Russell

[Barrow Boy]

we'll probably agree to differ on this one then. Yes, Trundle is still at Swansea - but had a higher division club come in with an offer to quadruple his offer yet? There have been rumours - but any actual offers?

My point is that when a player stays with a club, it's usually because of lack of actual offers rather than anything the chairman can or will do. In this respect, we should be thankful Sky's money and the bosman ruling effectively killed the transfer market - because spending £800k on Brooker now would still be a huge gamble for even a championship club. But - if the offer comes in, and the player gets wind of it, and the agent bring the player in and says "look mr lansdown- Steve can get £12k per week and play better standard football. he wants to go, and will be a grumpy so and so next season if he's not allowed" then there's not much lansdown or the manager can do. Although most fans will still blame them.

Good to have an enlightened chat with someone who doesn't just go of on a stewart/bridges/savage tandant!

I think the point i was trying to get at, is that Brooker wont want to leave. He's seen what Johnson has done to the team and he'll want to be the Captain of a winning side. Besides, i don't think he'd want to join a mid table team going nowhere....actually....twelve grand a week you say.....

[Nibor]

we'll probably agree to differ on this one then. Yes, Trundle is still at Swansea - but had a higher division club come in with an offer to quadruple his offer yet? There have been rumours - but any actual offers?

I think one of the difficult things here is that in the cases where the offer gets knocked back, it doesn't necessarily get into the press.

My point is that when a player stays with a club, it's usually because of lack of actual offers rather than anything the chairman can or will do. In this respect, we should be thankful Sky's money and the bosman ruling effectively killed the transfer market - because spending £800k on Brooker now would still be a huge gamble for even a championship club. But - if the offer comes in, and the player gets wind of it, and the agent bring the player in and says "look mr lansdown- Steve can get £12k per week and play better standard football. he wants to go, and will be a grumpy so and so next season if he's not allowed" then there's not much lansdown or the manager can do. Although most fans will still blame them.

Ultimately the power lies with the player, and in fact I think transfer fees as a whole will be scrapped in the medium term because of restraint of trade. UEFA is on borrowed time with the EU.

However I think the pendulum has come back a bit. Now that players are able to bugger off for sod all when their contract's up, they do seem less likely than pre-Bosman to demand a move mid contract. I certainly think that any player nowadays has the expectation that the club will hold out for a top price if they still have significant time left. It makes them less likely to get shirty about offers being turned down, there seems to be a bit more realism about it. Also, if a player asks to move, they forfeit getting that contract paid up which is usually quite lucrative, so it's often in their interests to shut up and wait until a big enough offer does materialise.

Although championship clubs can undoubtedly offer more wages, offering an improved deal is a way of giving him a reward right now without the hassle of moving, and of showing the club's ambition and commitment towards it's best players. I think that makes him more likely to want to stay.

The decision to sell has always to be made in terms of costs and benefits to the selling club. For me it's not far fetched to say that Brooker could well be the difference between automatic promotion and playoff lottery. That prices him at well over £800k and surely SteveL can see that side of it, especially when you consider the cost of replacing him with anything like as good a player, and then the inevitable fans backlash if we sell him and fail again.

The reason I don't think we'll sell him is that all of the usual reasons we've had for losing a top scorer don't apply. He's not out of contract, he's not old, he's not got only a year left. The debt's just been refinanced and from our squad list our wage bill looks to have been reduced. That means someone has to pay top dollar and I just don't think they'll meet the price which I hope is over £1.5m.

[lotusman]

Brooker is ambitious to move up a grade, he essentially made a sideways move in joining us but qualified it at the time with the usual rhetoric that we looked a better bet for promotion. That we face yet another season of 3rd rate football does not dictate that he must too.

Should an offer of double the Tinnion purchase price materialise then sadly he will be off for his own wage packet potential will rise proportionately.Simple economics really and all part of a lucrative but short profession where his real responsibilty is to his family and not to a club who may at most be guaranteeing employment for 36 months.

[bransonmo]

Fair enough, but i think that a few real-life championship managers may just disagree

He's trying to put them off, get with the plan.

[Guest]

got an examples of a player wanting to leave a lower division club when a higher division club makes a big money offer and the lower division club keeping hold of him?

Doesn't happen. If the player wants to go, he'll go. And of course the chairman will try to persuade him otherwise - but money talks at the end of the day.

"huge admission of a lack of ambition in this club" is just a soundbite that means nothing. The board have ambition - they've shown that by consistently backing the manager every pre-season with big money and big wage signings, when they could be doing something about the debt and the losses instead. Pity the manager always gets it wrong though!!

Bit of a contradiction there if the manager always gets it wrong who picked the manager if the board had ambition they would of got a decent exp. manager rather than tinman, who was the cheap option and should of gone way before the smack in the face from the taffs.

You have to sometimes reject that cash in the pocket now for the bigger pot when promotion is achieved and your club captian,leading scorer and 100% effort man is not sold off for a quick fix.

There must be a reason why we always sell our top scorers, oh I know we love it in this div.

[mossey]

Why would SteveL accept £800k from Norwich for Brooker?

1) He's got 2 years left

2) He'd have to spend that to replace him with a player not as good

3) It would make signing other players harder as clubs would demand more money

4) After refinancing our debt and with the significantly trimmed down wage bill we shouldn't be under any immediate pressure to sell

5) Lost season ticket sales would account for at least half that money.

The Norwich rumour just follows on from their sale of Ashton IMO.

yes, but as with other seasons, they wouldn't announce that he was going, until after the deadline for new season tickets had closed!!

[Redpepper]

The one question mark that Brooker has over him I feel is his injury record. Perhaps its his size or more likely its the physical side of his game. He frequently has opposition players literally hanging off him and he is prone to being fouled etc.

However, he has actually missed 10 league games this season. The first 7 games he missed (including the 7-1 debarcle) City lost. I think its hard to say that we actually lost these games simply because of Brookers absence. He was also playing when when we were losing matches. Interestingly the last 3 matches he missed we drew against Nottingham Forest and beat Walsall and Hartlepool away from home.

So you could argue that at the moment with the team playing well and our midfield now scoring goals Johnson has got the team playing in such a way that we are not totally reliant on one player. (If indeed we are totally reliant on Brooker?)

The other point that has confused me is that Brooker was put on the bench on Saturday. I initally thought this a bit strange because if he was fit enough for the bench he should be fit enough to play. As it was he played for the vast majority of the match. Was this decsion by Johnson him saying that no player coming back from suspension or injury is good enough to have an automatic place in the team? If it was then in Johnson's eyes Brooker isn't so good or so vital to the team to get an automatic start when fit.

Therefore taking this argument one step further it makes you think that if a decent offer comes in for him he will be on his way.

[Nibor]

Should an offer of double the Tinnion purchase price materialise then sadly he will be off

No he won't. There is no way on god's earth SL will sell for £300k.

[milo1111]

have i missed something??? has brooker only got one year left?? no, he has two so SL knows that he doesnt have to sell. if it was a year then all of what has been written above would be applicable, but it aint. IMO if someone comes in with well over a million then he may go if he wants to, which he probably will if it is someone decent. anything below that and he aint going anywhere. i think he will have one more year, if we go up he will stay on an improved deal. if we don't he will go to a championship club for fair whack. fair enough all round methinks.