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January Wish List and Predicitions

Gutter Boy said:
The Ricketts comparison is because they were both one season wonders, who made the fringes of the national side, then we dodged a bullet by failing with a really dumb bid for them, before they Walsall and Tranmered their careers away.
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Again, I wonder whether you actually ever watched Michael Ricketts play? He had absolutely everything required to be a brilliant centre forward but, as can often be the case with young players, he received awful advice from his representatives. He scored 19 league goals in his breakthrough season at Bolton and then got 12 the following season, most of which were scored in the first half of the season. We then went in for him and he really wanted to come to us. His agents had been told about a big money contract for the player but unfortunately our bids were pretty derisory for a player of that age, talent and proven goalscoring at PL level. Bolton refused to sell us the player which resulted in Ricketts' representatives having a massive fall out with Allardyce and Bolton and his time at the club was never the same after that. The player ended up falling out of love with football rather, probably due to missing out on his chance at a move to a proper big club. He basically stopped acting professionally, coasting through training sessions, not putting in full effort on the pitch and he also put on lots of weight.

My thoughts are that if Levy had made a proper bid for the player back in season 2001/2002 and Hoddle had got him in then his Bolton trajectory probably would've been maintained. I saw lots of Emile Heskey both coming through the ranks and also as a professional and IMO Ricketts was similar to Emile with many of his traits, but actually a better player. His career was ended by a combination of bad advice from agents, Levy turning his head and then not making a serious bid and the player not continuing to put in the same application to his game.

in a way the Berahino situation is a similar one. The only real difference being that Berahino didn't fit Pulis' game plan and he was happy to sell him, whereas Allardyce desperately wanted to keep Ricketts.

At the time our bid to Bolton for Ricketts was insulting. Our bid for Berahino was actually a decent one in the end, it was just much too late in the day when it had become a dingdong waving competition between our chairman and WBA's chairman.

I spoke to Allardyce about Ricketts several years ago and he felt that it was a huge shame what happened to him as a player. Sam put the player's demise down to him getting really poor advice from his agents. The player was promised the World and encouraged to sulk when the move that would've earned the agents good money did not happen. You have to realise that quite often young footballers haven't come from the best areas or the best families. They sometimes get no decent input from their family and friends and instead look to their agents for their guidance. Unfortunately a large majority of agents working in football are only looking out for one person however.

Sometimes people who are outside of football do not realise the importance of being lucky enough to get the right move at the right time. There are sliding doors type moments in football that result in careers being made or broken. From the outside it is easy to say that a player should get his head down and carry on even if they don't get their move, but it really isn't as simple as that in many cases due to politics at the clubs.
 
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Gutter Boy said:
He's been crap longer than Pulis has been at the club.

Also we can't loan him as he's out of contract.
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As is often the case I'm not sure that your comments are actually born out of fact. In season 2014/15 a 21 year old Berahino scored 14 goals in the league for WBA when played as their main man up front by Steve Clarke. Pulis took over in January of that season.

Why could we not loan Berahino in January? His contract doesn't expire until the summer.
 
Finney Is Back said:
Again, I wonder whether you actually ever watched Michael Ricketts play? He had absolutely everything required to be a brilliant centre forward but, as can often be the case with young players, he received awful advice from his representatives. He scored 19 league goals in his breakthrough season at Bolton and then got 12 the following season, most of which were scored in the first half of the season. We then went in for him and he really wanted to come to us. His agents had been told about a big money contract for the player but unfortunately our bids were pretty derisory for a player of that age, talent and proven goalscoring at PL level. Bolton refused to sell us the player which resulted in Ricketts' representatives having a massive fall out with Allardyce and Bolton and his time at the club was never the same after that. The player ended up falling out of love with football rather, probably due to missing out on his chance at a move to a proper big club. He basically stopped acting professionally, coasting through training sessions, not putting in full effort on the pitch and he also put on lots of weight.

My thoughts are that if Levy had made a proper bid for the player back in season 2001/2002 and Hoddle had got him in then his Bolton trajectory probably would've been maintained. I saw lots of Emile Heskey both coming through the ranks and also as a professional and IMO Ricketts was similar to Emile with many of his traits, but actually a better player. His career was ended by a combination of bad advice from agents, Levy turning his head and then not making a serious bid and the player not continuing to put in the same application to his game.

in a way the Berahino situation is a similar one. The only real difference being that Berahino didn't fit Pulis' game plan and he was happy to sell him, whereas Allardyce desperately wanted to keep Ricketts.

At the time our bid to Bolton for Ricketts was insulting. Our bid for Berahino was actually a decent one in the end, it was just much too late in the day when it had become a ding dong waving competition between our chairman and WBA's chairman.

