The January 2026 Transfer Window

[Tomphil2]

1 hour ago, yankfan said:

Mowbary had to work for that budget. He had to fly to prune and get on his knees like vegrant. And it worked. He has the luxury few have. He somehow had money to buy Downing to watch on the sideline, his old mates kid Ansley for £500,000. Gally for £7 million, Diaz for £7 million to play for the. 21s. Mowbary was backed to a level we will never see again. 
 

JDT either had too much trust in the Egg or too much pride to beg the owners for money. Eustace too…seems and manager that wants any funding is required to go to India, kids arse, and remind the owners they own a football club. 

Maybe it's because they have to bypass those in the middle who filter information back to India to serve their own purposes.

[bluebruce]

8 hours ago, Andy said:

So apparently we have a budget.

If that is the case, it won't just be a black & white '£x for transfers / £x for salaries'.

It's a bit more flexible than that - they can spend a bit more on wages when needed, but it lowers the amount in the overall pot (including for fees).

Signing Dennis and Wickham on loan last season was an example of this - both on (relatively) large wages, but very little paid in loan fee, as opposed to spending more on the transfer fee but being restricted by lower weekly wages.

We can't spend a bit more in wages because we have self-imposed a stupid 10k pw wage cap. It came in this summer, so you won't see a Dennis style wage splurge again, even on a loanee I'd imagine.

Was Woodrow a relatively large wage? Christ that's even more mystifying why we ever bothered. That's not a hindsight thing either, his goals record was absolutely atrocious for a few consecutive seasons before he came. He had just come off the back of 3 goals in his last 66 league appearances! Or 7 in his last 94 if we want to make it look more 'generous'.

[Upside Down]

15 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

We can't spend a bit more in wages because we have self-imposed a stupid 10k pw wage cap. It came in this summer, so you won't see a Dennis style wage splurge again, even on a loanee I'd imagine.

Was Woodrow a relatively large wage? Christ that's even more mystifying why we ever bothered. That's not a hindsight thing either, his goals record was absolutely atrocious for a few consecutive seasons before he came. He had just come off the back of 3 goals in his last 66 league appearances! Or 7 in his last 94 if we want to make it look more 'generous'.

There would have been some lovely commission with that deal though, and that's all that matters at this club.

[bluebruce]

50 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

There would have been some lovely commission with that deal though, and that's all that matters at this club.

Do agents get commissions on loans?

[KentExile]

1 hour ago, bluebruce said:

Do agents get commissions on loans?

they get commission of anything where money is involved

[Commondore]

21 hours ago, Gamst said:

If you don’t pay championship wages the inevitable outcome is relegation. Whether that’s this season or somewhere down the line. If we survive this season which is quite possible then we will be without even more senior pros next year (Tronstad, Hedges, Cantwell, Pickering) and we will need to sell promising players like Alebiosu and Toth as they will want more money to sign a new contract and we won’t want to lose them for a free transfer. Once again we will need to find 10 + unknown players from overseas to fill the gaps. They will have no championship experience because any player with any experience will want a higher salary. This model is flawed and the only logical endpoint is relegation. This is so obvious that you would need to assume that relegation and a league 1 team with smaller costs is the objective. So once again you have to ask the question why the hell do they bother?? 

That's actually a pretty good way to run a football club though, if you do it correctly. Get young and/or "unknown" players in the door, develop them, sell them for a substantial profit, re-invest. If our main transfer business would concern players with Championship experience and high wages, we'd just end up with Paul Downing, Matt Kilgallon, and Chris Brown again (unless we're bought by modern slavers or become vassals in a "multi-club project" of course). You'd of course still have to have a solid backbone of experienced players likely to stay at the club for at least 3 or so seasons, and the economical infrastructure to re-invest transfer fees rather than patching holes in a massive wage bill, but in theory I'd like us to go down that road.

[Crimpshrine]

1 hour ago, Commondore said:

That's actually a pretty good way to run a football club though, if you do it correctly. Get young and/or "unknown" players in the door, develop them, sell them for a substantial profit, re-invest. If our main transfer business would concern players with Championship experience and high wages, we'd just end up with Paul Downing, Matt Kilgallon, and Chris Brown again (unless we're bought by modern slavers or become vassals in a "multi-club project" of course). You'd of course still have to have a solid backbone of experienced players likely to stay at the club for at least 3 or so seasons, and the economical infrastructure to re-invest transfer fees rather than patching holes in a massive wage bill, but in theory I'd like us to go down that road.

You used the word re-invest twice. I don't think you have been paying attention.

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, Commondore said:

That's actually a pretty good way to run a football club though, if you do it correctly. Get young and/or "unknown" players in the door, develop them, sell them for a substantial profit, re-invest. If our main transfer business would concern players with Championship experience and high wages, we'd just end up with Paul Downing, Matt Kilgallon, and Chris Brown again (unless we're bought by modern slavers or become vassals in a "multi-club project" of course). You'd of course still have to have a solid backbone of experienced players likely to stay at the club for at least 3 or so seasons, and the economical infrastructure to re-invest transfer fees rather than patching holes in a massive wage bill, but in theory I'd like us to go down that road.

This is the problem, and it is why the situation in which we find ourselves is so dangerous. 

I can see how the model can be sold to the owners. I can even see how it leaves them confused as to why the supporters are so unhappy. 

Reduce the wage bill. Invest in young players. Make a profit off of those players. Reinvest. Build a good squad. 

We've done the first bit. We've kind of done the second bit. We've definitely done the third bit. We've never done the fourth bit. And we've never been further from the 5th bit. 

What worries me is that our current senior management will spin our current predicament and leave our owners feeling as if they are on the right path. 

They'll call the fans ungrateful. They'll say the players who have wanted out are ungrateful. But they're here to steady the ship and guide us on our path. If you didn't follow football much, knew nothing about the sports, and had minimal to no interest in a relatively small investment within your portfolio...well...you might just buy it.