Summer 2023 Transfer Speculation

[Snowflake Royal]

What's the 4th choice striker going to be doing? Waiting around for a couple of injuries which may/may not happen? They'll just be taking another place otherwise. Should keep our squad pretty tight and increase competition, not just bloat it.

We do have players capable of playing across the front line, the lad from Copenhagen can play through the middle can't he? No reason as to why he can't be the 4th choice striker option for us, maybe even Azeez as he's played there before as well.

We play 2 upfront. 3 is simply not enough. You lose 1 to injury or suspension, you have no one for the bench, you can't rotate for poor form. You lose two you have to start playing people out of position.

Selles is actually using his subs and squad size well. We can't expect Vickers and Ehibhatiomhan to put in 90 minutes twice a week. Going with three strikers, two who are youth players is crazy.

Kitson, Lita, Doyle, Long
Roberts, Hunt, Church, Le Fondre
Lovell, Nogan, Quinn, Hartenberger
Cureton, Butler, Forster, Henderson.

All our successful sides have had at least 4 strikers. And that's with smaller squads and fewer subs in many cases.

Yorkshire, weren’t you saying we should have about 8 cms not so long ago?

I’d be absolutely against playing Ehib or Vickers for more than about 65m per game. Vickers looks like a child and Kelvin noticeably fades the longer the game goes on (considering his workrate that’s no surprise)

In a high pressing system I’d suggest you need to rotate the strikers loads. So 4 is minimum for me, ideally 5 (Ehibhatiomhan, smith, Mukairo, Vickers +1)

That +1 could be someone like Jahmari or Wareham but it’s a gamble

Mukairu isn't any more a striker than Knibbs tho is he? He certainly doesn't have any sort of scoring record. He's something like 1 in 6 or 7. He's got to be a winger or AM

[Stranded]

You want 2 players for every position in an ideal squad - yes you can probably get away with a player or two who can cover esp defensively but if we are playing 2 strikers you want 4 - that may well mean we just need one more assuming we have seen the last of Carroll so our 4 would be Smith, Ehibhatiomhan, Vickers and 1 more. Ideally you want someone with a proven record at this level or a top level loan (if you can get both in a Stansfield style signing great).

Outside of that, you would then look to the next wave of academy stars for a striker if we have injuries, so if we sign Wareham, he may be 5th choice or shares 4th choice with Vickers.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

You want 2 players for every position in an ideal squad - yes you can probably get away with a player or two who can cover esp defensively but if we are playing 2 strikers you want 4 - that may well mean we just need one more assuming we have seen the last of Carroll so our 4 would be Smith, Ehibhatiomhan, Vickers and 1 more. Ideally you want someone with a proven record at this level or a top level loan (if you can get both in a Stansfield style signing great).

Outside of that, you would then look to the next wave of academy stars for a striker if we have injuries, so if we sign Wareham, he may be 5th choice or shares 4th choice with Vickers.

What's happened to Jamarai Clarke?

[South Coast Royal]

Yep fair play. Any ideas on a replacement for Carroll? Personally, I’d love Stansfield but I fully expect him to go to the championship. I’m almost inclined to say we should sign Jayden Wareham and give him a chance in the first team. I think he must know Elliott well and Selles is keen on giving the youngsters a chance.

Vic called it first didn’t he?

Vic refused to name names, I did the hard work by copy and pasting some comments from twitter.

I think you will find that I posted before any twitter stuff and BTW I don't read or do twitter.
Has the keeper arrived yet?

[Hound]

We play 2 upfront. 3 is simply not enough. You lose 1 to injury or suspension, you have no one for the bench, you can't rotate for poor form. You lose two you have to start playing people out of position.

Selles is actually using his subs and squad size well. We can't expect Vickers and Ehibhatiomhan to put in 90 minutes twice a week. Going with three strikers, two who are youth players is crazy.

Kitson, Lita, Doyle, Long
Roberts, Hunt, Church, Le Fondre
Lovell, Nogan, Quinn, Hartenberger
Cureton, Butler, Forster, Henderson.

All our successful sides have had at least 4 strikers. And that's with smaller squads and fewer subs in many cases.

Yorkshire, weren’t you saying we should have about 8 cms not so long ago?

