LJ wanted to sign Ollie Watkins 2 years ago

[Olé]

33 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

The Post Match interview is on the Evil Post website , awful

The audio is on the front page of the City website. They are discussing Watkins and Kelly's battle.

['Orns]

13 hours ago, Harry said:

Not sure I know you Loosey Boy, but you are 100% spot on. 

Exeter quoted us £3m but ended up selling to Brentford for £1.8m. From what I understand from my contacts at Exeter, they are very loyal to clubs who show long-standing interest and they actually have the players best interests at heart, and it’s not all about who might offer the most money. They didn’t see us as a club that was for Ollie’s best interest. Brentford they had more confidence in to be able to realise his potential. 

What a ******* stupid way to run a business

[JoeAman08]

1 hour ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Out of interest , can anyone assist - how / in what context did LJ get dragged into talking about Olllie Watkins and any attempts to sign him ?

Post Match ?

 

Edit

Cancel that - just read it on Evil Post website 

 

Why .... just why ....would you get involved in that conversation ......and reveal so much (Assuming it’s true) ........why........wtf

We were interested , he’s a Brentford player now ....move on 

Exactly always say just a bit too much. Lansdown saying he’d like a harder playoff push this season knowing we’d probably lose 3 key contributors. LJ saying he needs 3 windows or going into too much detail(often fibbing) about certain things. The top of the club set targets and are not meeting them yet we are supposed to be happy with midtable while playing shite football?

[italian dave]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing..!!

[BobBobSuperBob]

1 hour ago, Olé said:

Because we have people at the club in both LJ and MA who perpetually seem to be at pains to find things to take credit for. Here is a good player and I spotted him and tried to sign him. This is not LJ bashing by the way, I just think it's sad that they must feel so under pressure by their limitations in other areas, that they are constantly on the look out for trivial things to embellish the old CV. It was the same with that Times interview. Funny that successful managers don't always have to highlight things like this.

Nailed

[Hampshire reds]

we did not sign him becsuse we are to slow. the guy was on our door step. its so annoying when this happens. 

[David Brent]

15 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

Isn’t it sad that this is the case. And would be the case for any player out there. 

It’s sad but it’s true. 

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, Olé said:

Because we have people at the club in both LJ and MA who perpetually seem to be at pains to find things to take credit for. Here is a good player and I spotted him and tried to sign him. This is not LJ bashing by the way, I just think it's sad that they must feel so under pressure by their limitations in other areas, that they are constantly on the look out for trivial things to embellish the old CV. It was the same with that Times interview. Funny that successful managers don't always have to highlight things like this.

Spot on.  Something I've gone on about in the past....just too open with his answers, too keen to expand....and I think you’re right, it’s to show himself in a better light, especially off the back of a poor result (in most people’s eyes).

I listened to the audio this morning.  The question did come from McGregor, but to expand the answer the way he did was amazing.  Imagine how Eliasson feels hearing that, especially when he didn’t start yesterday!

[Hampshire Red]

Obviously still panto season on the forum with such selective samples of players bought, developed, sold on etc. 

There is clearly an excellent recruitment system in place and the development aspect always undisputedly excellent. 

I suppose one could double the list and simply trump the lot with Kodja, £1M in £12,15M out =financial success. Not to mention Bobby, Joe et al

Well done MA, LJ etc

[BobBobSuperBob]

Listening to his press post match he laments conceding goals by poor defending and forsaking wins in last three games 

 

Uhmmmmm ...... ....... our goals came from poorly defended corners x 3 and a defensive f up by Keogh

[NickJ]

13 minutes ago, Hampshire Red said:

I suppose one could double the list and simply trump the lot with Kodja, £1M in £12,15M out =financial success. Not to mention Bobby, Joe et al

Well done MA, LJ etc

Kodja was signed by Cotterill. LJ benefited from being able to sell him for £12m. Will he be able to get the same for Fammy who cost £5m? Very much doubt it.

Reid and Bryan spent years being developed by Academy coaches a long time before MA and LJ came along, as did Kelly and in fact the Academy coaches should get the majority of the credit for anything that comes through the system - they identify kids at a young age, and develop them for years.

