Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
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.