I’d be absolutely against playing Ehib or Vickers for more than about 65m per game. Vickers looks like a child and Kelvin noticeably fades the longer the game goes on (considering his workrate that’s no surprise)

In a high pressing system I’d suggest you need to rotate the strikers loads. So 4 is minimum for me, ideally 5 (Ehibhatiomhan, smith, Mukairo, Vickers +1)

That +1 could be someone like Jahmari or Wareham but it’s a gamble

Mukairu isn't any more a striker than Knibbs tho is he? He certainly doesn't have any sort of scoring record. He's something like 1 in 6 or 7. He's got to be a winger or AM

Yeah dunno tbh. He didn’t give a lot away in the interview

If he is an option alongside Ejaria/Knibbs/Elliott/Azeez then we def need another CF

[Stranded]

You want 2 players for every position in an ideal squad - yes you can probably get away with a player or two who can cover esp defensively but if we are playing 2 strikers you want 4 - that may well mean we just need one more assuming we have seen the last of Carroll so our 4 would be Smith, Ehibhatiomhan, Vickers and 1 more. Ideally you want someone with a proven record at this level or a top level loan (if you can get both in a Stansfield style signing great).

Outside of that, you would then look to the next wave of academy stars for a striker if we have injuries, so if we sign Wareham, he may be 5th choice or shares 4th choice with Vickers.

What's happened to Jamarai Clarke?

Completely off my radar to be honest but he could be an option if he gets fully (and stays) fit.

[From Despair To Where?]

That's fine.

Yep whatevs

Having a bit of to and fro with those Derby fans is our Daz. Does suggest a lot is to do with raising funds. Knowing our financial management we’ve suddenly realised we need a fire sale to pay the next tax bill

He does say they are on very big wages which I highly doubt though

If he means big for L1, very plausible. Holmes could be 6-8k, NGW similar, same for Carroll, Yiadom potentially upwards of 12k depending on when he last signed.


Ejaria must be top earner though. So continuing the tradition of it being an excessive amount for a waster that we've had for almost a decade.

I've seen a source that suggests our average 1st team wage is about £4,700/wk although the list of squad members didn't include anyone signed from Smith onwards.

[Snowflake Royal]

Yeah, Clarke is an option,but if our options are Smith, Ehibhatiomhan, Vickers and Clarke, that is hella light.

Excluding Smith and Carroll, our forwards have a combined experience of just over 1200 minutes of professional football. Less than 14 games.

It's just not enough.

[Snowflake Royal]

Yep whatevs

Having a bit of to and fro with those Derby fans is our Daz. Does suggest a lot is to do with raising funds. Knowing our financial management we’ve suddenly realised we need a fire sale to pay the next tax bill

He does say they are on very big wages which I highly doubt though

If he means big for L1, very plausible. Holmes could be 6-8k, NGW similar, same for Carroll, Yiadom potentially upwards of 12k depending on when he last signed.


Ejaria must be top earner though. So continuing the tradition of it being an excessive amount for a waster that we've had for almost a decade.

I've seen a source that suggests our average 1st team wage is about £4,700/wk although the list of squad members didn't include anyone signed from Smith onwards.

Given a lot of the Academy lads will be on £1k or less that probably shows we have a few on something fairly substantial.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

We need 4 strikers, it's a long season and with cup games

What's the 4th choice striker going to be doing? Waiting around for a couple of injuries which may/may not happen? They'll just be taking another place otherwise. Should keep our squad pretty tight and increase competition, not just bloat it.

We do have players capable of playing across the front line, the lad from Copenhagen can play through the middle can't he? No reason as to why he can't be the 4th choice striker option for us, maybe even Azeez as he's played there before as well.

We play 2 upfront. 3 is simply not enough. You lose 1 to injury or suspension, you have no one for the bench, you can't rotate for poor form. You lose two you have to start playing people out of position.

Selles is actually using his subs and squad size well. We can't expect Vickers and Ehibhatiomhan to put in 90 minutes twice a week. Going with three strikers, two who are youth players is crazy.

Kitson, Lita, Doyle, Long
Roberts, Hunt, Church, Le Fondre
Lovell, Nogan, Quinn, Hartenberger
Cureton, Butler, Forster, Henderson.

All our successful sides have had at least 4 strikers. And that's with smaller squads and fewer subs in many cases.

