Kalas - will we get "value on the pitch", like we did for Fam, before he undoubtedly walks in the summer?

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Dyche would say that!

My understanding (decent source) is that Brownhill had a £7m release clause that could be triggered in the summer of 2020 (contract exp. 2021).  That would be £7m flat for us, minus any percentage sell-on we’d have to give to Preston.  No add-ons (e.g. appearances, non-relegation for Burnley), no percentage sell-on in future for us, so in fairness to Ashton, he worked a deal in the January to try to get as much as possible, plus add-ons.

He knew he wouldn’t get much more than £7m because of the summer clause.  Maybe £9/10m plus add-ons for anyone wanting him before the summer rush.  Better than £7m flat in the summer…absolutely!

So, LJ says he wants a striker, the missing piece in the jigsaw.  Of course I’ve no idea who we were scouting the market for, but the option to recall Wells from QPR and sell him to us, was mooted.  If we wanted £9-10m plus add-ons for Brownhill, they wanted £5m plus add-ons for Wells.

(could we have found a better option for £5m or less plus his wages - that’s the big question.  Wells was banging them in for QPR but was 30, so really broke our recruitment model, more so than Kalas)

So, once decided on Wells, we then have a £9/10m player going out and a £5m player coming in…a £4/5m difference.  How could we work that to both clubs advantage?  By lowering the fees of both.  Would mean our profit on Brownhill would see less go to Preston!

The rough figures are:

£7m for Brownhill plus add-ons

£2.8m for Wells plus add-ons

We’ve received add-ons for Brownhill since he’s left, ie non-relegation payment for the seasons Burnley stayed up.  Not sure about appearance payouts.

We’ve paid out no add-ons (playoff / promotion) for Wells.

As per line 2, that’s my understanding of it.  The numbers fit well with the club accounts, although impossible to confirm as we don’t go into that detail.

£7m for Brownhill is a snip, especially when you realise what we lost from the team when he left us.  A bigger hole than I imagined, I don’t mind admitting.  Nige would’ve loved him.  All managers would.

 

In so far as the Brownhill transfer for cash then discount for Wells etc went, wasn't the plan- in so far as there was a plan which was debatable- in q sense to replace him with 3 players, 2 minimum? I'd have preferred Vydra however.

Yes he had to be sold to maximise financial gain but Henriksen to give a bit more experience centrally, goals from Wells and then arguably Brownhill also gave a bit defensively.

Nice idea on paper, whether we for the best out of them is a very different issue.

[AshtonRobin21]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Taylor Moore £1.5m

(not inc Nathan Baker)

Not as costly, but the following all signed for fees and left for free:

Marley Watkins

Jack Hunt

Jamie Paterson 

Korey Smith

Callum O’Dowda

All were circa £1m signings. With O’Dowda costing more.

Overall, there’s a huge number of players we signed for a fee, who left for free.

Doesn’t make for great reading at all.

[Coxy27]

3 hours ago, redsquirrel said:

no,not retiring, just milking it. Bakes couldnt help the concussion injury but previous to that, before his new contract ,  i did wonder at times if he was really injured

 as i said in my post, probably miles off the truth but it has crossed my mind. 

It is miles off the truth.

Baker loved playing, you could see that in the emotion he showed on the pitch when he said goodbye to the fans this year, and in his fully committed performances.

Sometimes payer's bodies let them down, it's as simple as that.

Kalas is not milking it, and neither was Baker, at any stage.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, GrahamC said:

If I had a pound for every time Dyche took a dig at us since his truly horrible spell here as a player I’d be able to buy the club from SL.

Take everything he says in connection with us with a large pinch of salt, he has developed a real dislike for us.

Don’t think it was said as a dig, more of a case of moving Wells on for a good price and getting a player who has since proven himself to be a capable premiership player at a lower cost, he was obviously speaking with hindsight.

I know Dyche’s time here wasn’t the best but I genuinely didn’t think he disliked us that much to take digs at us, must have missed that along the line somewhere.

[Guest]

Looking back through the posts it seems the cash that Webster and Kelly  brought in has been frittered away over time and might as well not been raised given we are where we are.

[Mr Popodopolous]

10 minutes ago, Countryfile said:

Looking back through the posts it seems the cash that Webster and Kelly  brought in has been frittered away over time and might as well not been raised given we are where we are.

To some extent agree but more fundamentally selling players at a profit and hoping for said profit to underpin past, present and future expenditure as well as a hope/belief that the market will keep supporting this is just ludicrous.

We also ran out of good players to sell- we can blame the collapse in the market if we like but Benrahma, Watkins, Cash, Eze in summer 2020 all went for £10m and more from Championship to PL. I am sure there were others as well but haven't checked specifically for a while. Rodon, Bellingham, Grant too.

Benrahma was a loan in the summer, completed in winter 2021.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[GrahamC]

1 hour ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Not as costly, but the following all signed for fees and left for free:

Marley Watkins

Jack Hunt

Jamie Paterson 

Korey Smith

Callum O’Dowda

All were circa £1m signings. With O’Dowda costing more.

