Your Retained List

Chickson has another year - average yes, but lets be fair, he has had his fair share of injuries. Id give him another chance as back up.

 

That has worried me for awhile. Our repu

That has worried me for awhile. Our reputation may well have taken a bashing, and both managers and players alike may not want to come here.

 

Of the players out of contract:

Keep:
Doyle
Dieng
Gibson
Hudson

Release:
McMahon
Law
Raeder
Sattelmaier

Unsure:
Peters
Laird
Webb-Foster
Grodowski

Of the players under contract I would look to move on Vincelot, Poleon and Wyke - but I'd be looking for a decent fee for Wyke to rebuild the squad.

 

I don't think Sattelmaier will ever play football again.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44027903

Very interesting article about Stoke and their transfer policy.

Spending is not the issue there, or here. The idea either Stoke or Bradford must spend more is misguided in my opinion.

What needs to end is wasteful signings clogging up the clubs arteries.

Look at the number of money signings not playing fir Stoke. Now look at ours.

Shay, Dom, Jones, Reeves, Vincelot, all cost money and were unable to arrest our slide this season.

Wyke is the only one playing week in, week out.

Character is far more important than 'talent', and we signed weak characters, just like Stoke.

 

I don't know about that. Vince certainly came with a reputation as a leader and someone who Cov fans didn't want to lose. Same with Reeves - an influential midfield dynamo. Poleon when he was on a "scoring run" at the beginning of the season had a nice swagger about him. Jones, confidence knocked due to being played out of position and injured a lot. Shay, well, he was pretty much outed by Maccs as being scared of the numbers he was playing in front of (should be ok next season then!),so I'll give you that one.
The simple fact is, something weird went on at the beginning of this year. Something that caused all our players to basically lose confidence, ability, interest or whatever. It'll go down in history the same way the Marie Celeste did. Just one of those unknown mysteries

 

Dom Poleon is a known, proven poor goalscorer.

He scored 7 this season, 5 back in 15/16, 6 in 14/15, 2 in 13/14, and 4 in 12/13.

He's also had an inordinate amount of football.

But he scored 14 goals last season in all competitions, despite only 8 of those coming in the league. 2 came against an U23 side, and 1 against Curzon Ashton.

That's 37 goals in all competitions in 206 appearances.

Yet we paid money for this guy and gave him a two year deal based on what? Yeah, he hot an okay patch at the beginning of the season, but how many expected that to endure? I know I didn't. And it didn't.

It's fine playing pretty well when the whole team is performing; but Dom's drive and desire soon vanished when it wasn't all rosy. It's been a long time since I've seen a player treated like Dom has been by Grayson, and it's entirely of his doing.

As for Vincelot, yes, he was considered captain material, so he's been disappointing - but really, was Reeves known to be mentally strong? A real professional? A class act and character? I never read those comments.

 

He can do a job for League One teams, I believe that. But he's a classic example of a player on too long of a contract, and far too high a transfer fee.

We need to ensure we aren't tying ourselves down to anyone but the best.

 

But we can't get the best. Money and the time it takes us to actually approaching a player dictates that.
I'm afraid, the Poleon's of this world are what we're going to be signing from now on.

 

I don't believe that.

We signed Charlie Wyke based on some good information about his contract; we paid a similar amount for him as we did McCartan, and Wyke is miles better than Shay.

That level of astuteness has to be the norm, not just flinging mud at walls and hoping some sticks.

While there's always risk with transfers, the main fear with Wyke might have been a freak injury, because he was clearly ready for this level when we signed him.

Sadly, our policy since then was something akin to "well Wyke was 23-24 when we signed him, so let's just pay for players in that bracket, what can go wrong?"

McCartan had a six month spell at Accrington where he looked like he could score for fun, like Wyke - but Wyke had a good 18 months. We should have held off on Shay, then bought in January if he'd continued that form.

Sadly, our wastefulness gifted Accrington a bit of money, they've used it wisely, they achieved promotion. We weren't as wise, and we didn't achieve promotion.

Next season I'd like us to be signing players for a reason; because we lack depth in a particular position (try left back or either wing, or the target man role) and signing the best we can within our budget. Not easy, but signing five players for transfer fees and having a bloated squad of 42 and yet having multiple positions with no viable cover have made it LOOK like we are limited to players like Poleon. Actually, though, Wyke is the limit of our financial remit, and Wyke is quality.

 

Wyke had a release clause in his contract which is why we payed well below his actual market value. The chances of us picking up another 20 goal a season man for such a low price are slim.

 

Yep, very true, his clause was very much to our benefit, and a good piece of info that we capitalised on.

But how many other teams were prepared to splash the cash?

The country knew about that clause by the time we signed him, it was splashed all over.

£250,000 is actually a considerable sum in today's League One/League Two market, though I'll admit players without such clauses will probably command significantly higher sums.

We need to be patient with fees. Fees are terrific for unlocking otherwise inaccessible talent. We seem to have viewed them as more important than our wage budget, and weakened our squad by spending far more than we ever have in the past.

We should set a clear policy of a competitive wage budget coupled with the OCCASIONAL, well placed foray into the fee-paying market.

We absolutely should not, under any circumstances, be paying for Dom Poleon - or paying a quarter of a million for Shay McCartan.

Horrible errors of judgement.

 

What do you think is his market value

 

You'd be a piss poor salesman if you couldn't get £750,000 for him right now.

I'd say his actual value was around a million, increasing if we can get him to sign an extension.

 

I think we will be lucky to get that 500k is much nearer

 

There are two questions that need asking here, why aren't we offering an extension to a player who we know can score goals for us at this level, and if we have and he doesn't want to sign it we have to ask why, is it because of whats gone on since the New Year, Charlie seemed to be enjoying his time at Valley Parade.

 

I don't think so.

Involved in 40 % of our goals this season (goals or assists), 41 goals in the last two seasons, only 25 years old, good pedigree at 'Boro, easy sale.

 

It makes zero sense to not extend Charlie's contract given we're already 'pot committed' to use poker terminology.

We paid a considerable sum of money; Charlie has scored goals at this level, and proven himself a good centre forward.

If we're serious about making profits on our signings, Charlie has to get another year at least.

 

Then we don't sell him

Simple