Schu me the way to Amarillo - Summer 2025 Transfer Thread

[TonyDomingos]

Latest link is Kelly Nmai (or N'Mai). Dutchman, just turned 21, currently under contract to Salford, for whom he scored 9 and made 4 in 32 League Two games last season. Can operate at 11, 9, 10 and 7 but has played mostly LW & CF.

How tall is he? How long are his socks?

Short and short.

Screenshot_20250616-162733.png (842.17 KiB) Viewed 343 times

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Yeah he's a diddyman.

[BWFC_Insane]

Rumour I was told over the weekend (and it was just a rumour) is that the fee is £1.4M and he's been offered wages of £10k-£12k a week. I stress that this was only a rumour, the person who I was talking to had seen something at the MK end.

Apparently MK Dons have loads of money as they sold a couple of players for very large fee's last season.

The spending rules in league two I think would essentially rule out that sort of thing from being remotely true. Especially at MK where they hardly get the big gate receipts.

They could just be following in the fine tradition of Leicester and Bournemouth - massively outspending EFL rules and accepting the subsequent fine as just part of the promotion costs.

And/or maybe they'll get a curious but hugely lucrative sponsorship with a non-existent taxi firm, as Sheffield Wednesday did.

I doubt it because scmp is monitored continuously rather than in the cases above retroactively and secondly they’ve just afaik tightened all the rules on loans and sponsorship deals and indeed including more u21’s in the wage calculations.

The difference is that there is no pay off to flouting the wage restrictions here. In the championship the delay means you can get promoted get the windfall then face the penalty which probably only confirms your relegation anyway. But you’ve pocketed tens of millions.

[The_Gun]

Rumour I was told over the weekend (and it was just a rumour) is that the fee is £1.4M and he's been offered wages of £10k-£12k a week. I stress that this was only a rumour, the person who I was talking to had seen something at the MK end.

Apparently MK Dons have loads of money as they sold a couple of players for very large fee's last season.

The spending rules in league two I think would essentially rule out that sort of thing from being remotely true. Especially at MK where they hardly get the big gate receipts.

They could just be following in the fine tradition of Leicester and Bournemouth - massively outspending EFL rules and accepting the subsequent fine as just part of the promotion costs.

And/or maybe they'll get a curious but hugely lucrative sponsorship with a non-existent taxi firm, as Sheffield Wednesday did.

I doubt it because scmp is monitored continuously rather than in the cases above retroactively and secondly they’ve just afaik tightened all the rules on loans and sponsorship deals and indeed including more u21’s in the wage calculations.

The difference is that there is no pay off to flouting the wage restrictions here. In the championship the delay means you can get promoted get the windfall then face the penalty which probably only confirms your relegation anyway. But you’ve pocketed tens of millions.

As long as owners are willing to inject lots of cash in as equity, then they can spend what they like on players.

[BWFC_Insane]

Rumour I was told over the weekend (and it was just a rumour) is that the fee is £1.4M and he's been offered wages of £10k-£12k a week. I stress that this was only a rumour, the person who I was talking to had seen something at the MK end.

Apparently MK Dons have loads of money as they sold a couple of players for very large fee's last season.

The spending rules in league two I think would essentially rule out that sort of thing from being remotely true. Especially at MK where they hardly get the big gate receipts.

They could just be following in the fine tradition of Leicester and Bournemouth - massively outspending EFL rules and accepting the subsequent fine as just part of the promotion costs.

And/or maybe they'll get a curious but hugely lucrative sponsorship with a non-existent taxi firm, as Sheffield Wednesday did.

I doubt it because scmp is monitored continuously rather than in the cases above retroactively and secondly they’ve just afaik tightened all the rules on loans and sponsorship deals and indeed including more u21’s in the wage calculations.

The difference is that there is no pay off to flouting the wage restrictions here. In the championship the delay means you can get promoted get the windfall then face the penalty which probably only confirms your relegation anyway. But you’ve pocketed tens of millions.

As long as owners are willing to inject lots of cash in as equity, then they can spend what they like on players.

Not sure how that’s relevant to scmp….

[Wrighty92]

First of all, I was very much an advocate for keeping Collins... however I think all this talk about replacing his goals is padding the stats a bit.

For a start, he played a good chunk of time as our main striker, taking pot shots and often wasting possession whilst offering very little to the team in terms of holding the ball up and bringing others into play. This is shown in the fact he only achieved 4 assists in his 45 league appearances for us last season, less than one assist per 10 games.

