Contract expiry

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:59 am

I don't think Xav is a bad player, not at all. I'm just not certain he'll be here next season, for various reasons.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by GhostoftheBok » Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:05 am

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:59 am
I don't think Xav is a bad player, not at all. I'm just not certain he'll be here next season, for various reasons.
I'm not even sure what division we'll be in next season.

Uncertainty is the only sure thing at the minute.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:47 am

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:05 am
Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:59 am
I don't think Xav is a bad player, not at all. I'm just not certain he'll be here next season, for various reasons.
I'm not even sure what division we'll be in next season.

Uncertainty is the only sure thing at the minute.
I'm beginning to be very confident it won't be the fourth division. Still only an outside chance it'll be the second, IMO.

All of which means I wouldn't put much money on Xav being here next season.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by GhostoftheBok » Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:57 am

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:47 am
I'm beginning to be very confident it won't be the fourth division. Still only an outside chance it'll be the second, IMO.

All of which means I wouldn't put much money on Xav being here next season.
My working is this.

We renewed his loan in January and worked (apparently) very hard to do so. We did that at the time when we still thought Sadlier was available, before we were told he wasn't for a couple of weeks. As many people (including me) have said, it's hard to see how he currently fits into this squad at the moment and we don't technically need him in terms of squad depth.

It strikes me as a deal designed to benefit us in the longer term.

I do think he'll play this season, but I don't think we're putting money into him for what he can do over the next few months in a squad now packed with attacking quality. I wouldn't be shocked if he left in the summer, but equally it looks to me like we are trying to settle him here.

I think the counter is that we signed him "just in case" we missed our other targets, but that doesn't work for me. We are still getting him fit. His short term benefits compared to making another signing don't look optimal.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Prufrock » Wed Feb 02, 2022 12:37 pm

He signed before the shape change which I'm not convinced was planned, rather we stumbled on it with personnel and to match up Ipswich and it worked.

He could do a job at 10 or in a 2, but he looks your classic left footer coming in off the right, slow them down then speed up.
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Re: Contract expiry

Post by GhostoftheBok » Wed Feb 02, 2022 2:24 pm

Prufrock wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 12:37 pm
He signed before the shape change which I'm not convinced was planned, rather we stumbled on it with personnel and to match up Ipswich and it worked.

He could do a job at 10 or in a 2, but he looks your classic left footer coming in off the right, slow them down then speed up.
I think the shape change is something we've been looking at for a while (or at least flexibility is) and it's only actually a fairly minor tweak` when you look at play rather than the formation written down. We are fairly often in a back 4 with Fossey up the pitch and Williams sitting.

All the new signings have been targeted for months and all fit easily into the new system. I absolutely agree that Xav looks a natural inside forward, but then so does Dapo and he has now played well in two different positions in this new formation.

We'll see, anyway. A lot will be determined by how well he adapts himself and how well he copes with the increased competition. Needs to get fit first.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Prufrock » Wed Feb 02, 2022 2:40 pm

Dapo spent a lot of his junior years playing through the middle and seems to have more directness about him (than the limited bits of Xav we've seen). And a lot of the play down the right is about vacating space for Fossey to break into. Whereas I think Xav's ideal would be to hang out there like Mahrez for City for the big switch and get 1v1 with a full back and an overlap.

He's obviously a talented lad and wouldn't surprise me if he made it work but he's got huge competition for only 3 spots and seems way down the queue at the moment (with Kacha to come back too).
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Re: Contract expiry

Post by GhostoftheBok » Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:03 pm

Prufrock wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 2:40 pm
Dapo spent a lot of his junior years playing through the middle and seems to have more directness about him (than the limited bits of Xav we've seen).
When Xav was a youth player for both Arsenal and England he played left, right, 10 and forward. It got to the point where Nketiah was pretty much nailed on up top with Saka and Xav out wide and Smith-Rowe behind (when all available), but they were all fairly versatile players through much of their development.

Xav was wanted by Arsenal, but he didn't see any path to first team football and rejected two contract offers. They tried to sell him to Palace (for certain) and Brighton (I'm less sure of this), but neither had guarantees of first team football for him. Hamburg offered him a set path and got him for what was generally regarded as a steal at around £1.5m plus add-ons (reportedly totalling just shy of 3 million euros) and a big sell-on fee. Hamburg's sporting director at the time said they got Xav for around a third of what Arsenal had originally wanted for him.

That's our obvious stumbling block, but Hamburg are going to have to be realistic about the loss they're going to take if they don't offer him a new deal and play him. It'd be a complex deal to do, because Hamburg would want a sell-on of some kind and Arsenal will expect a cut of that action as it's technically money to Hamburg that is affected by their own sell-on fee (around 35% was the reported figure). That'd mean Hamburg would want a big whack of any profit we make off the player, some of which they'd then hand to Arsenal - or we'd have to factor it into a buying price.

