Who opened the door? My money is on Janus! 2024 January transfer thread.

[GhostoftheBok]

I'm quite confident that scouts would indeed worry about his goalscoring transferring to the level above, and whilst his pressing is certainly an asset, I can't see that being enough to convince clubs to part with millions of pounds.

Again, I'm relatively ignorant on the business of transfers, and if someone like Ghost wants to tell me I'm wrong here I'll hold my hands up, but from my perspective it seems a very unlikely one.

No, you're not going to get slapped down by anyone in the trade for that opinion. Goals matter.

DSB is right about "other attributes" being really important, though. Charles is in that Neal Maupay, Che Adams bracket where you'd accept fewer goals if he made the system work. The fact Dion also scores goals makes him a very valuable player, especially to us.

Che Adams scored 11 in League One. Then he moved for £2m got 7 and 5 in the next two seasons in the Championship, but remained an important player due to that "other attributes" stuff. Then he got 22 in a season and was suddenly worth £15m.

Maupay has a similar history.

Charles has peaked too late to be seriously valuable. Anyone who buys him now has to essentially write-off all the money they put into him and value him purely based on what he'll offer on the pitch over the next 3 /12 years. He'll be 30 before you even consider selling him and that'd be if he wasn't playing well for you...at which point he's worth precisely not much.

Maupay and Adams were worth a combined £35m, because there was resale potential to go with their on-pitch returns.

I think most people would have Charles' current value at around £3m. That'd mean he's cost a buying club about £2m a year all-in. He's probably worth that at Championship level. A £5m fee would probably push that to £3m a year all-in. That's a tougher sell, but if a club thought Charles could make a significant difference in going up or staying up an extra million a year might be worth the risk.

How desperate is the market?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I think most people would have Charles' current value at around £3m. That'd mean he's cost a buying club about £2m a year all-in. He's probably worth that at Championship level. A £5m fee would probably push that to £3m a year all-in. That's a tougher sell, but if a club thought Charles could make a significant difference in going up or staying up an extra million a year might be worth the risk.

How desperate is the market?

Or how much will it speculate for a potential return? Hull, for instance, are a point off the play-offs...

[Worthy4England]

I think most people would have Charles' current value at around £3m. That'd mean he's cost a buying club about £2m a year all-in. He's probably worth that at Championship level. A £5m fee would probably push that to £3m a year all-in. That's a tougher sell, but if a club thought Charles could make a significant difference in going up or staying up an extra million a year might be worth the risk.

How desperate is the market?

Or how much will it speculate for a potential return? Hull, for instance, are a point off the play-offs...

Quite - were Hull linked? I think I read Swansea were and they look mid-table safe without challenging the top, at the moment. Ideally you might want someone a bit more desperate!

[GhostoftheBok]

Or how much will it speculate for a potential return? Hull, for instance, are a point off the play-offs...

Hard to say.

I'd imagine most of the clubs above Hull would have greater resources if they wanted to bring a striker in.

Only top 6 club I could see going for ol' Chucky is Ipswich and I don't think they have the money at the minute. They need to make what they have work, even if they can move Ladapo on.

Same for clubs below Swans. Not a lot of ready cash and no incentive for Charles to move anyway.

So not likely to go to the top or the bottom.

Does that mean the market won't favour us? No clue. Hence the fun of January.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

were Hull linked? I think I read Swansea were and they look mid-table safe without challenging the top, at the moment. Ideally you might want someone a bit more desperate!

Iles: "Wanderers know a string of Championship sides have watched their striking talisman in action – Watford and Stoke City regular visitors at the end of this season. More recently, Hull City and Swansea City have run their eye over him – and potentially others – during last month’s stormy game at Fleetwood."
https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... -interest/

[GhostoftheBok]

Iles: "Wanderers know a string of Championship sides have watched their striking talisman in action – Watford and Stoke City regular visitors at the end of this season. More recently, Hull City and Swansea City have run their eye over him – and potentially others – during last month’s stormy game at Fleetwood."
https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... -interest/

Dion, Toal and Thomason are all being scouted.

Presumably that's the "Dion and potentially others" list.

Santos' agent is reportedly declining all interest in this window, so hopefully that's that. Thomason is unlikely to move having just turned down Bristol, which has been noted.

Dion's new deal will have changed things there too.

I wouldn't be surprised to see us announce Toal's on a new deal in short order, unless he goes this month. That'd settle things nicely at the back - with Johnston and Forrester already tied up for a good while.

