January will be interesting

[king canary 7,607]

We've been told all summer we didn't need to sell. Since that point we've sold Mumba, Aarons, Rashica, Krul and Omo for reported fees that could be anywhere from £20m to £35m, while spending very little. We've also cleared a number of our higher earners off the wage budget.

If we're in the promotion race come January then the club will have no excuse not to back the manager to help us over the finish line.

[cambridgeshire canary 6,721]

"We don't need to sell" has always been a lie. Selling players for profit is how our club is ran.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

Agree in essence but the January window often ends up being a bit inflated, so value still has to be our priority. If it turns out that some of the signings aren't quite fulfilling the job description, or a youngster or two isn't quite stepping up yet then those are the areas I'd expect us to remedy.

I'm confident the main issues have been remedied if the signings perform though.

[TheBaldOne66 687]

Careful OP you’ll upset the natives with truths like that and be accused of being a binner! 

[ricardo 7,395]

Perhaps we are just preparing ourselves for a financially comfortable life at a lower level.😉

[All the Germans 1,078]

11 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Perhaps we are just preparing ourselves for a financially comfortable life at a lower level.😉

It would be careless not to have that as a part of the plan? Throw caution to the wind trying to get up now could result in ruin tomorrow. Spending money doesn't guarantee success, but it does guarantee you have less money.  I'm relatively happy with the squad we have (I'd like more quality up front and on the wing) and done at a net profit. Feels decent to me.

[Badger 2,405]

28 minutes ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

"We don't need to sell" has always been a lie. Selling players for profit is how our club is ran.

1. Nobody who wants to sell assets would be stupid enough to state publicly that we are in desperate need of cash, with perhaps the exception of one or two posters on this forum!

2. With regards being a "lie," it is a bit more nuanced than that - "spin" might be closer. It is probable that we didn't need to sell this window (i.e. we have sufficient cash for now) so not actually a lie. However, if we had not sold, and fail to get promoted we would almost certainly have needed to sell at the end of the season and pretty quickly. The early sales give us a bit more comfort and flexibility, but I don't think there is a huge pot to be used in January.

3. The early sales and freed up cash might give us more flexibility over contract renewals - Sargent and Rowe would be very high up my list.

[Cantiaci Canary 557]

I think it's more accurate to say - 'we don't have to sell for fees we aren't happy with.'

Hence why Max, Milot & Andy departed in the manner that they did.

Every club has 'a price' for every player ... look at Kane for instance and perhaps even Salah.

[Capt. Pants 4,236]

IF we have Sargent and Hanley back and Sainz settles in nicely, we are looking at a slightly bloated squad. Hopefully there might be an opportunity to offload one or two of those who don't contribute much.

 

[chicken 2,627]

2 hours ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

"We don't need to sell" has always been a lie. Selling players for profit is how our club is ran.

Yes and no.

The club is run as a self sustaining model. That means money is required from different sources to maintain equilibrium or, should the case be, to reinvest in the squad. None of this is a secret and has been said by Webber since his arrival.

"We don't need to sell" isn't a lie. Nor does it mean we wont sell. It simply means we can go with what we have.

Then there is "selling players for profit" - if and when we choose or are forced to sell players, I bloody well hope we make a profit. That would be ideal. However it is false to claim that is all we are interested in. Even prior to this summer we  have signed players that were clearly not intended to be about making a profit, and have done for some time.

If we had wanted profit on Pukki, we'd have sold him last summer. I am pretty sure that when we signed Krul it wasn't with  the idea that we would make a profit on him either. I think the club would have been happy to still have him had there been no interest. It just made sense when there was. Equally, we have offered new contracts to the likes of Hanley and McLean who could both have been sold to generate funds, free up wages.

It's a much more finely balanced and intricate operation than the silly jab at the club we often see on here. It has also been the way for our club and most of the EFL for as long as I have been a supporter - so 35+ years. It's why I don't tend to get upset by it now. When you have seen your team, inside the top 6 in the premier league and beating Bayern Munich in the Olympic Stadium, and then seen that team taken apart and sold because someone put money into land rather than see the future of football and that the TV money was going to dwarf some silly bit of land that you wouldn't see profit on for 20yrs... then you are prepared for anything.

Sutton, Fox, then Bellamy, Green, Ashton, Shackell, the list goes on and on. Yet we have still held onto the likes of Huckerby, Hoolahan etc until their performances were not good enough for us anymore. And there has nearly always been a new hero. Hoolahan replaced Huckerby, for example. 
 

[norfolkngood 1,087]

i think Webber has been very good 

got players in and left some kitty for new DOF ( i hope )

the new DOF Should be able to spend a bit on some gems he knows from whatever league he comes from ( i hope again ) 

[Danke bitte 965]

Despite whatever people think of Brentford, I would say they’re a club we should be aiming to replicate. Have done fantastically well, without blowing money away and cultivating success through graft and well thought out purchases. They’ll always sell their best players as is life, I’ve gotten used to it with us. Buendia being the most recent example. However what I stomached less well is how poorly we spent that hard earned money on a squad who were dreadful. This window seems to have been well thought out, akin to 2018/19 where we bought in free rando Germans who had a point to prove. 

Something this time round feels different about the club, like it seems focused. Obviously time will tell but I’m not unhappy with this window given we kept some key players in Sara, Sargent and Gunn. Let’s hope if we’re there or thereabouts come January we look to bring bodies in for the run in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if plans are being drafted now to make that happen. Quietly confident is my emotion right now. 

