Who else would be in such situations though? Troy "slow coach" Deeney or Marv "lazy (according to some)" Sordell? We'd clearly have to get another one in which as you suggest should happen.
Marlon was a striker on the decline and was sold for £3/4million. Boozer scored about 6 goals in the PL and was sold for about £3million. £2.5million will be a ridiculously cheap price considering the way football is now, Andy Carroll went for £35million ffs and he only had 3 more goals at Championship level last season in a team that won the league where as DG was at a side battling with relegation. Dave Kitson...£5.5million, says it all really
I can count the amount of genuine sitters that he has missed this season on one hand and still have two left to stick up at Bassini.
Really? How is it Bassini's fault then? Was Bassini around when DG signed his new deal earlier in the season with the 'release clause'? I think a certain group of people (Taylor, Winter and Mackay) are the ones that need to answer the question as to why the clause was put in!
Bas is blameless in this case from what I can see. The beef I have with him is the apparent Eustace situation and the pitch situation. Admittedly I added that the last bit to see how long his lapdog would take to come running to his aid. Oh look, he didn't disappoint.
We're just gonna have to see what happens. If Bazz and his shadow lurking backers can provide some assurances in terms of funding for a bit more wages and can get the management to hold off selling because of funding, then great. But if we have to sell we have to sell.. I just hope DG can hold off contract talks until we negotiate for more in the way of transfer fee's.
Calm down chaps FFS. Not one bit of good news in the off season? Which has been all of 11 days? Loads of rumours flying around, but nothing has actually happened. The clause in the contract is, I believe, that any club making a bid of 2.5m has the right to talk to DG (ie so that they are not accused of tapping up). He doesn't have to go, and we don't have to sell. The only thing that has actually happened is that a sensible commercial decision has been taken to have Saracens back for a limited period on improved terms, and that measures will be taken to improve the pitch in as far as they can be made with the egg chasers still playing. Not saying DG won't go, or even that he won't go for £2.5m, but lets not give ourselves strokes until something actually happens.
I was actually going to post this after about 25 replies, but i figured it would get lost amongst the hypochondriacs.
Didn't his contract run out this Summer? If so, then it's probably one of the reasons he signed a new contract.
I'm just thinking about how many times I could have spoken to you in that way, a couple of times on this thread already and the many times that your pessimism and all round miserable nature has darkened these forums in the past through years. But then that would be petulant and slightly unprovoked.
It's no different to when we lose a game and suddenly every player is rubbish, malky is clueless and we'd have won if the people on the bench had started. I don't waste my time on any other football forums, but i struggle to imagine any other set of fans overreact as often and with as much venom as ours. If there is a clause, then it was probably one of the main reasons he signed a new deal with us. I'd rather sell him for £2.5m now, than have sold him for £4m last summer and been without his goals all season, probably causing us to plummet into L1.
If there is a release clause set at £2.5m then Watford deserve all they get, by limiting their ceiling for selling a highly rated striker. No one will bid more than £2.5m, but Graham can choose who he will go to. DG has been a good/great signing for us and is moving on to better things. Good luck to him. Watford will have £2.5m in the bank to cover the £3.5m shortfall for the season just gone....only another million to find. Maybe selling Eustace, Sordell and Loach will cover that and raise a small amount for a new left back. Hopefully we can persuade a couple of good young Prem players to come on loan and help us out next season. Fingers crossed, but I think maybe our luck will finally run out next season, but of course I hope I'm wrong.
That is obviously a possibility and something that has probably crossed everyone's minds but the question is why did the club allow him to do so? I understand that a comprimise had to be made but why one of such a low price? Was always going to come back and bite us on the arse.
Because contracts are a two way thing, they are there to protect the player as well as the club. Without the inclusion he could have been going for a lot less than 2.5m.
1) Can we stop with the whole CMS thing please I know hes a 'fan' and that seems to get some people very excited but hes not going to be signing for us 2) We dont even know that there is a min fee clause in his contract, if there is its probably a fee above which we have to let him talk to other clubs, not a fee at which we must accept a bid. Also JB the way it works is that DG or his agent would have insisted of a clause like this in his contract, its not the fault of anyway at the club
When it became obvious he was doing well we should have shoved a new contract under his nose removing or raising the minimum release clause. Would have been worth any signing on fee as it would have been made up at the end of the season and then some.
Exactly. Better to compromise and set it at £2.5m if it makes him sign the contract, rather than watch him walk away for free (was his contract up at the end of this season before the new deal?). Or be forced to sell him earlier and be without his goals/performances all season.
I suppose this is my fault as well as it? So out of the question for me to defend myself after being told to ***** off and called a pleb for no good reason? Have I ever insulted him or anyone else in a similar way? Yes, I understand that it was essential for the club to tie him down to a contract otherwise he would have been flogged for a million in January or left for nothing at the end of June and that £2.5 million is better than nothing etc. but what I am saying is that £2.5 million is a derisory price for a player of DG10's calibre. The contract should have been negotiated to a higher price that was in some way representative of the player in question's value, which £2.5 million is not.
At the time that we were negotiating a contract DG and his agent would never have accepted a £5m min fee clause though, they wouldnt have foreseen that people would be bidding that much for him.
There is. Whether we can "manage" the situation to our advantage, who knows but let's face it, if I know and other people on here know there is a release clause, other clubs know it too. As for CMS, you're right - no chance.
Which begs the question of why one was necessary at all? We have no money, we would be in no position to block any reasonable offer for any of our players - without any exceptions. If he had scored another 14 goals, nobody would be paying £2.5m for him so it would be irrelevant. The only purpose it serves is to fark us over if he is successful - despite us being in no position to block such a move anyway!
£5 million would have been unlikely and would have potentially ruled him out of a move (although I think that in reality a club would pay that amount for him if they had to) but £2.5 million is far too low. If a fee had been agreed in between £3-4 million then it would have been a great bit of business for the club by getting a final season out of him and making a good bit of money out of him that would make a real difference and go towards replacing him. However, that didn't happen and as you said yourself it is an 'awful price'.
Remember that if a club views a player as such a valuable asset, said player (or more likely his agent) will want to be paid wages to represent that value. Do we pay wages that reflect a £5m player? Not even close.
I agree. Keeping DG10 beyond this season was always out of the question because if he had stayed then we would have to give him wages to reflect his ability which is simply not feasible but I would like to think that the club would be able to negotiate a better price with DG10's agent than £2.5 million which is unreasonable and essentially daylight robbery.
He was always going this summer, it was just a question of where, and if he's going to the Premier League, good luck to him.
In hindsight, I guess that is a fair comment. I suppose it was a calculated gamble that now looks like backfiring. All the same, he's done a fantastic job for us and if he does go for £2.5m, we've still made a tidy profit. Although it still annoys me we signed him (and therefore paid a fee to Carlisle) when Graham was weeks away from turning 24...
Not even that I don't think, more like days. You would have thought that common sense would have prevailed there. We also have to give them a 15% sell on fee now along with the £325k that we were ordered to pay by the F.A, another downer on this deal.
Unfortunately this was always going to be the case no matter how much we all want him to stay. Having said that im not sure he would want to go to qpr though.
I can see him sitting on this for a while to be honest just in case something better comes along. Who in their right mind would jump at a move to QPR when a move to a club like Newcastle, Stoke, Sunderland etc. could be on the cards?
to a championship player, when you take into account the traffic of players from this league to the premiership, a 5 million pound release clause might as well be an 80 million pound release clause. with that in mind, i can understand why a lower figure was negotiated at the time. if indeed, any was.