In my defence, I didn't know if the two strikers was being played because of our situation where we have a few CF's, but not many midfielders. I didn't know if the 4-4-2/4-2-4 of sorts was more of a stop gap until we did bring in more midfielders, I've had Selles down as a 4-2-3-1-type as some others did, hence why I wasn't sure about the 4th striker option.

If we stick with the 4-4-2/4-2-4, then yes no issues with having a 4th option.

Don't think history comes into it, just what we play at the time. If we do stick with the 4-4-2, then having 4 is sensible.

[Snowflake Royal]

3 is very light even playing one upfront. Especially if most of them have barely any experience.

We've played 2 upfront throughout preseason and we have plenty of midfielders.

Wing, Savage, Rushesha, Hutchinson, Craig, Senga, Ejaria - now Elliott, that's eight. For three positions.

[Sutekh]

Yorkshire, weren’t you saying we should have about 8 cms not so long ago?

I’d be absolutely against playing Ehib or Vickers for more than about 65m per game. Vickers looks like a child and Kelvin noticeably fades the longer the game goes on (considering his workrate that’s no surprise)

In a high pressing system I’d suggest you need to rotate the strikers loads. So 4 is minimum for me, ideally 5 (Ehibhatiomhan, smith, Mukairo, Vickers +1)

That +1 could be someone like Jahmari or Wareham but it’s a gamble

Mukairu isn't any more a striker than Knibbs tho is he? He certainly doesn't have any sort of scoring record. He's something like 1 in 6 or 7. He's got to be a winger or AM

Yeah dunno tbh. He didn’t give a lot away in the interview

If he is an option alongside Ejaria/Knibbs/Elliott/Azeez then we def need another CF

In 1986 wasn't it just 3 strikers? Senior, Bremner and Horrix? Think Brian Roberts might have been around at the time as well, but can't recall him ever getting a league game to his name.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

3 is very light even playing one upfront. Especially if most of them have barely any experience.

We've played 2 upfront throughout preseason and we have plenty of midfielders.

Wing, Savage, Rushesha, Hutchinson, Craig, Senga, Ejaria - now Elliott, that's eight. For three positions.

Not for me personally, I don't think we'd need 4 for one position, if that's what we were to play. Having 3 for me is enough, the "4th option" can be used for potentially a CF coming through like Wareham/Clarke if we really had to. It wants to be Smith, Kelvin E and another and I think that's ok, for a lone striker role.

I'm not sure how much involvement Hutchinson, Craig, Senga and Ejaria will have as CM. Hutchinson has played there, but if we can avoid it I don't think we will. I think it will be a case of Craig or Senga, rather than both, happy to be wrong there if they can both have an impact and Ejaria might end up being a 10 or a winger (if I had to guess) but that can be an enigma when speaking about his position.

In terms of quality options, we have Savage, Wing, Elliot and Rushesha. I think the rest are probably secondary options, although take the point that we do have numbers there.

[Snowflake Royal]

3 is very light even playing one upfront. Especially if most of them have barely any experience.

We've played 2 upfront throughout preseason and we have plenty of midfielders.

Wing, Savage, Rushesha, Hutchinson, Craig, Senga, Ejaria - now Elliott, that's eight. For three positions.

Not for me personally, I don't think we'd need 4 for one position, if that's what we were to play. Having 3 for me is enough, the "4th option" can be used for potentially a CF coming through like Wareham/Clarke if we really had to. It wants to be Smith, Kelvin E and another and I think that's ok, for a lone striker role.

I'm not sure how much involvement Hutchinson, Craig, Senga and Ejaria will have as CM. Hutchinson has played there, but if we can avoid it I don't think we will. I think it will be a case of Craig or Senga, rather than both, happy to be wrong there if they can both have an impact and Ejaria might end up being a 10 or a winger (if I had to guess) but that can be an enigma when speaking about his position.

In terms of quality options, we have Savage, Wing, Elliot and Rushesha. I think the rest are probably secondary options, although take the point that we do have numbers there.

You were talking barely a few weeks ago about how important Hutchinson was.

[Hound]

Saw Senga picked up a knock in the u21 but he’s one id prob try to find a loan for. Come back later in the season or next with games under his belt

Suprised and a bit disappointed Craig hasn’t been a bit closer to the side yet. Sure his time will come though

[YorkshireRoyal99]

3 is very light even playing one upfront. Especially if most of them have barely any experience.

