Transfer News Transfer Window Summer 21

[WRox]

No, but they held on to most of them until they were ready and it suited them rather than just the player. Nearly all of them ideally wanted to leave 6-12 months before they did - Sancho’s transfer saga has rolled on since last summer and Aubameyang was linked with a move for more than a year before he left - but the club’s stance was, “You will go when it’s right for you to go, for everybody including us.”

I’m not saying this is what I think OUFC should do (although I’m also not NOT saying that), merely commenting on your point. Probably easier to push back like that when the players are already earning millions of pounds a year, compared to Atkinson who is probably on about 100k a year and is having three times that dangled in front of him, as well as a contract that lasts a good four years.

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.

 

[Leysboy]

I'm not sure why people are convinced we are 'a soft touch.' I understand the disappointment of losing our best players, we all feel this. However, as several people have pointed out, this is not a simple market-place. It is lopsided, because the player is being offered a huge pay rise. Add the relative glamour of moving up the leagues and the seductive tones of the player's agent, and it is hard to stand in the way of a move. You can do it, but it helps if there is a bidding war so that you can say to the player, 'We will let you go, but it might be to Club X or it might be to Club Y'. It seems to be recognised as fact that we did a deal with Rob Dickie along the lines of 'just give us one more season', and such an arrangement is attractive to the club. However, for the player, during that year they are only one serious injury away from losing their chance.

I'm no expert on relative values, but as others have said, Peterborough are an interesting point of comparison. It may simply be the case that they have been operating the model longer, and investing a bit more money in it. So they offer rather higher contracts to rather better young players, who in turn attract higher fees.

Peterborough are a very good example of buying and selling for bigger fees. Although most of there transfers involve strikers. Mackail-Smith
Toney etc. They don’t always hit the jackpot though. They paid a lot of money for Matt Godden from Stevenage, and offloaded him for less to Coventry. They took a punt on Ricky Miller who scored loads for Dover, and that never worked out. Mo Eisa was signed for a reasonable fee, and might make a loss on him too.

It’s not an easy business unearthing gems, but when it works. It looks great. We’ve done well in recent years, and that’s testament to our recruitment and scouting network.

 

[LeftSideBoy]

 

[werthersoriginal]

Absolutely; on all points. And we ARE a soft touch, and yes, Championship clubs know
It and will continue to come fishing here for cheap bargains. Scotchers will claim otherwise but he knows it’s true. It seems we’ll just have to suck it up.

Who do you think should fund the running of the club? Some random weird guys from Indonesia? It seems that we can only maintain expensive players like Taylor by selling a player each year.

 

[harrymark1]

I think the 'soft touch' is a bit harsh
According to Transfrmarkt we got
Roofe - 3.15m for a L2 striker with 1 good season
Johnson - 2.4m after 1 half decent season at L1 when fans were split on him
Whyte - 1.98m after 1 first full season at L1 level
Baptiste - 2.03m for a player with great potential but a shock injury record

Chuck Dickie and Fosu who we made good money on, I think we have done ok
All about opinions!

 

[werthersoriginal]

"We want to be a top 30 club"

But also "we sell as soon as a Championship club flashes their a**e at us" are not mutually compatible.

Yes the top 30 club thing is silly at the moment, we’re still a pretty small club however good our team is in one particular year. It would only make sense if we had an amazing ground that made us money.

 

[greatunclekip]

The guy's 22, not 32. You're writing as if you think this is his last shot at a professional contract before retirement! His NEXT contract is bound to be in the Championship, whether he bails on this one, or honours it.



Or, they may see us as an ambitious club prepared to have an actual stab at promotion, prepared to play hardball to get there.



Yes, he does. He owes us two more seasons, on the contract he's signed, on the terms he's signed to. Conversely, we owe him two more seasons of wages and benefits if in the service of Oxford United, he becomes so injured that he can no longer ply his trade. Them's the breaks.



Respectfully, the Oxford United you are describing herein is called a 'feeder club'. I, and I'm sure many other forumees, don't want to support a feeder club.

Brilliant post. Feeder club is exactly what we are.

 

[Swaby39]

Dortmund sold Dembele, a player who wasn’t proven, had only been there a year, who was young (all just like Rob Atkinson) for about €100m with €40m of add-ons. That’s only a relative comparison to Rob Atkinson if we sell him for about £5m with £2m of add-ons. What they didn’t do, is sell Dembele for say €50m, which is what we’re proposing to do if we let Atkinson go for £1.6m.

Although they did sign Dembele on a 5 year contract, so had much more leverage. We seem to only be able to sign players on 2-3 years, even if they’re a cheap pick up from non league.

