STFC Transfer Rumours

[THE FLASH]

Not bothered at Smith going... On the cards after his recent 'knocks'...

Squash court control and not great in the air considering he's huge...

Thanks and good luck......

BUT...he's better than nobody at all and that's what we seem to have...Obika and crocked Hylton.

Hopefully Power will pull something out his arse over next few days.

[Power to people]

Assume Louis will be kept until at least Jan so they can have a good look at him and then put him out on loan if they feel it is needed

[Bogus Dave]

I don't think players under the age of 21 need to be registered in the 25 man squad anyway??

[Frigby Daser]

Gutted for the lad if true he deserves a shot at the EPL they are only allowed a 25 man squad for the Prem League so unless he wants to hang around for cup games then he will undoubtedly go out on loan hopefully to us.

EPL? Because the Americans and Aussies call it that, doesn't mean we need to!

[lambourn red]

EPL? Because the Americans and Aussies call it that, doesn't mean we need to!

A polite FO I could not be arsed to type Premier League

[Riddick]

I'm a little worried with the quotes in FLIC today about Eckersley.

"We would like to (sign Eckersley) but financially at the moment it is difficult," Cooper said.

"We are light and if you look under the first eleven or twelve, we are relying on a lot of inexperienced, young players, but that's where we are at the moment."

I assume its financially difficult because we have money earmarked for a forward or two and we don't want to use that for a defender at the moment. If not i'm really worried that we are out of budget with the current squad, seems unbelievable to me.

[Skinny Pete]

Depends what the budget is. Some reports say it is now below £1m which I really can't understand with Wes and Williams wages now gone.

I think Power has it in his head that attendances will be down due to the northern bias of the league.

Looks like shoestring is the word

[Batch]

it could simply be his demands don't fit within our wage structure.

that said there is not much evidence of us investing yet, other than the bare minimum.

on the freed up wages I think you are right; power said he budgeted for 7k v Bradford and so 8k was a welcome bonus. I suppose that means. 7k is our break even calculation, less than last year iirc

[RobertT]

If it was budgeted on 7k, then we can't spend more just because we are getting higher attendances - the playing budget is limited by the financial budget presented to the FL.  It really is surprising me that so many people have ignored the interviews Power has given where he has clearly stated the money received has paid down debt and we had reduced the playing budget to bring us into break even.  He's shown in the past that a talent worth investing in will be, but outside of that, we'll be very sensible.  Smith himself cost us a not insubstantial fee - way more than most in this league will pay, bar a few.

[Skinny Pete]

Our playing budget has nothing to do with FL. If we wanted to sign a player on £5k a week that's up to us.

What we can't do is pay a player more than what his contract states.

[RobertT]

Eh? - we are subject to a wage limit, as are all the clubs in our league, based on turnover.

[Skinny Pete]

Wages should be not more than 60% of turnover. Even at last year's reported  £1.5m budget we are way under that.

The only reason we wont sign Eckersley is that Power wont pay more than he sees fit - not that we would breach any FL rule

[RobertT]

You'd be surprised how quickly a £1.5m budget will get used up, but I'd also agree he won't pay higher than needed for a player regardless of total spend.

[Skinny Pete]

Yep. But it appears that the saving on Wes and Williams' wages has been stripped from this year's budget - not retained for maybe 4 new players' wages.

[Riddick]

Just not sure how we've spent everything we have. We've secured loan players on the cheap and signed only trials who surely cant command high wages. The squad is threadbare as we all know. I'd hoped there would be enough to get 2/3 more in so we can at least have a bench of pro's and not youth lads when all are fit.

The longer term concern is Byrne/Kasim. Clearly we have not got the flexibility to offer them anything greater to stay so will we sell them in the next couple of weeks to get some value from them (assuming there is enough interest) or do they leave for nothing next year. Given the money we took this summer to be in the current situation, letting two of your biggest assets go for free next year makes it somewhat worrying to think what the budget would be the year after.

Anyway probably worrying for nothing. Power himself has said he wants 1 or 2 more in. I think as i said originally they just cant really justify the money on a defender when we have Thompson/Williams/Branco/Turnbull/BOO and Byrne/Stewart who can slot in as full back or wing back. They would like another but getting 1 or 2 attacking players in is key and that's obviously where they have earmarked the budget.