Matt O'Riley

I'll eat my hat if we come close to £30m. In my view, it will be sub-£25m with addons. It wouldn't shock me to be honest if it was sub-£20m as I don't really believe we knocked back a £20m deal previously. Our club negotiate hard on buying players and often not at all on selling them. Hope for the best, expect the worst.

 

Not sure I agree, for the most part, we are pretty good at selling players. Jota for £25m, Eddy and Ajer for good fees with 1 year on their deal, smart sell-ons for players like Frimpong. The only two recent disappointing ones (although they are older players so it’s kinda understandable) were GG and Juranovic.

It’s probably the one part of our transfer strategy that I wouldn’t criticise. We don’t sell players at the right times often enough, but we do usually get decent fees.

 

I just really really really really really really hope he stays for another season

 

I agree those weren't terrible bits of business but I attribute them more to luck than anything. Jota we got lucky with Saudis throwing money around. Ajer and Eddy were good for a year left on their contract, but they should never have had a year left on their contract. Eddy should have commanded a higher fee as one of our leading assets, and don't forget we let Christie go for a pittance.

Frimpong I don't agree was good business. He had ages on a nothing contract, could have kept and sold him for double the money in a year or two with similar addons. Look at the money being discussed for him now, we 100% jumped the gun on him. We could be talking the kinds of numbers we're looking at for O'Riley with Frimpong.

GG and JJ were bad bits of business, we were just throwing money away on transfers out during the Ange years. I'd argue also we let Julien go for too little, as well we letting multiple players go on frees to clubs with money to spend (e.g., Rogic, Ntcham, Bitton, even Barkas).

I can't stand here and argue we haven't made money but I'd argue we leave a lot of money on the table, both in how we buy and how we sell.