Say there’d been no Covid and

[North Cardiff Blue]

Steve Morison has expressed his frustration on a couple of occasions about how the squad he has put together is perceived. I’ve not checked his claim that the players we have brought in have over 900 Championship appearances between them, but it sounds about right to me and offers evidence that we have not been signing total unknowns who might sink or swim at this level.

Football finances at levels below the Premier League have changed markedly since the onset of Covid with one of the consequences being that the number and quality of players not having their contracts renewed has increased. What is not logical in thinking that we would have to pay transfer fees to bring in some of the players we’ve signed if we were still in the pre Covid world where clubs were more likely to renew the contracts of players than they are now?

Players with the experience and quality of some we’ve signed (eg Sawyers, Rinomhota, Allsop, Romeo, O’Dowda) only became available for nothing very rarely pre Covid when there was a lot more money in the game than there is now and it’s my view that it would have cost millions to bring the players in we have over the summer in the not too distant past - they aren’t the bunch of waifs and strays some accuse them of being.

Players now run down their contracts to keep the last pay deal running to the end then try and get as much as they can from the new club knowing that they've saved on a transfer fee. Lonfg term their could be quite a saving for the clubs.

[Rjk]

Players now run down their contracts to keep the last pay deal running to the end then try and get as much as they can from the new club knowing that they've saved on a transfer fee. Lonfg term their could be quite a saving for the clubs.

only if the clubs are sensible.
in the past we've been anything but

[North Cardiff Blue]

only if the clubs are sensible.
in the past we've been anything but

It's a trend that suits most clubs now, we seemed to have turned a corner and appointed a good manager who is looking at a different profile buying younger players with good attitudes, and mostly not paying transfer fee's, fingers crossed it works and we stick to it!

[Rjk]

It's a trend that suits most clubs now, we seemed to have turned a corner and appointed a good manager who is looking at a different profile buying younger players with good attitudes, and mostly not paying transfer fee's, fingers crossed it works and we stick to it!

yes a lot of clubs seem to have gotten a lot smarter in a short space of time.
I'm not convinced that it's anything other than on a superficial level with us though -yet. if we went on a bad run and lost a bunch of games and sacked the manager I can't say with confidence that we wouldn't turn to a Warnock style dinosaur of a manager and start making all the onld short term mistakes.

[The Lone Gunman]

Players now run down their contracts to keep the last pay deal running to the end then try and get as much as they can from the new club knowing that they've saved on a transfer fee.

Indeed, but this is hardly a new development. Names that immediately spring to mind are Joe Ledley, Steve McPhail and Junior Hoilett. It doesn't always work that way, though. I remember Andrew Taylor rejecting a new deal at Middlesbrough and taking a pay cut to join City back in 2011.

I think the situation this summer has appeared skewed because of the club's major changes in budget and direction. But I honestly don't believe any of the players City have signed would have been in different situations a few years back before Covid struck. It's just working out that Morison and Co are working a different part of the market than has been usual here under Tan.