MA and LJ should be judged mainly on their signings, of which there have been some successes but far too many that are clearly not good enough, particularly relative to the fee paid.

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, Hampshire Red said:

Obviously still panto season on the forum with such selective samples of players bought, developed, sold on etc. 

There is clearly an excellent recruitment system in place and the development aspect always undisputedly excellent. 

I suppose one could double the list and simply trump the lot with Kodja, £1M in £12,15M out =financial success. Not to mention Bobby, Joe et al

Well done MA, LJ etc

Hampshire - I think you’re being choosy too.  There have been countless threads / posts detailing every single player signed in the LJ / MA regime, broken down into various types, e.g. seasoned pro, one for the future etc.  I’ve even done breakdowns in various groups of “bought and sold by LJ”, “sold by LJ”, etc.  LJ/MA are reaping sone success from other’s work, inc O’Driscoll.

The recurring theme is that there are too many that aren’t justifying the outlay....for the minutes played in the last 3 years.

Of course, the gems like Reid and Bryan, give credit to the recruitment / selling team....but ask yourself where is the next £25m (profit) coming from?

When you’ve answered that with Kelly, Brownhill, Webster, subtracted £3.5-8.0m plus sell on to Ipswich, you’ll need to add O’Dowda....and maybe others too.

Right, you’ve now probably got £20m(ish) profit, but you’re only allowed to spend £7-10m of it....because we spend too much on wages, agent fees, loan fees, signing on fees.

Where is the next profit coming from?

Unless we really do unearth 3 or 4 gems - I don’t see any £5m players in our ranks other than those listed above - then do you have quite the same faith in our recruitment, taking into account, over the next couple of seasons we’ll have to replace players like Hunt, Weimann etc, on frees, or sell at a loss.

The recruitment model has some gurt big flaws in it, as dies the sustainability “project”.  That’s not all LJ’s fault in fairness, it’s SL’s and MA’s strategy, but LJ has bought into it from his role of Head-Coach.

Are you still saying “well done MA, LJ, etc”?

If you are I don’t think you are honestly evaluating / critiquing the full extent of recruitment!

Of course, recruitment is only one of the lenses of Bristol City and LJ/MA.  On pitch, 12th is ok(ish) - debate, discuss!  Academy, doing ok in terms of creating youngsters to loan our.  Etc etc.  

If I focus just on LJ, I think he’s doing ok.  After 3 years, it is time to push us forwards.  Not many managers get that long to mould their team.  He has, i’m Glad he has.  But do you think he can rebuild after losing Kelly, Webster, Brownhill, O’Dowda, etc, whilst meeting SL’s objective of play-offs, if not this season, then next season?

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, NickJ said:

Kodja was signed by Cotterill. LJ benefited from being able to sell him for £12m. Will he be able to get the same for Fammy who cost £5m? Very much doubt it.

Reid and Bryan spent years being developed by Academy coaches a long time before MA and LJ came along, as did Kelly and in fact the Academy coaches should get the majority of the credit for anything that comes through the system - they identify kids at a young age, and develop them for years.

MA and LJ should be judged mainly on their signings, of which there have been some successes but far too many that are clearly not good enough, particularly relative to the fee paid.

£11m, plus £4m add-ons, plus a sell-on, should Kodjia ever be sold for a profit.  Will we ever see that £4m Of add-ons?  Don’t know what they were, but if promotion related, Villa not realised that yet.

Minus 20% (probably) to SCO Angers as part of their sell-on profit.  So that’s circa £2m given back 

[Lrrr]

@Davefevs don't want to quote your post as its long, I would add Pack to the list of potentially profitable players. If a team were to approach us for him I could see us getting say £4m. In the right team he can at least play top end of the championship. From £75,000 that would be a big profit.

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, hodge said:

@Davefevs don't want to quote your post as its long, I would add Pack to the list of potentially profitable players. If a team were to approach us for him I could see us getting say £4m. In the right team he can at least play top end of the championship. From £75,000 that would be a big profit.

Agree....but don’t think we’d get anywhere near £4m on current form.  Last season, yes, not this though.

[Lrrr]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Agree....but don’t think we’d get anywhere near £4m on current form.  Last season, yes, not this though.

