Squad for the Championship

[Les-TA-Jon]

2 minutes ago, Aus Fox said:

3 years! For a 32 year old who was shabby at best in his previous stint in the PL. 

A one year deal was the alternative, and make him earn a further year with performances.

We had Ben Nelson, who was an other option, we had Harry Souttar, we most certainly had other options than Vestergaard for 3 fooking years. 

But Nelson was deemed not good enough/ready for the Championship or the PL, Souttar has been out of favour under 3 managers here...

 

And obviously a 1 year deal wasn't an option - the players have a lot of leverage in those sorts of situations. 

[moore_94]

18 minutes ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

Given we only had the money to sign Okoli in the summer, we'd be even more short of defenders had we not re-signed Vestergaard. Don't forget he was a mainstay under Maresca and was the ball playing CB for his system. The new deal was offered and signed whilst Maresca was manager too. 

 

It's not great that we're lumbered with him. But there wasn't really an alternative. 

We did have more money to spend on another centre back/other positions, we just decided to spaff it all on Skipp

[Fox92]

13 hours ago, Iwebema said:

That Sheffield United team is awful and they are somehow 2nd. This is the reason why I can't see how we aren't a play off team next year, the league is really poor.

Yes, exactly what I've been saying to people who come out with the "we will fall through the league". Some of the teams in the top 10 are awful, especially Sheffield United in 2nd, and that's not even taking into consideration the teams at the bottom of the table. 

[suffolk fox]

In all honesty I can't get my head around no manager has fancied playing Soutter at all?  Surely, he has to be better than even Vestergaard or Faes?  When, on loan at Sheff Utd this season he always looked accomplished, certainly in the games I watched when they were on tv.  He has always played well when representing Australia.  Injuries aside, surely we must keep him for our own Championship campaign next season.

[OntarioFox]

44 minutes ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

Think he's the least of out problems. Probably on a very small wage. 

True, but i think it's the decision to offer someone a two year extension literally weeks after they were dropped from the squad and deemed surplus / of questionable attitude that's the main thing to focus on. Would have been around the same time Enzo was being told we couldn't sign Sensi, doubt he was happy with what was undoubtedly a decision taken by higher ups. Bears repeating that he decided to name a second substitute goalkeeper ahead of him, and he didn't feature again in the second half of the season, so something had seriously soured.

 

A year with a view to sell in the summer would have been far wiser, if the verdict at that point was already that he didn't have a future for us. Or just let him go if the wages were as low as suggested - no real loss rather than clogging up our books with uninspiring 'assets'.

 

He's played three games this season for what it's worth. Even Braybrooke managed seven for Dundee by the time he was recalled, and that was considered a failure of a loan, but Marcal is still out in the Netherlands.

Edited 25 February by OntarioFox

[moore_94]

2 minutes ago, OntarioFox said:

He's played three games this season for what it's worth. Even Braybrooke managed seven for Dundee by the time he was recalled, and that was considered a failure of a loan, but Marcal is still out in the Netherlands.

He has been injured the majority of his time on loan - spent a long period of it back with us doing his recovery

[OntarioFox]

3 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

He has been injured the majority of his time on loan - spent a long period of it back with us doing his recovery

Fair enough, if he's had an injury prone season. Still shouldn't be on the books past this summer though.

[LVFox]

45 minutes ago, Lesterlad said:

Why would anyone want to loan out Bilal he will be out best player

He isn't going to play in the championship for us, far too good. Loan him out to the continent for the year so we have him should we go up.

[LVFox]

32 minutes ago, suffolk fox said:

In all honesty I can't get my head around no manager has fancied playing Soutter at all?  Surely, he has to be better than even Vestergaard or Faes?  When, on loan at Sheff Utd this season he always looked accomplished, certainly in the games I watched when they were on tv.  He has always played well when representing Australia.  Injuries aside, surely we must keep him for our own Championship campaign next season.

Souttar and Nelson will be the best centre back partnership in the league next season, should we have a coach with the sense to play them both.

[cityfanlee23]

It's hard to really tell what we will do next season because there are so many unknowns from players who haven't cut it in the prem, but don't want to be in the championship and may push for a move abroad, but I don't actually worry (too much) about us in the Championship even if the budget is tight, I've made a few assumptions here, but the core of this team is easily good enough for a playoff/automatic push. 
Assumptions made:
Players Sold - 
Ndidi
Ricardo (Both him and Ndidi don't deserve to be going down, Ricardo may be forced to stay after his injury though if his options are limited but assuming he leaves)
Kristiansen
Mads
Winks (He won't want to drop down again, seems like a bit of an ego) 
Faes (please god)
Ward 
Iversen 
(Vardy retires/leaves to USA)

Stays: 
Fatawu (long injury and may not get the move he wants)
Okoli (may be unlikely if he still has not settled, but if we can keep him he will tear up the championship)

Optional game time: Jake Evans, Monga? Golding

Signings needed:
Striker 
Backup GK
RB
CM x2
CB if Okoli goes
Possibly a CAM if Mcateer gets interest in summer again

But there is every possibility players like Winks don't get a move either, and in that case we wouldn't need 2x CM's. 
Iv

[JJD_LCFC]

4 hours ago, suffolk fox said:

In all honesty I can't get my head around no manager has fancied playing Soutter at all?  Surely, he has to be better than even Vestergaard or Faes?  When, on loan at Sheff Utd this season he always looked accomplished, certainly in the games I watched when they were on tv.  He has always played well when representing Australia.  Injuries aside, surely we must keep him for our own Championship campaign next season.

