Ajer

[hogesar 9,618]

2 minutes ago, Indy said:

Really? You don’t see a 23 year old with European cup football experience significantly better? I’m sure had he signed you’d be shouting how significantly better he is! Ajer would have been a very good signing and improved our 11 no doubt in my book.

Both looked very solid last year, but that was with a very good defensive midfielder mopping up the midfield which we don’t have now! Skipp was the biggest difference to why we looked so solid at the back.

Whats done is done we move on to the next target whoever that might be.

Let's take European experience with a pinch of salt. Hes played some awful Europa League fixtures including qualification, only about 12 of them, and been distinctly average in all of them statistically.

[lake district canary 4,531]

3 minutes ago, Indy said:

Really? You don’t see a 23 year old with European cup football experience significantly better? I’m sure had he signed you’d be shouting how significantly better he is! Ajer would have been a very good signing and improved our 11 no doubt in my book.

Both looked very solid last year, but that was with a very good defensive midfielder mopping up the midfield which we don’t have now! Skipp was the biggest difference to why we looked so solid at the back.

Whats done is done we move on to the next target whoever that might be.

I didn't say I valued him at £10m, I was saying the club valued him at that. As for European experience.....with Celtic? Not sure that is any big deal.

[Indy 3,283]

4 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Let's take European experience with a pinch of salt. Hes played some awful Europa League fixtures including qualification, only about 12 of them, and been distinctly average in all of them statistically.

More like 38 and they all count to his experience. 23 starts for Norway who are on Par with Scotland for quality. I can’t see anyone wanting to pay 13 million for our two centre backs! This is one signing we should have really pushed to get over the line, IMO we lack quality at the back and I hope Omobamdele is as good as he looked last season.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Indy

[hogesar 9,618]

29 minutes ago, Indy said:

More like 38 and they all count to his experience. 23 starts for Norway who are on Par with Scotland for quality. I can’t see anyone wanting to pay 13 million for our two centre backs! This is one signing we should have really pushed to get over the line, IMO we lack quality at the back and I hope Omobamdele is as good as he looked last season.

Where do you get 38 European games hes played in?!

Norway roughly on par with Scotland our CB starts for Scotland.

Gibson was in the England squad not long ago.

Ajer wouldn't have even immediately got into our starting CB pairing.

[Petriix 2,834]

£13.5m is a ludicrous amount for *any* player in the last 12 months of their contract, let alone one from a League 1 level club. £10m was probably too much but I gather our bid only totalled that much including an add-on contingent on us avoiding relegation.

There are much better players out there for far less money. Move on. The club have.

[Indy 3,283]

12 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Where do you get 38 European games hes played in?!

Norway roughly on par with Scotland our CB starts for Scotland.

Gibson was in the England squad not long ago.

Ajer wouldn't have even immediately got into our starting CB pairing.

Really need to look, 14 games in European Champions league qualifying, 18 in Europa Cup and the addition in bit part appearances. 
As for Hanley only appeared 13 more times for Scotland in 6 additional years of football! I’d say Ajer will go on to appear more in a Norwegian team in the future.

Lastly as good as Gibson played after getting fit, he’s not actually cemented a squad place never mind actually appeared for England senior squad!

I’m not sure you’re not wearing your Yellow n Green specs when arguing this case Hogs!

Ajer is a talent who can play in two critical positions we need to improve on. If you’re happy with a couple 29 year olds, who on paper can be injury prone, then I’m glad for you, I don’t think Zimmermann and as talented Omobamdele is going to be, is a strong position to be writing off a player off Ajer potential and availability to us. We’re not going to be able to find many at his age and potential with his experience in our price budget or willing to come here…….so we wait to see who comes in!

Edited July 21, 2021 by Indy

[hogesar 9,618]

5 minutes ago, Indy said:

Really need to look, 14 games in European Champions league qualifying, 18 in Europa Cup and the addition in bit part appearances. 
As for Hanley only appeared 13 more times for Scotland in 6 additional years of football! I’d say Ajer will go on to appear more in a Norwegian team in the future.

Lastly as good as Gibson played after getting fit, he’s not actually cemented a squad place never mind actually appeared for England senior squad!

