January window

[Pepe the Horseman]

Joao is obviously amazing, and perfect to us. But he's 27, injury prone and has never scored more than 12 goals in a season (until now hopefully). Will anyone really be willing to fork out mega money for him?

[Hound]

He’s also been the best striker/player in the division this year in my totally unbiased opinion

Prem teams looking to gamble to keep themselves up could do a lot worse i reckon

[SCIAG]

I’d say the plan is not promotion this season, although we’ll give it a go.
I think the plan is to establish a tight group of players bought into a way of playing in order to be real contenders the following season.
Unless we finish this season we’ll adrift of the top 6 I can’t see the owners wanting to cash in on key players. They might sell in order to reinvest but they won’t do soif it weakens the team.

According to SKY the owners have made it clear to Paunovic they want promotion this season

No they fucking haven’t - were the exact words which came out of my mouth after they said that.

Yeah I thought the commentators were good but that was a real wtf moment, he was either a few years out of date or just plain pulling shit out of thin air.

[leon]

He’s also been the best striker/player in the division this year in my totally unbiased opinion

Prem teams looking to gamble to keep themselves up could do a lot worse i reckon

Brentford would be selling him for £25M and then buying his replacement that they'd been tracking for months for £3M and then doing it all again.

[Hendo]

Joao is obviously brilliant and very integral to how we play, but if someone is offering £25m, I'm snapping their hand off and taking that shit to the bank.

[Snowflake Royal]

Joao is obviously brilliant and very integral to how we play, but if someone is offering £25m, I'm snapping their hand off and taking that shit to the bank.

Same

Puscas has improved, we've still got Meite, Olise, Ejaria etc chipping in and creating.

We could easily bank £10m, find a replacement for £5m and throw a party with the other £10m.

[Hendo]

Joao is obviously brilliant and very integral to how we play, but if someone is offering £25m, I'm snapping their hand off and taking that shit to the bank.

Same

Puscas has improved, we've still got Meite, Olise, Ejaria etc chipping in and creating.

We could easily bank £10m, find a replacement for £5m and throw a party with the other £10m.

Sounds like a plan to me

[linkenholtroyal]

We could solve all our financial issues in one foul swoop if we were to sell Olise, Joao and Swift in this window, however, it wouldn't be pretty afterwards lol

Our financial situation is being sorted inadvertently anyway. Or we are at least not losing money at the rate we were.
Our wage bill is a lot less than before. We did not overspend in the summer and they have relaxed FFP.
My biggest worry is our owners going for broke in January, not reaching the prem, owners getting bored and leaving us with a load of players on massive wages we can’t afford to pay.

[Hound]

Joao is obviously brilliant and very integral to how we play, but if someone is offering £25m, I'm snapping their hand off and taking that shit to the bank.

Same

Puscas has improved, we've still got Meite, Olise, Ejaria etc chipping in and creating.

We could easily bank £10m, find a replacement for £5m and throw a party with the other £10m.

Sounds like a plan to me

Depends if the party is a ‘let’s-buy-another-Aluko’ party or not

But yeah north of 20m would be very hard to turn down. Same for Olise

[bcubed]

We could solve all our financial issues in one foul swoop if we were to sell Olise, Joao and Swift in this window, however, it wouldn't be pretty afterwards lol

Only asking as I don't know. Foul swoop or fowl swoop? Chickens are fowl and they don't do much swooping.

Its a football related topic, so i thought i'd use a cheeky "Foul Swoop" in lieu of the more politically correct "Fowl Swoop"

I do appreciate the correction thought

You guys do know it's actually one fell swoop? Or am I due a whoosh here?!

[JR]

Joao is obviously brilliant and very integral to how we play, but if someone is offering £25m, I'm snapping their hand off and taking that shit to the bank.

It’s a double edged sword situation with the January window.

You potentially get the highest level of offers from distressed Premier teams trying to fight off relegation after a dreadful start or teams with an injury driven need (I.e. Wolves now need a central focal point after Jimenez out for season), but you derail your own season because the player is so key to the current success, without being able to rebuild in the short term.

Regardless of the size of any bids in January, it’s too much fun being the right end of the table for once, so I say reject them all.

[windermereROYAL]

Joao is obviously brilliant and very integral to how we play, but if someone is offering £25m, I'm snapping their hand off and taking that shit to the bank.

It’s a double edged sword situation with the January window.

You potentially get the highest level of offers from distressed Premier teams trying to fight off relegation after a dreadful start or teams with an injury driven need (I.e. Wolves now need a central focal point after Jimenez out for season), but you derail your own season because the player is so key to the current success, without being able to rebuild in the short term.

