' Transfer Speculation Thread '

[SW4Baggie]

Can't move forwards if you sell your best players though, we've been told that enough on here.

It almost seems if that the issue isn't letting them go, it's replacing them with shit.

Exactly - it is absolutely possible to sell your best players and still move forward using the proceeds to fund the rebuild - Coventry and Boro are showing that presently and Norwich have made it the backbone of their recent yo-yo years. Ipswich have also done it in the last 12 months following their relegation.

The big difference is if you get big fees in for your best players. We did that in 2007 and to a lesser extent in 2001 when we sold Hughes to bring in a 3 or 4 new bodies.

Our problem at the moment is that we've probably sold Fellows and Palmer for fees less than they could have potentially attracted had we not had PSR issues and needed the money.

Correct… we sold what should have been £20M of player for less than half of that, and we weren’t able to spend much of what we recouped due to PSR which gives a false narrative around how feasible it is to be successful whilst following that strategy. Of course, it does rely on having the right scouting system in place and the right pathway for youth to the first team - at the moment Nestor appears to be trying to build that system, but it won’t happen overnight and it won’t happen without some mistakes along the way.

And of course, you need to play your academy players. So far this season we haven't lined any of them up to see how they look or to attract any kind of fee. Unless we sold Griffiths but I don't see replacing a no.1 keeper as cheap an option as keeping the one we have. So there'll be no equivalent of the Taylor £3M next summer.

But fortunately next summer we wont HAVE to sell an academy player due to being in desperate need of PSR profit - we will be able to spend money if Patel wants to invest, or at least have the flexibility to extract maximum value for any players we do sell. Fellows was sadly the right player at the wrong time...