Out of contract players

[Davefevs]

6 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

I don't think Kalas is any sense the problem. But I do think, if you compare Kalas & Atkinson as a pairing to Baker & Atkinson as a pairing, the difference in quality between the two partnerships isn't anywhere near as great as what I suspect the difference in combined wages for the pairing is. For me, it's not that I want to lose Kalas or think the signing was a terrible mistake but - given we are now feeling the after-effects of a pandemic and that finances will likely be hit for some time - it is really hard to justify a case to extend his contract on the same or higher wages, even if the alternative was losing our record signing for nothing. 

 

4 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

I would still argue there's absolutely no need for BCFC to be signing expensive defenders from the likes of Chelsea when there are plenty of alternatives capable of playing Championship football at a much cheaper cost.

Atkinson is just the latest example of the quality to be found lower down - if you care to look. Ashton didn't. Sheffield Utd went to the Prem on L1 centre halves. Cardiff have blokes from Plymouth. Flint did perfectly well for us. And so on, tons of examples out there. 

I don't mind splashing the cash on a quality striker. But to my mind, defenders are not where we should be pushing the boat out - because there's no need to.  

Good posts both.

Its a case of falling into line with the financial climate isn’t it.  Graham is right about the context of when we bought Kalas, but the world is now different.  We saw last season, both at the start when Eliasson was sold for c£2m and at the end when Diedhiou went for £0, that we can no longer think in terms of what they cost when we bought them, but now we must think more (paraphrase Richard Gould) how do we get the best out of every pound we spend.  How can we sell a player to generate the leverage to buy a “better” player.

In some cases, perverse as it seems, we might need to make a loss on “transfer profit” (part of FFP) to turn a small gain in no longer paying wages, e.g. Nagy.

Suspect the CEO, Chief Finance Officer and Nige (if / when he’s back) will be having some very frank discussions.

[The Original OTIB]

6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

 

Good posts both.

Its a case of falling into line with the financial climate isn’t it.  Graham is right about the context of when we bought Kalas, but the world is now different.  We saw last season, both at the start when Eliasson was sold for c£2m and at the end when Diedhiou went for £0, that we can no longer think in terms of what they cost when we bought them, but now we must think more (paraphrase Richard Gould) how do we get the best out of every pound we spend.  How can we sell a player to generate the leverage to buy a “better” player.

In some cases, perverse as it seems, we might need to make a loss on “transfer profit” (part of FFP) to turn a small gain in no longer paying wages, e.g. Nagy.

Suspect the CEO, Chief Finance Officer and Nige (if / when he’s back) will be having some very frank discussions.

With Czech money into West Ham, I could see them come in for Kalas. They have a small squad, are stretched what with the Europa League, Kalas plays alongside Coufal for the national team, Ogbonna, and to a lesser extent Dawson, are getting on a bit, cover relatively young.

[glynriley]

3 minutes ago, The Original OTIB said:

With Czech money into West Ham, I could see them come in for Kalas. They have a small squad, are stretched what with the Europa League, Kalas plays alongside Coufal for the national team, Ogbonna, and to a lesser extent Dawson, are getting on a bit, cover relatively young.

He's done his ACL as well.

Go on Moysie, chuck us a few quid for old times sake...

Edited November 11, 2021 by glynriley

[GrahamC]

28 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

I don't think Kalas is any sense the problem. But I do think, if you compare Kalas & Atkinson as a pairing to Baker & Atkinson as a pairing, the difference in quality between the two partnerships isn't anywhere near as great as what I suspect the difference in combined wages for the pairing is. For me, it's not that I want to lose Kalas or think the signing was a terrible mistake but - given we are now feeling the after-effects of a pandemic and that finances will likely be hit for some time - it is really hard to justify a case to extend his contract on the same or higher wages, even if the alternative was losing our record signing for nothing. 

Probably all the case, but I was reflecting earlier on our pitiful defensive record this season, which is of course not for a minute to say it is all down to the back four, but alongside Kalas the most selected RB, LB & CB so far this season are Tanner, Pring & Atkinson who hadn’t ever played a single minute of Championship football between them prior to August.