[Worthy4England]

Cheers, both.

[Mar]

You'd imagine there would be a fair few clubs wondering who could make the step up and deliver ala Madine to Cardiff.

If anyone was to sign Dion it would be an unknown quantity in the Championship. With Madine it was clear he had delivered in that league in our system and was highly specialised in the aerial role to make an impact in Cardiffs system. Charles is more of a 85% of the match kind of player, someone who hassles and harries all game, I doubt that someone already aiming for promotion is going to give that much game time to Dion, unless he was proven.

That's not to say he can't do it. Its just to say that he may end up having the same problems we had with Doyler. Moving didn't help Madines goalscoring but it helped his bank balance and helped him to play in the Prem, albeit fleetingly.

Same goes with all our players. Good in our system, how does that translate to the Championship.

I hope we don't sell anyone. We're a damn good side as is. Offloading Dapo derailed us somewhat, we could do without the readjustment

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I hope we don't sell anyone. We're a damn good side as is. Offloading Dapo derailed us somewhat, we could do without the readjustment.

Yeah, same here. And I suspect for most fans. With the possible and easily forgettable exception of Declan John there’s nobody that we clearly want to get rid of or who demands an immediate upgrade. (We’re also slightly light in a couple of areas, so that also contributes to the retentive desire.)

But you always get the feeling in a promotion chase that one or two new faces could propel you onwards….

[Prufrock]

We must be well set with the new contract. There may will have been discussions (whether binding or not) about letting him go to the Champo at some point, but we don't sound worried so it's presumably more of a summer problem if we don't go up. Going to take a big old bid to be worth it to us and can't see anyone paying that kind of money with his age.

Hopefully my top scorer e/w comes in!

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Hull boss Rosenior: “I don’t want to speak about individual players but striker is not a position I’m looking at. I’ve just brought in Billy Sharp, I’ve got Aaron Connolly and Liam Delap. I’m really happy with my central striking options and that is not an area of the pitch we are looking in January to strengthen.”

[BWFC_Insane]

I’d say Dion is in the category where his value to us is greater than his value to others. Probably exact opposite of Madine who although he had great value to us at the time - 6M was of greater value to a club in financial strife.

As noted were he 23 then I suspect the ‘value to others’ would be large enough that his value here would be seriously tested.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I’d say Dion is in the category where his value to us is greater than his value to others. Probably exact opposite of Madine who although he had great value to us at the time - 6M was of greater value to a club in financial strife.

As noted were he 23 then I suspect the ‘value to others’ would be large enough that his value here would be seriously tested.

All true, although poor old Parky hugely struggled with Madine ineffectively (or, rather, profoundly unsuitably) 'replaced' by the returning Zach Clough and underachieving Tyler Walker. Once The Machine had gone we didn't score more than one in a game until mid-April (rest of season scoring: 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 2 0 0 3).

I can't remember now when it became very obvious we were financially knackered but I assume Ken knew. And £6m for Madine was an astonishing bit of transfer business – from what I can see, easily the biggest fee paid by a non-PL club that window. The same day, Chelsea only spent £18m to buy Olivier Giroud from Arsenal, where he'd scored 105 goals in 253 games.

[BWFC_Insane]

I’d say Dion is in the category where his value to us is greater than his value to others. Probably exact opposite of Madine who although he had great value to us at the time - 6M was of greater value to a club in financial strife.

As noted were he 23 then I suspect the ‘value to others’ would be large enough that his value here would be seriously tested.

All true, although poor old Parky hugely struggled with Madine ineffectively (or, rather, profoundly unsuitably) 'replaced' by the returning Zach Clough and underachieving Tyler Walker. Once The Machine had gone we didn't score more than one in a game until mid-April (rest of season scoring: 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 2 0 0 3).

I can't remember now when it became very obvious we were financially knackered but I assume Ken knew. And £6m for Madine was an astonishing bit of transfer business – from what I can see, easily the biggest fee paid by a non-PL club that window. The same day, Chelsea only spent £18m to buy Olivier Giroud from Arsenal, where he'd scored 105 goals in 253 games.

Sure we did get Ameobi back though. But financially the 6M would have offset the loss on relegation at the time and it wasn’t of course guaranteed we’d stay up anyway. And we did in the end stay up.

