Adam Wharton

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

7 hours ago, Eddie said:

Yes, and Bellingham signed for Sunderland for a reported 2 million 6 months before Wharton left us. 

So...what's your point? 

He's just been promoted to the Premier League, he's the brother of one of the world's most famous current footballers, and he's played twice as many matches for Sunderland (his second club) as Wharton played for us. 

I don't think his transfer proves the point that you think it does. 

Who would you rather have in your team ?

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Who would you rather have in your team ?

Wharton, although injuries are a slight concern, and that could easily change within 12 months. But, they're being sold for similar prices at a similar point in their careers. 

We're also talking about two players who were sold/being sold at 19 years old, so there are many unknowns and many possibilities for either one to surpass their current potential or never fulfill it. 

We could run through lists as long as our arms of players at 19/20 who were expected to be world class and never got close. We could also come up with long lists of players at 19/20 who were never expected to be particularly special and who went on to amazing careers. 

I'd be very happy with either one. 

[RoverCanada]

Quibbling over the fee we should have gotten for Wharton is ultimately beside the point, as much as we can enjoy pedantic arguments about how we'll obviously receive more than £18m in the end, how much 'credit' we can give for add-ons/sell-ons (as we can debate re: Raya's sale), benchmarks like how much Bristol City received for Alex Scott (eg, I've seen it reported as 'up to' £25m), speculating as to how much we would've gotten if we had at the very least waited until the summer and had a proper bidding war, etc etc etc.

The main issue is that it was obviously a replay of the Tom Cairney sale: a distressed seller forcing a star player out the door to alleviate immediate cashflow concerns due to our owners suddenly being unable (and unwilling) to properly fund the club despite their (allegedly) massive wealth.*

Hell, it's somewhat frustrating how much we did get for Wharton given the Rovers hierachy can simply deflect any critique saying it was a record fee, it reflected the market at the time, hard to say no when PL club comes calling, etc. I can't immediately recall if they've referred to FFP... blah blah blah, it's all bullshit. They'll obviously never publicly admit it was driven by cashflow needs.

Some times I wonder if one angle of attack is to mock Venky's for not being able to properly fund their 'play thing'. For all the talk of making the club 'sustainable' etc, fuck that, you're quasi-oligarchs. Why aren't you pissing away your wealth to chase footballing glory, like the other vain owners across English football?

---

*Linked to how much of an 'impediment' it is for Venky's to provide a 'guarantee' for every £ they send abroad. As can reportedly be the case for the super rich, a lot of their wealth is tied up in illiquid assets, is needed as collateral for other loans, etc., so regularly scrounging together ~£10m+ to send over isn't necessarily something they're capable of doing at a flick of a switch (probably also reflecting general in-fighting, poor planning, indecision, bureaucracy, etc within the Venky's empire). And whether the money set aside in the guarantee still earns interest or does it just sit there and have its nominal value eaten away by inflation I've generally found it a bit odd that they've consistently relied on that bank overdraft (at 2% plus BOE rate) for day-to-day funding of the club, which hurts Rovers' bottom line relative to just sending over a bunch of cash, but perhaps that reflects competing interests for cash within the Venky's empire. Anyway, I'm straying into a separate (unending) discussion!

tldr; I just had some coffee.

Edited Wednesday at 11:09 by RoverCanada

[roverandout]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

Wharton, although injuries are a slight concern, and that could easily change within 12 months. But, they're being sold for similar prices at a similar point in their careers. 

We're also talking about two players who were sold/being sold at 19 years old, so there are many unknowns and many possibilities for either one to surpass their current potential or never fulfill it. 

We could run through lists as long as our arms of players at 19/20 who were expected to be world class and never got close. We could also come up with long lists of players at 19/20 who were never expected to be particularly special and who went on to amazing careers. 

I'd be very happy with either one. 

Wharton is far better than jobe. I know which one I'd take