Fully agree. I would play him and Okoli next season. I think that Souttar is a bit of an old fashioned defender in the fact that he defends the box, wins headers, blocks and wants to defend.

modern coaches prefer defenders who can pass. 
Majority of the time he plays I think he is good, and have the same thought as you, why is he not picked. I would play him easily over Faes, Coady and Vestegaard. 

[TheFiveTime]

5 hours ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

 

The squad is a right mess. 

 

rubbish table, keep soumare but loan out mcateer and Alves? Hard to sell winks? Weird stuff here. How is choudary hard to sell being academy but daka is going to be a piece of cake?

[JJD_LCFC]

2 hours ago, cityfanlee23 said:

It's hard to really tell what we will do next season because there are so many unknowns from players who haven't cut it in the prem, but don't want to be in the championship and may push for a move abroad, but I don't actually worry (too much) about us in the Championship even if the budget is tight, I've made a few assumptions here, but the core of this team is easily good enough for a playoff/automatic push. 
Assumptions made:
Players Sold - 
Ndidi
Ricardo (Both him and Ndidi don't deserve to be going down, Ricardo may be forced to stay after his injury though if his options are limited but assuming he leaves)
Kristiansen
Mads
Winks (He won't want to drop down again, seems like a bit of an ego) 
Faes (please god)
Ward 
Iversen 
(Vardy retires/leaves to USA)

Stays: 
Fatawu (long injury and may not get the move he wants)
Okoli (may be unlikely if he still has not settled, but if we can keep him he will tear up the championship)

Optional game time: Jake Evans, Monga? Golding

Signings needed:
Striker 
Backup GK
RB
CM x2
CB if Okoli goes
Possibly a CAM if Mcateer gets interest in summer again

But there is every possibility players like Winks don't get a move either, and in that case we wouldn't need 2x CM's. 
Iv

For winks I can’t really see another club signing him. I don’t think he has played well enough or impressed to get a move to a premiership club. And few clubs will match his salary. 
 

Ndidi I struggle to see clubs buying him purely because no one signed him on a free, so why pay for him now.

 

I am torn on Bilal as well. I think he is very promising and the only good decision the club made in the summer. However with how poor we have been, I can’t see a club matching what we paid for him. I think he is very good and in no way should his dreadful teammates form hamper him. Maybe a Brighton or Bournemouth could be a good move for him. 
 

Strangely I do like the GK and back 4 you mentioned. I would add in Souttar possibly for Nelson. Pretty strong defensive unit. 
 

Skipp in the championship, I fear he is a worse Hamza. Lot of energy and work rate but poor on the ball. Tough one who we have in CM next season. Either way that team should be good enough for play off spot 

[Les-TA-Jon]

14 minutes ago, TheFiveTime said:

rubbish table, keep soumare but loan out mcateer and Alves? Hard to sell winks? Weird stuff here. How is choudary hard to sell being academy but daka is going to be a piece of cake?

The categories are largely back of the fag packet musings.

 

Knowing LCFC's recent transfer dealings, you can probably put every player into the 'hard to sell' category anyhow. 

 

We struggle to sell players because we've offered them wages that (virtually) any interested party cannot match. 

 

 

[Les-TA-Jon]

Obviously based on (unreliable) internet reporting, but here's another look at the current 'book value' of most of the relevant players

 

The book value is the transfer fee divided by the contract length, minus the number of years past on the contract.

 

So for example, you sign a player for £20m, on a 5 year deal. They're 'worth' £4m per year. When their contract has 3 years remaining, their book value is £12m. If you sell them for less than this, they go in the accounts as a loss. 

 

So looking at the Book Value of players this summer gives us a 'rating' of how easy/difficult it is to make a profit/loss on them. 

 

 

Players like Justin, Ricardo, Ndidi who have all signed extensions in their time here - so harder to figure out (or do they not have a book value?). 

Edited 25 February by Les-TA-Jon

[Les-TA-Jon]

51 minutes ago, TheFiveTime said:

rubbish table, keep soumare but loan out mcateer and Alves? Hard to sell winks? Weird stuff here. How is choudary hard to sell being academy but daka is going to be a piece of cake?

 

3 minutes ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

Obviously based on (unreliable) internet reporting, but here's another look at the current 'book value' of most of the relevant players

 

The book value is the transfer fee divided by the contract length, minus the number of years past on the contract.

