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Well well, Billy Paynters contract negotiations are on hold until May, can hardly blame him I suppose. He could hit 30 goals for the season and would likely get Championship clubs with more money sniffing around. Atleast we got Austin and Pericard should Billy seek pastures new. Paynter has been pretty pants most places he has been so hope he stays here knowing he will be idolised here and have the right coaching but after having his best season you can hardly blame him for keeping his options open for him, his family and 2 young kids. Personally I think he will stay though. Probably just waiting to see if we get promoted as would get more money if we are in the CCC. That said he could get a clause in his contract saying he gets X increase if we go up!

I think Paynter has his eye on playing in the championship next year, with or without us.

I'll probably get a load of shit for this but I dont think he'd be a huge loss.

We would miss him and he's clearly had a very good season. I rate him as a player. However, I have the nagging feeling that he's a decent player having a great season rather than someone like Cox or Parkin who was clearly too good for us and should have been playing at a higher level.

I hope he signs on, but replacing him will be much less of an issue than replacing cox was because A. Cox was a much better player, B. We'll have 2 good strikers on the books already if he goes.

Agree with Colin mostly, although I'd say he's better than decent, but the general point about him not being as good as Cox, and the fact that we have possible replacements already on the books, is taken.

I agree with CT and nemo on this, yes he would be a loss but for his wages I am certain we could replace him with as good for similar wages as he wants...especially if we do go up to the Championship.

Agree 100%, in fact I'd go further and say if he thinks after a decent 5 months he can hold us to ransom he can fuck himself.

I'd add on the fact that he seems to need the right player alongside him to hit top form, ie Cox or Austin, and without the right player he looks decent but nothing more. There are plenty of similar players about that we could pick up over the summer so I'm not too worried about losing him. I reckon he's taking a bit of a risk as come the summer if we're promoted we might start looking elsewhere rather than giving him the contract he wants.

No doubt his agent is being a cunt too.

Agree with DMR

Yes he does but what makes me rather keener to keep him than some seem to be is, as I've said before, the flip-side of that argument. ie that while by himself you can argue he's average, when we do get decent strikers, he seems to form very good partnerships with them. It's not that easy to buy good strikers - it's nigh on impossible to buy a good partnership. At best, you're always going to be buying a good striker of the "right type" to go along your existing striker and hoping the partnership works. So, if you have an existing partnership that's working well, as we do, I'd be very nervous about breaking it up.

I have doubts he would make it in the championship ( But i may be wrong.) Given that, he's just trying to get the best deal while his stock is high rather than engineer a move to a higher league. Who wouldn't.  If he signs great, if not we'll put him in the grant smith bin  of greedy bastards and move on.

Couple of points:
He has indicated he wants to sign. I know they all say that whatever, but it was the club who said we want to put it on hold.
His agent used to play under Danny Wilson at the scum in the slavetrading town. I think they have a reasonable relationship.
Billy must also realise that some of his success is the partnership he has.

Will he stay or go? I'd say that the odds are in favour of staying about 65/35

Another thought, if he's not signed a new contract yet, either because he wants a better one here or because he's holding out for an offer from above, then he really is going to have to play his socks off until the end of the season isn't he? So, it's all good for us really, as Batch says. You can start by putting five past Wovers on Saturday, Billy

A bad run of form and the fans will be on his back again. Billy's had a struggle to fit in here, unfairly so in my opinion. Wouldn't blame him at all if he left.

I reckon the club are offering a proportion of his contract as goal or appearance bonuses and he wants it as regular wage.

I'm inclined to agree with DMR as well..

Always been a fan of BP even when others wondered what his contribution was. He is certainly a lot fitter this season and that has helped him immensely (credit to DW there!). You cant blame him for keeping his options open but I wouldnt be suprised if he did eventually sign that new contract.

i'd like him to stay, but he aint worth breaking the bank for.
could he do a sol campbell on us?
i forget if his contract runs out this season or not

But how much of the good partnerships is down to Paynter and how much down to Austin or Cox?

