Transfer Deadline Day

[itombomb]

Agree the Sess stuff is harsh, but I think a big part of it is probably related to Levy/Tottenham given how they tried to screw us over.  I imagine while both are in charge the two clubs will never do business again.

[The Rock]

New Tony Khan interview in the times, some highlights.

About budget:

"We won't spend £100m again, I don't think we need to. The best players we bought are still with us. I feel better about the club, it's not as if we have to build again. I have already exercised most of options on loan payers and I expect the squad to look very similar to the one that got promoted."

About Reed:

"I'm working on it. I have an option to buy and I think he does want to stay."

About Seri and Anguissa:

"I love both players. The plan now is for them both to return to train with us in a couple of weeks. If the right bid came in, I'd have to consider it but right now they're aiming to come back to Fulham. Zambo is under contract for three more years and I believe in him. They like him a lot in Spain. Nobody is going to get Frank cheap. He's a great asset."

And finally about Ryan Sess:

"I am not not interested. Ryan already played for us in the Premier League and he didn't do enough to keep us in there. We get two [Premier League] loans and I can't be in the business of developing other people's players when they don't have time to play them. In my statistical system, I actually rated Josh [Onomah] equally with Sessegnon."

I will stop short of slagging TK for the 743rd time as he has to say this kind of stuff, especially if any given player is in the store front window waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.

No money needs to be spent net/net. You sell Seri, MLM and Mawson 20-25m total and replace them with one or two proven defenders, that's almost all the team needs. Zambo to Villareal for 22m would be great business. If TK keeps him he better be sure he can actually be the ~ 25m + player he really should have been that never was for us.

why would 22m be great business? We payed more than that for him and he's just had a great season.

I think he wasn't worth the price tag based on his performance with us season before last, and he didn't fit in the side most of the season.

Just because he had a great season away doesn't mean he will magically fit with our plans and system. I hope he's improved.

Not my call though. 50/50 chance he comes back and sets the PL alight with us which would be fantastic. Seems a gamble; a repeat mediocre repeat performance would go over like a lead balloon. I like Reed and Onomah for their value in MF.

I'd rather we sell some of these players and bring in proper defenders. I'd sell Seri long before Zambo though.

[fulhamben]

New Tony Khan interview in the times, some highlights.

About budget:

"We won't spend £100m again, I don't think we need to. The best players we bought are still with us. I feel better about the club, it's not as if we have to build again. I have already exercised most of options on loan payers and I expect the squad to look very similar to the one that got promoted."

About Reed:

"I'm working on it. I have an option to buy and I think he does want to stay."

About Seri and Anguissa:

"I love both players. The plan now is for them both to return to train with us in a couple of weeks. If the right bid came in, I'd have to consider it but right now they're aiming to come back to Fulham. Zambo is under contract for three more years and I believe in him. They like him a lot in Spain. Nobody is going to get Frank cheap. He's a great asset."

And finally about Ryan Sess:

"I am not not interested. Ryan already played for us in the Premier League and he didn't do enough to keep us in there. We get two [Premier League] loans and I can't be in the business of developing other people's players when they don't have time to play them. In my statistical system, I actually rated Josh [Onomah] equally with Sessegnon."

I will stop short of slagging TK for the 743rd time as he has to say this kind of stuff, especially if any given player is in the store front window waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.

No money needs to be spent net/net. You sell Seri, MLM and Mawson 20-25m total and replace them with one or two proven defenders, that's almost all the team needs. Zambo to Villareal for 22m would be great business. If TK keeps him he better be sure he can actually be the ~ 25m + player he really should have been that never was for us.

why would 22m be great business? We payed more than that for him and he's just had a great season.

I think he wasn't worth the price tag based on his performance with us season before last, and he didn't fit in the side most of the season.

Just because he had a great season away doesn't mean he will magically fit with our plans and system. I hope he's improved.

Not my call though. 50/50 chance he comes back and sets the PL alight with us which would be fantastic. Seems a gamble; a repeat mediocre repeat performance would go over like a lead balloon. I like Reed and Onomah for their value in MF.

I'd rather we sell some of these players and bring in proper defenders. I'd sell Seri long before Zambo though.

thats great sell them if you want, but why take a huge loss on him. Would you sell mitro for 15 million?

[Classic94]

Disappointed that he said we won't be spending that much. We've received a windfall of £100m from Sky TV and we'd be mad not to use that to try to close the massive gulf in quality between us and the teams we need to finish above. As much as Ream, Kebano, Cairney and Odoi have done for us up to now, they're not going to keep us up on their own.

