bluebruce

Ever since we became a Championship side, it should never be a surprise that we lose out on signings to a Premier League team. If Solihull Motors were suddenly plonked into the Prem, they'd likely be able to beat us to Kipre too. It's got nothing to do with who is the more prestigious institution, and everything to do with who has more money and plays in the top flight right now.

Fixed.

That's a seriously prickish way to pose for your first club photo.

Nah, needs to start teaching him how to play right away or we won't see him til after Christmas.

The weirdest part of it would be that their interest seems to have only solidified after we uncovered that we could get him at under a million. As if 1.5 mill was too rich for their blood! I suppose another way you could look at that is they were tracking him, considering him as a squad option, but hearing we were close triggered them into action.

Cock-Killer Kaminski? Why would he be?

I've always felt I'd be the same if I was already making pretty silly money. Especially young, when you can vanish or lose progress opportunities if you don't play. But I'll never know if I really would hold out, and history shows players frequently just follow the immediate money. Some exceptions of course.

For a ton more money.

Hopefully just lazily remembering that West Ham were linked not long ago, rather than him actually knowing anything.

From what I'd heard, I didn't expect that he would lose on nearly every stat there. Then again Lenihan is a very good CB at this level, so no shame in it. Stats don't tell the whole story as we know. Could be harder to pass accurately to weaker teammates, and Kipre might be more adventurous with his passes for all we know. Wins his tackles at a better rate, that's encouraging. Not sure what constitutes a 'defensive duel' which he isn't as good at there. Still encouraged by bringing him in, if we do. I wonder if in a way it would be more helpful to put his stats against the man he would replace, Tosin?

In all seriousness I was going to say Kipre, I was just a bit busy at the time I read this ? My suspicion was that the notion we couldn't afford him was a smokescreen to avoid other clubs getting alerted to us getting close to the right fee. Don't want the ITK badge anyway though, seen how people with it get treated when they have it (plus obviously I didn't know, just a guess)! Surprised the LT have broken it at this stage though if we are still a way on terms, plus let everyone know he doesn't cost 6 figures. They're usually on the side of keeping club secrets until they break elsewhere.

As I said in the post, foolishly. However in real terms it means a hole in the finances. Self-inflicted, absolutely, but it's there. Can't just point at the savings and not look at the losses when comparing to last year's budget. We are also in the third year of the cycle as we all know, which may in itself mean the budget was reduced before we started. I know you're going to say we don't have to be beholden to it, as you've said before, but we do. We can't take the risk of a 12 point deduction and clearly don't have the ingenuity/desire to work around it. As others have said, your point that we have to sell to buy a CB isn't backed up by TM's comments. Yes those might not be true but that's the information we have to go off. His comments that it will give us more freedom for moves could apply to the lower priority target areas later in the window. Or a higher standard of CB if they come in quickly. Doesn't matter that every club has lost money due to covid when all we are talking about is the amount of money we have available.

We have lost a lot of income from covid, and foolishly haven't sold any season tickets yet. We also lost a sponsor.

Defensively though?

The payoffs rarely seem to be any better than a heavily subsidised loan, on the rare occasions the details come out.

Wales Online article says we want a 7-figure fee for Williams! If Swansea are signing Lowe and can no longer afford him, we need to drop that valuation pronto...

You don't though. If you scrolled past his posts every time you wouldn't be reading them, and we wouldn't all see you have loads of massive exchanges with him, every day, about virtually the same things. There's no point telling us that you scroll past his posts when we can all see for an absolute fact that you don't. If you two find each other's views so objectionable, and don't like having the same circular arguments every day, please, for the sake of the rest of us, put each other on ignore or at least stop quoting each other. Edit - as much as you do both contribute to the board in general, that is.

That's not how it works and technically it isn't even FFP anymore. It's 'profit and sustainability'. Birmingham's points deduction being meaningless is a coincidence of their points at the time. It can still relegate or cost promotion if we are unfortunate though.

?

Great to see BB not letting his penalty miss get him down, as many of us have said he seems a player reliant on being confident. Could be hope for the kid yet, we will see.

Are you going off reputation or have you seen him?

We haven't played that one yet. We frequently toy with formations, especially in preseason. I wouldn't assume the 4-3-3 from just the Fleetwood game. Just about fitness and giving everyone game time for now.

Or we just about have the funds for those (hopefully), which are a far bigger priority but not to also replace a player who isn't actually a regular starter anyway and plays a position where it's expensive to recruit quality. He is also showing some signs of improvement tbf, although he still isn't good enough right now to be a starter.

When we actually have the funds to replace him.

Downing is great at helping us keep possession. However, we are crapper in terms of results when we have possession.