January 2023 Transfer Window

[GhostoftheBok]

The fact remains that Evatt, the board and everyone knows we do need to replace him now. Because purely numbers wise, and strength in depth quality wise we’d be too light if we don’t.

Probably quite freeing for Evatt, really.

That 10 spot and the attack needed strengthening regardless and now he can bring guys in without worrying about keeping Dapo happy or maintaining his value.

The 11 needs to improve by the end of Jan, but equally (and as a by product of improving the 11 this should happen) the bench has to improve too. Last season we'd bring Baka on you then felt you had a decent chance of seeing a goal. This season we've not had that. Maybe if I could be arsed looking up the stats our "goal involvements from bench" stuff would be better than it *feels* like it is, but we look light in that area.

[TANGODANCER]

All in all, best outcome. If the John blockage has also been resolved and he leaves next week then we're about £1.6m better off over the next 18 months, without much impact on our best 11. That's a very significant wedge of money for this football club.

It's absolute peanuts when put against the running costs and weekly wages bill. With the reported condition of the pitch, I'm hoping that those that use it, and the stadium. for other purposes : rugby other sports, music concerts etc, are contributing sufficient funds to avoid the club paying for anything other than our own maintenance costs. there's a vast difference between making a decent living and living a millionaire existence. I'm very old-fashioned about loyalty and gratitude, and wantaway players with overblown views of their own self importance I have no time at all for.

Frustration I can understand, but I find it difficult to understand how a player lauded as special" leaves because he can't fit into the system. Seems to me Dapo now fits that category. Caja de toros. Give him a free role a la De Bruyne/Grerisman etc. Call me a poor fan if you will, but I support the national side (male and female) and Bolton Wanderers. The rest is immaterial. German (or other) teams are as uninteresting as the stock exchange is to a homeless person.

Please remove the tomatoes from the tin before throwing..

[BWFC_Insane]

Interestingly Iles says we have a zoom meeting today with the club of our ‘exciting target’. Now it’s easy to read into these things but that doesn’t scream to me the Wimbledon lad. Primarily because he would be a case of agree a fee and get it done. Whereas patience and speaking to a club over zoom screams more ‘prem or championship loan’ to me.

Maybe I’m wrong. We will see.

[BWFC_Insane]

All in all, best outcome. If the John blockage has also been resolved and he leaves next week then we're about £1.6m better off over the next 18 months, without much impact on our best 11. That's a very significant wedge of money for this football club.

It's absolute peanuts when put against the running costs and weekly wages bill. With the reported condition of the pitch, I'm hoping that those that use it, and the stadium. for other purposes : rugby other sports, music concerts etc, are contributing sufficient funds to avoid the club paying for anything other than our own maintenance costs. there's a vast difference between making a decent living and living a millionaire existence. I'm very old-fashioned about loyalty and gratitude, and wantaway players with overblown views of their own self importance I have no time at all for.

Frustration I can understand, but I find it difficult to understand how a player lauded as special" leaves because he can't fit into the system. Seems to me Dapo now fits that category. Caja de toros. Give him a free role a la De Bruyne/Grerisman etc. Call me a poor fan if you will, but I support the national side (male and female) and Bolton Wanderers. The rest is immaterial. German (or other) teams are as uninteresting as the stock exchange is to a homeless person.

Please remove the tomatoes from the tin before throwing..

I think the underlying tone Tango would suggest he wants a at regardless of the system we are playing. There have been times this season where I’ve wondered if his heart was really in it.

He’s played the De Bruyne role a number of times in that number 10 role and frankly he’s not great at it. It just requires a skill set he doesn’t have yet. He doesn’t have the vision of a De Bruyne and you can’t say he hasn’t been tried there.

[Worthy4England]

Not only that, but Evatt says he won’t necessarily spend the money this month. Depends who’s available. I’m going to predict now that this will become a stick to beat him with should this season not pan out to promotion.

If we fail to make the play offs I think it’s been a failure. And so will Evatt. Dapo leaving is neither here nor there because Evatt says he wants to come out of this window stronger. This isn’t a case of losing an irreplaceable player against our will - we’ve seen that in January before with Anelka, Madine etc and neither were close to replaceable in that window.

Dapo is. Because his form in this system for whatever reason hasn’t been irreplaceable. The fact remains that Evatt, the board and everyone knows we do need to replace him now. Because purely numbers wise, and strength in depth quality wise we’d be too light if we don’t.

I read the commentary as "we're not going to splurge cash on a 3 year contract for someone we don't need, just to make up the numbers" and TBF. I wouldn't want them to do that, either. You seem to be arguing, that replacing him now is essential, whilst at the same time saying his contribution hasn't been very good (for a whole variety of reasons). Either he's essential - in which case we'd probably try and keep him (and he might not want to go) or he isn't in which case we wouldn't need to replace him, I mean the level of contributions you've commented on from Dapo, you could probably give someone in the crowd a pair of boots or any other "body in the squad"...

[Worthy4England]

It's absolute peanuts when put against the running costs and weekly wages bill.