If TK thinks the lesson from 2018/19 was don't spend £100m, then he'll go down in my estimation big time. That wasn't the lesson to be learned at all. The lesson was don't sign too many players with no experience of English football, don't sign aging mercenaries like Schurrle on expensive short-term deals, don't rely on key players like Mawson recovering from an operation, don't make pointless signings like Vietto and Fabri, don't change the entire back five in one go, don't sign two goalkeepers in the same window. FFS it's not rocket science.

I'm now very worried TK is going to undo all the learning he appeared to have done this season by reverting straight back to his usual clueless pillock mode.

I really hope this is just bluster designed to stop people overcharging us if they think we've got a fortune to spend.

Spot on. It's not the amount of money spent but how this is invested. Our squad is still a long way from being competitive in the PL and requires strategic upgrades in 5 or 6 areas. Those you mention, while capable, are not good enough to keep us up alone. We need a structured and cohesive transfer strategy, not the scattergun approach seen previously.

I also hope we do our business early. In this league more than any other, the team needs to be fit and firing from match one. We simply can't afford to waste games while signings are being made. There may be better value late in the window, but the ground lost by that point could prove fatal.

[wheelerdeeler]

Disappointed that he said we won't be spending that much. We've received a windfall of £100m from Sky TV and we'd be mad not to use that to try to close the massive gulf in quality between us and the teams we need to finish above. As much as Ream, Kebano, Cairney and Odoi have done for us up to now, they're not going to keep us up on their own.

If TK thinks the lesson from 2018/19 was don't spend £100m, then he'll go down in my estimation big time. That wasn't the lesson to be learned at all. The lesson was don't sign too many players with no experience of English football, don't sign aging mercenaries like Schurrle on expensive short-term deals, don't rely on key players like Mawson recovering from an operation, don't make pointless signings like Vietto and Fabri, don't change the entire back five in one go, don't sign two goalkeepers in the same window. FFS it's not rocket science.

I'm now very worried TK is going to undo all the learning he appeared to have done this season by reverting straight back to his usual clueless pillock mode.

I really hope this is just bluster designed to stop people overcharging us if they think we've got a fortune to spend.

Think you have to factor in how much of the TV Money will go towards covering the losses we'll have made from COVID first off. And we genuinely don't need to spend 100m this summer, we're not going into the window losing 7 or 8 players from loans like we did in 2018.

General consensus I've seen is we need somewhere in the region of 4-7, 4 as an absolute minimum (Left Centre-Back, Right-Back, Harrison Reed, a Winger) and then another three on top if the right options were available/we have the funds available (back-up Left-Back, Centre-Mid, back-up Striker).

That isn't a 100m job, unless we get ideas above our station again and go for the big name Seri's of this world, when I'd be more happy shopping in the sort of top-end Championship market for hungry players who'll scrap for every point next season.

My ideal window would be something along the lines of;
Ethan Pinnock for Left Centre-Back (12m)
Joakim Maehle for Right-Back (14m)
Harrison Reed (8m)
Ryan Babel (Galatasaray give us Cash + Babel for Seri)
Roughly ~30m

And then with the "bonus" three;
I wanted Antonee Robinson for Left-Back, but looks like he's off to Sheff. Utd so...
Jorge (3-4m)
Either go for someone dependable who Parker trusts like Harry Arter at ~5m or a "prospect" like Enock Mwepu from Salzburg for the extra Centre-Mid at ~15m
Ivan Toney for back-up Striker 6-8m.
And that's another 17-27m on top.

So spending roughly 50m total, in other words more or less what Sheffield Utd spent last summer- and they did alright.

[Statto]

Think you have to factor in how much of the Sky Money will go towards covering the losses we'll have made from COVID first off.

£5m in lost gate receipts?
Which may well be offset by an FFP allowance in due course anyway.

[Twig]

"Ryan already played for us in the Premier League and he didn't do enough to keep us in there."

Unduly harsh. And totally contradictory given the same can be said about Seri and Anguissa and he says he "loves" them.

"In my statistical system, I actually rated Josh [Onomah] equally with Sessegnon."

Did your statistical system mention that sessegnon was still a teenager and might get better, Einstein?

Bit of a car crash interview really.

Statto I couldn't agree more. Has he learned anything at all?  Of course we need to spend, it's blindingly obvious. Just that this time around it needs to be the right purchases. He might "love" Seri and Zambo but they failed to help keep us up last time and I can't see it being any different this time. (Zambo I think has something to offer but he isn't going to stroll into the starting 11 and upgrade it).

The comment about Sess is just wildly misjudged.

I really am starting to worry again after that load of bilge.

[wheelerdeeler]

Think you have to factor in how much of the Sky Money will go towards covering the losses we'll have made from COVID first off.