A huge amount depends on the player. If he really wants to come here I'd expect it to happen, but what he wants is regular football. Evatt will have seen him in training and will therefore know the talent he has and the financial opportunity that represents for the football club.

There are absolutely no guarantees in any of it. For me, he could be a huge asset for this football club; but everything has to be right for him to end up here. He has to not be back in Hamburg's plans, he has to want to be part of the project here, manager and board have to believe he's worth the investment and we'd have to reach a financial agreement involving three football clubs. All tricky stuff.

Everyone I've ever spoken to who had involvement in his development thinks he's going to end up in the top divisions. I'll hold out hope that might be with us :conf:

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by brommers95 » Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:56 am

Confirmation of our latest squad list after the transfer window.

19 out of 22 outfield, over-21 spaces utilised.

Josh Sheehan not registered.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by brommers95 » Wed Feb 09, 2022 9:00 am

...and a visualisation the current contract situation of the squad, age and league minutes played.
Those with lapsing contracts are fringe players/oldies. Key starters of a good age are tied down on medium to long term deals. I like it.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Feb 09, 2022 9:36 am

Thanks, Brommers. I know I'm a dataviz/stat nerd but I find that a really useful visualisation. Reading from the right, I think we all expect three of the four oldest names (Baps, Tutte, Delf) to leave in summer, while four of the five in that "28-30" stripe – Dixon, Kacha, Isgrove, AImson – are arguably next in line to be upgraded, so it's good their contracts lapse in 2023.

Obviously there are outliers - hello, Sexy Kieran! - but broadly that's a squad in healthy shape, financially and hierarchically.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Bruce Rioja » Wed Feb 09, 2022 10:28 am

Saying to the guy who sits next to me at last night's game - I don't think I've ever wanted to see a another side get promoted quite as much as I want Fulham to, so they'll have even less use for Fossey. (A fine 3-0 victory against the thuggish, loutish nice people last night, I see 8) )
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Re: Contract expiry

Post by TANGODANCER » Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:27 am

On Xav, just as with anyone, surely the proof of the pudding is it the eating (trying). If we don't play him, we'll never know. Right now, we're behaving like we've just inventd fire but don't want anyone to know. Is he better than Dapo, Charles or Bodvarssason ?
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Re: Contract expiry

Post by TANGODANCER » Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:38 am

Fossey is already a cult hero amongst our supporters. He has the Ivan Campo appeal and the last thing we need is to lose him. If he wants to nip to Los Angeles to get his haircut,fine, send six bodyguards with him to be sure he comes back. In reality, it will be a tragedy if Fulham want him back. Fossey is a Wanderer way ha ya... :lol:
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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Bruce Rioja » Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:56 am

Was actually quite impressed with Bödvarsson in the 20 minutes or so he played last night. Showed some really nice touches and put himself around well. It's only the second time I've seen him play. When he came on against Cambridge I thought it was the second coming of Tom Eaves, so last night I was very pleasantly surprised. BOOM indeed :)
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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Feb 09, 2022 12:30 pm

Bruce Rioja wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:56 am
Was actually quite impressed with Bödvarsson in the 20 minutes or so he played last night. Showed some really nice touches and put himself around well. It's only the second time I've seen him play. When he came on against Cambridge I thought it was the second coming of Tom Eaves, so last night I was very pleasantly surprised. BOOM indeed :)
It's noted to be harder as a sub coming on, and I don't think Bod/Sadlier/Dempsey have yet done enough in their minutes to merit displacing a starter. However, Dempsey started last night and I think we'll begin to see a bit more variation in the XIs, pending fitness, form and opposition.

Like you, last night I also thought we could have made changes sooner than we did, as control of the game was notably slipping. We had, IMO, four potential gamechangers on the bench (Bod, Baka, Sadlier, Lee). In a tough run of fixtures, and playing the high-tempo way we do, I would see no shame in starting to make changes after an hour. It would add fresh legs, ask different questions - and encourage the remaining starters to justify their position.

As Pru noted, we're no longer in a place where Evatt turns to his bench and sees Delf and a teenager.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by KeyserSoze » Wed Feb 09, 2022 12:42 pm

brommers95 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:56 am
Confirmation of our latest squad list after the transfer window.

19 out of 22 outfield, over-21 spaces utilised.

Josh Sheehan not registered.
Has Joel Dixon been erased from history?
Nero fiddles while Gordon Burns.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by nicholaldo » Wed Feb 09, 2022 12:59 pm

KeyserSoze wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 12:42 pm
brommers95 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:56 am
Confirmation of our latest squad list after the transfer window.

19 out of 22 outfield, over-21 spaces utilised.

Josh Sheehan not registered.
Has Joel Dixon been erased from history?

The registration limit applies to outfield players only.

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Re: Contract expiry

Post by KeyserSoze » Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:03 pm

Thanks for clarifying, thought I was going a bit silly!
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Re: Contract expiry

Post by Prufrock » Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:08 pm

George Johnstone's 18 months in Holland seem to have lost him his home grown status which seems...wrong.
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