[baggie82]

But we can't risk the finances involved on a permanent deal, what happens if we sign him and don't go up? we're left with a player on massive wages and lower income.

Sell Livermore and Rondon. That's at least £20m. That would fund a £10m transfer fee and 3/4 year deal in itself. Or Newcastle give us Gayle and £3.5m in return for Rondon, so we get his wages funded for the first year and use sale or Livermore or similar to cover the rest of his contract. Given that Rondon is off for £16.5m we can afford Gayle, the board just don't want to push the boat out, rather keep the money in-house and behave small time. Statement of their lack of intent.

[Windmill Baggy]

Yeah, crazy to sign a player worth 20+ goals a season.  Madness!

It's not the player that is the issue, it's the fee. We hold the cards with Rondon. If his release clause isn't met he will be playing up front for us next season, alongside Rodriguez who I think will still be with us by then.

Any transfer funds needs to be spent in midfielders who can also provide goals which will make us a more balanced attacking side.

[baggie82]

It's not the player that is the issue, it's the fee. We hold the cards with Rondon. If his release clause isn't met he will be playing up front for us next season, alongside Rodriguez who I think will still be with us by then.

Any transfer funds needs to be spent in midfielders who can also provide goals which will make us a more balanced attacking side.

Rondon's clause has already been meet by wolves, you know them lot with owners who actually have wealth and ambition.

[OldburyWBA]

Sell Livermore and Rondon. That's at least £20m. That would fund a £10m transfer fee and 3/4 year deal in itself. Or Newcastle give us Gayle and £3.5m in return for Rondon, so we get his wages funded for the first year and use sale or Livermore or similar to cover the rest of his contract. Given that Rondon is off for £16.5m we can afford Gayle, the board just don't want to push the boat out, rather keep the money in-house and behave small time. Statement of their lack of intent.

And what happens next Summer if we don't go up? where do we find the shortfall? then when the other players want wages to match where do we find them? what about the signing on fees? the hidden agent costs etc etc?

Sounds so simple doesn't it?

[baggie82]

And what happens next Summer if we don't go up? where do we find the shortfall? then when the other players want wages to match where do we find them? what about the signing on fees? the hidden agent costs etc etc?

Sounds so simple doesn't it?

It’s as simple or complex as basic mathematics. There isn’t a shortfall. Rondon and plus another out say Livermore is about £22m, enough to fund Gayle including his wages. No idea why your suggesting the club would have to pay other players salaries to match Gayle...this isn’t the USSR.

[zippyandbungle]

It’s as simple or complex as basic mathematics. There isn’t a shortfall. Rondon and plus another out say Livermore is about £22m, enough to fund Gayle including his wages. No idea why your suggesting the club would have to pay other players salaries to match Gayle...this isn’t the USSR.

Assuming he would sign for us
Assuming he doesn’t want to know who the manager is
Assuming that there are no other clubs interested

Why would he sign for us now rather than wait and see his options?
Fulham are interested , Norwich/Sheffield Utd will have him under consideration , villa will also be looking for reinforcements if they go up
We would be below all of these and each of them can offer more

Even then assuming we did sign him, what’s left in the pot for the other striker and the midfielders we need ?

[Windmill Baggy]

Rondon's clause has already been meet by wolves, you know them lot with owners who actually have wealth and ambition.

Rondon's transfer is still up in the air. If he is sold then the club will have money to spend on new transfers. We'll benefit either way.

[Albionic]

Assuming he would sign for us
Assuming he doesn’t want to know who the manager is
Assuming that there are no other clubs interested

Why would he sign for us now rather than wait and see his options?
Fulham are interested , Norwich/Sheffield Utd will have him under consideration , villa will also be looking for reinforcements if they go up
We would be below all of these and each of them can offer more

Even then assuming we did sign him, what’s left in the pot for the other striker and the midfielders we need ?

spot on, there are 3 parties in a transfer deal, a lot on here seem to think its 2

[AlbionBest]

Assuming he would sign for us
Assuming he doesn’t want to know who the manager is
Assuming that there are no other clubs interested

Why would he sign for us now rather than wait and see his options?
Fulham are interested , Norwich/Sheffield Utd will have him under consideration , villa will also be looking for reinforcements if they go up
We would be below all of these and each of them can offer more

Even then assuming we did sign him, what’s left in the pot for the other striker and the midfielders we need ?

