Teale's 'tache

I think Heaton is a good solid keeper and I'm not against an experienced head in an important position, I also think he'd help to improve Steer which is a bonus. Slight concern is the rumoured transfer fee, the guy is 33 years old, not long ago had a serious injury and in the last year of his contract, that should give us some bargaining power, if it's starts to creep anywhere towards £10m then we may/should begin to look elsewhere. I know the market is crazy but some of the prices we've allegedly been quoted are just laughable.

Probably in Mexico by now...

Sherwood at 33/1, I'm not sure I'd ever stop laughing if that came to pass.

That's my understanding as well, they just said they weren't going to develop other teams players, sure we'd prefer to buy players up front and develop them from there but there's no harm in having a look at a player on loan for a year first as long as we have an option to buy them at the end for a set fee. It's a system that has worked very well for Wolves the last few years and I'm sure it's not something we are ignoring, like you said we used it to good effect last season with Hause and El Ghazi. The real issue with this system is finding quality players that clubs are willing to offload and happy to let you try before you buy, Mendes has obviously done this very well with his plethora of connections. They are out there, they just take some finding. Agreeing a transfer fee before the loan which suits all parties can be tricky too.

Thought Hegazi looked very good against us in the Play-offs, but all I got to see was backs-to-the-wall defending, is he any good with a ball at his feet? It's pretty important for our central defenders to be good on the ball for the way we want to play.

Not all that bothered by the transfer fee, we had to pay what he was worth to us, I'd happily pay £20m-£30m for any key player and I don't think anyone disputes he is key to how we want the defence to set up and play, and that sets the tone for the rest of the team. It would of been nice to pay what he was worth to Bournemouth, but they are no pushovers, fair play to them for getting top money for their player. Having said all of that I really don't get people saying 'it isn't our money so it doesn't matter'. It really does matter, the financial state of our club is very important and to wilfully ignore large outgoings is criminal. We are only six months removed from having 1 center back, Bolasie on £80k a week or whatever it was, with Richards and McCormack still on the books, staring down a FFP black hole. I know the owners are different, more professional people, but that doesn't mean they will be with the club forever. Anything can happen in life and the fans need to ensure the owners are accountable for the club being run in a sustainable manner. Back on topic. Welcome big man, for good this time

Oh I'm sure agents tell us a lot of things, I wouldn't believe most of it though, the key is the information comes direct from Bournemouth so it's reliable, like I said not the most useful clause but gives us a minor advantage when/if the bidding starts.

'Hi, I'm 34 and hardly played in the last year - gimme at least the same as my last big contract with Chelsea! Won't give it me? Okay I'll just go to China or the US where they will pay it me! Bye bye!' It may not be all salary, certainly he'll be wanting a huge signing on fee as there's no transfer fee involved, as it's his last contract he's going to be wanting as much as he can get, and I wouldn't blame him. His not going to take a massive pay cut to come and be a squad player for us, others will offer him more then that.

All it means is we are notified if anyone makes a bid for him and how much that bid is, it's not a great clause I grant you, but it does mean we are in the know if others are interested and play our cards from there. I don't understand why all of that supposedly means nothing. It's not useless it's just nowhere near as powerful as some other clauses. I would imagine we wanted an option to buy at the end of the loan but either Bournemouth didn't want that or we couldn't agree a sensible fee with them, we probably chucked this in last minute so we'd at least be in the know regarding his transfer situation.

Reportedly he was on around 85k p/w at Chelsea, for reference I read Jack is our highest paid currently on around £60k p/w. Considering the next deal Cahill signs will likely be his last I'd imagine he doesn't want to drop much below his last contract. In reality he should probably ask for more and a large signing on fee due to the fact he doesn't come with a transfer fee. I don't believe the targets we have been looking at, especially in the Championship, would demand or be given anywhere near these figures. In fact, unless you are a proven top Premier League player you aren't getting that kind of money from anyone. So wages really are an issue, we can pay it sure, but it may well upset the apple cart (see Utd and Sanchez). I'm not saying we shouldn't sign him, but we had better be damn sure we are going to play him and get our moneys worth if we do. He may be free but he won't be cheap.

