Seb

Sorry to the conspiracy theorists out there - It''s nothing to do with the so-called great fan swindle I''m afraid.   If a club is a private or public company it means there’s implications on declaring fee’s, and if you actually have to.

Smudge: Well you''ll find out on Saturday around 4.45pm, so you may as well wait until then before giving up on a player who’s been here for less than 24hours!   You never know you may even feel charitable and give him a couple of games to settle in and get used to a new team.  

Interesting views of the St Mirren fans and what they thought of Lappin   http://www.blackandwhitearmy.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17416   The general opinion seems to be he delivers an excellent ball, and is technically very good. Looks to be quite a departure from Huckerby on the left hand side, as Lappin appears to be more of a crosser and passer, as opposed to pace and dribbling.   Maybe a glimpse of the way Grant wants his team to play? I do hope so.

On the face of it it would seem a good idea, but in all honesty I don’t believe there’s a marked difference in the quality of our youth players and the youth teams of clubs in Division 1 or 2. So I can’t imagine them being too keen. Maybe setting up a link with someone like Kings Lynn, which is obviously much easier now, would be more beneficial. We could test the players we know are less likely to make it in the championship (your Crow’s, Hendersons etc) get them back, and if their good enough their stock will be much higher, so when moving them onto a lower league team in Divisions 1 or 2 we could actually get better fees?  

Another clichéd negative response!   The analogy is simply saying the option is to buy a player at full market value and receive little or no profit upon sell on, or buy a player with un-tapped potential, of which Grant has experience of with reo-coker, mullins, and to then make an eventual profit on the inevitable sell-on. Because lets face it if either player does prove successful they will be sold, because until we establish ourselves not even as a premier league club, but as a top 6 championship club, we will not retain players like Ashton, Earnshaw Vine etc.   You also mention ‘left further and further behind as the market values increase’. Question: Why would the value of the small house (brown) not increase at the same rate of the big house (Vine), I dont really understand.   Personally I would have loved us to sign Vine, Riordan and Pearson, but can appreciate the sense in not paying well over the odds for a player like Vine, who has half a decent season behind him. And for 2.5 million?! When we signed Ashton for 3.5million!   On the face of it, yes Brown is a disappointing signing, especially when our other targets are going for big money to the clubs we should be challenging, but if Grant can sign 2 or more players for similar fee’s, and worst case only 1 of them progress, but turns into a 1.5 million rated player is it really such a bad thing?

Totally agree Mark, you have to be a bit more dynamic or ''shady'' in transfer dealings and a lot of the time I wish we were. On the flip side of that of that one of the reasons we got Ashton was that we submitted a proper ''old-school'' written request/offer which Grady really appreciated, which put us in a good position early on in negotiations. However it’s really about finding a happy medium. I''m sure the ''Asthon-approch'' wouldn’t work with many clubs, and we''d get left behind trying to fax off nicely typed letters to other clubs boards! The question that needs to be addressed is how well do we tailor each transfer offer, to match the personality and characteristics of the club receiving it.  

Good post. I''d also add that recently we''ve been very transparent in our transfer dealings, something I believe the club should be commended on. There’s a link here which details the signing of Earshaw, and I remember something very similar being put on the official site when we so nearly signed Cotteril from Bristol. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/4671088.stm Call it a PR stunt if you will, but I can’t think of any other club making themselves so available and accountable to the fans when it comes to transfer dealings. I certainly can’t imagine a club like Pompey lifting the lid on some of their shady deals! The reason I mention this is I’m sure the club are pro-active, and if things don’t really happen in January perhaps we should see what they have to say about it (as they''ve done so previously), then conduct the inevitable post mortem.  

Maybe she was finalising a deal for George Best. Who cares why she wasn’t there. Get over it. I''m sure if she was there you''d be arguing that she''s wasting her time at Tamworth when she could be over seeing a transfer, or adding to the clubs - millions. These unsubstantiated anti Delia/Club posts are boring the hell out of me and others. Please substantiate ramblings going forward. Yours, Bored