I’m not sure you’re not wearing your Yellow n Green specs when arguing this case Hogs!

Ajer is a talent who can play in two critical positions we need to improve on. If you’re happy with a couple 29 year olds, who on paper can be injury prone, then I’m glad for you, I don’t think Zimmermann and as talented Omobamdele is going to be, is a strong position to be writing off a player off Ajer potential and availability to us. We’re not going to be able to find many at his age and potential with his experience in our price budget or willing to come here…….so we wait to see who comes in!

If Ajer was such a talent, 1 year on his contract and 23 years old and hardly difficult to know about him playing for Celtic, I daresay there would be far more interest than us and Brentford.

There is so far nothing to suggest he is any better than Hanley or Gibson.

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,017]

I asked somebody I used to work with who is a Celtic season ticket holder about Ajer, he basically said he is  nice guy, works hard and he does not owe Celtic anything..........

[Jim Smith 2,314]

I don’t know whether or not we’ve dodged a bullet. I’m inclined to believe I’m he isn’t quite what we needed. We probably could have pushed the boat out had we been desperate to land him. But at the same time he clearly was a target and the fact that Brentford had the finances to land him when we didn’t is once again an eye opener. 

[horsefly 4,287]

42 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

I don’t know whether or not we’ve dodged a bullet. I’m inclined to believe I’m he isn’t quite what we needed. We probably could have pushed the boat out had we been desperate to land him. But at the same time he clearly was a target and the fact that Brentford had the finances to land him when we didn’t is once again an eye opener. 

In what sense an "eye opener"? One might equally argue it's an eye-opener that Brentford were so desperate that they were willing to pay way over the odds for Ajer (none of the other clubs reputedly in for him came close to that amount). That's a big wedge out of their transfer budget that now can't be spent elsewhere.

All transfer deals are inevitably a gamble to some degree because no one can predict the future, and how a player will respond to the many variables involved. Webber clearly decided that gamble reached its upper limit at £10m, and I for one trust his instincts on that to the full. The polar opposite to Webber is someone like Harry Redknapp who treated owner's money as if it were limitless; take a look at the long-term damage he did to Portsmouth and QPR as a result. I accept it's frustrating when deals don't come off, but I'd rather that momentary frustration than potentially many years ruing the damage done to the club through financial profligacy.

[Cantiaci Canary 556]

Hey Jim, I think it shows that we were interested but not at any price ... sure, Ajer didn't go for THAT much more than we were willing to bid but the difference between our bid and Brentford's is a whole new player. In other words we still have that £10M pot to spend AND have PLM in the building.

And Jim ... is it that eye opening that Brentford had the finances to land him? They have a richer owner and perhaps are more desperate for a new CB than us and were willing to pay more.

[chicken 2,604]

1 hour ago, Cantiaci Canary said:

Hey Jim, I think it shows that we were interested but not at any price ... sure, Ajer didn't go for THAT much more than we were willing to bid but the difference between our bid and Brentford's is a whole new player. In other words we still have that £10M pot to spend AND have PLM in the building.

And Jim ... is it that eye opening that Brentford had the finances to land him? They have a richer owner and perhaps are more desperate for a new CB than us and were willing to pay more.

I imagine it's actually a fair bit more than the fees being reported. If you look at reports, around the same time we put our offer in Brentford had one rejected for a similar amount plus add ons. I saw one report suggesting add ons took the fee closer to £20m. Then consider whatever the wages are.

Honestly, I don't believe Ajer has proven that he is worth £18-20m yet. Especially when in the last year of his contract and clearly wants to leave.

Edited July 22, 2021 by chicken

[TheGunnShow 5,932]

By definition, we can't afford to be caught in bidding wars. Celtic basically gazumped it trying to get a bidding war going and got one, taking more money from Brentford to the extent that it cost them at least a Lees-Melou more than what we would have paid.

We've dodged a bullet here.

[horsefly 4,287]

8 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

By definition, we can't afford to be caught in bidding wars. Celtic basically gazumped it trying to get a bidding war going and got one, taking more money from Brentford to the extent that it cost them at least a Lees-Melou more than what we would have paid.

We've dodged a bullet here.

