Confirmed Signing Demarai Gray

[AsiaAsia82]

Tonight at 9 pm...

Is it 9pm yet

 

[ForeverBlue92]

Absolutely, it is wages that are holding us back an getting these dudes gone will be a big deal.

Being Conservative you would say:

Bolasie: 80k
Walcott: 100k
Benard: 100k
Besic: £30k
Lossl: 20k

330k a week in total

Just estimates what I think below:

Townsend: 80k
Gray: 50k
Begovic: 20k

150k in total

180k a week saved which works out at around £9-10 million over the year off the books with a slight upgrade in quality on the bench.

If one or two of the likes of Delph, Toshun, James, Kean go then that will sort us towards bringing in 2-3 quality first team players.

 

[blueblue]

I doubt this very very much. That’s a massive exaggeration

Something you rarely see on this site.

 

[Eggs]

That only really works with top end players though. Supply and demand, if loads of other clubs wanted him then he is probably on more but if we were his best option and nobody else was that interested in him then we can dictate the wage.

…I suspect he had a number of options.

 

[Terrarian]

Everyone is accountant. I prefer to look at the team and all we are doing is replacing inconsistent players with cheaper alternatives, neither of which are helping us up the table. As a business model, buying more average players probably isn't going to help us in the long run, the higher we finish the more money we pick up.

Townsend can't believe his luck, of course he's thrilled to be here, he wasn't expecting a club of our meagre size even to be in for him.

 

[everton1953]

Why is it always about our 'dear' neighbours with you?

Sarcasm is not your strong suit then. It is a way of describing them sarcastically as "dear neighbours", when of course they are far from dear to us. Sit in a dark room and think about it. It might click (or possibly not).

 

[nsno-chris]

Pienaar was highly touted as a youngster, did well for Ajax then absolutely bombed at Dortmund. Arteta was similar, did OK at Rangers then disappeared at Sociedad.

Although lazy comparisons are easy to make these are at least somewhat valid as they follow a similar pattern. Doesn't mean anything though of course as all players are different.

I’m sorry but they don’t, both those players were highly talented and extremely gifted technical players. Pienaar had many suitors when he went to Dortmund, was on the best youth prospects in Europe prior or to his move. He only bombed because he played in a totally different position, being asked to replace tomas rosicky.

Arteta had been great at Rangers and PSG and had one disasterous season at Sociedad when trying to replace Alonso.

Gray was a decent prospect in the Championship and couldn’t live up to the premiership were having a footballing brain is essential but raw pace is an attribute

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

Being Conservative you would say:

Bolasie: 80k
Walcott: 100k
Benard: 100k
Besic: £30k
Lossl: 20k

330k a week in total

Just estimates what I think below:

Townsend: 80k
Gray: 50k
Begovic: 20k

150k in total

180k a week saved which works out at around £9-10 million over the year off the books with a slight upgrade in quality on the bench.

If one or two of the likes of Delph, Toshun, James, Kean go then that will sort us towards bringing in 2-3 quality first team players.

Townsend was only on 50k at palace as a starter he’s on about half what you think

gray will be way under 30k

 

[Theoneandonly]

Townsend was only on 50k at palace as a starter he’s on about half what you think

gray will be way under 30k

Yeah its been said that Bernard's 120k wages cover the wages of Begovic, Townsend and Gray.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Being Conservative you would say:

Bolasie: 80k
Walcott: 100k
Benard: 100k
Besic: £30k
Lossl: 20k

330k a week in total

Just estimates what I think below:

Townsend: 80k
Gray: 50k
Begovic: 20k

150k in total

180k a week saved which works out at around £9-10 million over the year off the books with a slight upgrade in quality on the bench.

If one or two of the likes of Delph, Toshun, James, Kean go then that will sort us towards bringing in 2-3 quality first team players.

Of course we need to cut our wage budget, but we have replaced some surplus players with more poor players.

You can't just sign people because they are cheaper than what we had before and expect to improve. We need to improve the calibre of our players and by letting go Bernard and Walcott and bringing in Townsend and Gray, all we are doing is replacing average with average.

We need to sign a quality attacker and a quality right back to improve. If we don't get those players then the squad is no better off. I'm not interested in just the numbers and finances. That's what the day job is for, not following a football team. If bringing in Gray and Townsend as replacement squad players allows us to bring in proper quality, then fine. But if they are the types of players we are now going to focus on, then nothing other than midtable awaits, and perhaps worse.

 

[Bud McBlokeski]

Yeah its been said that Bernard's 120k wages cover the wages of Begovic, Townsend and Gray.

If this is true, then that's good.

 

[Bud McBlokeski]

Of course we need to cut our wage budget, but we have replaced some surplus players with more poor players.

You can't just sign people because they are cheaper than what we had before and expect to improve. We need to improve the calibre of our players and by letting go Bernard and Walcott and bringing in Townsend and Gray, all we are doing is replacing average with average.

We need to sign a quality attacker and a quality right back to improve. If we don't get those players then the squad is no better off. I'm not interested in just the numbers and finances. That's what the day job is for, not following a football team.

Yeah, but if you have to have average it's better they are on lower wages.

 

[nsno-chris]

Yeah, but if you have to have average it's better they are on lower wages.

Mate, wages don’t win football matches. So it’s not really

 

[ForeverBlue92]

Of course we need to cut our wage budget, but we have replaced some surplus players with more poor players.

You can't just sign people because they are cheaper than what we had before and expect to improve. We need to improve the calibre of our players and by letting go Bernard and Walcott and bringing in Townsend and Gray, all we are doing is replacing average with average.

We need to sign a quality attacker and a quality right back to improve. If we don't get those players then the squad is no better off. I'm not interested in just the numbers and finances. That's what the day job is for, not following a football team. If bringing in Gray and Townsend as replacement squad players allows us to bring in proper quality, then fine. But if they are the types of players we are now going to focus on, then nothing other than midtable awaits, and perhaps worse.

Not necessarily - Benard just isn't suited to the Premier League whereas Gray is albeit he's at the last chance saloon. If he struggles this season he'll likely be out the door next season.

Townsend is probably similiar quality to Walcott agreed but is more of a committed player and less injury prone. You could argue had we had Walcott on the bench at times last season when we had 2 goalkeepers and a bunch of kids we could have gotten Europe...

 

[ToffeeTim]

If this is true, then that's good.

I'd have preferred to see us putting the wages freed up towards quality signings rather than squad players who might not even play much. There's time to fix things of course, but we haven't improved the squad as yet. The players brought in are just the same level as the ones who have left. It feels like rearranging the deck chairs to me