So forgetting the awfulness after that it ‘worked out’. At the time obviously selling Madine in the form he was in with the lack of a replacement was horrific. It made everyone angry. I guess had we known the financial hole we sat in then we’d have felt very differently.

[Worthy4England]

^^ I think if Sir goes and refreshes his memory in the 2017 transfer thread, he'd find that most people (on here) were somewhere between ambivalent and delighted that we'd trousered £6m. It certainly didn't make "everyone [on here] angry..."

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Point of order - Sammy had already signed on a permanent that previous summer, although he missed the very start of the season with an injury.

Besides, an Ameobi is a very different player to a Madine. In a Parky side, that's like getting rid of the steering wheel and saying "but we've got a wing mirror..."

[Mar]

I’d say Dion is in the category where his value to us is greater than his value to others. Probably exact opposite of Madine who although he had great value to us at the time - 6M was of greater value to a club in financial strife.

As noted were he 23 then I suspect the ‘value to others’ would be large enough that his value here would be seriously tested.

All true, although poor old Parky hugely struggled with Madine ineffectively (or, rather, profoundly unsuitably) 'replaced' by the returning Zach Clough and underachieving Tyler Walker. Once The Machine had gone we didn't score more than one in a game until mid-April (rest of season scoring: 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 2 0 0 3).

I can't remember now when it became very obvious we were financially knackered but I assume Ken knew. And £6m for Madine was an astonishing bit of transfer business – from what I can see, easily the biggest fee paid by a non-PL club that window. The same day, Chelsea only spent £18m to buy Olivier Giroud from Arsenal, where he'd scored 105 goals in 253 games.

Sure we did get Ameobi back though. But financially the 6M would have offset the loss on relegation at the time and it wasn’t of course guaranteed we’d stay up anyway. And we did in the end stay up.

So forgetting the awfulness after that it ‘worked out’. At the time obviously selling Madine in the form he was in with the lack of a replacement was horrific. It made everyone angry. I guess had we known the financial hole we sat in then we’d have felt very differently.

The Clough deal just seemed like appeasement for the fans. Perhaps the Walker deal was Forrest's way of ensuring we had a target man up top. As pleased as we were at getting Clough back, the Madine hole was notable.

Great sale financially, but not really anything to help the club progress. We'd been in a good run of form prior to Madine's release, reaching around 19th in the league. Odds are we were going to stay up and we'd finish just above the drop. Selling Madine pretty much handicapped us for the season and was pretty much the death knell of anything progress related under Anderson.

I'm sure Parky would've preferred Madine over the four we loaned in that window (Charsley, Walker, Flanagan, Clough).

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I'm sure Parky would've preferred Madine over the four we loaned in that window (Charsley, Walker, Flanagan, Clough).

Well, quite. I saw the whole 55 minutes of Charsley's Bolton career, from the crumbling terrace at Griffin Park. Clearly Phil saw enough that day too.

Zach sort of made sense given his history with us but clearly something had broken. Walker wasn't up to much either and blatantly wasn't the target man Parky so clearly needed and good barely operate without – remember how panicked we were the season before when Madine was injured in the run-in?

[boltonboris]

I'm sure Parky would've preferred Madine over the four we loaned in that window (Charsley, Walker, Flanagan, Clough).

Well, quite. I saw the whole 55 minutes of Charsley's Bolton career, from the crumbling terrace at Griffin Park. Clearly Phil saw enough that day too.

Zach sort of made sense given his history with us but clearly something had broken. Walker wasn't up to much either and blatantly wasn't the target man Parky so clearly needed and good barely operate without – remember how panicked we were the season before when Madine was injured in the run-in?

I remember being outside Vale Park when the line-up was posted online with his name in it!

[Mar]

I'm sure Parky would've preferred Madine over the four we loaned in that window (Charsley, Walker, Flanagan, Clough).

Well, quite. I saw the whole 55 minutes of Charsley's Bolton career, from the crumbling terrace at Griffin Park. Clearly Phil saw enough that day too.

Zach sort of made sense given his history with us but clearly something had broken. Walker wasn't up to much either and blatantly wasn't the target man Parky so clearly needed and good barely operate without – remember how panicked we were the season before when Madine was injured in the run-in?

I'm under the impression that we got paid to play him in that game. Something akin to having a player on loan to raise his value for the parent club.

We had Jem Karacan on the bench that day with Will Buckley also available for that role. There's no reason to think that Charsley would've been impressive enough to warrant an immediate starting berth ahead of either of those, and the rest of the season showed that.