Why would we be below relegated 'one season Prem' Fulham ?

[Albionic]

Why would we be below relegated 'one season Prem' Fulham ?

London
Wages
Ambition .......

[Windmill Baggy]

London
Wages
Ambition .......

Fulham are cutting their cloth following relegation and they will be bringing a lot of their youth players into their squad next season apparently. I'd be surprised to see them offer 55k a week to bring Gayle in. As to the pull of London, Gayle obviously likes it here and with the right manager we'll have a better chance of promotion next season too......

[baggie82]

Windmill, my complaint isn't that Gayle that may sign for someone else, it's that the club have decided not to try to sign him. If they tried to put together a deal and the player choose elsewhere I could live with that.

[boinging_along]

There you go. Do people still think we should sign him? £15 million plus £3 million per year in wages.

It'd be insane.

Yeah, we offer Rondon so we would actually get £1m or two, Rondon's wages off the books, and then Gayles on.  And we would also get 20+ goals a season.

[boinging_along]

Windmill, my complaint isn't that Gayle that may sign for someone else, it's that the club have decided not to try to sign him. If they tried to put together a deal and the player choose elsewhere I could live with that.

And this.  The club has just said "naah, not doing it".  What if the new manager comes in and decides his absolute 100% priority is a striker that will score goals?  What if J-Rod decides he wants to leave? What if we get silly money for Dawson? 

[Atomic]

Yeah, we offer Rondon so we would actually get £1m or two, Rondon's wages off the books, and then Gayles on.  And we would also get 20+ goals a season.

Rondon's wages will go towards the wages of the other six, seven, eight nine players we will bring in. Rondon's wages (together with all the others at the time) would've been guaranteed by Premier League money which we don't have with parachute payments decreasing by the year.

[boinging_along]

Rondon's wages will go towards the wages of the other six, seven, eight nine players we will bring in. Rondon's wages (together with all the others at the time) would've been guaranteed by Premier League money which we don't have with parachute payments decreasing by the year.

You do not know who we are going to buy or how much their wages will cost or who we will sell\release and what their wage savings will be.

How can you say we can't do it without knowing all that information?

[Atomic]

You do not know who we are going to buy or how much their wages will cost or who we will sell\release and what their wage savings will be.

How can you say we can't do it without knowing all that information?

Because for a start we have no recognised right back. Nyom wants out so he'll be gone. That's two we need to bring in. IF we play three at the back (we may, we may not) we will need centre halves, we only have three. We have two strikers Robson-Kanu and Rodriguez, the latter may go so we need at least two strikers possibly three.

We had six loanees last season so unless we replace them with more loans (one or two perhaps) we need to replace them because the squad is threadbare thin.

Myhill has left, that's another goalkeeper we will most probably bring in.

This is not including academy kids admittedly but it's not including players that leave either.

It's going to be a big re-build and we have to do that spending less money on wages than we have previously because we lose (potentially, depending on how long we are out of the Premier League) hundreds of millions of pounds of Premier League income.

[boinging_along]

I'm not saying we don't need any players, we clearly do.

I'm saying without knowing who is going, who is coming in (including manager), what wages will be released, etc, without knowing all that, then I think the club is wrong to immediately rule out signing a player. 

Look, as an example, if we lose Rondon, Nyom, J-Rod, Gibbs, Dawson, Hegazi, Livermore, Barry, etc, that frees up a lot of wages right?  It would also bring transfer fees into the club.  Without knowing who we replace those players with and how much they cost then how do we know we can't afford Gayle?  I'm not saying we replace all of those players with players on Gayle's wages but I'm pretty sure we could sign a young, pacey forward to complement Gayle and afford both if we have Rondon and J-Rod off the books.  The alternative is losing Rondon and J-Rod and replacing them with two cheap strikers in the hope that one of them will score the goals we will need for promotion.  Risky is it not? 

Now what happens if we don't lose any of those players?  Then spare wages and transfer fees are going to be much thinner on the ground and affording Gayle would be more difficult.  And that's fair enough.

