| Akpom? 16:16 - May 25 with 3278 views | gramps |
People are posting their lists of players for next season -who should stay and who should go. Interesting to note that Akpom is often not mentioned as being in either group. .What should be done about him? We need 3 forwards next year - probably Hirst and 2 others. Is Akpom going to be one of them? |  |
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| Akpom? on 00:07 - May 28 with 253 views | burnbudgiesburn |
| Akpom? on 23:28 - May 27 by SuffolkPunchFC |
I doubt it would be an issue. a) it’s a relatively small value, b) we already have an impairment amount noted in the previous acounts and c) we’ll get nowhere close to what we’d be able to spend under the new SCR for it to be material. |
Good news on that front then.
Will be interesting to see what we do in Akpoms case. |  | | |
| Akpom? on 06:32 - May 28 with 193 views | Blue_Heath |
| Akpom? on 16:32 - May 25 by jayessess |
We tend to be a bit cautious about moving first team players on. We didn't release Freddie Ladapo until the 30th August 2024! |
This, a striker is the hardest position to find due to most teams only playing 1 up top. | |
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| Akpom? on 07:16 - May 28 with 170 views | PioneerBlue |
Football is littered with first season flops. I imagine there is a not insignificant chance they he helps make up the squad next season on athletic attributes alone, interesting that he played so little football towards the end of the season even though we had triggered the buy clause.
Like others have said, it will no doubt be late in the window before we discover the final plan for him which give KMck and coaches time to see how preseason is going, the opportunity to play PL football must have all sorts of motivational affects on players 🤞🏻 | |
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| Akpom? on 09:23 - May 28 with 124 views | Cheltenham_Blue |
| Akpom? on 17:09 - May 25 by OldFart71 |
I'm with you. It was another failure along with Szmodics and Cajuste. We have a lot to offload such as Ali, Clarke, Ogbene,Muric,Slicker and maybe Palmer and that's just a few. |
There will be deals to be done for all of those. Although I don't imagine Slicker goes anywhere except on loan.
It will come down to how deeply we want to keep to our valuation. We were asking £6m for Szmodics, that will likely have to be closer to £2m, we'd agreed £3m with Luton for Al Hamedi if his transfer got triggered, that will have to be closer to £1m.
Some of the others will get better money, Muric £10m and Ogbene £8m for example, but if Ashton sticks with very high valuations as for Szmodics and AAH, we'll struggle to move some on |  |
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| Akpom? on 11:07 - May 28 with 99 views | darkhorse28 |
| Akpom? on 11:27 - May 27 by HighgateBlue |
And you would think that Birmingham would have been fine with the terms we signed up to - a promotion to the Premier League would have been such a fantastic outcome for them, that they could worry about the transfer fee later, if Akpom turned out to disappoint. If he didn't disappoint then it's no worry.
So if the rival bidder would take a term like that, how could Ashton have got his man if we had refused the obligation to purchase?
It was a decent deal at the time, but Akpom has been shockingly disappointing. In fact, it really has been an amazing achievement to be promoted automatically with so many attacking players massively or slightly disappointing.
But we've done it.
Now we have many squad building decisions to make. What to do with Akpom is one of them. I imagine the answer is to offload him if any kind of sensible bid comes in. A loan would represent a ridiculous loss on him, but if he's not going to play in the Prem, we can't allow the sunk cost fallacy to cause us to act any differently. He wasn't good enough last season - I can't see how on earth he can be good enough next season.
But yeah, I agree that it's not MA's fault, this one. |
It is Marks fault. The ones that work, he deserves credit for. The ones that don’t, criticism.
And the balance of those is where our success or failure sits as a club, it’s that important.
I’d say it’s obvious where we are, good, or even very good relative to the EFL, partly due to resources. And very poor relative to what’s required at this level. That’s the reality.
I won’t list the fissures, you know them, and Ashton and McKenna acknowledge them by not playing them, loaning them out, and not wanting them here…, but there are too many. And the successes are great, and numerous too, but they aren’t success enough relative to other sides we are competing with.
I won’t. But I could name a dozen Sunderland and Leeds signings that have worked far better than ours, for less or similar money…, and that’s not looking at the obvious Brighton and Brentford’s and Bournemouth’s where for less money they sign world class talent.., ours is top EFL talent two levels below, for the same money.
I’ve watched Bournemouth a lot recently.
Blows my mind how the they sign £10-15 million players who are premier league quality and at least two levels above our signings.
So Mark does need agency.
It’s a different yardstick spending £200 million to be elite in the EFL, and doing it to survive this level.
You might not need to be elite and world class to achieve the first. You 100% need to be, to achieve the second.
And this time we aren’t league one, premier league was the base case last summer, and we have the off the field infrastructure in place, so fewer excuses/distractions.
If we don’t get this window right. It’s only because we aren’t good enough. No more mitigations or excuses.
Sure some players don’t work out at every club, will always be true, that’s football.
At the moment though, we are chasing an EFL wide right player.
By definition. That’s acceptance that the £50 million we previously spent on ONE position isn’t good enough.
Let that sink in. That’s Ashton’s and Mckrnnas view, not conjecture. They signed Ogbenne, McAteer, Walle, Johnson and Nunez (at a push) and by our own measures we’ve made a mess.
Whether Akpom settled or not isn’t the issue.., the way we’ve recruited dozens of players IS a big one.
Get away with it in the EFL, with our resources, we won’t in the premier league. You can’t miss that often and have success, it’s self selecting.
We don’t have more money than our competitors, results are an unforgiving test of talent id at that level.
Something needs to have massively changed.
Maybe it has. Growth from a young coach, better recruitment support, lessons from last time on profiles, maybe better networks (paying a lot to agents these days, which in a necessary evil)
I always thit Mark, as good as he is at doing deals, wasn’t the IQ in the room for their quality, and he wanted to be.
If he hasn’t changed: and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t.., this could be very tough. | | | |
| Akpom? on 12:29 - May 28 with 77 views | Radlett_blue |
| Akpom? on 09:23 - May 28 by Cheltenham_Blue |
There will be deals to be done for all of those. Although I don't imagine Slicker goes anywhere except on loan.
It will come down to how deeply we want to keep to our valuation. We were asking £6m for Szmodics, that will likely have to be closer to £2m, we'd agreed £3m with Luton for Al Hamedi if his transfer got triggered, that will have to be closer to £1m.
Some of the others will get better money, Muric £10m and Ogbene £8m for example, but if Ashton sticks with very high valuations as for Szmodics and AAH, we'll struggle to move some on |
£8m for Ogbene? He's got 2 years left on his contract at presumably decent wages as agreed when in PL, he's 29 & probably not the same player after his injury as struggled to get into a poor Blunts team last season. We'd be lucky to get any fee for him. |  |
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| Akpom? on 13:55 - May 28 with 57 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| Akpom? on 12:29 - May 28 by Radlett_blue |
£8m for Ogbene? He's got 2 years left on his contract at presumably decent wages as agreed when in PL, he's 29 & probably not the same player after his injury as struggled to get into a poor Blunts team last season. We'd be lucky to get any fee for him. |
I assume you've not watched him play since he returned from injury? He didn't appear to have lost anything in the RoI games. You're right about wages though, I suspect - since we've been promoted back the PL, his wages probably reset to what they were in 24/25. | | | |
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