£5m in lost gate receipts?
Which may well be offset by an FFP allowance in due course anyway.

5m in lost gate receipts... so far (and we're already eating a gate receipt loss by virtue of only having 3 stands). Especially with how much we were charging for tickets in the Prem last time around how much money do you think we'll be losing out on over the course of next season?

I'd rather us "bank" a chunk of the TV money to cover us going forward, especially if there's the much talked about "second wave". As I said in the rest of the post, we genuinely don't need to spend 100m this time around, we could spend ~50m and be more than covered- and without disrupting the dressing room by introducing so many new faces (would be 4 or 5 in my scenario because we'd be re-adding Reed, Babel and potentially Arter).

[Twig]

New Tony Khan interview in the times, some highlights.

About budget:

"We won't spend £100m again, I don't think we need to. The best players we bought are still with us. I feel better about the club, it's not as if we have to build again. I have already exercised most of options on loan payers and I expect the squad to look very similar to the one that got promoted."

About Reed:

"I'm working on it. I have an option to buy and I think he does want to stay."

About Seri and Anguissa:

"I love both players. The plan now is for them both to return to train with us in a couple of weeks. If the right bid came in, I'd have to consider it but right now they're aiming to come back to Fulham. Zambo is under contract for three more years and I believe in him. They like him a lot in Spain. Nobody is going to get Frank cheap. He's a great asset."

And finally about Ryan Sess:

"I am not not interested. Ryan already played for us in the Premier League and he didn't do enough to keep us in there. We get two [Premier League] loans and I can't be in the business of developing other people's players when they don't have time to play them. In my statistical system, I actually rated Josh [Onomah] equally with Sessegnon."

I will stop short of slagging TK for the 743rd time as he has to say this kind of stuff, especially if any given player is in the store front window waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.

No money needs to be spent net/net. You sell Seri, MLM and Mawson 20-25m total and replace them with one or two proven defenders, that's almost all the team needs. Zambo to Villareal for 22m would be great business. If TK keeps him he better be sure he can actually be the ~ 25m + player he really should have been that never was for us.

why would 22m be great business? We payed more than that for him and he's just had a great season.

Please explain, on what basis has he had a great season?

[Twig]

Think you have to factor in how much of the Sky Money will go towards covering the losses we'll have made from COVID first off.

£5m in lost gate receipts?
Which may well be offset by an FFP allowance in due course anyway.

5m in lost gate receipts... so far (and we're already eating a gate receipt loss by virtue of only having 3 stands). Especially with how much we were charging for tickets in the Prem last time around how much money do you think we'll be losing out on over the course of next season?

I'd rather us "bank" a chunk of the TV money to cover us going forward, especially if there's the much talked about "second wave". As I said in the rest of the post, we genuinely don't need to spend 100m this time around, we could spend ~50m and be more than covered- and without disrupting the dressing room by introducing so many new faces (would be 4 or 5 in my scenario because we'd be re-adding Reed, Babel and potentially Arter).

Lost gate receipts are chicken feed.

[wheelerdeeler]

Think you have to factor in how much of the Sky Money will go towards covering the losses we'll have made from COVID first off.

£5m in lost gate receipts?
Which may well be offset by an FFP allowance in due course anyway.

5m in lost gate receipts... so far (and we're already eating a gate receipt loss by virtue of only having 3 stands). Especially with how much we were charging for tickets in the Prem last time around how much money do you think we'll be losing out on over the course of next season?

I'd rather us "bank" a chunk of the TV money to cover us going forward, especially if there's the much talked about "second wave". As I said in the rest of the post, we genuinely don't need to spend 100m this time around, we could spend ~50m and be more than covered- and without disrupting the dressing room by introducing so many new faces (would be 4 or 5 in my scenario because we'd be re-adding Reed, Babel and potentially Arter).

Lost gate receipts are chicken feed.

There's a reason the whole market generally speaking has shrunk this summer, especially compared to where we were 2 years ago. Even the top, top level clubs are haggling and being hesitant to spend big amounts this summer which is what's holding up Man Utd's Sancho deal because they can only afford to pay 60m up-front and the rest in instalments.

Spending ~50m in this market would be the equivalent of spending ~70-75m two years ago.

[fulhamben]

New Tony Khan interview in the times, some highlights.

About budget:

"We won't spend £100m again, I don't think we need to. The best players we bought are still with us. I feel better about the club, it's not as if we have to build again. I have already exercised most of options on loan payers and I expect the squad to look very similar to the one that got promoted."

About Reed:

"I'm working on it. I have an option to buy and I think he does want to stay."