Wow - that is a reach!! How can you just scale down the price of an elite level international footballer playing in a key position (forwards always go for more, rightly or wrongly) in the champions league and say, ‘if he’s worth that, a centre half in league one must be worth this’… it’s absolute nonsense and those figures are unicorn numbers - there’s no perspective to that whatsoever. Apart from that, of the teams shopping in league one, how many have £5m to risk on a centre back after one decent season where he will still be viewed as a diamond in the rough - he needs work. They could take an educated punt on someone abroad for a fifth of that. You’re better off looking at like-for-like deals to actually take place and my info might be dated but I think Leon Barnett remains the most expensive defender to be sold out of L1 at £2.5m + add-ons amounting to a further £1m of which only half was fulfilled? Anything remotely close is exceptional from the club.

2/3 year contracts are the norm in the lower leagues. You only tend to see longer contracts at the top level when clubs commit a huge % of their resources getting them in so they want more commitment from the player. But we are getting players for smaller fees and in almost all cases they are a risk - if they don’t work out like RA and we’re committed to him for 5 years, what then? If he had flopped and hardly played a game, the same people saying get £5m now are the same people who would moan at the club for committing to a rookie for 3 years, so they can’t win, can they?

 

[n1]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1410856953048350721

 

[WRox]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1410856953048350721

Here’s the other thing... I’ve no doubt we could get more money for Atkinson in August, and definitely on the last day of the window. But surely it’s preferable to get the cash in and use it to bring in people like Whyte, Robson at Dundee Utd etc.

 

[captainox]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1410856953048350721

We can want to re-sign him but the rest of the tweet provides two big barriers to doing it.

Would assume Cardiff will be wanting circa £1m - do we want/can we afford to be spending that on a winger when a left-back and imminently a centre-back are priorities?

And you'd think if Hull are serious then they would hold the upper hand with Whyte just having spent 6 months there and it gives the opportunity to stay and play in the Championship.

If we manage to pull it off, then everybody involved will deserve big praise.

 

[Big Ronaldo]

Jokers on here saying that we shouldn’t be selling him?
Give your f*****g heads a wobble.

Either we are a developing club or we are not.
Because if we do not sell to clubs higher up, this club will have to find the money from somewhere else.
Where the f**k do you think the money comes from to pay the players? The staff? Ka$$am and his super stadium? Get a f*****g grip! We are not a rich mans Whimsy
(yet)
WE HAVE TO SELL PLAYERS!!
Ticket sales and TV money don’t cover our expenses.
We run at a loss most years as it is.
If Selling him means that this club goes on for another season at least then just be thankful for that.
There are plenty of other clubs out there who are up s**t creek even further than us.
As for being a selling club.
Every club, no matter who they are or where they are, IS a selling club.
No player is bigger than the bottom line.
This is how it is!!
Get used to it.
Even Manc untied sold Christiano Ronaldo!!
Thanks Rob, you were decent.

 

[horseman]

Exactly this. Too many on here not thinking about the real world consequences for not selling Aktinson and not trying to be a self-sustaining club. Just because we have rich owners doesn't mean we should rely on them to dip into their funds to bankroll the club, and you can't silence a player who has the chance to triple his wages by saying 'you're not leaving and that's final'.

I really can't be bothered to have a debate about our model again as we seem to go in circles time and time again. But what I will say is this: even if we keep Atkinson, it doesn't mean our chances of finishing in the top two are massively increased. Keeping our best players and rejecting million pound bids all for a shot of the Championship is a ludicrous way to run a football club.

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.
We are also selling to a club in the very League we aspire to be in and not for the first time and as i've asked before what would be the cost to replace RA should the miracle happen and our model sees us promoted. What is the potential cost of missing out again or making it and finding a replacement against a player already in the building and actually keeping the talent with us to achieve those aims together?.

You say you are tired of this debate while likewise a few are tired of those whose thought process is we had to sell in case he gets an injury or the usual wont stand in their way nonsense that is churned out every season.

I have no input on the value as it's subjective but on this i will say that if we rejected 1.4m as was suggested another 200k does very little in real terms. it's not about Rob furthering his career, although with our top 30 comments he could achieve that with us and still has 2 years on a contract. if fans are ok accepting this is our model then let's be realistic and stop the constant Manager bashing when things don't go our way because that really is what is ludicrous.

As one of only 2/3 who initially saw the potential in Rob Atkinson very early on and i even went on record that he would be the next Matt Elliott i am extremely pleased that he can further his career.

I have made no secret of the fact i wish we would keep a squad together with the odd tinker and give it a proper chance for 2-3 seasons but i'm told i must be realistic so i guess i will see us more of an Oldham than Forest, Qpr, West Brom type.

