Ben Nelson

[dmayne7]

37 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

There are honestly so many ridiculous opinions and rumours posted on here nowadays I've started just working under the assumption everyone is an idiot. 

 

Myself included, before you ask. 

 

Beat me to it 

[Gamble92]

Swapping Vestegaard for Nelson is the new swapping the Family Stand with the Kop

[AjcW]

We seem to hold players to ransom quite often when it comes to contracts/selling

 

Wasserman client, into his final year next year.... I don't think Nelson not playing has anything to do with his ability or Marti trusting him.

IMO something happened towards the end of the window, on the bench up until the 29th then vanishes.

 

It's either we rejected a bid and agent/player have kicked off, or we've told him we want him to sign an extra year before he plays again.

[Fox on the Rox]

3 hours ago, AjcW said:

We seem to hold players to ransom quite often when it comes to contracts/selling

 

Wasserman client, into his final year next year.... I don't think Nelson not playing has anything to do with his ability or Marti trusting him.

IMO something happened towards the end of the window, on the bench up until the 29th then vanishes.

 

It's either we rejected a bid and agent/player have kicked off, or we've told him we want him to sign an extra year before he plays again.

Interesting theory. I used the same terminology about how we hold young players to ransom on the Development Squads thread.

 

Surely he's a different kettle of fish though? He has enough experience and a high enough profile outside the club that he won't have trouble finding suitors if he does choose to run his contract down. Currently he's a depreciating asset but all the club needs to do is play him and he will shoot up in value. Even if he's not great, clubs have seen what he can do and at least some will have faith they can get the best out of him even if we can't.

 

There were strong rumours of a PL bid late in the window though, so if it is a stand off it's going to be a case of who blinks first. If I were him, I wouldn't be giving in, the club have given him no reason to, he needs out for the sake of his career.

[Dahnsouff]

4 hours ago, AjcW said:

We seem to hold players to ransom quite often when it comes to contracts/selling

 

Wasserman client, into his final year next year.... I don't think Nelson not playing has anything to do with his ability or Marti trusting him.

IMO something happened towards the end of the window, on the bench up until the 29th then vanishes.

 

It's either we rejected a bid and agent/player have kicked off, or we've told him we want him to sign an extra year before he plays again.

Isn’t it more likely that It looked like Faes was gone, this was known quite early, so we began introducing Nelson via the bench.
The Faes move collapses, Faes is reintegrated, it’s too late to get Ben out on a decent loan anywhere worth his time, and here we are?

[Lambert09]

40 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Isn’t it more likely that It looked like Faes was gone, this was known quite early, so we began introducing Nelson via the bench.
The Faes move collapses, Faes is reintegrated, it’s too late to get Ben out on a decent loan anywhere worth his time, and here we are?

The thing is though, faes will walk for free because nobody want to pay his wages. So the only asset we needed to secure the value of is Nelson and he’s also better at football. So whatever has happened with faes shouldn’t have had this impact 

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, Lambert09 said:

The thing is though, faes will walk for free because nobody want to pay his wages. So the only asset we needed to secure the value of is Nelson and he’s also better at football. So whatever has happened with faes shouldn’t have had this impact 

Nelson’s value is not currently higher then Wout, so can see  he would get the nod ahead of Ben to preserve his value.
Don’t agree that Ben is better at football than Wout now, that’s just silly. but every chance to become so in the future.

 

The bit about walking for free irks a lot tbh, as we should not let any player walk for free, even if means taking a reduced fee or paying a portion of wages, it just seems we are determined to die on the ridiculous hill of player value.

[Tommy Fresh]

4 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Nelson’s value is not currently higher then Wout, so can see  he would get the nod ahead of Ben to preserve his value.
Don’t agree that Ben is better at football than Wout now, that’s just silly. but every chance to become so in the future.

 

The bit about walking for free irks a lot tbh, as we should not let any player walk for free, even if means taking a reduced fee or paying a portion of wages, it just seems we are determined to die on the ridiculous hill of player value.

If we had sold Faes and Nelson this summer, I can confidently say Nelson would have gone for a lot more than Faes.