Overall, there’s a huge number of players we signed for a fee, who left for free.

Doesn’t make for great reading at all.

Korey Smith cost us £300k, we had 6 years excellent service & rightly released him after an injury hit year.

No way does he deserve to be on this list.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Not as costly, but the following all signed for fees and left for free:

Marley Watkins

Jack Hunt

Jamie Paterson 

Korey Smith

Callum O’Dowda

All were circa £1m signings. With O’Dowda costing more.

Overall, there’s a huge number of players we signed for a fee, who left for free.

Doesn’t make for great reading at all.

You’ll like my latest thread.

[Davefevs]

14 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Korey Smith cost us £300k, we had 6 years excellent service & rightly released him after an injury hit year.

No way does he deserve to be on this list.

On my spreadsheet I wasn’t sure what to put for Smith because it was (from memory) a swap with Liam Kelly.  £750k is probably too high admittedly.  I’ll adjust.

[GrahamC]

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

On my spreadsheet I wasn’t sure what to put for Smith because it was (from memory) a swap with Liam Kelly.  £750k is probably too high admittedly.  I’ll adjust.

Have a feeling now it might have been £300k plus Kelly, who barely played for us but whose value is totally subjective, I guess?

[AshtonRobin21]

55 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Korey Smith cost us £300k, we had 6 years excellent service & rightly released him after an injury hit year.

No way does he deserve to be on this list.

Your right, Smith was a steal for the price we got him for, and as you rightly state, we had 6 fantastic seasons out of him.

I got lost in memory lane when naming players from that team… the last time we looked competitive.

The others however, all make a case for the poor strategy we implemented.

[Davefevs]

21 minutes ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Your right, Smith was a steal for the price we got him for, and as you rightly state, we had 6 fantastic seasons out of him.

I got lost in memory lane when naming players from that team… the last time we looked competitive.

The others however, all make a case for the poor strategy we implemented.

There are definitely some very poor transfers in that time, that left for free, that nobody would debate as being bad.  There are others like Paterson who left on a free who cost us £500k that I thought was a good signing.  Some where we got our money back, Eisa, that I thought was a bad signing, because he didn’t get any games.

[GrahamC]

49 minutes ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Your right, Smith was a steal for the price we got him for, and as you rightly state, we had 6 fantastic seasons out of him.

I got lost in memory lane when naming players from that team… the last time we looked competitive.

The others however, all make a case for the poor strategy we implemented.

Just about make a case for Jack Hunt, who played well over 100 games & was first choice RB for 3 years but agree, the rest were awful value.

Adelakun was something ridiculous like £600k too, then barely played & also given away.

[AshtonRobin21]

49 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Just about make a case for Jack Hunt, who played well over 100 games & was first choice RB for 3 years but agree, the rest were awful value.

Adelakun was something ridiculous like £600k too, then barely played & also given away.

My issue with the manner in which we released Hunt, was that we never had a replacement in place. 

I don’t think there’s any doubt that he was on a downward trajectory, but we still somewhat needed him.

We were hoping for a miracle with Adelakun. Back in the days where we would chuck £600k around like it was nothing, on players who hadn’t played championship football before. Tried it multiple times, it very rarely/never worked.

[AshtonRobin21]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

There are definitely some very poor transfers in that time, that left for free, that nobody would debate as being bad.  There are others like Paterson who left on a free who cost us £500k that I thought was a good signing.  Some where we got our money back, Eisa, that I thought was a bad signing, because he didn’t get any games.

Pato was a good signing in my opinion. My issue is that 6 months after leaving us, there was talks of top 6 teams willing to pay decent money for him.

I believe he would thrive in the side we currently have. He still had value, that we didn’t maximise, if offered a deal, he would have stayed.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Pato was a good signing in my opinion. My issue is that 6 months after leaving us, there was talks of top 6 teams willing to pay decent money for him.

I believe he would thrive in the side we currently have. He still had value, that we didn’t maximise, if offered a deal, he would have stayed.

Technically our best player.  Bit of an injury history too.  Without knowing how much he wanted it’s really difficult to judge whether we should’ve kept him.  He must’ve been on decent money, and may well have been the rumoured player in Revolution Vodka talking of getting a £20k p.w. deal at a new club.  All guesswork, 2+2 shit from me though.

[The Constant Rabbit]

Well, my source on Baker tells me that Kalas has been 'available' for a while.

 

He's not match-fitness available, but injury wise, he is. I have no idea why his level of fitness is where it currently is.

 

The sentiment expressed to me was that he was fed up with things that happened  'behind closed doors' and was very happy to go.

 

Make of that what you will.

[GrahamC]

5 hours ago, The Constant Rabbit said:

Well, my source on Baker tells me that Kalas has been 'available' for a while.

 

He's not match-fitness available, but injury wise, he is. I have no idea why his level of fitness is where it currently is.

 

The sentiment expressed to me was that he was fed up with things that happened  'behind closed doors' and was very happy to go.

