Finnegan

I don't actually know much about wage subsidies in the real world. It's a mechanic in Football Manager but I don't know if and how much it happens in real life and how it would be managed in terms of FFP / PSR if it did. I think a lot of the mechanics around transfers in Football Manager are there for game balance just as much as realism. Amortisation, for example, doesn't happen in the game IIRC but you can pay a club in installments which... uh. When a football club "buys" a player, what they're actually buying is the rights to his contract, when we sell someone, we clear out his book value in that current season and then have no contractual obligation to him because he gets a new contract with his new club. So I'm not really sure how continuing to pay a portion of his wages would go? I imagine in reality you'd negotiate a lower fee with the buying club to compensate? No idea tbh.

Yeah but they've had more surgery than Darren Anderton and Jack Wilshere combined.

His remaining book value is approximately 6.8m

The latest Jordan news doesn't look good @Miquel The Work Geordie

I think Mark did this about eight times and it kept coming back But yeah when we start tidying up (as I said, we'll give it a couple of days to give people a chance to give any feedback and then start properly) threads like that will be tidied away promptly.

Playing it with up to date transfers feels like defeating the point. Bring me Kim Kallstrom.

Yes, Daka actually scored goals. If we did have any genuine interest in Ayew though it would be because he scores in absurdly high percentiles for defensive contributions as a winger and Cooper is going to pretty much play the anti football he did at Forest.

Corky is a proper mod, I'm just a poser. Mark has just given me some limited permissions to tidy up Transfer Talk because I moaned at him that it's a mess. Mainly because there's been fifteen threads in one day about Jordan Ayew signing which he definitely isn't.

One above Alan Nixon.

This might be one of the stupidest things you've ever posted.

Quite possible yeah. Maybe a bit of both happening at the same time. Atalanta trying to agree a fee with Celtic before they agree to release Koopmeiners.

If it helps, I'd rank you higher than the country crisp.

Yeah and that's the issue. What we should have is a sporting director / director of football who is squad building with a long term vision for the club. You obviously give your head coach input but they absolutely shouldn't be on point alone with the head of recruitment.

To be clear, I don't believe this rumour in the slightest. But if we do end up signing players like Ayew then the real issue is Rudkin isn't it. The transfer philosophy should be his philosophy, not whatever the head coach wants it to be.

I'd probably be inclined to consider Dorsett a fairly higher Tier 2 source. Tier 1 should be sources we 99.9% don't dispute. Doesn't mean a deal will definitely happen but it's clearly a player we are looking at. Fab and Percy both chiming in on Soulé, for example.

It's consistent reliability that we're after ultimately. I'd much rather a source that speaks rarely but accurately than one that just throws a little of shit and hopes something sticks.

He's essentially Southampton's Soulé at the moment by all accounts, no? Wants Atalanta but they can't afford.

@Danno @LestaLad @StanSP Do we have examples (I don't mind if you have to go back a few windows) of Ornstein being specifically reliable on Leicester? I'd be inclined to put him in Tier 2 otherwise. I appreciate he's got a solid reputation but I feel like he has a habit of linking basically everyone to London clubs? I may be being harsh, mind. That's exactly why I'm asking for as much input as possible. I'm no kind of expert.

He didn't seem to play much last year. Injuries?

We'd have a really small side tbf.

"Similar players to Mandela Keita: Sergio Busquets" Sign him up!

Yeah I have no problem with people posting a FosseHub link, my point is just the value of the source will be the value of THEIR source. FosseHub sourcing Fab or Percy - 🥇 FosseHub sourcing Alan Nixon - 🚮

That's less about moderation and more about self control.

Obviously a shit pass is a shit pass, that's poor regardless - although let's be fair about it, all footballers do it. Patson Daka is in the 91st percentile for pass completion amongst strikers over the last 12 months so I wouldn't say it's a huge problem with him. But very few players would be coached to turn on the ball like that. When was the last time you saw Vardy drop in, receive the ball with his back to goal, control it and carry it up the park? It's very rare. When a striker drops like that they'll usually presume a defender is tracking them, in fact that's one of the reasons you'd want them to do it. Unless they get a call specifically telling them they have time to trap it turn, they're unlikely to try. We don't want a striker slowing down play, we do want them making a quick first time pass and then spinning to get forward. Of all the things to criticise Daka for - plenty of which (believe it or not!) I wouldn't challenge you on - this seems like a poor choice. The shit pass aside, it's good play and him doing as instructed. Someone like Madders who thrives on turning first time on a pass are rare. It's just largely seen as a risk and not encouraged a lot in possession football. Especially given dribbling isn't really Daka or Vardy's strength.

Transfer Talk is a nightmare for casual posters who want to dip in and get the latest and who aren't chronically on twitter. Going to start tidying it up so it's a bit more organised and accessible. One of the first steps is going to be implementing a tier list of sources. Most football social media that does this agrees on four tiers so we'll use that as a starting point. In busy periods, tier four sources may not get their own threads, we'll repurpose the twitter rumours thread and chuck the rubbish in there. The remaining threads will be tagged by a mod with the tier of the source, in larger threads we'll also try and use the recommended posts feature to make it easier to see the latest verified news when a thread gets derailed with fish puns and medical 'jokes'. Before we do this, want to reach out to all of you and ask for your input in agreeing on the tier list so it's not just simply something a couple of us have pulled out our arses. So some initial suggestions: Tier 1: Percy and Tanner, obviously. They might not know everything but they tend to only speak up on transfers when they are fairly certain. Fab Romano, I know he annoys people but he's got a close to 100% track record on Leicester when he says something is actually happening. Some specific, international sources - Kristof Terreur springs to mind who has a superb track record on our Belgian players and doesn't tend to chat rubbish. Tier 2: Probably the section we need the most suggestions, the Di Marzio, Tavolieris, etc of this world, post a bit of rubbish and probably do the bidding of a fair few agents but fairly consistently get things right. Tier 3: UK broadsheets, gazetta, l'equipe, potentially Sky (although they usually aren't a source in their own right) Tier 4: muck. UK tabloids, rumour blogs, wannabe itks on twitter, the ten thousand Itlaian Fab impersonators, etc. To be clear, the likes of FosseHub, Football Insider or the Mercury that just re-post other sources won't be considered sources at all. A shit rumour doesn't become a valid one just because the Mockery or the BBC sports rumour page have re-posted it for clicks. @StanSP @moore_94 @LestaLad @Ric Flair @HankMarvin and anyone else absolutely glued to twitter (pretty sure moore_94 IS twitter) your input would be greatly appreciated. Will leave this thread up for a few days and take suggestions and feedback and then start actually actioning things and cleaning up the subforum after that. (Ps, tier five: Alan Nixon.)