Peterborough chairman Darragh MacAnthony says he was stunned when he heard Town had recruited former Posh forward Sammie Szmodics from Blackburn Rovers for as little as £9 million, and £9 million spread over a period of time rather than up front.

TWTD was first to reveal that Town and Rovers had finally agreed a deal on Friday evening after more than a month of negotiations. Szmodics made his Premier League debut in Saturday’s 2-0 home loss to Liverpool.

McAnthony revealed that Posh are due 15 per cent of the profit Blackburn make on the £1.8 million plus add-ons the Lancastrians paid for the Republic of Ireland forward in the summer of 2022 with his previous club, Bristol City, receiving 20 per cent of that.

“A great move for him. I cannot believe that deal. I am f*****g stunned. I was stunned. Nine million quid!” MacAnthony said in his The Hard Truth podcast.

“I don’t give a f*** if he’s 28, if you did your homework, he’s the type of player who will play until he’s 35 based on how he plays.

“I cannot believe for the life of me why some of the top teams in the Championship - and Ipswich is a massive club, don’t get me wrong - but there are some big clubs in the Champ. I cannot believe nobody, nobody went in and sniffed at £12, £13 or £14 million.

“I said the other day, when you pay over three years or four years and you add the player’s wages in, you’re probably talking about £5 million a year on a four-year deal or whatever.

“For a player that basically will guarantee you top six in the Champ, which gives you a one in four chance of the play-offs and getting to the Premier League or one in two if you’re in the top two of going up automatically. I cannot f*****g believe it.

“For a player to go for that kind of money, I don’t know what’s gone on with the market this summer because I’ve seen players who are half that player go for £15, £16, £17 million from the Champ. I don’t know what’s going on.

“The worst part is, people say it might be a flash in the pan. The m*********r was already leading goalscorer in cup and league games this season inside one and a half sub appearances or whatever. I can’t believe it.

“Then I couldn’t believe, fair play to Ipswich, that it wasn’t even up front, it was all over time because we’ve got to wait for our segment.

“When I get the text through with the amounts from Baz [director of football Barry Fry], I thought somebody had made a f*****g helluva bid for one of our players. I thought it was the payment and rang Barry and I said, ‘F*****g hell! Four [million] up front or whatever else’. And Barry was like, ‘No, no, no…’.”

He added: “A helluva deal for Ipswich, a helluva deal for the boy because he’s from that neck of the woods, Colchester, Ipswich is down the road.

“I’m proud as anything because you’ve got Ronnie [Edwards] in the Premier League [at Southampton], Jack Taylor in the Premier League [with Town], Ivan [Toney] in the Premier League [Brentford], Sammie in the Premier League. All those players were with us around Covid.

“Quite a few of them we might have paid seven figures for but they were all with us around Covid and Harrison [Burrows] could be there next year.”

MacAnthony says Szmodics playing for Blackburn in their first three games of the season despite hardly having any pre-season was illustrative of his character, as was his desire to drop from the Championship for a loan spell in League One at Oxford in order to play football during a spell at London Road when he was out of the team.

“He’s a proper football character, that’s why he will have an EFL Hall of Fame career,” the Dubliner continued.

“That’s why he will make it work in the Premier League because of his will to win, his resilience, his dedication.

“He’s going to be a terrific signing for Ipswich. F*****g Ipswich, fair play to them, they’re really having a go, I have to say, very, very impressive what they’re doing.

“And apparently, I read the match report, and they were very good for a long period of time against Liverpool.

“Really, really good. I wish everyone at Ipswich really well and I hope Sammie kills it there and maybe he’ll win the Golden Boot in the Premier League and he’ll go for £50 million next summer, who knows!”

Photo: Matchday Images

Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 16:11 - Aug 21 MacAnthony & Barry Fry: Need I say more?
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warktheline added 16:17 - Aug 21 He’s a character, nowt wrong with that, wish there were more like him…if you read the entire article he’s praising Ipswich! This lad will keep us in the Premiership this season with his attitude and ability to score goals! For me, our best summer signing to date!
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Wickets added 16:20 - Aug 21 Well he's right looking at other fee's being paid this might tern out to be the bargain of the season, fingers crossed.
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Europablue added 16:35 - Aug 21 blues1 I'm not sure what you are talking about. Tell me where you got that from. I think Szmodics is worth 10 because he's been bought for 10 million. I really rate him, and I was very happy to get him in. the point in my first post was that age is a really important part of high prices because resale value of player is where a player could get to 50 million. If Szmodics were 22 he'd be worth 50 million after a great season in the Prem. You just have to look at how much we have paid for players when we were in League One. Most players were about 1 million and that is all we could afford in that league so the selling club can only get that much from a top League One club, conversely if a Premier League club is buying the price jumps up. If you identify the correct players when you are League One, those same players are worth 10 to 20 million, then if they perform well in the Prem, then they are worth 20 to 50 million.

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PackwoodBlue added 16:38 - Aug 21 It's all relative then, perhaps Peterborough should have held out for more than £1.8m in 2022. His value has risen to £9m in two seasons. Seems about right really.
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SamWhiteUK added 16:44 - Aug 21 "For a player that basically will guarantee you top six in the Champ, which gives you a one in four chance of the play-offs and getting to the Premier League or one in two if you’re in the top two of going up automatically. I cannot f*****g believe it." Think he's got a bit confused here
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Bert added 17:13 - Aug 21 He neglected to say that Szmodics didn’t want to go to a championship club, he always wanted to come here. The market price is what a club will pay. His agent obviously batted away interest from others because Szmodics wanted a PL club and Ashton played his cards perfectly.
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bluesnightorg added 17:18 - Aug 21 @SamWhiteUK Yup, If I was marking his KS2 Maths SATS practice paper and he gave this as his answer to the probability question, I'd write, "Come and talk to me about this one, D?"
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LegendofthePhoenix added 17:30 - Aug 21 Spot on Bert. Mark Ashton knew that (a) SS wanted to play in the Prem and (b) for family reasons, we wanted be be near Colchester. That pretty much limits it to us, so Mark Ashton was prepared to wait for the deal to come to him on his terms. Looked at from afar, we have got ourselves an incredible bargain, but its all about playing your cards right.
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Cafe_Newman added 18:19 - Aug 21 Comedy gold. Remind me again, how did Blackburn fare in the play-offs with Sammie "play-offs guaranteed" Szmodics in their side?
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MVBlue added 18:21 - Aug 21 Thought this kind of ranting was left behind in the 90s haha
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churchmans added 19:35 - Aug 21 Darragh macanthony is a great bloke! I live listening to him on talk sport! Those who are negative about him on here all I would say to you is ! Listen again,listen to him on talk sport! He will say it how it is
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bobble added 19:44 - Aug 21 Great stuff,,he should be a poitician ...
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Jesney_Havoc added 20:16 - Aug 21 Somewhat ironically, MacAnthony comes across as a really low budget guy
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IpswichToon added 20:26 - Aug 21 > “ For a player that basically will guarantee you top six in the Champ” He knows Blackburn only avoided relegation on the final day by miraculously beating the league champions, right?
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Tractor_Boy_in_HK added 04:42 - Aug 22 Great interview from a straight shooter. Very complimentary of us, thank you very much. The nugget here is that the payments are delayed, and that has to be why the negotiations were protracted.
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John_Grose added 09:01 - Aug 22 Potty mouthed child
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wischip added 09:42 - Aug 22 He is right though. I still can't believe a lower half Premiership club didn't come in and offer more than us and hijack our deal. They had plenty of time. Glad they didn't, though.
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dirtydingusmagee added 13:22 - Aug 22 What a gob !
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