In terms of his goal-scoring, the number "19 goals" has been bandied around a lot. It's worth noting that only 12 of those goals came in his 45 league appearances! 1 goal was in the cup away at Arsenal and whilst it was a well-taken goal, it was in a 5-1 loss while already 3-0 down, against a 16 year old goalkeeper who was caught naively miles out of position. The other 6 goals he scored were in his 6 appearances in the Papa Johns, Bristol Street Motors, Vertu, Whatever it's Called Trophy - half of which were against League 2 opposition (1 against Barrow, 2 against Fleetwood).

Regardless, you have to put the ball in the net but the main point I'm making is, he scored 12 goals and got 4 assists in the league which is our priority in 45 appearances... effectively that's 1 goal or assist every 3 games. When you compare that to another player who gets lambasted for his effetiveness by comparison in John McAtee, McAtee in the exact same amount of games as Collins in league scored 11 goals and registered 3 assists. I'm not suggesting McAtee is god's gift, but remember he had a difficult start with him coming in unfit from not knowing whether he'd be staying at Luton, no real pre-season with us and lots of those appearances were from the bench - he ended up on near enough identical stats, 3 years younger and nobody would argue he works a lot harder than Collins.

For a player who can be sold for what we're seemingly getting for him at the age of 28 and hopefully replaced with that money, I think it's a sensible deal. It's also a chance to move more in the right direction for the manager's style and get a couple more players potentially in the age bracket we want and more suited to the formation we want to play.

[DJBlu]

First of all, I was very much an advocate for keeping Collins... however I think all this talk about replacing his goals is padding the stats a bit.

For a start, he played a good chunk of time as our main striker, taking pot shots and often wasting possession whilst offering very little to the team in terms of holding the ball up and bringing others into play. This is shown in the fact he only achieved 4 assists in his 45 league appearances for us last season, less than one assist per 10 games.

In terms of his goal-scoring, the number "19 goals" has been bandied around a lot. It's worth noting that only 12 of those goals came in his 45 league appearances! 1 goal was in the cup away at Arsenal and whilst it was a well-taken goal, it was in a 5-1 loss while already 3-0 down, against a 16 year old goalkeeper who was caught naively miles out of position. The other 6 goals he scored were in his 6 appearances in the Papa Johns, Bristol Street Motors, Vertu, Whatever it's Called Trophy - half of which were against League 2 opposition (1 against Barrow, 2 against Fleetwood).

Regardless, you have to put the ball in the net but the main point I'm making is, he scored 12 goals and got 4 assists in the league which is our priority in 45 appearances... effectively that's 1 goal or assist every 3 games. When you compare that to another player who gets lambasted for his effetiveness by comparison in John McAtee, McAtee in the exact same amount of games as Collins in league scored 11 goals and registered 3 assists. I'm not suggesting McAtee is god's gift, but remember he had a difficult start with him coming in unfit from not knowing whether he'd be staying at Luton, no real pre-season with us and lots of those appearances were from the bench - he ended up on near enough identical stats, 3 years younger and nobody would argue he works a lot harder than Collins.

For a player who can be sold for what we're seemingly getting for him at the age of 28 and hopefully replaced with that money, I think it's a sensible deal. It's also a chance to move more in the right direction for the manager's style and get a couple more players potentially in the age bracket we want and more suited to the formation we want to play.

All that said he and 2 others contributed to near half the goals scored in the league. Dion and McAtee being the others. Collins goes and we're left with McAtee.

67 goals in one season 20 of which have walked/walking out the door.

Not saying it'll be a disaster but we're left with Dan and Vic.

[Bertie Wooster]

Good luck to the lad, he's a decent player & I'm sure he'll score plenty of goals in League 2, but let's be honest he was a lazy t**t who could only be arsed 1 game in every 4 or 5 at best - I recall the Orient home game when 2nd half he was unplayable but he has so many games where you have to double check he's actually on the pitch.

Moving to League 2 just sums up his ambition for me, his goals will be missed but I'm sure the club will use the money to bring someone as good, but who hopefully puts in 100% effort into every game, and doesn't hide when it gets physical (however that could apply to several of last years team).

The fact is SS didn't fancy him probably due to his attitude & overall work rate.

[DJBlu]

As a side note, I see our old manager has been skipped in favour of someone else at Cardiff. I do wonder...

[Mar]

We're seemingly losing our player of the season to a club in a lower league.

Normally i'd be shocked or disenfranchised at that news, but given Collins' efforts last season, i'm not surprised. I think we'd be right to sell him. Good finisher, but attitude wise the forwards were massively behind a team that gets promoted.

I'd imagine McAtee would be going aswell if it was an option. I'd imagine we're going in for the right sort of players that put a shift in throughout the game rather than those that have the class but not the effort. Maybe we'll actually start seeing Adeboyejo coming good with a decent set of link up play for him, just in time for us to lose him on a free.