 

Additionally Faes' value is very unlikely to increase regardless of how he performs this season, Nelsons would

Edited 22 October 2025 by Tommy Fresh

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, Tommy Fresh said:

If we had sold Faes and Nelson this summer, I can confidently say Nelson would have gone for a lot more than Faes.

Maybe, but seems very unlikely too me. (And not because he used to be a Belgian international, and they were good once…)

Just struggle to think of a youth defender who has not yet broken through, who would fetch a higher price than Wout would get.

Probably not a massive amount in it though due to the assumed potential.

[Tommy Fresh]

Just now, Dahnsouff said:

Maybe, but seems very unlikely too me. (And not because he used to be a Belgian international, and they were good once…)

Just struggle to think of a youth defender who has not yet broken through, who would fetch a higher price than Wout would get.

Probably not a massive amount in it though due to the assumed potential.

Played over 50 senior games in his career, played for England at youth level, it's not really a case of it maybe being unlikely, he would go for more than Faes. I'll happily dig out a number of young centre backs who haven't played a load of games who've gone for big fees if you'd like?

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Played over 50 senior games in his career, played for England at youth level, it's not really a case of it maybe being unlikely, he would go for more than Faes. I'll happily dig out a number of young centre backs who haven't played a load of games who've gone for big fees if you'd like?

Nah it’s ok, sometimes find it hard to see past the partisan nature of comments on here, but if you reckon so, fair enough.

[Lambert09]

14 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Nelson’s value is not currently higher then Wout, so can see  he would get the nod ahead of Ben to preserve his value.
Don’t agree that Ben is better at football than Wout now, that’s just silly. but every chance to become so in the future.

 

The bit about walking for free irks a lot tbh, as we should not let any player walk for free, even if means taking a reduced fee or paying a portion of wages, it just seems we are determined to die on the ridiculous hill of player value.

We would have been disappointed to sell Nelson for 15 m in the summer. We’d have been delighted to get 5m for faes. 
 

We came off the back of big fofana money and gave faes far more than he will earn anywhere else in his career. The base value of a player means nothing if they can’t match a players salary expectations.  
 

We will never know if Nelson is better if he doesn’t play, but the Nelson at Oxford was better than the faes we’ve had 

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, Lambert09 said:

We would have been disappointed to sell Nelson for 15 m in the summer. We’d have been delighted to get 5m for faes. 
 

We came off the back of big fofana money and gave faes far more than he will earn anywhere else in his career. The base value of a player means nothing if they can’t match a players salary expectations.  
 

We will never know if Nelson is better if he doesn’t play, but the Nelson at Oxford was better than the faes we’ve had 

Said to @Tommy Fresh, I get it - plenty think Ben would fetch more and perhaps you are both right. Would not be my first poor call. 

[Tommy Fresh]

2 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Nah it’s ok, sometimes find it hard to see past the partisan nature of comments on here, but if you reckon so, fair enough.

Well just for reference off the top of my head Abakar Sylla moved to Strasbourg for big money having played a few games for Brugge. We also paid big money for Fofana who hadn't exactly played a lot for St Etienne

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Well just for reference off the top of my head Abakar Sylla moved to Strasbourg for big money having played a few games for Brugge. We also paid big money for Fofana who hadn't exactly played a lot for St Etienne

So you think Ben should be regarded as a generational centre back like those two?  Sorry, not generational, but Fofana already had a season in Ligue Un didn’t he?

 

Edited 22 October 2025 by Dahnsouff

[Tommy Fresh]

4 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

So you think Ben should be regarded as a generational centre back like those two?  Sorry, not generational, but Fofana already had a season in Ligue Un didn’t he?

 

He played about 20 league games, the one full season he played 14.

 

Huijsen to Bournemouth, Retsos to Leverkusen, Anselmino who Chelsea paid decent money for

 

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

He played about 20 league games, the one full season he played 14.

 

Huijsen to Bournemouth, Retsos to Leverkusen, Anselmino who Chelsea paid decent money for

 

Huijsen cost Bournemouth 20m from Juve who got him from Roma

Restos 17.5m, but he had played European football and half a domestic season before his move.

Anselmimo, yes fair enough from Boca to Chelsea, they who are always a good barometer of transfer fees.

 

I am not trying to run Ben down, but neither am I interested in stoking unreasonable expectations. 