We simply don’t have the blend right, a player who played in the Euro semi final (& is on as you say comparative fortunes) & 3 blokes we signed from Carlisle, Oxford & someone who struggled last year to get game time on loan at Pompey.

As for Baker the wage disparity to Kalas wasn’t that much prior to this summer, I expect.

[LondonBristolian]

23 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

I would still argue there's absolutely no need for BCFC to be signing expensive defenders from the likes of Chelsea when there are plenty of alternatives capable of playing Championship football at a much cheaper cost.

Atkinson is just the latest example of the quality to be found lower down - if you care to look. Ashton didn't. Sheffield Utd went to the Prem on L1 centre halves. Cardiff have blokes from Plymouth. Flint did perfectly well for us. And so on, tons of examples out there. 

I don't mind splashing the cash on a quality striker. But to my mind, defenders are not where we should be pushing the boat out - because there's no need to.  

I think the context is important too.

Spending £8 million on a defender to make a statement of intent towards promotion makes no sense at all when

a) we flogged his defensive partner at almost the last minute and could not get a replacement in

b) we flogged a key midfielder at the even more last minute and signed two very different midfielders and then had no balance in the team

c) we spent the summer arseing around failing to sign a striker and then scrambled at the absolute last second for someone with an unlucky injury record who got an unlucky injury.

d) we flogged our key midfielder in the January transfer window and failed to replace him with a loan from Hull

 

I get some of the above could not be foreseen. There was guarantee Nketiah was coming and there was always a risk we might get offers for Webster and Brownhill but nonetheless it is really hard to justify signing a defender for £8 million as part of a sustained bid for promotion if every other action the club took contradicted the idea it was a sustained bid for promotion 

[ExiledAjax]

34 minutes ago, Dredd said:

Save rate sounds like one of those stats that sounds great but if he’s making mistakes that leads to goals then it doesn’t mean much

It's testing one single quality, and it doesn't tell the the story.

Goalkeeper is, in my opinion, the toughest position to apply stats to. How do you measure communication? Or control of the box? Or other things that are crucial for a good goalie.

Even weighting save % for shots on target is poor. Ideally we at least want to be weighting for xG faced rather than simple shots on target.

There was a very good article a few years back that talked about how goalies were hugely undervalued in the market when you considered how many points they earned you over a season.

[Parkwaymom]

Communication and teamwork seems to be a weakness in most of our senior players. Maybe good humans don’t tell each other what to do, but it’s hard for our team to become more than the sum of it’s parts unless several players are capable of doing that at the appropriate time. 

[Sleepy1968]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

But you aren’t gonna exercise O’Dowda’s option, nor are you likely to re-contract Kalas or Bentley at improved terms, you’d be looking to bring them down (imho). For O’Dowda to stay he’s gonna have to do a Weimann and take a wage drop.   Which leads to a concern that you can’t even wait til next summer, you need to move them on in January.  That’s a big gamble in our current position.

Recruitment “collective” need to have a stellar January if that’s the case.

More headaches. If we had a good recruitment team I'd be much happier - they'd already have identified a list of replacements. As it stands, I can see this being the recruitment tool of choice:

 

[maxjak]

57 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

If anyone - anyone - offers O'Dowda new terms I'll personally hunt them down.

Nimes are currently 13th in Ligue 2 of French footie........which is in comparative terms even lower than where we are!!    Can we please swap O' Dowda  for our lost prodigal son.................Nicholas Elliason.  I know it is just far fetched wishful thinking, but I would love to see him back?

[Bodiesaffer]

9 minutes ago, maxjak said:

Nimes are currently 13th in Ligue 2 of French footie........which is in comparative terms even lower than where we are!!    Can we please swap O' Dowda  for our lost prodigal son.................Nicholas Elliason.  I know it is just far fetched wishful thinking, but I would love to see him back?

I wish, Now he would of been a NP player 

[Davefevs]

31 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

It's testing one single quality, and it doesn't tell the the story.

Goalkeeper is, in my opinion, the toughest position to apply stats to. How do you measure communication? Or control of the box? Or other things that are crucial for a good goalie.

