Thetownend.com

We might sell players, if a reasonable offer came in.

That's the gist of an article from the Adver yesterday, that's sparked well over 100 comments.

Fuck me, how many of our supporters live in la la land? I am continually amazed by a section of the support who think that Fitton & Co should be bankrolling the club up the leagues, with no thought of long term stability, but to read some of the comments on this article you would think that no other club of our stature ever sell anyone!

There's no player, at any club (Apart from maybe the top four in the Premier) who hasn't got a selling price.

Someone also slated Fitton for coming out and actually saying players may be sold. A while ago we were crying out for openess and honesty and now, as soon as some hear something they don't like, they slag the bloke off for being exactly that.

times are hard..credit crunch and all that!

Whilst not to be labled a "selling" club we have got to be realistic and accept that if good offers came in then they will be listened to in order to return to profitability.

Sad to see but we are a Div 3 club at the end of the day

Thats just good governance, and something that this club has been crying out for for donkeys years

When they redo thisis, they should re-register the domain as www.thewindowlickersgazette.co.uk

What worries me is I think its the majority of our fans who are in la la land. Not the minority. 75% of our fans are thick cunts.

As Fitton said, he's trying to make us a profitable club, selling players will help towards that. Of course people like Simon Cox and Macca will want to leave eventually. You'll be a fool to think otherwise. Its not exactly any players dream to be playing for Swindon is it. We're a stepping stone for most players.

Saying that, I'll be gutted if Coxy went in January, but I have complete faith in what the board are doing and I'm sure they won't make it hamper the rest of our season.

:(

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 :D :D :D

opened up ok for me

does that make me a window licker ?

a very special one.

Its all very well selling players- if you can get in reasonable replacements.

From what i have seen so far- malpas cannot do this

Yes because Michael Timlin has been fucking shit the last two games.

Thanks for that Bart.

I didn't even bother reading the comments under the story because i knew 75% of them would be complete bollocks.

Why do you support Swindon? Suicide must be easier.

BTFC Bart in association with cyincide 'taste the doom'.

I think I am turning into Bart, because I think he has a point in so far as Malpas hasn't proven himself in the transfer market...yet.

Technically he made the Cox, McNamee and Timlin signings, but all the players were known to the club before Malpas arrived. We have to reserve judgement on Casal, Amankwah, and Marshall until they get a few games.

Best get the rope out then.

IMO, Bart is only correct (On this matter), in the same principal that even a broken watch is correct twice a day.

Remember the "They will never sell this club and take it down with them" posts from Bart, and other similarly spectacularly wrong posts from him.

Think of the American Indians and their rain dance, they believed that it rained because they danced. They didn't catch on that no matter what they did, dancing or whatever then it would eventually rain anyway.

Perhaps Bart's real name is Jumping with Lemmings.

This season has to be one of the biggest gaps in between any kind of transfers coming in that we've had in years.

Mark Marshall was the last in on the August 13th. In the past at least 1 or 2 loan players have come in. Going through the whole of September and October is rare for us in modern times.

I don't think this has anything to do with this whole Maurice Malpas doesn't have the contacts or the ability to sell Swindon to a player myth though.

I thought that was one of Bart's better posts actually - two whole sentences.

i agree with barts post.
i also accept that we will lose players(we always have)
but if we do we need a boss that can find gems for fuck all and get them playing well.i'm not convinced in the slightest that malpas is capable of doing it.
the only players i think we could lose are cox,brez,morrison.with the exeption of cox we could replace the other two without any real difficulty.

 On current evidence Bart has a semi valid point...back in our better years, a Macari or Hoddle had to sell players and would get in a better than decent player with the bit of cash that came his way....it's great if successful.

 eg Macari had to sell Colin Baillie to Reading...a cultured full back who'd been brought through by John Trollope...we got around 30K , Macari used the money to get Calderwood.

 The downside is when a McMahon was boss...from the Fjortoft money he bought Jason Drysdale  :(

 Cox is really our only saleable asset....we should be able to get around a mill for him.

 Maybe Ben Joyce can step up.

For crying out loud people - don't get sucked in by this. It's all hypothetical at the moment. Cox could've signed for Northampton and didn't whatever the reason, we did enough to get him here.