Regardless of the size of any bids in January, it’s too much fun being the right end of the table for once, so I say reject them all.

This 100%

[TommyF]

Joao is obviously brilliant and very integral to how we play, but if someone is offering £25m, I'm snapping their hand off and taking that shit to the bank.

Same

Puscas has improved, we've still got Meite, Olise, Ejaria etc chipping in and creating.

We could easily bank £10m, find a replacement for £5m and throw a party with the other £10m.

Sounds like a plan to me

I'm putting a new shirt on my Christmas list then

[Crowbar6753]

Only asking as I don't know. Foul swoop or fowl swoop? Chickens are fowl and they don't do much swooping.

Its a football related topic, so i thought i'd use a cheeky "Foul Swoop" in lieu of the more politically correct "Fowl Swoop"

I do appreciate the correction thought

You guys do know it's actually one fell swoop? Or am I due a whoosh here?!

A shocker played by the two of us i guess , however, i'm sticking with my "Foul' Swoop on the grounds of it being a football related post and in my defence, living in Canada for the past 12yrs has watered down my English dialect.

[Crowbar6753]

Stick or Twist, we could sell Olise, Joao and Richards for $60 - $70 million Pounds (Sorry my keyboard is Canadian) with some clever sell on clauses thrown in and be financially set, and still be in a fairly good place regarding the squad.
Its not realistic and we wouldn't be as strong, however Puscas could fill in for Joao and we have Swift to replace Olise. Left back would be a struggle but we do have cash in bank to play with and the team would still be competitive enough to survive.

Saying that, i wouldn't sell, especially in our current league position and i'm sure we won't, but sometimes when in a financial mess its good to have the option of pressing the safety button and securing the clubs short and mid term future.

Something tells me though the Chinese arn't to bothered about our finances and just want the Premiership lime light and whatever that brings. At what cost to the club and our future though, i guess only time will tell.

[andrew1957]

If the owners are keen for promotion I simply cannot see them selling any players in January - irrespective of the price offered.

As for Gibson, I always thought it was an odd signing as we have a number of potentially good young CB's already. I would have thought it made more sense to bring in a more experienced player as cover. And as said before this is the second time we have taken an Everton youngster and not played them, so I will be surprised if they don't recall him and lend him somewhere where he will get game time.

We are worryingly short of cover in several positions but just bringing in players in case of injury also risks destabilising the squad. We might make one or two signings but in truth I am not sure what the priorities would be as you could argue we need cover at RB, LB, CB (if Gibson goes), DM and a hold up striker like Jaoa as none of our other strikers are as good in that role. A lot will depend on the injury position between now and 31st January.

In summary I doubt we will do much business in January.

[Crowbar6753]

The squad is fairing up better than any of us had ever imagined, so for me it would be a specalised Left and Right Wing/Midfielder type of player to give us an option of a plan B and also to keep Meite and Ejaria on their toes.
With Laurent proving to be a huge Success i would be inclined to scour the lower leagues for Wingers for more hungry players wanting to prove thier worth.

I would still try and offload Aluko, Walker and Baldock to free up some funds.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Now there are concerning rumours about Richards if he doesn't sign a new contract, which is very understandable. His progress this season has surpassed expectations, but surely we should have been renewing the moment we let Blackett and Obita go?

[Hendo]

Now there are concerning rumours about Richards if he doesn't sign a new contract, which is very understandable. His progress this season has surpassed expectations, but surely we should have been renewing the moment we let Blackett and Obita go?

I think the club are trying to work on a new deal with him as a top priority, I think I saw Eddie mention it on Twitter a few weeks ago.

[URZZZZ]

The squad is fairing up better than any of us had ever imagined, so for me it would be a specalised Left and Right Wing/Midfielder type of player to give us an option of a plan B and also to keep Meite and Ejaria on their toes.
With Laurent proving to be a huge Success i would be inclined to scour the lower leagues for Wingers for more hungry players wanting to prove thier worth.

I would still try and offload Aluko, Walker and Baldock to free up some funds.

Agree with Walker, would keep Baldock around until the end of the season unless we sign another striker because Puscas and Joao probably isn't enough, and I'd keep Aluko until the end of the season, who's had an OK season and is relatively versatile, wouldn't be looking to give him a new contract though unless something out of the ordinary happens up until the expiration of his contract

Will be interested to see how much Pauno fancies Araruna once he's back from injury, think there's an OK player in there, but haven't seen him quite enough to make a proper judgement