Depends whether someone thinks they can bring that player out in him, players like Bannan talked about as being several million pound players. Not hard to think someone like Pack could be worth around half.

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, hodge said:

Depends whether someone thinks they can bring that player out in him, players like Bannan talked about as being several million pound players. Not hard to think someone like Pack could be worth around half.

Ok, but if you make £3.5m(ish) on Pack, you need 7 of these to make £25m!!

take off the ones we lose money on??/

How much is Jack Hunt worth following his £1.5m transfer this summer, now he’s no longer first choice, to a player (Pisano) we were probably gonna let go in the summer.  Created a bit of a dilemma!

[Lrrr]

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Ok, but if you make £3.5m(ish) on Pack, you need 7 of these to make £25m!!

take off the ones we lose money on??/

How much is Jack Hunt worth following his £1.5m transfer this summer, now he’s no longer first choice, to a player (Pisano) we were probably gonna let go in the summer.  Created a bit of a dilemma!

Was responding to where the £25m of profit can come from. O'Dowda, Kelly, Webster, Pack, Brownhill go a long way to that if not exceed. Hunt was probably brought in with the desire to still be expansive but we're finding we need a more solid back line which is why we need Pisano over him.

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, hodge said:

Was responding to where the £25m of profit can come from. O'Dowda, Kelly, Webster, Pack, Brownhill go a long way to that if not exceed. Hunt was probably brought in with the desire to still be expansive but we're finding we need a more solid back line which is why we need Pisano over him.

Out of interest, if we sold all of the 5 you list above, give me your opinion as to how much we’d get for each....initial fee only.....I would expect sell-one for all bar Pack.  Assume for sake of this scenario that we sell them all in the summer.  Try to be realistic if possible.  Ta.

[Lrrr]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Out of interest, if we sold all of the 5 you list above, give me your opinion as to how much we’d get for each....initial fee only.....I would expect sell-one for all bar Pack.  Assume for sake of this scenario that we sell them all in the summer.  Try to be realistic if possible.  Ta.

I mean its all personal valuation and guess work, Its hard to say initial fee as players like Kelly if Liverpool and co were interested I think they'd really try to top up on appearance based clauses.

Kelly - Think we could get maybe £7m to £9m upfront with another £5m to £7m in clauses. Puts it somewhere between £12m to £16m overall before sell on.

Webster - I think it would really depend on who comes in for him higher end championship/lower end premier league I could definitely see it matching Flint's overall fee so £7m to start as he's a more complete player at the moment. However should an Everton or someone get interested we could be in for a big fee starting at £10m. I really do believe he's our most valuable asset in his passing ability and confidence of bringing the ball out while still heading well and a good all round defender. 

Brownhill - Again hard to judge as I believe a buying club would try to stack a deal for him in clauses but I could see us getting maybe £4m or £5m upfront for him. 23 and has a lot of first team experience, can play a number of positions and we saw in the cup run he's capable against the big teams.

O'Dowda - 1 year option will mean he only has 12 months on his contract in the summer so this would be very reduced and again a team would probably try to entice a deal by stacking clauses to minimise upfront risk of a player with 12 months. I think we'd do well to get back the £1.7m as an upfront fee but could definitely see his clauses going beyond £3.5m. IF he signs a new deal then I could see us getting perhaps £2.5m or £3m upfront with clauses up to £5m or £6m or a higher sell on clause.

Pack - few years left on his contract, perhaps £2.5m or £3m upfront. £1m to £1.5m in clauses. More upfront as its less likely a sell on clause would matter unless we got a percentage of any deal rather than profit.

So that would total to say £22m lower end in initial fees and higher end £27m. It's hard to say initial fee as what I've described above could see substantial amounts in clauses which could help generate money over time if reached.

[RedM]

Hasn’t LJ previously said he has some sort of analytical programme where he puts in details about the player he likes and gets recommendations, or did I dream that? I’m sure he put in Anthony Knockaert and the outcome was Jamie Paterson, who we had already signed!

Maybe the programme just got their Watkins’ confused 

[Davefevs]

Ok, i’ll Try and take your mid-points(ish) and rounded where appropriate.