 

Make of that what you will.

I don’t think this is true.

[DaveF]

33 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

I don’t think this is true.

It almost certainly isn't true, but it's great ammunition to slag off the club 

[Port Said Red]

15 hours ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Not as costly, but the following all signed for fees and left for free:

Marley Watkins

Jack Hunt

Jamie Paterson 

Korey Smith

Callum O’Dowda

All were circa £1m signings. With O’Dowda costing more.

Overall, there’s a huge number of players we signed for a fee, who left for free.

Doesn’t make for great reading at all.

It doesn't but how does it compare to other clubs? Do other clubs spend their money more wisely and always get a return on investment?

My guess is that most clubs could issue up a similar list for their clubs over an equivalent period.

[Sir Geoff]

6 hours ago, The Constant Rabbit said:

Well, my source on Baker tells me that Kalas has been 'available' for a while.

 

He's not match-fitness available, but injury wise, he is. I have no idea why his level of fitness is where it currently is.

 

The sentiment expressed to me was that he was fed up with things that happened  'behind closed doors' and was very happy to go.

 

Make of that what you will.

I've had a hunch for a while that his 'injuries' will miraculously disappear in January and that he will be off on loan until his contract expires.

[AshtonRobin21]

14 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

It doesn't but how does it compare to other clubs? Do other clubs spend their money more wisely and always get a return on investment?

My guess is that most clubs could issue up a similar list for their clubs over an equivalent period.

I don’t think it will be great reading on our part.

Yes the market crashed. But this (making a loss on players) has been ongoing for a sustained period of time.

Other teams will have suffered some loss, but not to the extent that we have had, with record signings walking out the door for free.

[GrahamC]

48 minutes ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

I don’t think it will be great reading on our part.

Yes the market crashed. But this (making a loss on players) has been ongoing for a sustained period of time.

Other teams will have suffered some loss, but not to the extent that we have had, with record signings walking out the door for free.

Well!

This was Cardiff’s list of released players only last summer;

Josh Murphy cost £11m(!) Aden Flint £5m, Marlon Pack £4m, Leandro Bacuna £4m, Alex Smithies £3.5m, Will Vaulks £2.1m, Isaac Vassell £1.5m, they also released Tomlin in February, he cost them £2.5m.

Over £33m walking out the door without a penny back, we have a winner!

 

[Roe]

The reality is that the vast majority of all football clubs are wasting huge sums of money on players. This has been going on for decades now.

 

Will be interesting to see if we really do cut our cloth accordingly over the next couple of years and keep it that way. The history says we won't

[AshtonRobin21]

54 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Well!

This was Cardiff’s list of released players only last summer;

Josh Murphy cost £11m(!) Aden Flint £5m, Marlon Pack £4m, Leandro Bacuna £4m, Alex Smithies £3.5m, Will Vaulks £2.1m, Isaac Vassell £1.5m, they also released Tomlin in February, he cost them £2.5m.

Over £33m walking out the door without a penny back, we have a winner!

 

Tbf, Cardiff is a very good example of a club that has been managed as badly as we have. 

One key detail is that they have been a prem club in recent history. Whereas we have spent excessively without ever being promoted. 
 

Cardiff look to be in an awful position this season. A poor playing squad, with very little re-sell value. 
 

We are lucky enough to still have assets. However, we need to look at extending those contracts in order to protect their maximum value.

[Sir Geoff]

15 minutes ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Tbf, Cardiff is a very good example of a club that has been managed as badly as we have. 

One key detail is that they have been a prem club in recent history. Whereas we have spent excessively without ever being promoted. 
 

Cardiff look to be in an awful position this season. A poor playing squad, with very little re-sell value. 
 

We are lucky enough to still have assets. However, we need to look at extending those contracts in order to protect their maximum value.

And a transfer embargo. They will be in League one before we ever are imo.

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, Roe said:

Will be interesting to see if we really do cut our cloth accordingly over the next couple of years and keep it that way. The history says we won't

Surely the way in which the Football League currently enforce FFP means that until we can freely spend again with the correct headroom- we will have little choice. For all we know we could be working under a Business Plan or other monitoring requirements right now (not an embargo of course).

Edited December 23, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[AshtonRobin21]

1 hour ago, Sir Geoff said:

And a transfer embargo. They will be in League one before we ever are imo.

I put them on at the start of the season to get relegated.

I got 17-2. Put £20 on.

[GrahamC]

On 22/12/2022 at 12:04, AshtonRobin21 said:

We have suffered some huge losses from our big money signings.

- Kalas (expiring)

- Diedhiou (gone - free)

- Palmer (gone - free)

- Dasilva (expiring)

- Bentley (expiring)

- Wells (expiring)

Thats close to £30 million worth of transfer fees, set to leave / have left for no financial return. 
 

Have I missed anyone?

We can cross Wells off that list

[AshtonRobin21]

16 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

We can cross Wells off that list

That’s a big positive. Credit to him because that must have been some pay-cut that he agreed.

Superb professional by all accounts.