It's not just the fee we have to worry about. At 3 mill I'd expect quite a few Championship clubs to be keen, which generally means at least one is paying better than us. But I'd argue if they've kept tabs on him they'll be wanting about 5 mill. I suspect they'll loan him out again if they don't see him breaking their side yet, and that might be our best chance of seeing him in the shirt again. But there will probably be a promotion chasing side paying a better loan fee or wage contribution.

Khadra might be feasible. Van Hecke isn't. Brighton may make him available but not for a price we can pay. There will be bigger fish circling.

Sorry, I'm not seeing the Anel pun in there.

We've made a real ass of ourselves tbf. Butt, onto the next one. Let's get these transfer wheels lubricated and bring a big one in. We might be able to avoid other clubs gazumping us if we sneak someone in the back door.

Of course we can. Just not in the transfer market with clubs that have a lot more money than us.

Depends on the state of the squad on deadline day. I've also argued we can't lose him for free, but I'd rather lose him for free than say, get relegated. Personally I'd tell interested clubs in the last 2 weeks of the window that he is getting more expensive every day, not cheaper.

Because it literally imposes hard limits on what we can spend, which can no longer be easily circumvented, and we flew pretty close to the wind on it last year. I'm not sure why you and JH fight this point anymore.

Now you mention it yeh, thought he was 1.5 mill actually but it's a while ago now. Really can't think of anyone in the last few years at least.

If we signed Anel (or any other non-striker costing over a million) would it be the first time since relegation that we have spent more than a million on a player who wasn't a striker (debates about what Gallagher is not withstanding)?

LT article said he had trained in Portugal and impressed. Personally I said yeh he will in the warm weather.

In fairness, whilst I do agree that in many ways Nixon is a chancer and often hedges his bets, that's kind of how the transfer world works generally. Most of the time, everything is in the balance. Deals can seem like they're nailed on but fall apart. Not surprising some journalists adopt this tactic, the alternative would be to be constantly making claims that things are definitely happening and getting egg on their faces, or barely sharing any stories until they're happening.

I always have it firmly in my head he was 17 when he went there, but turns out it was 18, like Goddard is. Nonetheless it's two levels higher than Bamber Bridge play (think the League One of the Conference pyramid), and he only went on one short term loan there (which he smashed) and started making limited first team appearances here the same season. I don't know what Goddard can learn from a second stint in that league that our youth coaches and the PL2 can't teach. It's not like outfield players who can learn a lot from the physical side of playing competitive games with men. At least he should get more game time than competing with our overstuffed youth goalie department. But I can only assume he either didn't do too well, to not attract someone further up the pyramid, or the club have moved him too early in the window.

I mean, I wouldn't know, but that definitely isn't what I was saying.

Yep it finally loaded. Northern Premier, same level he went to last season. I know we have too many young goalies and need to loan some out, but seems pointless to loan him to the same level again at this early stage of the summer, unless he didn't do very well I suppose, but he was quite highly rated. If he is any good you would think it makes sense to wait for a conference team to potentially sniff and I'm sure if they didn't then another club from that level would still be interested later. Pretty minor in the scheme of things of course, but I'm just not convinced we do a great job of loaning our youngsters.

This one is a transfer story about us though, and I haven't seen it posted. https://www.google.com/amp/s/footballleagueworld.co.uk/sheffield-united-qpr-bristol-city-and-blackburn-in-transfer-chase-for-aston-villa-player/amp/ In other news our young keeper Felix Goddard has gone off on loan. I can't get the actual story to load though so, dunno where!

Not a transfer story (for us) but nobody has posted for 3 hours and I dunno where else to put it.. https://www.google.com/amp/s/soccernet.ng/2022/07/id-chain-him-up-former-blackburn-boss-warns-against-cashing-in-on-chelsea-linked-super-eagles-star.html/amp Either my memory is beyond terrible and I need to see the doctor, or I've slipped into an alternate reality...this article thinks Barry Ferguson was once our caretaker manager?!

You do realise who you are talking to? All Swag has to do is talk 'positively', which he will because he is the club's CEO and a snake oil salesman, and Chaddy will be eating out of his hand.

That's money I'd already accrued though, not an extra month's pay.

If only that problem could have been dealt with in advance by changing the manager a few months ago...

Tbf, I couldn't completely rule out that being the process with our crazy chicken farmer owners.

They do get paid for an extra month but I feel like I read it was the PFA who cover them for the month? I may be misremembering. Wish I'd been entitled to extra payments and a month's added wages when I left my last gig...they wouldn't have been anything like a pro footballer's either.

We'll be putting our back out a lot if that's our spine.

I'm sure nothing could go wrong with our inexperienced, first timer DoF having full control over the budget without board oversight. Although tbf, in the case of our board, they probably should keep their beaks out...I'm just saying structurally, what he said makes sense at a normal club anyway. The stuff you've said about it going to Pune afterwards is speculation on your part, albeit plenty of chance it's accurate based on past experience.

Who said anything about size? I bet their budget is higher. We are not a top 10 club in this league in terms of our likely performance. If you're going off this season, only I think our second top 10 finish since we came down here, then Sheffield United are a top 5 club. We are a bigger club overall than them, history etc, but players want money above all else. And they're a side that, from a neutral's perspective, has more chance of going up this season than we do.