Even weighting save % for shots on target is poor. Ideally we at least want to be weighting for xG faced rather than simple shots on target.

There was a very good article a few years back that talked about how goalies were hugely undervalued in the market when you considered how many points they earned you over a season.

Yep, I rarely look at keeper stats.  There are some basic stuff like passes, long, short, do they punch or catch, but saves is really difficult to quantify.

Last season Bents ranked below average across a combined set of attributes, which seemed “wrong”.  But the 6-0 at Watford skewed a lot if his numbers.

Keepers are more an eye-test for me.

18 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

I rate a lot of our players but there isn't many I wouldn't sell.

Kalas is top quality at this level imo. Premier League? Well he has it all to do a decent enough job at that level imo. 

Him and Bentley I don't see how we could replace with better. But it doesn't mean we can't become stronger if we replace them with decent players and then make ourselves stronger in other areas.

 

Boooooooom

[Merrick's Marvels]

42 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

I think the context is important too.

Spending £8 million on a defender to make a statement of intent towards promotion makes no sense at all when

a) we flogged his defensive partner at almost the last minute and could not get a replacement in

b) we flogged a key midfielder at the even more last minute and signed two very different midfielders and then had no balance in the team

c) we spent the summer arseing around failing to sign a striker and then scrambled at the absolute last second for someone with an unlucky injury record who got an unlucky injury.

d) we flogged our key midfielder in the January transfer window and failed to replace him with a loan from Hull

One heck of a summer, that one. 

We can now see that's when we began to falter and, since then, have been going backwards at a rate of knots. 

Hats off to all those responsible.  

Edited November 11, 2021 by Merrick's Marvels

[sh1t_ref_again]

As things have turned out Ashtons shopping trips to Knightsbridge have not worked out well

Kallas, generally a good solid defender, but surprising how many times he gets out jumped and does not appear to be a good communicator / organiser, for 8m and high wages, would be happy to get back what we can and reduce wage bill

Palmer - No manager seems to want to play him, can be great when he is up for it, although i think his home and heart are still in Swansea, need to get what we can for and move on, looks like we have better options in Scott and other youngsters

DaSilva - originally looked a great buy, but since injuries has never recovered his pace which use to make up a bit for his lack of height (which I think is a real problem for a defender), but now way behind Pring at LB - so need to get rid

[Davefevs]

7 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

One heck of a summer, that one. 

We can now see that's when we began to falter and, since then, have been going backwards at a rate of knots. 

Hats off to all those responsible.  

Boy, wasn’t it.

Sell Webster, sign Kalas

Sell Kelly, sign Dasilva (and Rowe)

Sell Pack, sign Nagy (and Massengo)

Release Fielding, sign Bentley (and Gilmartin)

So, I got the logic of the main replacements, but we then also added Palmer, Szmodics (Paterson loaned out), Williams, Pereira, Afobe, Rodrigo.

We loaned out players at the expense of this additional incomings.

January we sold Brownhill, replaced with Wells, Benkovic and Henriksen.

We over-recruited.

[sh1t_ref_again]

11 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Boy, wasn’t it.

Sell Webster, sign Kalas

Sell Kelly, sign Dasilva (and Rowe)

Sell Pack, sign Nagy (and Massengo)

Release Fielding, sign Bentley (and Gilmartin)

So, I got the logic of the main replacements, but we then also added Palmer, Szmodics (Paterson loaned out), Williams, Pereira, Afobe, Rodrigo.

We loaned out players at the expense of this additional incomings.

January we sold Brownhill, replaced with Wells, Benkovic and Henriksen.

We over-recruited.

I see you have Pack as 734K, but reported at time as £4m?

[Davefevs]

3 minutes ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

I see you have Pack as 734K, but reported at time as £4m?

That’s transfermarkt website…..not my data.  I had at £4m.

[ExiledAjax]

39 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, I rarely look at keeper stats.  There are some basic stuff like passes, long, short, do they punch or catch, but saves is really difficult to quantify.

Last season Bents ranked below average across a combined set of attributes, which seemed “wrong”.  But the 6-0 at Watford skewed a lot if his numbers.