I spoke to Allardyce about Ricketts several years ago and he felt that it was a huge shame what happened to him as a player. Sam put the player's demise down to him getting really poor advice from his agents. The player was promised the World and encouraged to sulk when the move that would've earned the agents good money did not happen. You have to realise that quite often young footballers haven't come from the best areas or the best families. They sometimes get no decent input from their family and friends and instead look to their agents for their guidance. Unfortunately a large majority of agents working in football are only looking out for one person however.

Sometimes people who are outside of football do not realise the importance of being lucky enough to get the right move at the right time. There are sliding doors type moments in football that result in careers being made or broken. From the outside it is easy to say that a player should get his head down and carry on even if they don't get their move, but it really isn't as simple as that in many cases due to politics at the clubs.
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Wow. That sounds like genuine ITK. Refresshing change from the usual guff spewed out elsewhere.
 
I would like us to buy mahrez. We need some unpredictability in the final third. He is proven and leicesester are floundering. He also works hard
 
Sandman said:
I would like us to buy mahrez. We need some unpredictability in the final third. He is proven and leicesester are floundering. He also works hard
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He's the sort of player we need however, similar to Payet, we need to get them at the point Leicester/West Ham did, rather than now - they'd cost £30m now (and Payet is 29)
 
Gutter Boy said:
Isn't that why we signed GKN?
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GKN is a different player - Mahez/Payet are all about skill but with above average acceleration; GKN has blistering pace combined with some skill. I like the look of GKN but unless he adapts from what seems to be his preferred position (ie out and out winger) he doesnt seem well suited to Poch's preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. He also takes up the space which Rose uses so well
 
AdamB said:
GKN is a different player - Mahez/Payet are all about skill but with above average acceleration; GKN has blistering pace combined with some skill. I like the look of GKN but unless he adapts from what seems to be his preferred position (ie out and out winger) he doesnt seem well suited to Poch's preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. He also takes up the space which Rose uses so well
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I'm finding hard to judge GKN on his cameos

Especially as he only seems to get a sniff when we're behind against defensive sides or in a make shift side in the league cup

But I'm sure Poch knows what he is doing
 
AdamB said:
He's the sort of player we need however, similar to Payet, we need to get them at the point Leicester/West Ham did, rather than now - they'd cost £30m now (and Payet is 29)
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Yes 30m or so for sure. But Mahrez is 25. In his prime and used to the premier league. His game is also not about pace. So even with a 30m investment he could play for us easily for 8 seasons or so. With Leicester bottoming out now its the perfect time
to take him. Add some more quality and creativity to our wide play. With him, Lamela, Eriksen, Son and Alli we would have 5 quality players going for the three spots.
 
Sandman said:
Yes 30m or so for sure. But Mahrez is 25. In his prime and used to the premier league. His game is also not about pace. So even with a 30m investment he could play for us easily for 8 seasons or so. With Leicester bottoming out now its the perfect time
to take him. Add some more quality and creativity to our wide play. With him, Lamela, Eriksen, Son and Alli we would have 5 quality players going for the three spots.
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Dunno if Mahrez works hard enough for Poch. But I'd *definitely* love it if we did go for him - he has the trickery, vision and sheer technical brilliance to make the difference in attacking midfield. Sadly, I think that, even with Leicester bottoming out, he's probably going to a bigger, wealthier club than us.
 
Sandman said:
Yes 30m or so for sure. But Mahrez is 25. In his prime and used to the premier league. His game is also not about pace. So even with a 30m investment he could play for us easily for 8 seasons or so. With Leicester bottoming out now its the perfect time
to take him. Add some more quality and creativity to our wide play. With him, Lamela, Eriksen, Son and Alli we would have 5 quality players going for the three spots.
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It would be contingent on us getting Chinese money for Sissoko though
 
Gutter Boy said:
It would be contingent on us getting Chinese money for Sissoko though
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?

I could see us raise 40-60 million from just peripheral sales over the course of the next two windows - flog the likes of Bentaleb and Carroll in January, and let Wimmer, Trippier, Davies, Vorm and co. go in the summer. A couple of those can be replaced by players we already have in the youth ranks or as back-ups (KWP for Trippier, Pau for Vorm), a couple can probably be sold on for a profit while being replaced by players with similar skill levels (Wimmer, Davies) and a couple aren't really needed anyway (Carroll, Bentaleb).

Granted, half of that amount will probably be needed to offset the net spend for Sissoko and secure replacements for the players we currently don't have backups for (Wimmer, Davies et al), but that still leaves us 30 or so million to play with - certainly enough to fund the same 30m bid that Sandman's referring to.
 
DubaiSpur said:
?