About Seri and Anguissa:

"I love both players. The plan now is for them both to return to train with us in a couple of weeks. If the right bid came in, I'd have to consider it but right now they're aiming to come back to Fulham. Zambo is under contract for three more years and I believe in him. They like him a lot in Spain. Nobody is going to get Frank cheap. He's a great asset."

And finally about Ryan Sess:

"I am not not interested. Ryan already played for us in the Premier League and he didn't do enough to keep us in there. We get two [Premier League] loans and I can't be in the business of developing other people's players when they don't have time to play them. In my statistical system, I actually rated Josh [Onomah] equally with Sessegnon."

I will stop short of slagging TK for the 743rd time as he has to say this kind of stuff, especially if any given player is in the store front window waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.

No money needs to be spent net/net. You sell Seri, MLM and Mawson 20-25m total and replace them with one or two proven defenders, that's almost all the team needs. Zambo to Villareal for 22m would be great business. If TK keeps him he better be sure he can actually be the ~ 25m + player he really should have been that never was for us.

why would 22m be great business? We payed more than that for him and he's just had a great season.

Please explain, on what basis has he had a great season?

are you joking? Villarreal fans are raving about him as is the media

[wheelerdeeler]

New Tony Khan interview in the times, some highlights.

About budget:

"We won't spend £100m again, I don't think we need to. The best players we bought are still with us. I feel better about the club, it's not as if we have to build again. I have already exercised most of options on loan payers and I expect the squad to look very similar to the one that got promoted."

About Reed:

"I'm working on it. I have an option to buy and I think he does want to stay."

About Seri and Anguissa:

"I love both players. The plan now is for them both to return to train with us in a couple of weeks. If the right bid came in, I'd have to consider it but right now they're aiming to come back to Fulham. Zambo is under contract for three more years and I believe in him. They like him a lot in Spain. Nobody is going to get Frank cheap. He's a great asset."

And finally about Ryan Sess:

"I am not not interested. Ryan already played for us in the Premier League and he didn't do enough to keep us in there. We get two [Premier League] loans and I can't be in the business of developing other people's players when they don't have time to play them. In my statistical system, I actually rated Josh [Onomah] equally with Sessegnon."

I will stop short of slagging TK for the 743rd time as he has to say this kind of stuff, especially if any given player is in the store front window waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.

No money needs to be spent net/net. You sell Seri, MLM and Mawson 20-25m total and replace them with one or two proven defenders, that's almost all the team needs. Zambo to Villareal for 22m would be great business. If TK keeps him he better be sure he can actually be the ~ 25m + player he really should have been that never was for us.

why would 22m be great business? We payed more than that for him and he's just had a great season.

Please explain, on what basis has he had a great season?

It's either ignorance or bias to suggest Zambo didn't have a great season for Villarreal. He was definitely Top 5, and maybe even Top 3 performers for them this season. Only ones I'd say were definitely better were Gerard Moreno and Santi Cazorla. And it would be one thing if they were relegation scrapping, but they finished 5th.

[@jolslover]

I'm pretty sure I was reading the other day he was statistically one of the top CMs in La Liga this season

'Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa has put together a true breakout season for Villarreal as one of Europe's most coveted young defensive midfielders'

[fulhamben]

I'm pretty sure I was reading the other day he was statistically one of the top CMs in La Liga this season

'Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa has put together a true breakout season for Villarreal as one of Europe's most coveted young defensive midfielders'

you was, he had a fantastic season for them.

[Statto]

There's a reason the whole market generally speaking has shrunk this summer, especially compared to where we were 2 years ago.

Could it be something to do with the present season not even having finished yet for the big clubs, the shortened window, and the residual uncertainty about if/when next season might even happen, given the possibility for a second wave/lockdown etc?

I think it more likely to be that than the £5-10m clubs have lost from gate receipts meaning they're all skint.

Let's see what happens over the next couple of months.

[wheelerdeeler]

There's a reason the whole market generally speaking has shrunk this summer, especially compared to where we were 2 years ago.

Could it be something to do with the present season not even having finished yet for the big clubs, the shortened window, and the residual uncertainty about if/when next season might even happen, given the possibility for a second wave/lockdown etc?

I think it more likely to be that than the £5-10m clubs have lost from gate receipts meaning they're all skint.

Let's see what happens over the next couple of months.

The gate receipts example was just to make a general point of how a chunk of the TV money will be/should be set aside to safeguard the club during these COVID times rather than on transfers. So we agree.

[Twig]

Think you have to factor in how much of the Sky Money will go towards covering the losses we'll have made from COVID first off.

£5m in lost gate receipts?
Which may well be offset by an FFP allowance in due course anyway.