Keepers are more an eye-test for me.

I was just trying to make the point that Bentley is a good, but not exceptional keeper, and that I think we could very feasibly replace him should we need to cash in on him.

[GrahamC]

40 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Boy, wasn’t it.

Sell Webster, sign Kalas

Sell Kelly, sign Dasilva (and Rowe)

Sell Pack, sign Nagy (and Massengo)

Release Fielding, sign Bentley (and Gilmartin)

So, I got the logic of the main replacements, but we then also added Palmer, Szmodics (Paterson loaned out), Williams, Pereira, Afobe, Rodrigo.

We loaned out players at the expense of this additional incomings.

January we sold Brownhill, replaced with Wells, Benkovic and Henriksen.

We over-recruited.

The definition of a mixed bag & as you say, we over recruited (& in my opinion sold Pack, which was unnecessary).

Real scattergun stuff, as for me we didn’t need either Palmer or Szmodics, no more than one of Adelakun & Watkins & shouldn’t have signed Nagy.

Gilmartin seriously, WTF was that all about?

Happy enough with Periera & Afobe. Ashley Williams (despite what gets said on here) was as good a player as we could ever expect to get after the window had closed, making 32 starts, 1 less than Baker & 9 more than Kalas.

Edited November 11, 2021 by GrahamC

[Davefevs]

5 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

The definition of a mixed bag & as you say, we over recruited (& in my opinion sold Pack, which was unnecessary).

Real scattergun stuff, as for me we didn’t need either Palmer or Szmodics, no more than one of Adelakun & Watkins & shouldn’t have signed Nagy.

Gilmartin seriously, WTF was that all about?

Happy enough with Periera & Afobe. Ashley Williams (despite what gets said on here) was as good a player as we could ever expect to get after the window had closed, making 32 starts, 1 less than Baker & 9 more than Kalas.

Wasn’t questioning the ability of the signings, just how many there were and not necessarily in positions we needed.

[mozo]

2 hours ago, JoeAman08 said:

Think it is a tricky situation as pretty much everyone OOC in the next 18 months will be on pre covid wages. So how do those negotiations go? 
 

I think we are in dreamland a bit if we think we can convince Massengo today. Not ever seen much emotion from him before but last few games he has been visibly frustrated. Can’t say that I really blame him either to be honest.

We need to be honest about the situation and weigh up the pro and cons of perhaps selling in January. I’d say same goes for Kalas and Bentley. Then we need to be honest about the valuation of players like Dasilva, Palmer and O’Dowda. We may need to take some kind of loss on them at some point which will hurt but hopefully quicken up the rebuild process. 

I think the only way you secure Massengo, other than by adequate remuneration, is telling him he's the first name on the teamsheet. Will he get that at Fulham, for example?

[Fpcity]

4 hours ago, sinenomine said:

I think so, and I appreciate it is not a popular opinion. 

His main problem is that he does not command his area. Commanding the box gives huge confidence to the defenders in front of you and I think this is partly why our defence often sits so deep. He is also not the incredible shot stopper he is lauded as being on here. 

Bang on, that's my opinion on him. Think he does a lot of camera saves and has a habit of palming the ball back into the danger zone. Nikki M was a far better keeper 

[Fpcity]

4 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

I’m wondering about Kalas. Very good defender but - partnership with Webster aside - he has rarely been part of a solid defensive unit. I think he is a good player but imagine he is on a hefty wage and am open minded as to whether he is value for money on that.

There's something about Kalas that makes me doubt that's he's as good as a lot of people say. I think we could do just as good or maybe better for less wages 

[Major Isewater]

2 hours ago, maxjak said:

Nimes are currently 13th in Ligue 2 of French footie........which is in comparative terms even lower than where we are!!    Can we please swap O' Dowda  for our lost prodigal son.................Nicholas Elliason.  I know it is just far fetched wishful thinking, but I would love to see him back?

I have thought the same thing, Nimes are up shit creek but it has to be said that if NE is not performing for them in Ligue 2, a very weak league, then questions need to be asked.

