The Mail Bag
Raising cash
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I've been thinking all week about this transfer window and thought about what players the squad could afford to offload in order to raise some cash for the transfer kitty. I had a look at the squad list with this in mind and noted that it has thirty players listed.
Eight of the outfield players are kids. By this I mean the likes of Gosling and Rodwell. These players don't have enough experience or reputation to raise any decent amount of cash. They were only added to the squad in such a number to begin with because we were short on senior players at the start of the season. Any cash that would be raised would be more than negated by the fact that we would be shorter on numbers than we already are.
Two of the players, Vaughan and the Yak, are out for the season injured. We obviously aren't going to be able to put them on the market either. Another, Saha, is too injury prone to even try to sell.
Three players, Jacobsen, Valente and VdM are out of contract in June.
I think Valente and VdM are our best bet of doing anything in this transfer window. Put them up for sale and try to get something for them before they become free agents in the summer. Between the money we get, and the wages we save, we can look to get one player in and/or a couple of loan signings. (I'm presuming that we pay the loan signing's wages while he's with the club so this is why I'm eyeing up the wages we're saving on Valente and VdM.)
We have four goalkeepers but only Howard in my view would be worth any real money and I can't see us selling him. By my reckoning that leaves us with thirteen senior players in our current squad who we could hope to get any real/big money for in this transfer window. Lescott, Arteta, Neville etc. But then if you sell you're just buying automatic replacements as these thirteen players are our only regular first team players at the moment.
To me, this means that this window, whatever about Moyes's previous record in January, will definitely be a very quiet one.
Kieran Fitzgerald, Posted 01/01/2009 at 09:43:06
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At the very minimum, there should be a wage freeze and the players association would gain enormous public applause if it led the way with it.
As for the youngsters, why sell potentially good players for a fraction of their future worth?
Finally, the likes of VdM... who in their right mind would want him now apart from a lower league club or a foreign club that nobody has heard of. If any of these did come in for him they are likely to have less of a pot to piss in than us and, after all that, why pay money for him now when they can have him for free in the summer? If anything, we will give him away for free just to get him off the payroll.
If we?re looking at central midfield to fill a spot, then I was going to suggest another Dutch midfielder from Sparta Rotterdam, 19-year-old Kevin Strootman. I have a season ticket at Sparta (consider them the Dutch equivalent of us) and this guy has lit up the games in the last few weeks. Quite well-built, comfortable on the ball, good passer, and powerful shot. Only worry I have is that Emnes went to Boro from Sparta and has done the square root of nothing, and he was supposedly their star man.
Everyone needs to get used to this idea now because we don’t need another hysterical scene like we had in the summer (although it will likely happen even though the club have repeatedly said they won’t be selling or buying).
As for Cahill, I think he is a top bloke but the fact is that he and Fellaini play in the same position so to have natural midfield balance we play Fellaini/Arteta/Neville. Obviously we need another instead of Neville in there.
When we have forwards fit how will Cahil get into our midfield? Also with the £12mil or so we would get for him, a top defensive midfielder could be brought in.
In 3 years would you rather see Cahill off to Australia after being a bit-part player or see a top young player fulfill his potential, signed with the Cahill money?
With the news about Saha today, we can?t afford to let Big Vic go either. Selling Cahill? Jesus, no! 3 years time? We can?t even begin to think that far ahead.
Hopefully, we?ll pull in a decent loan forward, keep relatively injury free in January and Saha will return in February. It?s gonna be tough, but we?ve been there before and done it.
I heard yesterday that we are interested in Ricardo Fuller. Hardly something to make you cream your pants, but we said the same about Marcus Bent and he gave us a fantastic season in 2004-05 with 110% effort, unselfish team play and some useful goals.
The only problem with this logic is our record with Cahill and our record without Cahill.
You may think it brings "balance" into the side without him but that?s on paper ? in reality we (in terms of results) are half as good without Cahill.
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1 Posted 01/01/2009 at 17:55:57
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Neville? WTF! Now that is dream land.