Maybe the way to look at it, is it's four Dion Charles's and a chunk of change...

[GhostoftheBok]

Interestingly Iles says we have a zoom meeting today with the club of our ‘exciting target’. Now it’s easy to read into these things but that doesn’t scream to me the Wimbledon lad. Primarily because he would be a case of agree a fee and get it done. Whereas patience and speaking to a club over zoom screams more ‘prem or championship loan’ to me.

Maybe I’m wrong. We will see.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable on the patience side of things - though even the non-league clubs will have Zoom facilities now. Zoom meetings the day before games are common at all levels, because travel is too disruptive. I think most are expecting a Prem loanee.

I was wondering if it might be a foreign club with a summer league. A number of Scandinavian clubs are coming back into the office now after holidays and starting to ramp up towards preseason (they start up again in April). MLS kicks off in February.

[BWFC_Insane]

Not only that, but Evatt says he won’t necessarily spend the money this month. Depends who’s available. I’m going to predict now that this will become a stick to beat him with should this season not pan out to promotion.

If we fail to make the play offs I think it’s been a failure. And so will Evatt. Dapo leaving is neither here nor there because Evatt says he wants to come out of this window stronger. This isn’t a case of losing an irreplaceable player against our will - we’ve seen that in January before with Anelka, Madine etc and neither were close to replaceable in that window.

Dapo is. Because his form in this system for whatever reason hasn’t been irreplaceable. The fact remains that Evatt, the board and everyone knows we do need to replace him now. Because purely numbers wise, and strength in depth quality wise we’d be too light if we don’t.

I read the commentary as "we're not going to splurge cash on a 3 year contract for someone we don't need, just to make up the numbers" and TBF. I wouldn't want them to do that, either. You seem to be arguing, that replacing him now is essential, whilst at the same time saying his contribution hasn't been very good (for a whole variety of reasons). Either he's essential - in which case we'd probably try and keep him (and he might not want to go) or he isn't in which case we wouldn't need to replace him, I mean the level of contributions you've commented on from Dapo, you could probably give someone in the crowd a pair of boots or any other "body in the squad"...

I agree that it would be foolish to go out and spend money on rubbish. I'm not all that fussed about next season right now so a loan suits me.

But in terms of replacing him and selling him and that line of argument. Its nuanced. Its not 'hes been absolute rubbish for this season get shot'. But nor is it 'he's our top scorer in a low scoring side and we need to find someone who can bag 10 goals without money'.

Its quite simply that he's been far from his best. Hasn't always got in the team. BUT we need that number 10 role regardless and Dapo going means we would be playing (when Lee doesn't) IMHO a worse player in Sheehan or Kachunga there. And that means Dapo going weakens us. In turn with Baka going and Dapo going it leaves us with Bod, Charles and Big Dan. And again I feel that's one light up top. 4 for two places is needed IMHO.

So that's my view. He's not Anelka or Madine currently as in - well if we sell them regardless of the money we are screwed. He's not. But he's still played enough and shown enough and is part of the squad in a significant way that we can't just sell him without suitable replacement(s).

[BWFC_Insane]

Interestingly Iles says we have a zoom meeting today with the club of our ‘exciting target’. Now it’s easy to read into these things but that doesn’t scream to me the Wimbledon lad. Primarily because he would be a case of agree a fee and get it done. Whereas patience and speaking to a club over zoom screams more ‘prem or championship loan’ to me.

Maybe I’m wrong. We will see.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable on the patience side of things - though even the non-league clubs will have Zoom facilities now. Zoom meetings the day before games are common at all levels, because travel is too disruptive. I think most are expecting a Prem loanee.

I was wondering if it might be a foreign club with a summer league. A number of Scandinavian clubs are coming back into the office now after holidays and starting to ramp up towards preseason (they start up again in April). MLS kicks off in February.

Yeah I wasn't insinuating Wimbledon didn't have zoom. More that a fee negotiation on zoom (because what else would we have to talk about?) seems an unlikely thing to be leaked to local media and just the way it is presented sounds much more like creating and building dialogue with a club over loaning and developing one of their players. Much like we did with Bradley etc....

[GhostoftheBok]

Yeah I wasn't insinuating Wimbledon didn't have zoom. More that a fee negotiation on zoom (because what else would we have to talk about?) seems an unlikely thing to be leaked to local media and just the way it is presented sounds much more like creating and building dialogue with a club over loaning and developing one of their players. Much like we did with Bradley etc....

Anything is possible. In that scenario you'd most likely be looking at a a player who was given a chance to train with the first team at the start of the season or a lad who has been on loan somewhere else and has either not done well there, or has outgrown his current arrangement. Again, not always, but that's typical.

I will say that I could see a permanent deal being sorted via Zoom purely because, as I said, it's the day before a match. When Baka went yesterday I said I expected a deal to either be done or rapidly ramped up today and I'd have anticipated that the latter would be zoom, rather than travelling.

The Zoom would then be "Can we get to the stage where you don't play him over the weekend, or send him up today?" If the lad plays it typically delays the medical.

