Summer Silly Season Transfer Thread 2024

[jayffc]

Don't get all the complaining /worrying . I trust Marcos judgement, not the people thinking they know better than him.
Berge will give us height and strength in the middle and he also wins the ball . Hes not Palhinha but as close as I can see us getting and Silva has already stated that he wants players to fit the way he wants to play.

he will fill the physical gap left by Palinha . he doesn't have the Portuguese legs and stamina I would guess but then again who has ?

Marcos is not the one making the calls on the transfers tho. Thats why he every summer he has been here has spoken in press conferences about the needs for new players. 

I dont know how the structure works, but I can imagine the recruitment team and TK, hopefully, along with Marco sets up a list of either targets and/or positions/roles that Marco wants and then the recruitment team go through that list sounding out who is available and at what price (like with our bids for Ricci and Souza).

It could very well be that Marco wants McTominay, but TK and the recruitment team, who handle the negotiations and finances, basically says "United wont go down in price and we wont pay what they demand, so we are going for someone else". Or, vice versa. But given how we havent been linked with Berge this summer, and had two bids for McT rejected. Id say a safe bet would be that McT was our first option, seeing also as how they have similarities (tall, physical). Im sure that Fulham isnt run like other clubs where managers basically gets handed players they didnt ask for - but it is a very recurring theme in football and among elite level club- but I doubt Marco is the overarching autocrat and that everything always goes according to his plan and will. He is likely to have to make compromises Id imagine

You're behind the times!
MS has said that he decides who come in or not and recently said that ESR was MY choice.

We're also very quiet about who we're after, thus very little reliable news about us. So I doubt that Bergar was a panic buy and maybe it's who MS wanted all along.

Someone reported how dominant he was when Burnley played at the cottage, maybe MS noticed?

It's somewhere in between those things tbf.
It's not that he said he's the only one involved and manages it all himself, or that ESR was his choice alone. We still seemingly have our usual scouting and target identification team setup with the board scouts stats and Marco... But he ultimately can say no and like in the case of ESR, if he then speaks to the targets personally that we're in talks with and likes what he hears, he is able to take it to the board and really push for them to go after those targets over others- as he did in the case of ESR given his enthusiasm for what we're building here.

lots of talk online like this https://twitter.com/TenHagEra/status/1825793083285327964 (could be b*ll*cks but its a sentiment that's been repeated a fair bit in the press too)

So it could well be for all know that Marco had a call or 2 with the player and hasn't been convinced Scotts that bothered about being here ...and so could have advised the club to move onto another on their joint list who actually wants to play for us. Berge would certainly fit that bill. People want us to act decisively, if it's become clear that Scott doesn't want the move despite trying to convince him, on we go and should seemingly have Berge in place for our next fixture.

[jayffc]

https://twitter.com/Ekremkonur/status/1825838751462948884

Odd one, last we heard the last bid we made hadn't been rejected so make of it what ya will

[Somerset Fulham]

Sky said that it was rejected yesterday. 

[jayffc]

Sky said that it was rejected yesterday. 

Cheers I missed that.

Edit - cant see it online anywhere? Was it said on their live program? odd that it's not been reported anywhere online that I can see

https://www.skysports.com/football/live-blog/31771/12476234/transfer-centre-live-latest-updates-on-joao-felix-ivan-toney-manuel-ugarte-and-more?postid=8149685#liveblog-body

All I got was this which said they're standing firm on higher valuation and were considering wether we go higher- but still doesn't outright say its been rejected where our previous bid was definitively shut down. A bit of cat and mouse I suspect

[Somerset Fulham]

It was on their dumb transfer centre feed. I was literally dissing one of my Palace mates about it at the time when he showed me it.

I'll see if I can find it.

[hopper]

https://twitter.com/Ekremkonur/status/1825838751462948884

Odd one, last we heard the last bid we made hadn't been rejected so make of it what ya will

This guy is about as unreliable as it gets

[jayffc]

It was on their dumb transfer centre feed. I was literally dissing one of my Palace mates about it at the time when he showed me it.

I'll see if I can find it.

Spotted it - edited above.

[Somerset Fulham]

Spotted it - edited above.
[/quote]

Cool, because I couldn't find it. 