[pete 319]

Are you sure Webber is going anywhere ? Don't seem to be many suitors.  If there was he would have gone soonest

[norfolkngood 1,087]

5 hours ago, Danke bitte said:

Despite whatever people think of Brentford, I would say they’re a club we should be aiming to replicate. Have done fantastically well, without blowing money away and cultivating success through graft and well thought out purchases. They’ll always sell their best players as is life, I’ve gotten used to it with us. Buendia being the most recent example. However what I stomached less well is how poorly we spent that hard earned money on a squad who were dreadful. This window seems to have been well thought out, akin to 2018/19 where we bought in free rando Germans who had a point to prove. 

Something this time round feels different about the club, like it seems focused. Obviously time will tell but I’m not unhappy with this window given we kept some key players in Sara, Sargent and Gunn. Let’s hope if we’re there or thereabouts come January we look to bring bodies in for the run in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if plans are being drafted now to make that happen. Quietly confident is my emotion right now. 

It did seemed planned and very happy with free signings 

But it also seemed that we were never going to spend anything even though we were selling players 

only one player costing anything 

that is the bit that is a concern , 

Very good free transfers mixed with some players bought might of added some quality to the free players 

[S_81 797]

May come under pressure for Rowe if he keeps his form up. 

[splutcho 173]

Actually January probably won't be interesting. Might get a loan or something. Unless we get injuries, we probably don't need much.

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,138]

I'm just asking this question because I am beyond clueless when it comes to finances and how large businesses operate which is why I never contribute to related threads. If we are sitting on a decent surplus of funds and don't do anything with it for a while would it be subject to any kind of tax if left for a season? Clubs tend to spend at least as much as they earn and I know a lot of that is trying to get as strong a team out as possible but is it also because if you sit on a large surplus for a while you'll lose some of it? It makes good sense to always have a surplus I guess, like with ourselves individually say never going below x amount in your bank account but when talking tens of millions and in a business account do you get penalized for having such a large profit in your account just sitting there for a long period of time?

To those who know about things like this, this might be the dumbest thing they've ever heard but I'm asking anyway out of curiosity because I'm completely ignorant about things like this. Even if we have a massive wage bill, payed loads in agent fees, signing on fees and gave our new signings good contracts the numbers don't quite add up to me with what we've done this summer if we never had the money to spend more than the 1m on Fassnacht. It seems to me that either our wage bill is astronomical, Pukki and the players we let go weren't on that much, we've given our free transfers 30k a week plus or we're sitting on a wedge of cash and haven't done anything with it. 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Christoph Stiepermann

[Sufyellow 222]

12 hours ago, king canary said:

We've been told all summer we didn't need to sell. Since that point we've sold Mumba, Aarons, Rashica, Krul and Omo for reported fees that could be anywhere from £20m to £35m, while spending very little. We've also cleared a number of our higher earners off the wage budget.

If we're in the promotion race come January then the club will have no excuse not to back the manager to help us over the finish line.

We had to sell,  we always need to raise about 20 million to ballance the books. That's what we have achieved. 

[stratton canary 134]

Perhaps we will sign Attanasio in January! 

Or maybe we've just sold Omo to pay him back his £10m? 

[CANARYKING 638]

12 hours ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

I'm just asking this question because I am beyond clueless when it comes to finances and how large businesses operate which is why I never contribute to related threads. If we are sitting on a decent surplus of funds and don't do anything with it for a while would it be subject to any kind of tax if left for a season? Clubs tend to spend at least as much as they earn and I know a lot of that is trying to get as strong a team out as possible but is it also because if you sit on a large surplus for a while you'll lose some of it? It makes good sense to always have a surplus I guess, like with ourselves individually say never going below x amount in your bank account but when talking tens of millions and in a business account do you get penalized for having such a large profit in your account just sitting there for a long period of time?

To those who know about things like this, this might be the dumbest thing they've ever heard but I'm asking anyway out of curiosity because I'm completely ignorant about things like this. Even if we have a massive wage bill, payed loads in agent fees, signing on fees and gave our new signings good contracts the numbers don't quite add up to me with what we've done this summer if we never had the money to spend more than the 1m on Fassnacht. It seems to me that either our wage bill is astronomical, Pukki and the players we let go weren't on that much, we've given our free transfers 30k a week plus or we're sitting on a wedge of cash and haven't done anything with it. 

I thought we borrowed £66 million to stop going bust and that’s where all the income has gone ?

[duke63 542]

Bearing in mind all but less than half a dozen EPL clubs are run on the basis that a wealthy owner funds their considerable losses, including the most successful, then I fail to see what other options we have than to sell players for considerable fees if it suits. 
 

The club made a huge mistake with Cantwell in not selling when his stock was high and ended up giving him away. 
 

I’m not sure Big Andy has made a sensible move nor currently has the ability to be an accomplished PL defender so I think it was probably the right thing for the club to sell now. 

[OnDaBall 137]

22 hours ago, Danke bitte said:

Despite whatever people think of Brentford, I would say they’re a club we should be aiming to replicate. Have done fantastically well, without blowing money away and cultivating success through graft and well thought out purchases. They’ll always sell their best players as is life, I’ve gotten used to it with us. Buendia being the most recent example. However what I stomached less well is how poorly we spent that hard earned money on a squad who were dreadful. This window seems to have been well thought out, akin to 2018/19 where we bought in free rando Germans who had a point to prove. 

Something this time round feels different about the club, like it seems focused. Obviously time will tell but I’m not unhappy with this window given we kept some key players in Sara, Sargent and Gunn. Let’s hope if we’re there or thereabouts come January we look to bring bodies in for the run in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if plans are being drafted now to make that happen. Quietly confident is my emotion right now. 

It also helps that they have an owner who's worth reportedly £250 million.