So without knowing all of that how can we be 100% sure we can't afford Gayle.  How can we be sure we will get a decent replacement for a fraction of the price?  Quite simply, we can't.

In my opinion, the club has set out it's stall to get fans used to small minded thinking.  "Oh, we've got HRK as our main striker because we can't afford wages for anyone better".  We will lose players this summer and the money will not be reinvested back into the squad in a serious way, let alone extra investment.   

If there's one position on the pitch that you shouldn't try and cut corners on it is the striker.  If you want promotion you need to score goals and win games.  20+ goals a season strikers are not easy to find, and they are not easy to find on the cheap.

I have ambition for Albion in that we are not a mid-table Championship side.  I think we are better than that. 

[boinging_along]

And that's all ignoring the statement we make to the current team, the opposition and players we might sign by bringing in Gayle.  It would mark us out as serious promotion contenders, it might be easier to persuade our decent players to stay or better quality players to come to us.

As it stands we are saying "we can't afford to compete, we're doing things on the cheap", what kind of message is that to send?

[Atomic]

And that's all ignoring the statement we make to the current team, the opposition and players we might sign by bringing in Gayle.  It would mark us out as serious promotion contenders, it might be easier to persuade our decent players to stay or better quality players to come to us.

As it stands we are saying "we can't afford to compete, we're doing things on the cheap", what kind of message is that to send?

You're in denial my friend. Not much point keep harping on about it really. Gayle is not coming simple as that.

[boinging_along]

You're in denial my friend. Not much point keep harping on about it really. Gayle is not coming simple as that.

I know he isn't coming, what makes you think I expect different?  I just disagree with the club's stance.  We're in the Gayle thread and discussing Gayle.

I'm saying it's a folly to rule out signing him at this stage because we don't know the future.  You're saying the club are correct because you have imagined the future.

I think the club coming out with those statements and the one regarding having to get rid of "normal" staff is the club getting it into the fans heads that whatever happens it's because of finances and the need to do everything on the cheap.  It's working because you've swallowed the club line totally.  To the point where you're even quoting lost future revenue as a reason to do things cheaply now. 

And before you start, I'm not saying we should splurge on players left, right and center, I'm saying that the club is in a huge state of flux at the moment and the statements coming from the club are one's you'd expect from a club cutting their cloth for a long stay in the championship, at best.

I'm sorry if my hopes for Albion are higher than yours.

[gerry m]

But we can't risk the finances involved on a permanent deal, what happens if we sign him and don't go up? we're left with a player on massive wages and lower income. If he 100% guaranteed promotion then great but there is no guarantee.

Best we can hope for is another loan deal.

I really hope that happens!

[baggie82]

Boning along, agree with you 100%. Shame too many of our fans have such low expectations. Not trying to sign Gayle is an idiotic move but the club is busy making idiotic moves left, right and centre so I can't pretend to be shocked. As these stand we are more likely to be in the bottom half of the table next season than the top six.

[Dan87uk]

His wages are too high, we cannot afford them, we are no longer getting mega millions from the Prem and if we are reckless on our wage structure we'll end up like Bolton, Sunderland, Portsmouth etc etc.

Yes it's painful, but it's the right decision. You could argue "well what if it's only a one off for Gayle" but that causes problems in of itself, he'd be the only high earner which would annoy the rest of the team and it would also hamstring us on wages for other positions, several of which will also need some savvy investment btw depending on who stays and goes.

He's not coming back and much like with Barnes in January, we need to move on.

[ronnie_allen]

Boning along, agree with you 100%. Shame too many of our fans have such low expectations. Not trying to sign Gayle is an idiotic move but the club is busy making idiotic moves left, right and centre so I can't pretend to be shocked. As these stand we are more likely to be in the bottom half of the table next season than the top six.

It is a very expensive decision and we didn't get promotion with Gayle in the squad this season; with potentially a more experienced and supposedly higher calibre of player supporting him. Sheffield United and Norwich both achieved promotion through having a series of players on much lower wages than what Gayle is seeking, although for us to replicate that will probably give a year or two of development.

Wouldn't disagree that some decisions have been stupid. Future-planning doesn't seem to be great and can see us as likely to be bottom half as top six at this current juncture.