Indeed! The prices with add-ons I've seen begin at £16m. In crude terms that rates him as twice as good as Gibson. Yet I doubt anyone on here genuinely thinks he has proven himself to be as good as Gibson yet. That's one helluva gamble, one I'm glad we haven't taken.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

7 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

By definition, we can't afford to be caught in bidding wars. Celtic basically gazumped it trying to get a bidding war going and got one, taking more money from Brentford to the extent that it cost them at least a Lees-Melou more than what we would have paid.

We've dodged a bullet here.

Brentford have now signed two players for a total (excluding add-ons) of about £20m. Including the loan fee for Gilmour, we have signed four players for about £18m. And we have made it clear the plans are to sign bring in three or four more, including deals that will potentially break our transfer record. Not paying over the odds for Ayer has to be seen in that context.

[horsefly 4,287]

4 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Not paying over the odds for Ayer has to be seen in that context.

Didn't realise we were in for the famous logical positivist A.J Ayer Purple. If we're going down that route I'd suggest Bertrand Russell is a better bargain. Pretty sure he put on a MOTM performance in the Monty Python match (sorry, couldn't resist)

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

2 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Didn't realise we were in for the famous logical positivist A.J Ayer Purple. If we're going down that route I'd suggest Bertrand Russell is a better bargain. Pretty sure he put on a MOTM performance in the Monty Python match (sorry, couldn't resist)

Point taken! Actually Ayer was I think a Spurs fan, and certainly was in Vienna in the 1930s with other Logical Positivists when the Austrian Wunderteam developed the theory of The Whirl (of course being Viennese they would named it after a chocolate confection), which was the forerunner of the Dutch Total Football.

[horsefly 4,287]

5 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Point taken! Actually Ayer was I think a Spurs fan, and certainly was in Vienna in the 1930s with other Logical Positivists when the Austrian Wunderteam developed the theory of The Whirl (of course being Viennese they would named it after a chocolate confection), which was the forerunner of the Dutch Total Football.

Indeed! I have a lot of time for the no (metaphysical) nonsense approach of the Logical Positivists, I expect AJ might have made a great no-frills centre back.

[TheGunnShow 5,932]

5 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Indeed! I have a lot of time for the no (metaphysical) nonsense approach of the Logical Positivists, I expect AJ might have made a great no-frills centre back.

Sure, but Marx would still have argued it was offside.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

3 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Indeed! I have a lot of time for the no (metaphysical) nonsense approach of the Logical Positivists, I expect AJ might have made a great no-frills centre back.

Yes, but our fan base is decidedly Zenoist and would claim he would never catch Grant Hanley if the latter had a head start...🤓

[horsefly 4,287]

5 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Sure, but Marx would still have argued it was offside.

bloody communists! (Guaranteed knee-taker no doubt).

[Jim Smith 2,314]

7 hours ago, Cantiaci Canary said:

Hey Jim, I think it shows that we were interested but not at any price ... sure, Ajer didn't go for THAT much more than we were willing to bid but the difference between our bid and Brentford's is a whole new player. In other words we still have that £10M pot to spend AND have PLM in the building.

And Jim ... is it that eye opening that Brentford had the finances to land him? They have a richer owner and perhaps are more desperate for a new CB than us and were willing to pay more.

Thats my point really. The tiniest side imaginable for the prem and they still have bigger resources than us. 

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

2 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Thats my point really. The tiniest side imaginable for the prem and they still have bigger resources than us. 

I guess it depends on how much they intend to spend overall rather just how much they are prepared to spend on one player. Norwich could have obviously matched Brentford's bid if they wanted to.

Also, Brentford came into the window sitting on a pot of cash from the sales of Benrahma, Watkins, Maupay and Konsa. They have sold something like £75m worth of players over the last couple of seasons and only spent a fraction of it on new players - this was their long term plan - build up a transfer fund from sales so when they were promoted they could use it to strengthen their squad.

Norwich did something a little similar last season with Lewis and Godfrey, but didn't get close to the £75m Brentford have made, and reinvested a lot of it straight away on Gibson and Dimi. 

Brentford also have a bit more head room to spend as they are starting from a lower base. Norwich's and Brentford's budgets are basically the same due to the Premier League TV money, but as they started the summer with a far lower wage bill they will have more headroom to work with.