Don't remember to forget to post it!

Doesn't change too much for me, I'd of assumed they were in talks with him as soon as Bielsa signed up and the rumours started. Interesting it's leaked publicly all of a sudden though, could be putting pressure on him to stay by letting the Leeds fans know he's being offered a good deal to stick around.

I take your point, his stats would look a little better were it not for Bruce and our first half of the season woes. However, I was surprised to learn he only played in 4 of the 10 game winning streak, he missed the first 4 with his injury, was on the bench for the 5th, and missed the last through suspension (I'm guessing as all it said was he wasn't in the squad). 7 out of 17 we won while he was out injured. He contributed, but maybe not as much as some think. Stats don't account for many things though, like his partnership with Mings and which games had more/less pressure etc. I don't think there's anyone on here who wouldn't take him back if offered a reasonable fee either upfront or at the end of a loan. Like I said I like him and I'd be much more comfortable with him and Mings as our center half pairing come the start of the season than some other guys I've never seen play.

I'd suggest you look at the stats with/without him in the team, they are very similar. With: W: 10 L: 5 D:10 Without: W:10 L:5 D:6 I like Tuanzebe, he did contribute and I hoped we'd get him on a permanent deal for continuity, but I don't think he's the only player of that quality out there, I think we can get our own Tuanzebe if we shop around, and that makes more financial sense.

You can't put the financial profit of promotion to Tuanzebe, he made a contributed sure, but we can only speculate if other players would of played better or worse than him, it's not unlikely that we could still of been promoted without him. Also, in the general conversation about loans, not every loan ends in promotion and big money coming in, more often than not it doesn't. Is it better to pay for a player for 3 years and return him to his club a better asset than they had originally at no profit to ourselves? Or... Is it better to pay for a player for 3 years and then sell him for a profit allowing you to buy more players and continue the cycle? The only way the loan system without an option to buy will work for us now is if it allows us to obtain a player of quality that we wouldn't otherwise be able to source ourselves that would significantly improve the team allowing us to make a large profit i.e. like promotion or survival. I'm not against loaning Tuanzebe if he is better than what we can attract and can help us to stay up, but ideally it would be better to buy our own player of similar quality who also helps us to stay up and then we have a saleable asset. Whether we can attract an alternative player of similar quality ourselves is really the debate we should be having.

Apart from we don't get the financial benefit, we spend three seasons giving him a chance of first team football and developing him where the risk is all ours, and then Man Utd sell him for big money getting almost all the benefits of our hard work, all we get is his playing services for 3 years and we would be paying for that privilege. The whole point of not developing other teams players is that there's more profit in developing our own.

I wasn't claiming to be right or wrong, I was merely pointing people in the direction of the conversation we had which raised some interesting points. I have no desire to poke that bear again. But, you know, read what you want to read UTV!

It's a bar trade saying I believe

Saw it here: https://www.skysports.com/transfer/news/11681/11755940/fulham-keen-to-sign-brentford-centre-back-ezri-konsa Not the most reliable in the world I know but better than some, if true I'd like to think we would be looking.

I think Bournemouth are just trying to get the most amount of money for their asset, it's a sensible business strategy and I'd expect us to do the same if we were in the same position. They know we have a matching clause and are prepared to wait and see if anybody else come in with a bid, it seems like they may have already bought a replacement for him meaning they are well set to play the waiting game. Another spanner in the works is recent interest in Ake, if he were to leave then they may not let Mings go until they've found Ake's replacement. I did have a discussion with @QldVilla about why I thought this wouldn't be a straight forward deal right from the start, Bournemouth aren't some hard up club that just hand over players when the big boys are lurking. It's going to take patience if we want to sign him for anywhere near our valuation of him.

Just read somewhere that Ezri Konsa has a £12m release clause, didn't our resident Brentford fan quote us £20m for him? Might be worth a look!

It's an... interesting appointment. I suppose it's hard to think of any big name manager who would take that job at the moment. No idea how well he might do there, completely different set up and expectations to Derby, could go either way but should hopefully be fun finding out!

Does this mean I'm famous?...