[LCFCJohn]

49 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Maybe, but seems very unlikely too me. (And not because he used to be a Belgian international, and they were good once…)

Just struggle to think of a youth defender who has not yet broken through, who would fetch a higher price than Wout would get.

Probably not a massive amount in it though due to the assumed potential.

Easily would have. A young English defender proven at Championship level could have gone for say £10mill in the summer. Currently he is worth much less as his contract now has less than 2 years and he is clearly out of favour with us so any interested party would have us over a barrel.

 

Can you imagine us even getting £5mill for Faes? I can’t.

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, LCFCJohn said:

Easily would have. A young English defender proven at Championship level could have gone for say £10mill in the summer. Currently he is worth much less as his contract now has less than 2 years and he is clearly out of favour with us so any interested party would have us over a barrel.

 

Can you imagine us even getting £5mill for Faes? I can’t.

Literally have no idea how much Faes is worth 3m? 5m? Same contract length as Ben.

 

And yes I do realise we generally regard Wout as having a negative value. 

[LCFCJohn]

Just now, Dahnsouff said:

Literally have no idea how much Faes is worth 3m? 5m? Same contract length as Ben.

 

And yes I do realise we generally regard Wout as having a negative value. 

I can see the initial reaction to thinking Nelson wouldn’t be worth more but yeah, younger, more in demand. Let’s be honest, we could put Faes on the side of the street with a sign ‘free to a good home’ (I’m not even bothered about it being a good home to be fair), and he would still be there at the end of the day! 

[Tommy Fresh]

1 hour ago, Dahnsouff said:

Huijsen cost Bournemouth 20m from Juve who got him from Roma

Restos 17.5m, but he had played European football and half a domestic season before his move.

Anselmimo, yes fair enough from Boca to Chelsea, they who are always a good barometer of transfer fees.

 

I am not trying to run Ben down, but neither am I interested in stoking unreasonable expectations. 

But you were on about players who hadn't really broken through, I've given you a load of examples of those players. Juve didn't get Huijsen from Roma, he played a handful of games on loan there. 

 

A few more names, El Chadaille Bitshiabu to Leipzig, Milosavljević to Bournemouth

[Fox on the Rox]

3 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Maybe, but seems very unlikely too me. (And not because he used to be a Belgian international, and they were good once…)

Just struggle to think of a youth defender who has not yet broken through, who would fetch a higher price than Wout would get.

Depends what price you think Wout would get. Could probably have got £10M for Nelson in the summer.

[dmayne7]

3 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Huijsen cost Bournemouth 20m from Juve who got him from Roma

Restos 17.5m, but he had played European football and half a domestic season before his move.

Anselmimo, yes fair enough from Boca to Chelsea, they who are always a good barometer of transfer fees.

 

I am not trying to run Ben down, but neither am I interested in stoking unreasonable expectations. 

Not exaggerating when I say that every single time I have opened this thread in the past month or so, there's been multiple comments from you, arguing against Nelson being any good, deserving selection etc. Was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were playing devil's advocate but I think it's pretty clear you don't rate him

[Dahnsouff]

7 hours ago, dmayne7 said:

Not exaggerating when I say that every single time I have opened this thread in the past month or so, there's been multiple comments from you, arguing against Nelson being any good, deserving selection etc. Was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were playing devil's advocate but I think it's pretty clear you don't rate him

Just fail to see why we would not play him if the management team felt he was good enough, especially given the horror show from the incumbents. Yes they could be wrong. 

I do rate him as a prospect, but you look at what age youth CBs break through typically and he is on course. (Ignoring outliers)

[Fox on the Rox]

1 hour ago, Dahnsouff said:

Just fail to see why we would not play him if the management team felt he was good enough, especially given the horror show from the incumbents. Yes they could be wrong. 

I do rate him as a prospect, but you look at what age youth CBs break through typically and he is on course. (Ignoring outliers)

He could've been an outlier in terms of age. Fans at Doncaster couldn't believe he was only 18 when he played for them. 

 

He could still be an outlier in terms of achievement. He just needs the opportunity. Maybe watch him play if he gets allowed a loan in Jan.

 

Also, humans make decisions for all sorts of illogical and wrong reasons, and stick with them too.