5m in lost gate receipts... so far (and we're already eating a gate receipt loss by virtue of only having 3 stands). Especially with how much we were charging for tickets in the Prem last time around how much money do you think we'll be losing out on over the course of next season?

I'd rather us "bank" a chunk of the TV money to cover us going forward, especially if there's the much talked about "second wave". As I said in the rest of the post, we genuinely don't need to spend 100m this time around, we could spend ~50m and be more than covered- and without disrupting the dressing room by introducing so many new faces (would be 4 or 5 in my scenario because we'd be re-adding Reed, Babel and potentially Arter).

Lost gate receipts are chicken feed.

There's a reason the whole market generally speaking has shrunk this summer, especially compared to where we were 2 years ago. Even the top, top level clubs are haggling and being hesitant to spend big amounts this summer which is what's holding up Man Utd's Sancho deal because they can only afford to pay 60m up-front and the rest in instalments.

Spending ~50m in this market would be the equivalent of spending ~70-75m two years ago.

No, it would be roughly the equivalent of spending 55 - 60 m..

[Twig]

New Tony Khan interview in the times, some highlights.

About budget:

"We won't spend £100m again, I don't think we need to. The best players we bought are still with us. I feel better about the club, it's not as if we have to build again. I have already exercised most of options on loan payers and I expect the squad to look very similar to the one that got promoted."

About Reed:

"I'm working on it. I have an option to buy and I think he does want to stay."

About Seri and Anguissa:

"I love both players. The plan now is for them both to return to train with us in a couple of weeks. If the right bid came in, I'd have to consider it but right now they're aiming to come back to Fulham. Zambo is under contract for three more years and I believe in him. They like him a lot in Spain. Nobody is going to get Frank cheap. He's a great asset."

And finally about Ryan Sess:

"I am not not interested. Ryan already played for us in the Premier League and he didn't do enough to keep us in there. We get two [Premier League] loans and I can't be in the business of developing other people's players when they don't have time to play them. In my statistical system, I actually rated Josh [Onomah] equally with Sessegnon."

I will stop short of slagging TK for the 743rd time as he has to say this kind of stuff, especially if any given player is in the store front window waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.

No money needs to be spent net/net. You sell Seri, MLM and Mawson 20-25m total and replace them with one or two proven defenders, that's almost all the team needs. Zambo to Villareal for 22m would be great business. If TK keeps him he better be sure he can actually be the ~ 25m + player he really should have been that never was for us.

why would 22m be great business? We payed more than that for him and he's just had a great season.

Please explain, on what basis has he had a great season?

It's either ignorance or bias to suggest Zambo didn't have a great season for Villarreal. He was definitely Top 5, and maybe even Top 3 performers for them this season. Only ones I'd say were definitely better were Gerard Moreno and Santi Cazorla. And it would be one thing if they were relegation scrapping, but they finished 5th.

Sorry was still thinking about the claims for Babel at the time, please ignore my daft comment.

[WolverineFFC]

Disappointed that he said we won't be spending that much. We've received a windfall of £100m from Sky TV and we'd be mad not to use that to try to close the massive gulf in quality between us and the teams we need to finish above. As much as Ream, Kebano, Cairney and Odoi have done for us up to now, they're not going to keep us up on their own.

If TK thinks the lesson from 2018/19 was don't spend £100m, then he'll go down in my estimation big time. That wasn't the lesson to be learned at all. The lesson was don't sign too many players with no experience of English football, don't sign aging mercenaries like Schurrle on expensive short-term deals, don't rely on key players like Mawson recovering from an operation, don't make pointless signings like Vietto and Fabri, don't change the entire back five in one go, don't sign two goalkeepers in the same window. FFS it's not rocket science.

I'm now very worried TK is going to undo all the learning he appeared to have done this season by reverting straight back to his usual clueless pillock mode.

I really hope this is just bluster designed to stop people overcharging us if they think we've got a fortune to spend.

"I really hope this is just bluster designed to stop people overcharging us if they think we've got a fortune to spend."

To me your last line is what it is about. I think he is just negotiating with everyone who is going to try to squeeze him. Hence his dig at Spurs. You can tell he holds a great deal of animosity towards Levy and how he messed about at the deadline last year.

I get the sense that TK feels much better about the club's position this time around. While I am sure he wants to improve at almost every position, you get the sense he could run out the same squad as the Championship plus Seri and Anguissa if forced to. This is much better considering at this point in 2018-19 Slav could barely put out 11 Senior players for a friendly. They HAD to buy players then as they had holes all over the roster. Now the club WANTS to buy players which leaves it in a better negotiating position.