Kelly £8m - all profit = £8m profit

Webster - £8m - minus £3.5m (initial fee), minus £1m (appearances so far to Ipswich), minus £0.9m (20% sell-on to Ipswich) = £2.6m profit

Brownhill - £5m - minus £0.2m (initial fee to save tribunal), minus £1.0m (20% sell-on to Preston) = £3.8m profit (good business!)

O’Dowda - assume he signs a deal between now and summer - £3m - minus £1.2m (initial fee), minus £0.5 (add-ons he’s probably attained, e.g. caps to Oxford), minus £0.3m (20% sell-on to Oxford) = £1m profit

Pack - £2.5m - minus £75k (initial fee), and I’m not sure if any sell-on, lets ignore that = £2.4m profit

Total profit £17.8m

Quite scary really, when you think we might be able to re-invest half of it (we only invested 40% in the summer!) to replace 4/5 of our best players / influential players.  Kalas gone back too.

You cannot rely on sell-ons, nor when you get them....of late we got lucky with Bolassie.  Nobody foresaw £4m Of sell-on money coming our way!!  FFP won’t let you account for potential future income!

To some extent I would rather we always bought young payers, because ultimately Weimann, Hunt, Watkins are never / rarely gonna be sold for profit, in most cases will probably go for significant loss or zero at the end of their contracts if they stay for the full term.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have the answer, but we need regular Kelly-type players coming through the academy, who become 100% profit makers.  That means you might need to play a couple more regularly.

Those, plus the likes of Brownhill, where we see a unique situation in the market and exploit it, e.g. player running down their contract.

Plus, your best intentioned no-lose situation like Webster, who is young enough and where if he stays injury free, you are always gonna make some money.

Obviously, feel free to question any of my numbers, i’ve tried to be fair.

 

[Lrrr]

@Davefevs Do Preston really get a sell on clause? He was out of contract when he left, know they get a tribunal for being under 24 but do they get a sell on clause as well?

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, hodge said:

@Davefevs Do Preston really get a sell on clause? He was out of contract when he left, know they get a tribunal for being under 24 but do they get a sell on clause as well?

I though we bought him to save it going to tribunal.

Having said that, here’s an interesting article re Luke Garbutt, so yes there can be additional fees, and in Brownhill’s case, you would think there would be some clauses.

To give a fairly recent example, Luke Garbutt cost Everton £600,000 when he joined from Leeds United in 2009. That figure was set by tribunal and paid to the Yorkshire club immediately, though the tribunal also stipulated an extra payment of £750,000, paid in increments of £150,000 each time the player passed the landmarks of five, 10, 20, 30 and 40 first-team appearances.

 

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 Luke Garbutt, top, cost Everton an initial £600,000 from Leeds United, but that could rise to £1.5m depending on his career. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images

There is also a payment of £200,000 due should the left-back win a senior England cap. After spending time in Everton’s youth teams and going out to Colchester on loan, Garbutt is now finally making his mark in the first team, so Leeds are likely to be picking up money all through this season.

Garbutt has also been called up by England Under-21s, so if his first-team career continues as promisingly as it has started Leeds could end up with over £1.5m for a player who left more than five years ago as a 16-year-old. Everton would then have a decision to make between their two left-backs, both of whom appear to be international class, and would most likely end up selling one or the other. But all that is in the future, which could not be viewed with the same degree of certainty in 2009, though the tribunal at the time appeared to have most of the angles covered.

[Lrrr]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36434773

Says end of contract deal and they'd be owed compensation

[Tin Soldier]

23 hours ago, shelts said:

LJ trying to dig himself out of a hole . He was on our doorstep and as always City tried to do it on the cheap . 

Agree

[Harry]

8 hours ago, wood_red said:

I think it is easy in hindsight to say we should have had a punt on him at 100k, but then at the next level of interest when they were asking 3 million (to us anyway) I would have told them to do one as well. Are people seriously suggesting we should be happily paying 3 million quid for a League 2 player - when the same club are willing to sell him for 40% less to another club? 

It is easy to say in hindsight but you’ll find I was saying this for the 2 years before his move to Brentford. He was available for £100k in 2015. We’d known about him since he was 14, and when he was 17 he could’ve been snapped up for £100k. 