It's a tough market at the moment. For example, in a combined table of L1 & L2 goalscorers this season only one player signed this summer (Hooper at Scunthorpe)

15 Lambert (Bristol Rovers)
10 Graham (Carlisle)
10 Mackail-Smith (Peterborough)
10 Thorne (Bradford)
9 Ward (Chesterfield)
9 Beckford (Leeds)
9 Hooper (Scunthorpe)
8 Baldock (Franchise)
8 Cox (Swindon)
8 Fryatt (Leicester)

My point is that we're talking as if Malpas' transfer decisions are done and dusted for eternity when in reality he's only worked in one major transfer window of his own. It's not been amazing thus far but he's still our manager and there are still opportunities for us to bring in the "next Cox" (who MM brought in ;) )

sam parkin was available for loan

He was?

my point being players are out there.imo better than cox too

Meh, in the League Sam Parkin scored 26 in his 49 Swindon games... Simon Cox only has 3 less.
Sam Parkin is a crock now who'll score, maybe, when he plays (3 in 8 this season).

Strikers at Swindon isn't an issue at this moment in time anyway.

yes but we are debating selling players,cox would be the prime candidate to go.
parkin as an example would be a decent replacement.a good manager would find other suitable players in the same mould

Parkin wouldnt be a good replacement, he's peaked. His career will never get better than it did when he was with us.

If we did sell Cox and needed a replacement I'd like to see us sign Chris Dagnell from Rochdale or Andy Bishop from Bury.

 Parkin throws up the conundrum though....think it's generally accepted King had a good eye for a player, so replaces Parkin with essentially Cureton.  Cureton is  bit of a flop, although does show on occasions what he can do....next season leading scorer in the CCC.....sometimes it just doesn't work out, when all your eggs are in one basket, because of slender resources it makes it difficult.

But I'd be very suprised if we sold Cox midway through the season. I'm not stupid, everyone has a price but I think they'd wait. I'm actually suprised that the rumour mill isn't in motion RE: Cox. I think players like Beckford & McLean are keeping them away at the moment.

It's the likes of Morrison that will be sold off if the right bid comes in.

Either way he cannot afford to lose out financially like we did with Parkin.

The problem with players like Beckford and Mclean (and Mckail-Smith and George Boyd) is that clubs are already sniffing around, but Leeds and certainly Posh aren't going to let them go unless they pay silly money. For example, Aaron Mclean at Posh was wanted by Wolves who offered 2 million (I think). Posh said, give us 5 million plus and we may be interested. Wolves wouldn't pay so Posh said, fine, we don't need the money anyway.

This means that teams like Southampton, Wolves etc who are looking for a striker are more likely to target the 'smaller, less financially sound' clubs to get predators on the cheap. As we are Swindon, if we get a bid of 1 million plus for Cox I reckon we'll bite the hand off.

 I'm thinking why would anyone want to sign Morrison just yet...but then I suppose  Prem clubs took Tozer and Lukas.

 Which leads me back to the point I made about Lukas at the time, going to Everton wasa move too soon in his career, he'd have been better off playing a couple of seasons in L1 and developing there.

Precisely. The context in which AF was talking at the AGM, he was predominantly talking about selling youth players, such as Morrison, Tozer etc and how it would be ideal to have four coming through a season, keep 2, sell 2. Contrary to what some are assuming about sell-offs come what may, he also said they'd turned down one "big club" offer for a younger player because the deal wasn't right.

Cox will be sold at some point, I've got no doubt about that, and if someone comes in and offers millions for him in Jan, they'll probably take it, but that wasn't the context in which AF was talking on Saturday.

i dont think cox is worth any more then 500,000 tops.he's good and worth money, but not outstanding in league 1

Maynard went to city for £2m, is cox that much worse?

Beckford is being talked about for millions and is older than cox

Mclaen mentioned above had only ever scored goals (admittedly a lot) in  the conference and L2

It's a good point. Crewe are hardly a wealthy club - it has to be said that Maynard was the summers biggest panic buy.

<in case other clubs are reading this>Yes, a lot worse. Shocking in fact. Missed a pen the other week, wouldn't touch him with yours</in case other clubs are reading this>

Having seen a bit of Posh (my mate is a Posh fan) I actually think Mckail-Smith is a better player than Mclean. In Boyd, Mclean and Mckail-Smith they have a fucking good attack.