I thought he would be the stand out performer for the Crocodiles in Ligue 1 and get a move to a bigger club on the back of that but it just hasn’t happened.

 

[JoeAman08]

1 hour ago, mozo said:

I think the only way you secure Massengo, other than by adequate remuneration, is telling him he's the first name on the teamsheet. Will he get that at Fulham, for example?

I think HNM would back himself to go anywhere and get minutes. I think he is better than Reed at Fulham so I do think he could get that at Fulham. Need to remember he will probably have suitors bigger than Fulham with respect to them. He will be on the radar of teams outside England. I’d also say that when fit he probably is pretty much first name on the teamsheet. 

[brad blit]

The past 2 games COD has played he’s been excellent first half and created some of our best plays/chances. I agree with people when they say he’s far too inconsistent, but I do think he’s one of the few people in our squad with the pace & ability to knock a ball past a player and put a good ball in. IF nige wants to crack on with 433 (I’m guessing once he can have James, Williams and Massengo as a midfield 3) then surely re-training COD to play left side of front 3 would be very useful in the coming months. 

[Merrick's Marvels]

2 hours ago, JoeAman08 said:

I think HNM would back himself to go anywhere and get minutes. I think he is better than Reed at Fulham so I do think he could get that at Fulham. 

Crikey, I'd bite your hand off for a straight swap!

Reed would improve us immediately - a proven midfielder in the Championship who would dovetail with James to provide a solid base to the midfield or rotate with him as the no.6.

Not meant as a criticism of Massengo either - he'll be an excellent player, one day. Once he's learnt how best to direct his energy and in a team where the other players complement his strengths.

Unfortunately we don't have the time to wait for him to learn his trade or the time (or resources) to re-build the team with players who complement him.  

Edited November 11, 2021 by Merrick's Marvels

[JoeAman08]

12 hours ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

Crikey, I'd bite your hand off for a straight swap!

Reed would improve us immediately - a proven midfielder in the Championship who would dovetail with James to provide a solid base to the midfield or rotate with him as the no.6.

Not meant as a criticism of Massengo either - he'll be an excellent player, one day. Once he's learnt how best to direct his energy and in a team where the other players complement his strengths.

Unfortunately we don't have the time to wait for him to learn his trade or the time (or resources) to re-build the team with players who complement him.  

I think a straight swap would suit us at the current time but in Fulham’s set up I’d back Massengo to be better than Reed. Reed would be an upgrade on James imo in that deeper run the game mould. From the game agaisnt us, Seri sat deepest and Reed done a lot of work around the edge of our penalty area. Feel Massengo would offer more in that role. 
 

Massengo is really good at this level but we see him in a Bristol City shirt not a Fulham or Bournemouth one. So I don’t buy he needs to learn his trade so say. We could use a more disciplined player at times for sure. I think we see a lot of our players get too hectic at times. I have seen James and Weimann sprint after the ball like Massengo does at times and leave the space they should be in.

Think it is a result of us sitting back. Why I enjoyed Bakinson performance against Coventry for the most part. He was the screen for the defence and was in position to cut out a lot of passes and crosses, especially first half. Sometimes we say he isn’t running about a player without asking should he be. 
 

Anyway, the point of all this is, I don’t think HNM is going to be too keen to sign a new deal here. So, if we get a decent offer in January we definitely need to consider it. Gould talked about moving some business up to January that we might have left until the summer. I imagine that means outgoings as well as incomings with our finances as they are. 

[Davefevs]

48 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

Why I enjoyed Bakinson performance against Coventry for the most part. He was the screen for the defence and was in position to cut out a lot of passes and crosses, especially first half. Sometimes we say he isn’t running about a player without asking should he be. 

Agree Joe.

[Merrick's Marvels]

 

1 hour ago, JoeAman08 said:

Anyway, the point of all this is, I don’t think HNM is going to be too keen to sign a new deal here. So, if we get a decent offer in January we definitely need to consider it. Gould talked about moving some business up to January that we might have left until the summer. I imagine that means outgoings as well as incomings with our finances as they are. 

Certainly agree on this 

Edited November 12, 2021 by Merrick's Marvels