than every other L1 CB sale.

We're a L1 side, selling a L1 player. The financial bullshit at the top doesn't mean s**t.