 

[Osei Yaw]

The guy's 22, not 32. You're writing as if you think this is his last shot at a professional contract before retirement! His NEXT contract is bound to be in the Championship, whether he bails on this one, or honours it.



Or, they may see us as an ambitious club prepared to have an actual stab at promotion, prepared to play hardball to get there.



Yes, he does. He owes us two more seasons, on the contract he's signed, on the terms he's signed to. Conversely, we owe him two more seasons of wages and benefits if in the service of Oxford United, he becomes so injured that he can no longer ply his trade. Them's the breaks.



Respectfully, the Oxford United you are describing herein is called a 'feeder club'. I, and I'm sure many other forumees, don't want to support a feeder club.

I think the reality is that the vast majority of clubs in the world are 'feeder' clubs and it's unrealistic to expect otherwise given our current stature. I don't think it's anything to do with the club being soft, more understanding what we can offer a player vs another club in a higher division who currently have a bigger wage budget.

I think the model works well. We've certainly done well on the pitch for the last 2 seasons. The biggest issue I see is that we seem to be completely hopeless for the first few months of the season... if we can sort that out then we could easily find ourselves in the Championship next season where we'll then be a feeder club to top Championship/lower end Prem sides instead.

 

[WuTang]

Sell Atkinson to Middlesbrough for money + Marvin Johnson.

Use money to Buy Gavin Whyte and Jason Kerr.

Promotion.

Come on Robbo it's not difficult I've done it on Football Manager plenty of times!

 

[Jolteon]

Blimey. Glad I put my phone away when I did yesterday. Several more pages of going in circles would've made me dizzy.

£2m for a L1 Centre back is a very good fee (especially with add ons)
He has big potential, but defensively has a lot to learn.
Look at previous sales for L1 defenders. I would guess that £2m would be in the Top 5 fees for a L1 CB?

When I looked yesterday, £2m would have put Rob as 8th highest CB sale from L1, although TransferMarket had the Rob Dickie sale as £2.4m which we now all know is a little higher than the actual fee. This also includes Leon Barnett, Paddy McNair and Rob Holding, none of whom played a game in L1 before their sales and were effectively Championship signings, as well as a certain Harry Maguire. Rob would effectively be the 4th highest CB sale L1 has seen which for one pro season is insane. If we've got a sell on clause in there too or any other addons, we've done really well. CBs just don't attract the level of fees that attackers do.

 

[Steve Gilbert]

Why are people now saying the top 30 club ambition is ridiculous when they are the exact same people who say we should be expecting promotion every year to the championship?!

On Atkinson, I’d take the money and then reinvest/stabilise the club. By all accounts we already have his replacement in the building which is McNally.

We only sell 1 or 2 players a season and don’t make whole sale changes. In fact this season I’d say it is only a few tweaks that is needed.
The team on the opening day might only have 3 new players in it that weren’t here last season.

 

[horseman]

Blimey. Glad I put my phone away when I did yesterday. Several more pages of going in circles would've made me dizzy.


When I looked yesterday, £2m would have put Rob as 8th highest CB sale from L1, although TransferMarket had the Rob Dickie sale as £2.4m which we now all know is a little higher than the actual fee. This also includes Leon Barnett, Paddy McNair and Rob Holding, none of whom played a game in L1 before their sales and were effectively Championship signings, as well as a certain Harry Maguire. Rob would effectively be the 4th highest CB sale L1 has seen which for one pro season is insane. If we've got a sell on clause in there too or any other addons, we've done really well. CBs just don't attract the level of fees that attackers do.

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

 

[nige01ox]

Sell Atkinson to Middlesbrough for money + Marvin Johnson.

Use money to Buy Gavin Whyte and Jason Kerr.

Promotion.

Come on Robbo it's not difficult I've done it on Football Manager plenty of times!

Then we'd really be getting mugged off by 'Boro - Marvin is a free agent

 

[WRox]

We can want to re-sign him but the rest of the tweet provides two big barriers to doing it.

Would assume Cardiff will be wanting circa £1m - do we want/can we afford to be spending that on a winger when a left-back and imminently a centre-back are priorities?

And you'd think if Hull are serious then they would hold the upper hand with Whyte just having spent 6 months there and it gives the opportunity to stay and play in the Championship.

If we manage to pull it off, then everybody involved will deserve big praise.

Really can’t see it being close to £1m. Going into his last year, on good money and still only really proven at top L1 level.

I think if he was a priority for Hull, he’d already be there. They may well see him as an option rather than a first choice.

Liverpool are selling that Millar Charlton had last year for £1m, Gavin Whyte’s not going for that. Sure Cardiff would be happy to cut their losses for closer to half that.