I'd argue other strikers would form decent partnerships with them, we could easily pick someone up on the cheap (like Pericard) that would work well with Austin. So whilst I want us to keep Paynter, I don't want us to pay too much and if he goes, he goes - we'll find a decent replacement.

Its a bit risky from Paynter's point of view as well. Come the summer I reckon Wilson will have a list of other strikers he's interested in and if he can line up the right deal he might lose interest in Paynter pretty quickly. I'm not convinced too many decent clubs will be lining up to pay him big bucks either, as a decent 6 month spell doesn't make up for the rest of his career.

All fair points. But the point I was making is that it takes two to make a partnership - and it's not always a given that a new partnership will work, irrespective of how good the two players are. It's not just a case of dropping a new player in. What we have works very, very well, so I'd quite like to keep it.

The only reason he struggled to fit in was patchy form and looking a bit lardy at first.

Fair play to him he turned things round for himself, got himself very fit and is in the form of his career. But he's not fit in anywhere he's been since port vale apart from here. He should bear that in mind.

I havent seen alot of him, but I really wouldnt want to start next season with a Pericard Austin strike partnership.

If we want to progress as a club we need to hold onto our betters players, simple as that.

Anyone who thinks he's only been good for a few months is talking rubbish.

Be sorry to see him go but as I've said before,we've lost far better strikers than him before,3 recently so I wouldn't want us to go silly with his wages,there are better strikers in this league for a start.However,like Dave I wouldn't really want to see Pericard as his replacement.

The worst bit is he'll walk for free...getting a cheap replacement will be difficult, had we got a decent fee then  :bye: Billy, but it's a bit of a bugger.  Lets hope he's not another Peter Thorne, and just gives up because he knows his next move.

To be honest i would also be very suprised to see Billy leave. It's fair enough if he wants to wait until the end of the season, the main reason i can think of is, if we are promoted to the ccc this season then would the club be more likely to offer a higher wage, due to the obvious increase in revenue and the fact that ccc wages are higher.
The flip side of this is, if he did decide to try his luck and find a new club, how many ccc clubs would he actually get a game for? I can only think of 3 or 4, imo he would end up signing for a league 1 club, a definate backwards step, especially given the fact that other than Port Vale this is the only club he's ever really settled at.

Agree Borgnan. He dosnt have a sustained good goalscoring record in league 1 which makes me think that a CCC club would be reluctant to have punt on him, even for free.

This all reads as being quite negative towards him from me, but I really do hope he stays.

Paynter became a 'star player' at Port Vale and earned a move to (then Championship) Hull City - impressed during a loan spell and then became a massive disappointment - shipped out to Southend where it also didn't work out for him.

There can be no doubting that he'll be desperate to give that level another crack but will also know that he could be on to a good thing at Swindon. It'll come down to money in the end.

I'm a believer that, especially with centre forwards, these players come and go and are adequately replaced. Paynter is good and in an ideal world he'd sign a new deal. However, if he buggered off because a lesser force in the Championship can pay more then so be it. You cannot dispute ambition, he's honoured his contract and can do whatever he likes.

Will it? Austin and Cox were cheap and decent signings, Pericard was cheap and could be a good signing.

Plus Wilson is already sniffing round that Crawley player, I'm sure there are more he's keeping an eye on.

It should also be a lot easier for us in the summer to get decent players with our league position this season.

Cox was cheap for a player of his calibre, but wasn't cheap. Austin seems to be a rare find. I bet Pericard is on a fair bit per week.

I agree, you cannot fault the guy for having ambition, albeit a new found ambition (I'm sure his performances/goals this season have surpassed even what he could have hoped for at the start of the season). My only question is, when does ambition start to become greed...?
He's playing well, scoring goals and is settled in a team who play good attractive football. A team who imo will be promoted next season, if not this year (It still brings a smile to my face to realistically say that!) and a board who are very ambitious about taking the club forward, ie: Sound financially and ground re-development.
If it were me i would stay, moving for more money isn't always the best way, especially in the current economic climate. Knowing you are at a settled club who are going to pay your wages every week should be a very big consideration. Bad example i know, but i bet Kasper Schmeichel is now regretting moving for money.