We've played 2 upfront throughout preseason and we have plenty of midfielders.

Wing, Savage, Rushesha, Hutchinson, Craig, Senga, Ejaria - now Elliott, that's eight. For three positions.

Not for me personally, I don't think we'd need 4 for one position, if that's what we were to play. Having 3 for me is enough, the "4th option" can be used for potentially a CF coming through like Wareham/Clarke if we really had to. It wants to be Smith, Kelvin E and another and I think that's ok, for a lone striker role.

I'm not sure how much involvement Hutchinson, Craig, Senga and Ejaria will have as CM. Hutchinson has played there, but if we can avoid it I don't think we will. I think it will be a case of Craig or Senga, rather than both, happy to be wrong there if they can both have an impact and Ejaria might end up being a 10 or a winger (if I had to guess) but that can be an enigma when speaking about his position.

In terms of quality options, we have Savage, Wing, Elliot and Rushesha. I think the rest are probably secondary options, although take the point that we do have numbers there.

You were talking barely a few weeks ago about how important Hutchinson was.

At the back, not in midfield... Memory failing you again?

[From Despair To Where?]

If he means big for L1, very plausible. Holmes could be 6-8k, NGW similar, same for Carroll, Yiadom potentially upwards of 12k depending on when he last signed.


Ejaria must be top earner though. So continuing the tradition of it being an excessive amount for a waster that we've had for almost a decade.

I've seen a source that suggests our average 1st team wage is about £4,700/wk although the list of squad members didn't include anyone signed from Smith onwards.

Given a lot of the Academy lads will be on £1k or less that probably shows we have a few on something fairly substantial.

It listed 14 players

Hutchinson
Ejaria
Mbengue
Yiadom
NGW
Bouzanis
Camara
McIntyre
Abrefa
Carroll
Azeez
Clarke
Holmes
Knibbs

I suspect that if it listed all Academy players, the average would be lower. I remember talk that players like Holmes and McIntyre renewed on less than £5k a week, Yiadom was on about £6k and Carroll and NGW on about £3k.

If Ejaria had no relegation clause, he'll still be on about £14k which would ad about £500 to the average on its own.

The gist of what I'm saying though is that Ejaria aside, no one is on particularly unrealistic wages for League 1, but we kind of knew that already.

[blythspartan]

I have a good feeling about Jayden Wareham but ideally we need someone like Stansfield.

[Snowflake Royal]

I've seen a source that suggests our average 1st team wage is about £4,700/wk although the list of squad members didn't include anyone signed from Smith onwards.

Given a lot of the Academy lads will be on £1k or less that probably shows we have a few on something fairly substantial.

It listed 14 players

Hutchinson
Ejaria
Mbengue
Yiadom
NGW
Bouzanis
Camara
McIntyre
Abrefa
Carroll
Azeez
Clarke
Holmes
Knibbs

I suspect that if it listed all Academy players, the average would be lower. I remember talk that players like Holmes and McIntyre renewed on less than £5k a week, Yiadom was on about £6k and Carroll and NGW on about £3k.

If Ejaria had no relegation clause, he'll still be on about £14k which would ad about £500 to the average on its own.

The gist of what I'm saying though is that Ejaria aside, no one is on particularly unrealistic wages for League 1, but we kind of knew that already.

I'm just don't see where people get hold of this information. Having some insight into the overall wage budget and dividing it, maybe. But a specific set of first team players? How is that more than guesswork.

[From Despair To Where?]

As I've said before, I don't make any claims for the figures other than them being in the general ballpark and useful as a guide.

Certainly, with respect to Holmes and McIntyre, I'm going by what was reported locally at the time they renewed, likewise Yiadom.

Our wage cap was £12m last year and in Moore, João, Meite and Puscas, we've cleared £4m off that and even if we were only paying 10% of Hendricks and Rahman's wages, that's another £750k. We were also apparently paying Lumley £6k so that takes it up to £1m. There's an element of guesswork but you can piece together what is in the public domain to get a reasonably accurate picture. I would imagine that our current wage bill for all playing staff is somewhere between £5m-£7m.

I presume the wage cap also included coaching staff.