[The_Gun]

We're seemingly losing our player of the season to a club in a lower league.

Normally i'd be shocked or disenfranchised at that news, but given Collins' efforts last season, i'm not surprised. I think we'd be right to sell him. Good finisher, but attitude wise the forwards were massively behind a team that gets promoted.

I'd imagine McAtee would be going aswell if it was an option. I'd imagine we're going in for the right sort of players that put a shift in throughout the game rather than those that have the class but not the effort. Maybe we'll actually start seeing Adeboyejo coming good with a decent set of link up play for him, just in time for us to lose him on a free.

Collins we’re seemingly going to get more than we paid for him, but there’s no chance of that happening with McAtee. I’d also suspect we’d struggle to find any club willing to match his wages.

[Spartan2]

First of all, I was very much an advocate for keeping Collins... however I think all this talk about replacing his goals is padding the stats a bit.

For a start, he played a good chunk of time as our main striker, taking pot shots and often wasting possession whilst offering very little to the team in terms of holding the ball up and bringing others into play. This is shown in the fact he only achieved 4 assists in his 45 league appearances for us last season, less than one assist per 10 games.

In terms of his goal-scoring, the number "19 goals" has been bandied around a lot. It's worth noting that only 12 of those goals came in his 45 league appearances! 1 goal was in the cup away at Arsenal and whilst it was a well-taken goal, it was in a 5-1 loss while already 3-0 down, against a 16 year old goalkeeper who was caught naively miles out of position. The other 6 goals he scored were in his 6 appearances in the Papa Johns, Bristol Street Motors, Vertu, Whatever it's Called Trophy - half of which were against League 2 opposition (1 against Barrow, 2 against Fleetwood).

Regardless, you have to put the ball in the net but the main point I'm making is, he scored 12 goals and got 4 assists in the league which is our priority in 45 appearances... effectively that's 1 goal or assist every 3 games. When you compare that to another player who gets lambasted for his effetiveness by comparison in John McAtee, McAtee in the exact same amount of games as Collins in league scored 11 goals and registered 3 assists. I'm not suggesting McAtee is god's gift, but remember he had a difficult start with him coming in unfit from not knowing whether he'd be staying at Luton, no real pre-season with us and lots of those appearances were from the bench - he ended up on near enough identical stats, 3 years younger and nobody would argue he works a lot harder than Collins.

For a player who can be sold for what we're seemingly getting for him at the age of 28 and hopefully replaced with that money, I think it's a sensible deal. It's also a chance to move more in the right direction for the manager's style and get a couple more players potentially in the age bracket we want and more suited to the formation we want to play.

All that said he and 2 others contributed to near half the goals scored in the league. Dion and McAtee being the others. Collins goes and we're left with McAtee.

67 goals in one season 20 of which have walked/walking out the door.

Not saying it'll be a disaster but we're left with Dan and Vic.

Don't forget Dalby! Personally I don't buy this goals in and out business. If another player played 45 games in Collins' position last season how many would they get? I think even Dan would get 6-8. In fact he managed 4 in 25 for Cambridge which works out at 7ish over 45 games, in a team that was relegated. So for us probably more like 10. In that context Collins' numbers are horrendous especially combined with his pathetic work rate.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Regardless, you have to put the ball in the net but the main point I'm making is, he scored 12 goals and got 4 assists in the league which is our priority in 45 appearances... effectively that's 1 goal or assist every 3 games. When you compare that to another player who gets lambasted for his effetiveness by comparison in John McAtee, McAtee in the exact same amount of games as Collins in league scored 11 goals and registered 3 assists. I'm not suggesting McAtee is god's gift, but remember he had a difficult start with him coming in unfit from not knowing whether he'd be staying at Luton, no real pre-season with us and lots of those appearances were from the bench - he ended up on near enough identical stats, 3 years younger and nobody would argue he works a lot harder than Collins.

McAtee was also selected in midfield a few times. As in, as an '8'. And when he and Collins were selected together, more often than not McAtee took up a deeper position - either as a 10 or a winger.

McAtee's got a lot to prove and I don't think anyone would be surprised or devastated if he left for a decent price, but as noted, we're a lot less likely to get our money back on him (or especially Randall) than Collins.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Proper journo - indeed, The Athletic's Chelsea man.

[truewhite15]

Proper journo - indeed, The Athletic's Chelsea man.

Took me a couple of reads to work out that he was saying that the Chelsea contract was 2 years plus a 12 month option, as opposed to us taking him on loan for 2 years...