Bear in mind that this was when Cotterill and Burt were in charge of signings and they weren’t interested in spending money on 17 year olds (and Tinnion didn’t have a budget for youth at that time, so had to settle for picking up Sol Wheatley from Plymouth instead - last seen on the bench for Bishops Cleeve!). I mentioned many times under SC’s reign that, as much as he was doing great with the first team, he neglected the future / youth and I said at the time that his spell, successful as it was in the short term, would have a longer term detrimental effect. The Watkins scenario is one such example. We showed no interest in him and so when we came calling 18 months later under LJ, we were not top of both Exeter or Ollie’s list of choices. Ollie by that stage had spent a summer working at Ted Baker in London (through Tisdales contacts) and he had his heart set on playing and living in London. 

So, even if we’d matched Brentford’s bid, or doubled it, by that stage Ollie was always gonna be heading to London. Our chance was the year before and we didn’t want to take it. 

If Watkins was 17 now and available for £100k, I’m confident we’d be all over it. But 3/4 years ago we had no interest in taking such a player. Big shame. 

As Bob mentioned earlier, Brentford had a link with Perryman, so a relationship was established and Exeter were able to trust that Brentford would play Ollie, shop-window him, and hence a sell-on may end up more profitable than the higher immediate fee. That is a relationship that we could so so so easily have also had with Exeter - believe me, I know people who know people down there and they would happily work with us. I’ve even heard other scouts down there saying to City staff “you should be snapping this kid up for peanuts, he’s on your doorstep”. Not just about Watkins but others too. The next one we’ll miss is Sparkes - hopefully we are better placed to work with Exeter on this one - fingers crossed. 

[Corsham Ed]

22 hours ago, lenred said:

I’d swap all of them for Maupay! 

Be a waste of time Len, as Johnson would play him on the wing.

[spudski]

42 minutes ago, Harry said:

It is easy to say in hindsight but you’ll find I was saying this for the 2 years before his move to Brentford. He was available for £100k in 2015. We’d known about him since he was 14, and when he was 17 he could’ve been snapped up for £100k. 

Bear in mind that this was when Cotterill and Burt were in charge of signings and they weren’t interested in spending money on 17 year olds (and Tinnion didn’t have a budget for youth at that time, so had to settle for picking up Sol Wheatley from Plymouth instead - last seen on the bench for Bishops Cleeve!). I mentioned many times under SC’s reign that, as much as he was doing great with the first team, he neglected the future / youth and I said at the time that his spell, successful as it was in the short term, would have a longer term detrimental effect. The Watkins scenario is one such example. We showed no interest in him and so when we came calling 18 months later under LJ, we were not top of both Exeter or Ollie’s list of choices. Ollie by that stage had spent a summer working at Ted Baker in London (through Tisdales contacts) and he had his heart set on playing and living in London. 

So, even if we’d matched Brentford’s bid, or doubled it, by that stage Ollie was always gonna be heading to London. Our chance was the year before and we didn’t want to take it. 

If Watkins was 17 now and available for £100k, I’m confident we’d be all over it. But 3/4 years ago we had no interest in taking such a player. Big shame. 

As Bob mentioned earlier, Brentford had a link with Perryman, so a relationship was established and Exeter were able to trust that Brentford would play Ollie, shop-window him, and hence a sell-on may end up more profitable than the higher immediate fee. That is a relationship that we could so so so easily have also had with Exeter - believe me, I know people who know people down there and they would happily work with us. I’ve even heard other scouts down there saying to City staff “you should be snapping this kid up for peanuts, he’s on your doorstep”. Not just about Watkins but others too. The next one we’ll miss is Sparkes - hopefully we are better placed to work with Exeter on this one - fingers crossed. 

Best post on this forum for a long time mate.

Puts some meat on the bones so to speak.

[Hampshire Red]

Davefevs; Fair play to your detailed analysis and excellent response. I agree with enough of it to say 'totally'!

As your points prove we have been so fortunate with one of the best owner in the 4 divisions to support not just he coaching staff but the academy staff, the recruitment and selling staff. In fact SL really is BCFC these days and its hard to argue against your extensive logic. Happy New YEar