 

So for example, you sign a player for £20m, on a 5 year deal. They're 'worth' £4m per year. When their contract has 3 years remaining, their book value is £12m. If you sell them for less than this, they go in the accounts as a loss. 

 

So looking at the Book Value of players this summer gives us a 'rating' of how easy/difficult it is to make a profit/loss on them. 

 

 

Players like Justin, Ricardo, Ndidi who have all signed extensions in their time here - so harder to figure out (or do they not have a book value?). 

See above - for us to sell Winks someone has to pay £4m for him and match or better his wages. Not impossible, but probably unlikely. 

[murphy]

4 hours ago, LVFox said:

He isn't going to play in the championship for us, far too good. Loan him out to the continent for the year so we have him should we go up.

Sorry, but that makes no sense whatsoever.  If we can fend off buyers in the summer we need to play him.  You don't loan out your best players.

[Lambert09]

Does anyone have a rough idea on what the efl can come at us for? 
 

Is it just the 23/24 accounts, or is it also the 22/23 because of our jurisdiction win? 
 

are we expecting points, a transfer embargo or both? 
 

It will be interesting to see if we attempt to mitigate and negotiate early like Sheffield united did.  We do not want something like this hanging over us again for the entire summer 

[CUJimmy]

48 minutes ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

Obviously based on (unreliable) internet reporting, but here's another look at the current 'book value' of most of the relevant players

 

The book value is the transfer fee divided by the contract length, minus the number of years past on the contract.

 

So for example, you sign a player for £20m, on a 5 year deal. They're 'worth' £4m per year. When their contract has 3 years remaining, their book value is £12m. If you sell them for less than this, they go in the accounts as a loss. 

 

So looking at the Book Value of players this summer gives us a 'rating' of how easy/difficult it is to make a profit/loss on them. 

 

 

Players like Justin, Ricardo, Ndidi who have all signed extensions in their time here - so harder to figure out (or do they not have a book value?). 

My understanding is that once the player reaches what would have been the end of their original contract their book value is zero even if they sign an extension.

 

So if we sign a player for £10m on a 5 year contract and after 4 years they sign a 3 year extension then their value is zero one year into the new contract.

[CUJimmy]

6 hours ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

 

The squad is a right mess. 

 

This is where the ‘sell them all’ idea runs into a problem.  We might say that if someone offers us a can of Red Bull and two packets of Wotsits for DCR we should take it but if they can’t agree personal terms we are either stuck with him or have to buy him out of his remaining contract.

[Lesterlad]

On 25/02/2025 at 11:55, LVFox said:

He isn't going to play in the championship for us, far too good. Loan him out to the continent for the year so we have him should we go up.

Thats a fair point

[filbertway]

On 25/02/2025 at 11:21, Les-TA-Jon said:

But Nelson was deemed not good enough/ready for the Championship or the PL, Souttar has been out of favour under 3 managers here...

 

And obviously a 1 year deal wasn't an option - the players have a lot of leverage in those sorts of situations. 

Scary thing is that our DOF probably actually thought this rather than "we're a premier league team and have literally hundreds of players we could sign who would offer more value"

[LCFCJohn]

44 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Scary thing is that our DOF probably actually thought this rather than "we're a premier league team and have literally hundreds of players we could sign who would offer more value"

This.

 

We’re talking about Jannick bloody Vestergard not the other JV in his peak. He should have been willing to take whatever he was offered. 
 

He was ok at Championship level, nothing more than that and we were still poor defensively for a large part of last season. 

[coolhandfox]

On 25/02/2025 at 16:38, Les-TA-Jon said:

Obviously based on (unreliable) internet reporting, but here's another look at the current 'book value' of most of the relevant players

 

The book value is the transfer fee divided by the contract length, minus the number of years past on the contract.

 

So for example, you sign a player for £20m, on a 5 year deal. They're 'worth' £4m per year. When their contract has 3 years remaining, their book value is £12m. If you sell them for less than this, they go in the accounts as a loss. 

 

So looking at the Book Value of players this summer gives us a 'rating' of how easy/difficult it is to make a profit/loss on them. 

 

 

Players like Justin, Ricardo, Ndidi who have all signed extensions in their time here - so harder to figure out (or do they not have a book value?). 

The remaining book value at the time of the new contract is re-amortised over the length of the new contract.

 

Justin and Ricardo have book value left, Wilf does not.

 

[coolhandfox]

On 25/02/2025 at 17:30, CUJimmy said:

My understanding is that once the player reaches what would have been the end of their original contract their book value is zero even if they sign an extension.

 

So if we sign a player for £10m on a 5 year contract and after 4 years they sign a 3 year extension then their value is zero one year into the new contract.

The last year would still have a book value of 2m in that scenario, and the would be re-re-amortised over the new 3 year contract

 

To have zero they would need to be in the Wilf or Vestergaard position this summer, where they had ran down there contract 0 and then signed new deals