Again, just spitballing.

[Prufrock]

For the record I would not be excited if the "exciting player" was a loanee. So someone can tell Evatt, please.

We're not getting top 2, so the best they could do is likely keep us where we are before a play off shoot out, and the more exciting they are the less chance they stay next year.

I'd be much more excited if we splashed a little cash on a permanent.

[The_Gun]

Interestingly Iles says we have a zoom meeting today with the club of our ‘exciting target’. Now it’s easy to read into these things but that doesn’t scream to me the Wimbledon lad. Primarily because he would be a case of agree a fee and get it done. Whereas patience and speaking to a club over zoom screams more ‘prem or championship loan’ to me.

Maybe I’m wrong. We will see.

Zoom meeting suggests maybe a non-local club? Otherwise they'd presumably just meet in person.

[The_Gun]

For the record I would not be excited if the "exciting player" was a loanee. So someone can tell Evatt, please.

We're not getting top 2, so the best they could do is likely keep us where we are before a play off shoot out, and the more exciting they are the less chance they stay next year.

I'd be much more excited if we splashed a little cash on a permanent.

You'd not be excited about any loan player?

If we're able to sign a top youth forward from one of the big academies, we'd be increasing our chances of bringing in a player 'too good' for this level and more likely to fire us to the Championship than anyone we could bring in permanently.

[Worthy4England]

^^ Couple of things. (Sorry to Insano's post) I agree entirely we need a number 10, I'd like them this window. What I don't think we need is a Dapo replacement - e.g. not a number 10...

I don't recall us being screwed, selling either Madine nor Anelka...In fact, we improved our PPG and league position - albeit marginally - after Madine left, to stay up...Slightly different with Anelka - our PPG increased marginally, but we dropped a couple of league places..

[Prufrock]

For the record I would not be excited if the "exciting player" was a loanee. So someone can tell Evatt, please.

We're not getting top 2, so the best they could do is likely keep us where we are before a play off shoot out, and the more exciting they are the less chance they stay next year.

I'd be much more excited if we splashed a little cash on a permanent.

You'd not be excited about any loan player?

If we're able to sign a top youth forward from one of the big academies, we'd be increasing our chances of bringing in a player 'too good' for this level and more likely to fire us to the Championship than anyone we could bring in permanently.

No, I wouldn't. We could sign Haaland on loan and I'm not sure it would be enough for top 2 from here. And the play offs are a lottery.

Plus, I'm not particularly enamoured with the idea of getting a team otherwise not good enough to get up into the championship promoted on the back of someone who won't be here next year, especially when we are already reliant on two loans. That feels like a recipe for disaster.

I'm not against loans full stop (though I don't think you should be too reliant on them) but I very much doubt there's a player we could sign on loan now that would make me excited.

[Worthy4England]

No, I wouldn't. We could sign Haaland on loan and I'm not sure it would be enough for top 2 from here. And the play offs are a lottery.

We'd carry on playing it down the flanks to the byline and pulling it back to the apex of the box, for someone to run onto...he'd be entirely unsuitable for us.

[Worthy4England]

Interestingly Iles says we have a zoom meeting today with the club of our ‘exciting target’. Now it’s easy to read into these things but that doesn’t scream to me the Wimbledon lad. Primarily because he would be a case of agree a fee and get it done. Whereas patience and speaking to a club over zoom screams more ‘prem or championship loan’ to me.

Maybe I’m wrong. We will see.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable on the patience side of things - though even the non-league clubs will have Zoom facilities now. Zoom meetings the day before games are common at all levels, because travel is too disruptive. I think most are expecting a Prem loanee.

I was wondering if it might be a foreign club with a summer league. A number of Scandinavian clubs are coming back into the office now after holidays and starting to ramp up towards preseason (they start up again in April). MLS kicks off in February.

Are we not reading too much into the zoom thing? I'm struggling to recall when the last time was I made an actual work related phone call that wasn't on a comms platform. Even the Wimbledon lad, I couldn't envisage agreeing fees etc. just by swapping e-mails - too time consuming...

[GhostoftheBok]

Are we not reading too much into the zoom thing? I'm struggling to recall when the last time was I made an actual work related phone call that wasn't on a comms platform. Even the Wimbledon lad, I couldn't envisage agreeing fees etc. just by swapping e-mails - too time consuming...

No, I mean I was wondering that prior - due to the patience issue.

[The_Gun]

Worthy, I am reading too much into this, but if it were United, City, Liverpool or Everton then it would be a bit weird/lazy if we weren’t meeting in-person.

[Worthy4England]

Are we not reading too much into the zoom thing? I'm struggling to recall when the last time was I made an actual work related phone call that wasn't on a comms platform. Even the Wimbledon lad, I couldn't envisage agreeing fees etc. just by swapping e-mails - too time consuming...

No, I mean I was wondering that prior - due to the patience issue.

Sorry mate you've lost me. Are we saying because zoom is being used, it's indicative of which Club(s) we're talking to, in terms of proximity to Bolton? I find that just very strange - then again my job's nowt to do with football...