Burnley move in with £1.5million move for Bolton's long-term target Jutkiewicz

thats fine Lusty but if he knew he was never going to sign Juke he should have had someone lined up by now, we are in pre-season now with only 2 strikers to choose from, one injury prone and one Dougie doesn't really want

That's fine Norpig but good players don't grow on trees, and when you can't afford 95% of them then it's not as easy as saying 'get somebody lined up'. Panic buying has fucked us over in the past, there's still time before the end of the season to search around and find the right man.

That's fine everyone but the other thread says Burnley have pulled out of the Juke deal so f*** knows what's occurring.
The sensible thing for Dougie to do is to have a contingency plan which I'm sure he has i.e. scout a few others in case the Juke deal falls through.

I reckon it's about money i.e. Dougie has a few lined up and has prioritised them in order of preference but if he wants top choice he has to sell and/or reduce the wage bill before he can bring them in. 
The longer it takes to offload e.g. Andrews and others, the more chance that other clubs will come in for his choices.

If he has a list of alternative deals then the best plan is to keep quiet about them and he seems to be doing a very good job of that.

Dougie had Dyrestam scouted 8 times before he came for a trial so I'm sure that the alternatives to Juke will have been worked out ages ago.

but surely a striker must have been at the top of the list for summer signings instead of more centre midfielders that all do the same job?
That should have been a priority in my eyes and i would have preferred this to have been sorted by now, even if it meant not signing the likes of Robinson for example (i've nothing against the lad just don't see the need to sign another of his type of player)

Norpig wrote:but surely a striker must have been at the top of the list for summer signings instead of more centre midfielders that all do the same job?
That should have been a priority in my eyes and i would have preferred this to have been sorted by now, even if it meant not signing the likes of Robinson for example (i've nothing against the lad just don't see the need to sign another of his type of player)

Dougie clearly intended to get a striker in letting the others go - unless he's considering playing the false striker system which would be a surprise - but ultimately it comes down to getting the best deal available with the money available - and there's nothing to suggest that isn't exactly what he's trying to do.

The man knows a fair bit about strikers so I just think we need to be patient with him.

i'm trying Lusty, i'm really trying  

Norpig wrote:i'm trying Lusty, i'm really trying  

Me too. I bet nobody is more frustrated about the situation than Dougie himself though. I'm sure he'd have loved to have splashed out on Juke weeks ago so that he could have been training with the squad in the pre-season but he couldn't. That would have been the quick and easy solution.
It's not like he's trying to play some fancy mind game or something - he simply wasn't allowed to spend the money.
I suspect there may still be some scenario where he will be allowed to spend some money, but whether or not that's enough to secure the Juke's services I don't know. Personally I doubt it unless someone comes in with silly money for our deadweight.

U make a good point wanderlust, the thing that must be really getting on DF tits though is the fact he was lied too - he got rid of Ngog to free up funds, only to be told he wasn't allowed a penny of it.

Id understand if he was reluctant to get rid of anybody (bogdan) for the risk of this happening again.

You keep going on about Freedman selling Ngog to get funds but was denied them but I don't recall reading anything about that at the time, or since.

What I remember was Ngog had failed badly here, only had half a season left on his contract and we had chance to dump him to save on his wages.

How much would we have got from Swansea - they only took over his contract - it expied at the end of a season and Ngood is still without a club now - no surprise there - what £200k or so maximum?

What's your info on the matter Rebel?

I think he's referring to the fact N'gog wages were taken off the bill and Freedman was reportedly unable to reinvest. Came from Nixon at the time I think, he said Freedman wasn't best pleased.

How much truth there is I don't know and in fairness we need to be reducing the wage bill not just replacing one high wage with another.

We are in the middle of a cost cutting exercise and there's more to come. We are still a Championship side with a Premiership wage bill. Dougie has done a good job so far in moving out some of the high earners but some of them simply aren't worth the money they are on or what they would expect so it's inevitable there will be losses on the transfer value. Some realise they won't get a pay day like this again so will be mercenary about moving on.
We can only speculate how much Dougie has been tasked to reduce the wage bill to. It would seem that he hasn't been told to sell everyone and build a team for nothing which is good news, but it sure doesn't look like he's been given the funds to mount a promotion challenge.

The reality is likely to be that Dougie has to cut wages but will have enough slack to put an average Championship side together and also be expected to push for promotion.
In other words, he'll need to be a f******* genius to pull it off.

bwfc1874 wrote:I think he's referring to the fact N'gog wages were taken off the bill and Freedman was reportedly unable to reinvest. Came from Nixon at the time I think, he said Freedman wasn't best pleased.

How much truth there is I don't know and in fairness we need to be reducing the wage bill not just replacing one high wage with another.

Cheers 74.

wanderlust wrote:The reality is likely to be that Dougie has to cut wages but will have enough slack to put an average Championship side together and also be expected to push for promotion.
In other words, he'll need to be a f******* genius to pull it off.

Agreed, as I've mentioned previously I can't remember any team getting promoted who were actively seeking to reduce the wage bill at the same time. It's a near impossible task and I'd be surprised if any of the board realistically expect for us to be promoted any time soon.

I can't remember a time i have been as pessimistic as this about a new season starting, looks like it's going to be a real struggle all season.
 
I'm not a big fan of Freedman but i can see he has one arm tied behind his back when it comes to getting players in.

Norpig wrote:I can't remember a time i have been as pessimistic as this about a new season starting, looks like it's going to be a real struggle all season.
 
I'm not a big fan of Freedman but i can see he has one arm tied behind his back when it comes to getting players in.

Not so sure about "a real struggle" - difficult to tell how this squad will do but there should be enough to keep us safe and perhaps put in a challenge. But we do need a goalscorer.

sorry but i can only see mid table anonymity at best,  we have brought in players we had on loan last season in general and we only finished mid table last season. Maybe i am being too pessimistic but if thats the case things can only improve  

Norpig wrote:sorry but i can only see mid table anonymity at best,  we have brought in players we had on loan last season in general and we only finished mid table last season. Maybe i am being too pessimistic but if thats the case things can only improve  

For a team with £165 million of debt, mid table anonymity is good. Anything better than that is a bonus IMO.