What is our record transfer fee these days, is it from the sale of Parkin ?

I reckon if we can keep Cox for the season and he carry's on scoring goals then we may get a record fee for him, upwards of £1.75m

Christ no we didn't even get £500,000 from Parkin! It's Horlock still isn't it (£1.5million)?

I'm Pretty sure it was Horlock too

Horlock was 1.5m to City.

Nicky Summerbee?

I think Summerbee went for about 1.2M
Calderwood was 1.25M
Fjotoft wan slightly more at 1.3M
But sure Horlock was 1.5M

Persononally I don't think we'll sell Cox or Macnamee unless we get a large offer, 1M at the very least for Cox as he's probbably got sell on fees that just won't make it worth losing. 

Agree with PaulD about bringing youths through and selling them I think is the idea, which is proabably why we signed so many up this year as proffesionals.

Heard last night that Cox is going to Sheff Utd for 1.2m in January. Ifil and Morrison also being watched

You sure it's not social services watching Jerel?  As if a scout turned up to watch Ifil all they'd do is just turn up in the Arkells and watch Jerel look after his little girl for a couple of hours!  Hardly telling in a football sense.

Do not know, maybe

Ndah went for over a million didn't he?

All rumour and speculation .. but if offered a million for Cox .. Should we take it ? Or should fitton and his backers be seeing off these large bids in order for us to reach the next level??

If a bid of 750k or more came in for any of our players, theirs no doubt in my mind they'd be off

If a club is desperate they will fork it out. If Crewe can get £2.5million for Maynard we should do everything we can to squeeze every penny from those in the Championship.

I heard Sheffield United are offering £1.2m for Michael Pook.

Snap their fucking hands off and run for the hills!

I have heard Tails is sniffing glue.

If we are serious about being promoted in 3 years- we should only listen to good offers.

Providing we get adeqaute replacements. If Malpas brings in signings ala Casal,Amankwah we could be in for a New Year of struggle

 ::)

Get a reality check Bart.

We are a league 1 club. We do not make any money from attendances. We are already subsidised by the owners. If an offer came in that meant a profit, we'd take it.

You also have to look at the players themselves. If a club from a higher division put in a bid for them they would want to go (I'm 99.99999% certain) If a Championship club came in for Cox he would get his agent to try anything to get him away from the CG. I'm not knocking him for it, he's not a Town fan and he's ambitious. Just like any of our younger players.

Question is getting adequate replacements. Selling for 1.2m and obtaining a replacement for £100k is good business.

Only problem is i have not seen anything of Malpas so far to convince me that he has the contacts to bring in anyone decent. This is my main concern. Our previous managers have been able to wheal and deal in the transfer market and get decent players on the cheap.

I would hope that's where our scouting network comes in.

Nick Watkins would be the man involved in any negotiations, not Malpas.

Yes but Malpas has to sell the club.

What is it with this myth? I don't get it.

1) Players go where the money & contract is the best (Betsy)

2) Mulgrew went to a better club.

Malpas can only go with what financial resources he's been given. The guy can talk Swindon up to make it sound like the greatest team in England, but if teams like Southend are offering more money then they'll take the extra cash and go elsewhere instead.

Its a fair point. Frankly you could employ the greatest salesman in the world to try and convince players to join us and it wouldnt work most of the time.  In recent seasons Southend have been better than us. whether it was that or more money or both that made betsy join them we;ll never know - but its not like he's joined a club in a lower division over us. looking at the league table his decision seems to have been justified currently as sad as it makes me to say that.

The point was made around the time of the takeover that it will take a while for STFC's reputation to recover in football circles.  You might tell a player that the club has been taken over and that  there is no chance of being paid late or the club going bust but they might not choose to believe that. Its not like football is short of bullshit merchants is it?

I can see the similarities between some of our fans and some of the Yanks in the vids on the US election thread  :banging:

Well they havent exactly done a great job so far --- Casal -Amankwaah - both substandard

And loads of people were saying Marshall was an exciting prospect

Sorry, this news has only just sunk in.

We might sell players you say?  I'm fucking outraged.