I could see us raise 40-60 million from just peripheral sales over the course of the next two windows - flog the likes of Bentaleb and Carroll in January, and let Wimmer, Trippier, Davies, Vorm and co. go in the summer. A couple of those can be replaced by players we already have in the youth ranks or as back-ups (KWP for Trippier, Pau for Vorm), a couple can probably be sold on for a profit while being replaced by players with similar skill levels (Wimmer, Davies) and a couple aren't really needed anyway (Carroll, Bentaleb).

Granted, half of that amount will probably be needed to offset the net spend for Sissoko and secure replacements for the players we currently don't have backups for (Wimmer, Davies et al), but that still leaves us 30 or so million to play with - certainly enough to fund the same 30m bid that Sandman's referring to.
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The Bentaleb money already went towards Sissoko.

We are already down to a perfectly formed 22 man squad. There's no deadwood left (other than Carroll, who we will be lucky to get £4m for).

There's no point playing moneyball with the likes of Davies and Wimmer, when there's more than a 50:50 chance we'll end up with a dud. I still see Wimmer eclipsing Verts and taking a starting spot over the next 2 years - he's a great talent.

I can see the KWP-Trippier thing happening in 18 months time perhaps, maybe Edwards-Nkodou too, but don't think there's a lot more coming from the academy in the near future (with Winks, Onomah and 2CV already in the 22).

Basically I think if we're going to buy a big money AM, one or both Sissoko and Eriksen will need to be cashed in on to fund it.
 
Gutter Boy said:
The Bentaleb money already went towards Sissoko.

We are already down to a perfectly formed 22 man squad. There's no deadwood left (other than Carroll, who we will be lucky to get £4m for).

There's no point playing moneyball with the likes of Davies and Wimmer, when there's more than a 50:50 chance we'll end up with a dud. I still see Wimmer eclipsing Verts and taking a starting spot over the next 2 years - he's a great talent.

I can see the KWP-Trippier thing happening in 18 months time perhaps, maybe Edwards-Nkodou too, but don't think there's a lot more coming from the academy in the near future (with Winks, Onomah and 2CV already in the 22).

Basically I think if we're going to buy a big money AM, one or both Sissoko and Eriksen will need to be cashed in on to fund it.
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How have we spent the money on bentelabs when we haven't sold him

I didnt read it was a done deal, just one with an agreed transfer value and their manager who brought him in ha been sacked hasn't he?!?!

I actually agree with the rest of the post
 
Bedfordspurs said:
How have we spent the money on bentelabs when we haven't sold him

I didnt read it was a done deal, just one with an agreed transfer value and their manager who brought him in ha been sacked hasn't he?!?!

I actually agree with the rest of the post
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If you look at our zero net spend pattern over the last 8 years, we were pretty much dead on to the penny again in the summer if the 4 loans-to-permanents (Bentaleb, Njie, Fazio and Lopez) were included. Otherwise we'd have a £15m net spend, which doesn't really fit our model/trend.

I thought Bentaleb has spoken about how he now considers himself a Shalke player, and the conditions to turn the deal permanent were just formalities?
 
Gutter Boy said:
If you look at our zero net spend pattern over the last 8 years, we were pretty much dead on to the penny again in the summer if the 4 loans-to-permanents (Bentaleb, Njie, Fazio and Lopez) were included. Otherwise we'd have a £15m net spend, which doesn't really fit our model/trend.

I thought Bentaleb has spoken about how he now considers himself a Shalke player, and the conditions to turn the deal permanent were just formalities?
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Bentelabs has certainly been critical of us but I have t erosnally read the latter

Yeah I get the logic but finances in the past don't reflect the current TV deal for example
 
It's a pipe dream, especially in the January transfer window but I would love to see us go all in for Iheanacho, quality cover is needed up front and could in my eyes he could make an effective partnership with Kane or Janssen, perhaps even getting the best out of the latter. We would have so many options but also depth and competition for all the positions in the squad. The main issue when reality comes crashing down again is that there's not a reason for City to sell to us, although they could probably do with incoming funds to address the aging defense there. With the arrival of another Jesus, the young City striker may find minutes harder to come by and I think he could be immense for us.

Alas, a realistic prediction would be that we won't sign anyone. For his sake I would hope Carroll finds a permanent club, a fee for 5m would be viable and would help alongside the potential loan to transfer deal completions in Bentaleb, Fazio and the likes. Onomah could benefit from a thought out loan but I don't think there will be other outgoings. My worry is that the starting XI has always been strong enough but to lose Kane or Toby seems to have a big effect on the players.The key when it comes down to it will be whether squad members can step up as we'd hope to be competing on all fronts. Sissoko seems to now be settling in well which is great to see, hopefully Janssen and N'koudou will have a part to play and come good. If they are not ready, then more quality is needed or the approach looked at given the time spent building the squad.
 
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