[St Charles Owl]

Based on history we should have a sell on clause on anyone we feck off from the squad.

Thing is, can Colin quickly  teach him to elbow the opposites defence and then trip over blades of grass well enough to consistently get FKs in and around the penalty area?

Yes we should have sell on clauses but I am not sure that would have applied to Madine because he was out of contract when he left us wasn't he??

---

true enough Washington. we do need someone who can score goals though. the finishing touch is just not there. I had hoped he would have unloaded Nuhiu, maybe even Rhodes, in exchange for a quality striker. But, as you say, he's  (Jos) the new kid on the block and he'll want to take a good hard look at what he has on deck.

At the moment Nuhiu is the only player scoring goals for us and with the form Rhodes is in who was going to step up and buy him?  Lets also not forget, the way FFP is set up if we sold Rhodes it would put us more in danger of a transfer embargo than if we keep him.

Besides, where was that quality striker going to come from?  Madine went for between 6 and 8 million, no way we are going to be paying any fees like that so anyone we bring in was going to have to be a gamble from abroad or the lower leagues.  We have strikers who we have all said were good enough to get goals in this division when we signed them, Rhodes, Fletcher, Hooper, FF and Joao have all been good enough in the past but they are all either injured or out of form.  Fletcher is the weakest of that lot for me but we have really missed Hooper and FF!!  Rhodes will score goals if we play to his strengths but do we have the players in midfield to do that?  For me I would rather spend any transfer money we have on midfielders who are creative enough to give our forwards the chances to score, so lets focus on improving that part of the team.  We have some players in there we can sell and others we can let go at the end of their contracts, but pace on the wings is needed and a midfield general is still sadly lacking.

I don't understand how FPP works, so I'll have to take your word for it. Nuhiu scored goals but only in those cup games, one of which was against a lower division club.  I'm not as optimistic as most on here. I really think we could get caught up in a relegation battle which is why, although I joke around with imre (who doesn't?), I really do think we should forget about the damned cup and save our status as a Championship side. Yes, I admit I had hoped for a Nuhiu move because he's going to be hard to unload and when Sunderland showed interest I ...well, you know the rest. I'd really like to see what Winnall can do, but thanks to CC that's not on the cards this season.

I don't think any of us fully understand FFP, but in Rhodes case its quite easy. We signed him for between 8-10m and he signed a 4 year contract (?), so that transfer fee is split evenly across all 4 seasons of his contract, so about 2m goes towards FFP for each season he is with us. But if we sold him, the whole amount would be applied to the season we sell him in, so selling him now would see about 6-8m being added to our accounts this season, instead of being spread over a few, which would push us over the limit. Of course if we got 20m for him it wouldn't matter but we won't!!

As regards the cup, why not have a cup run, its only 2-3 more games at best and should have virtually no effect on the squad. There is no reason why we cannot play a strong side in the cup and still not get dragged into a relegation battle. Jos has us more solid defensively, we will be getting back better players from injury than we have available now and a lot of them will want to perform well to put themselves in the shop window if we decide to let them leave. I can't see a downside from a decent cup run.