Middlesbrough interested, apparently. https://the72.co.uk/241036/middlesbrough-set-sights-on-watford-striker-andre-gray/
Even if Watford accepted it, there's absolutely no chance Andre Gray and wife would want to live up there.
OK so you clearly feel we are well placed to recover the full £18m and make a small profit on top, but £10m for a proven prem goalscorer would be daylight robbery.
Middlesbrough you beautiful bastards. Even if it's a loan just get him gone, surely Boro can't afford to pay for him.
I think footballers are often totally capable of/prepared to have a transient existence in terms of the club they play for - she/they own some mega-mansion somewhere around here, right, so that's the 'base', and he can go and rent a house/apartment wherever the WAG belt is for Middlesbrough - he would be incredibly far from the first footballing figure to not move his entire life and family to the place he is currently playing - Deeney either literally does now, or at least did for several years, live in and commute from around Birmingham to us, for god's sake. Besides, it's not like his fiancee isn't all over the place all the time, being an international popstar and all that.
She's pregnant though isn't she? So the theory that they will want to remain where they are or much closer to 'home' isn't really too much of a stretch to believe.
Yeah, and I'm not saying it's hard to believe, I'm just saying it's also perfectly possible that the geographical circumstances won't be considered enough of an issue to rule out a transfer. Particularly when he will need to be playing (according to him, anyway) somewhere other than here within a year, and there are a very limited amount of clubs that would both consider him at all and be able to offer him the money he thinks he deserves. If you add the caveat 'must be within easy commuting distance of my current home' then that pushes the dial a lot closer to impossible, and this will be his last major contract either way, so he'll be considering it from a business perspective as well, I'm sure.
I know he's in the last year of his contract but I think the club will try and get him out the door anyway possible, even on loan and we pay some of his wages.
How much is he genuinely worth? He’s on about £70k p/w so about £3.5m per year. Let’s say conveniently he’s worth that, if we waived that Boro would basically need to pass that to him directly perhaps as a signing on fee, or perhaps in his wages. At a guess, the maximum I’d imagine they would pay anyone would be £20k p/w, not sure what sort of deal they’d be comfortable giving him but let’s say three years. So if they paid him £43k per week on a three year deal that would be the equivalent of the last year of his contract with us + £20k per week for three years on top. So it might be doable in the basis he’s actually worth £3.5m, that we agree to write it off, and Boro agree thats what he’s worth and what they would have been willing to pay for him. Or he just refuses any sort of move, runs his contract down and takes his chances in a years time.
That lot down the road have enquired about him I’ve been told. But you’d think we would be left carrying the bulk of the finances on any deal with them. It might be a club he’d be willing to join however.
The club would likely be pleased to have his wages off the books and anything that comes close to the remaining amortisation on his sign-on fee ~3,6M. That would essentially make him vanish from having any financial impact this year. Anything over that is profit. The likelihood of getting that is small IMO. I doubt either they would be interested in negotiating personal terms with him BETTER than what he has, so if anything it'll a loan fee and them assuming the wages. We'd have to have the option to sell him in January if by some miracle he comes good and someone wants him.
As it is he is basically a waste of £3.5m next year - anything they pay for him and towards his wages is a bonus. I guess it is more about whether they can come to an agreement on his longer term wages, but maybe with his missus bringing in so much and him having stolen so much from us it is worth taking slightly less to live here rather than end up in Boro.
Think we can file Boro’s “interest” under nonsense. Signing midfielder Payero from Banfield for £8mil. https://mobile.twitter.com/golazoargentino/status/1410768845879627777 They already signed Ameobi and are about to sign Ikpeazu for £1mil from Wycombe. Two attacking options. Unless they are selling Fry and Tavernier to have more money to spend, would imagine there business for attacking players is done.
His legacy would be sealed as he fires 20 goals to earn them an unlikely promotion as they swap places with us at the end of this season. I've always thought a return to Luton is extremely likely for AG and it would be made more painful by our effectively financing the move for our friends up the M1.
No way he goes. Contract tear up the only option. They could've booted him after 2 covid breaches but they didn't. We will be stuck with him for another year like a turtle trapped in plastic in the sea endlessly dreaming for an escape from it's neverending hopeless helplessness.
I don't think 'sacking' him after the covid breaches was an option. All it would take would be for Quina/Chalobah to have another breach (or someone like Sarr having two breaches) and not being sacked and Gray would take the club to the cleaners. Probably too big of a risk at the time.