Ah ok. Negotiations are ongoing in that case, so not rejected outright but also not accepted. 

[jayffc]

Meh source

https://twitter.com/GraemeBailey/status/1825829440581980328?t=tXIf5mC74RSm5fZe3xhSPQ&s=19

Weird one
Inclined to think this highly unlikely

[IloveFFC]

We also need to put some wages out of our books, like Mbabu or Vinícius.

Also guys like Pajaziti i think need game time, so a loan is necessary to a Championship club that can cover his wages

[junior white]

Meh source

https://twitter.com/GraemeBailey/status/1825829440581980328?t=tXIf5mC74RSm5fZe3xhSPQ&s=19

Weird one
Inclined to think this highly unlikely

agree since he wants to play first team football and we now have Jedi and Sess in that position

[jayffc]

We also need to put some wages out of our books, like Mbabu or Vinícius.

Also guys like Pajaziti i think need game time, so a loan is necessary to a Championship club that can cover his wages

Pajiziti was allegedly going to a german lower league club on loan with option to buy apparently ... Not sure if thats going or gone anywhere

[fulhamfan]

yeh we dont need him

[WolverineFFC]

Not my money but £20m seems somewhat inflated. If it's £25m McTominey & similar Andre then personally think we've gone for wrong option! Even if it is a Silva target?

McTominay was £30m so £10m more expensive and he's an inferior player and older, see the wagon wheel in this article for a comparison of Berge & McTominay:

https://www.fulhamish.co.uk/post/2024-08-20-is-sander-berge-a-shrewd-move-or-a-downgrade-for-fulham/

Good article. The wheel backs up what most see as the profile of all 3 guys. Surprised to see Berge outperform McT on every metric.

I think McT's one strength is getting in the box and on the end of attacking plays which the wheel didn't address. To me this is likely the aspect which appeals to Fulham the most. Regardless, placing Berge next to Lukic in the deeper midfield looks enticing defensively and in build up. It will be crucial to have other front players making runs in to the box to finish off the attacking plays if that is the central midfield though.

[Neutral Zone Ultra]

Targett is a big no from me, isn't he on like £100k at Newcastle?

[jayffc]

The thing that gets me a bit bitter about Berge is that we are essentially paying £10 million more for him than he was available for last season and he hasn't really improved since.

But that is a nitpick more than anything.

Agreed, it just shows this entire narrative about it being shrewd to wait for the end of window and negotiate every deal to death is a load of tosh.

People rave about the "success" rate of our signings in the last couple of years but it's not hard when you're just buying established PL players.

I think he'll do a good job for us but the deal comes with zero upside. When we look back on Berge's career in a decade's time, you can guarantee the fee we paid for him will be his career high. Think that applies to 80% of our recent transfers and all the other 27-30 year old PL players we're linked with.

Or, ya know, a more reasonable take might be that sometimes it works in your favour (because it literally has done before a number of times so no it isn't "trash" and factually doesn't debunk the narrative entirely) and sometimes it means pivoting options. Given there's evidence for both? ...

Most people have accepted fully and said as much that it's a strategy that can be high risk high reward and isn't guaranteed to work on every single deal?

Also if it ends up being that we sign Berge for 10m less than quoted for the older Scott - then it might still end up being a better deal in the long run than that would have been. As mentioned, reports also suggested they were quoting 30m for him to Utd a couple weeks ago so it seems that they weren't accepting this amount earlier in the window. And the assetion he "hasn't really improved" seems a bit off too. Given he won player of the season last year despite his team around him being crap and clearly did enough to be on Man Utd's watch list.

[jayffc]

"High risk high reward" is buying a 19 year old from the Ecuadorian first division and seeing whether you get a £100m player like Moises Caicedo.

Spending 6 months trying to shave a few million off the asking price for Andre or McTominay wouldn't be "high reward" even if it worked, and to endure all the adverse implications (Perreira as DM at Old Trafford etc) only to then bring in Berge instead, on a somewhat bumper fee, just makes us look clueless.

As i said, no issues with the player, think he can be a really good player for us, but once again the execution of the signing is woeful.

By the way I said tosh not trash.

Same same.

Glad you are at least enthusiastic about the player. Not sure where that leaves us regarding other further additions but well know soon enough

We did sign Muniz from brazil at 20 years old, he showed up last year and suddenly rumours were circulating of potential 30m+ interest with us not interested in selling...if he has another good season he'd be far more he'd be worth...so it's not like we haven't attempted more obscure moves like this too ourselves. Brighton made 4x what they signed Moses for - We'd only need to sell Muniz for about 20m for that to be the case.

Saving potentially millions - (In this case possibly 5- 10m) on each transfer isn't insignificant money when it comes to long term strategy and can be the difference going forwards to us pushing other deals over the line too not just this window but in future ones too.

High risk high reward wasn't about the player itself but referred to the negotiation process of fighting for good deals and sometimes holding out till later in the window for them where we think better offers are available or players we wanted but may have been quoted higher for, or weren't able to be signed then become available (like andersen first time around). ESR could be seen as a high risk high-reward by some margin though so it's not like we aren't willing to take risk where Marco sees fit and pushes for it.

Earlier in the window Utd were being told 30m for Berge reportedly...Now were getting to the business end,  we've signed him later in the window for 20m with potential addons. Do that on multiple deals and you end up in a significantly better position financially and able to put that money to use in various ways whilst avoiding ffp issues. The point about risk is saying you could push through deals like that earlier and pay the additional money...or evidently prices do tend to drop later in the window. We have looked at Berge before so we have no idea if he's been of interest or if we enquired earlier as we so often have things going on behind the scenes that don't make the press evidentally.

In this case it's been reported publically we've pushed for Scott and it seems not just about money there, but that we're unsure about his personal willingness to move here as he and Utd seemingly stalling things a bit waiting for offers elsewhere, and so now we've drawn a line and have moved on to make the signing of Berge. Still over a week left of the window and only 1 game played.

[AnotherVicHalomLoveChild]

So, several reliable sources say Berge's medical is today, the fees and terms agreed.
All being well the club should announce his signing ......... err about next Tuesday!

So long as he isn't a "silly"   

[General]

After Berge signs, how much headroom do we have in terms of further transfers?

No one really knows but it was reported we could probably spend over £100m before the Joao sale, so I guess quite a lot. Wages are a factor too of course, but we've lost two very high earners.

So at a guess we should still have £100m budget after Berge - as our net spend will be around even after he's come in.

if it were 100m

We've spent:

27m ESR
6m Cuenca
Free Sess
20m Berge

Add to that probably 25m  for Anderson or another CB like Gomez (more like 30m)

78m spent.

so you're looking at around 22m under that 100m mark for anything else on top.

So probably the 20-30m range for an attacking option? Can't see us signing Andre too unless we're looking to spend up to 120m

The 100m in my understanding is what we had without having sold Palhinha, think that's what the original poster was saying.. so we made £50m or so from Palhinha, which depending on how it's structured or how we structure our deals, means we had a budget of between £100m-£150m or so.. What the OP is saying in my understanding is that having got in ESR, Sess and Cuenca for £33m, we could *still* have £100m left to spend as that £33m would be taken from the Palhinha sale which added to the £100m kitty we had, hence buying Serge, ESR and potentially another 1 or 2 players at around £20-£30m each.

I assume we may also fill out the squad with loans as is always the case, though we seem to be filling the squad will younger, longer term and permanent contracts, so the loans are becoming less relevant and the core of the squad more settled.

[General]

Earlier in the window Utd were being told 30m Berge...Now were getting to the business end,  we've signed him later in the window for 20m with potential addons. Do that on multiple deals and you end up in significantly better position financially and able to put that money to use in various ways whilst avoiding ffp issues. The point about risk is saying you could push through deals like that earlier and pay the additional money...or evidently prices do tend to drop later in the window.

If their starting price was £30m in June I'm pretty sure they'd have accepted the £25m we're now paying back then. This deal has happened because we failed to sign Andre or McTominay, not because the asking price has come down.

In any case the bigger picture is, if we want to save money, why are we consistently going for established PL players aged 26-32, which is literally the most expensive (and lowest long-term upside/value) strategy imaginable?

That whole narrative doesn't stack up.

Anyway I'll leave it there before someone complains this thread is exclusively for Fabrizio Romano tweets.

 


Speaking of which, just for you Angus...

https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1825819282061549948