We ARE a selling club

[shorehamview]

If Man Utd can flog off one of their best players for admittedly an obscene amount of money then what makes Blades so shocked that we sell off players when the price is right?

We're not a big club, we're not a club that can stick two fingers up at the bank, and we're certainly not in the same league financially and literally as the Premiership sides.

I know that some Blades expected Naughton to remain at the Lane forever, citing Dane Whitehouse as a player who was offered a transfer and didn't take it, but Kyle Naughton has the chance of a move to a team playing in a higher division, and who will be competing in the Europa League next season.
If Dane Whitehouse was playing NOW, with the massive difference in wages there is between the divisions then who is too say he wouldn't have done as Naughton may well do, and leave?

The reasons for setting up the Academy were that the players coming through could one day play for the first team, which Naughton has, and their possible transfer fees would benefit the club, which it will.

It still sucks that we are selling him, but for those of you who aren't used to us selling our prized assets, I have these words which you may or may not draw comfort from.

It'll happen again, and again, and again. Get used to it.

 

[Kev Gee]

We all know were a selling club. thats not the issue. Its the broken promises & the 'We dont need to sell press releases' the directors keep putting out.

If they just held up there hands and told it straight down the middle then there would'nt be half as much fuss.

But then its pre-season, and the board always seem to suck us into purchasing shirts/ season tickets etc with talk of progression.

 

[Foxy]

Whilst we are on the subject, and everyone has decided we've undersold Naughts before any solid details have emerged....

Who have we undersold the most? to be perfectly honest, i'd struggle to think of too many undersold at all....

Look at these shining examples with hindsight:

Curtis Woodhouse - Maybe things would have been different if he didn't like getting pissed and dicking about as much, but come on... we did the right thing there in the end.

Wayne Quinn - Again, perhaps if KFC on Woodseats had have shut down, it'd have been a different story.

Lee Morris - Not only the sale, but the stalling on buying him back. Excellent moves!

Claude Davis - Christ on a bike, we stitched Derby up on that one

Michael Tonge - Will he ever play another game?


Do we have any that have proven to be genuinely undersold? Beatts wen't on the cheap, but the saving in wages alone boosts that and he's yet to totally convince Stoke.

 

[Kev Gee]

Whilst we are on the subject, and everyone has decided we've undersold Naughts before any solid details have emerged....

Who have we undersold the most? to be perfectly honest, i'd struggle to think of too many undersold at all....

Look at these shining examples with hindsight:

Curtis Woodhouse - Maybe things would have been different if he didn't like getting pissed and dicking about as much, but come on... we did the right thing there in the end.

Wayne Quinn - Again, perhaps if KFC on Woodseats had have shut down, it'd have been a different story.

Lee Morris - Not only the sale, but the stalling on buying him back. Excellent moves!

Claude Davis - Christ on a bike, we stitched Derby up on that one

Michael Tonge - Will he ever play another game?


Do we have any that have proven to be genuinely undersold? Beatts wen't on the cheap, but the saving in wages alone boosts that and he's yet to totally convince Stoke.

I'd say his goals pretty much kept them in the Premiership.

 

[Foxy]

We all know were a selling club. thats not the issue. Its the broken promises & the 'We dont need to sell press releases' the directors keep putting out.

If they just held up there hands and told it straight down the middle then there would'nt be half as much fuss.

If we needed to sell, we'd have sold at the first bid. We haven't.

Even ignoring that, in who's world should they come out and say "right then world, we are in the shit, we need to sell Kyle Naughton"?

If they had planned to sell him all along, he wouldn't be sat in Malta, he'd have been in Moyes' office earlier this week and then training with Everton.

But then its pre-season, and the board always seem to suck us into purchasing shirts/ season tickets etc with talk of progression.

They suck me into buying season tickets by being called Sheffield United. Anyone who buys season tickets based on imaginary hope or expectation needs their heads looking at

 

[tat]

The CLAUDE DAVIS and Mr BADBUYS sales were the best business club sales to date. Both players in many eyes worthless.

However £5M for a 10 month expierenced championship player is or could be very good business. He is a fine player, but with so many premiership clubs interested in him, how many clubs would be able to hold him back? i suggest none.

 

[happyhippy]

We all know were a selling club. thats not the issue. Its the broken promises & the 'We dont need to sell press releases' the directors keep putting out.

If they just held up there hands and told it straight down the middle then there would'nt be half as much fuss.

But then its pre-season, and the board always seem to suck us into purchasing shirts/ season tickets etc with talk of progression.

Who says that we needed to sell him? I don't see any broken promises in all this, but United conducting business (as yet incomplete, though I don't hold out any hope of keeping Naughton), and it obviously amounts to the usual disappointment for us lot.

 

[happyhippy]

The CLAUDE DAVIS and Mr BADBUYS sales were the best business club sales to date.

Had we not spent money on them in the first place though ......

 

[happyhippy]

I'd say his goals pretty much kept them in the Premiership.

Our form also improved after he went. That, however, is probably by-the-by in terms of us selling him.

 

[keenzy]

Personally, if i was a player, id stay at united and get myself a better deal with them. I'd earn enough at united to live by, and the extra 10k a week or whatever wouldnt matter as i was playing for united. While im young and not even had a full season, its better to learn my trade.
If im good enough for england, i will get called up, regardless who i play for.

 

[Bladesman]

Whilst we are on the subject, and everyone has decided we've undersold Naughts before any solid details have emerged....

Who have we undersold the most? to be perfectly honest, i'd struggle to think of too many undersold at all....

Look at these shining examples with hindsight:

Curtis Woodhouse - Maybe things would have been different if he didn't like getting pissed and dicking about as much, but come on... we did the right thing there in the end.

Wayne Quinn - Again, perhaps if KFC on Woodseats had have shut down, it'd have been a different story.

Lee Morris - Not only the sale, but the stalling on buying him back. Excellent moves!

Claude Davis - Christ on a bike, we stitched Derby up on that one

Michael Tonge - Will he ever play another game?


Do we have any that have proven to be genuinely undersold? Beatts wen't on the cheap, but the saving in wages alone boosts that and he's yet to totally convince Stoke.

Yeah right apart from score and help them stay up.

I think the amount gained from staying up has wiped out the gamble they took signing Beattie.

 

[keenzy]

True BM stoke too the gamble and it paid off, we didnt and we are now here, another season in the championship with a manager i dislike in charge. Wippie

 

[mattco2001]

i honestly don't see utd selling kyle naughton a big problem. i dont think they've lied about selling anybody. they have always said to us that if they sell a player it will be in the best interests of sheffield utd and this is the same.
as long as we now dont sell any of the other defenders, citing other kyle and killa mainly, then i think if we get 5m or more then that is excellent business.
We will have walker at right back (arguably as good, just not as much exp) and naismith at left back who imo last season was quality.

we will have several mill in the bank with two quality fullbacks still at the club. i know its disappointing to lose a quality player and i am gutted. but think of the bigger picture. this is GOOD business for utd and we will have money in the bank to spend on players. Also, remember that the paracute payments ran out this year. this deal makes business sense.

 

[Greg]

I agree with the title of the thread - "We are a selling club". However, I think most Championship teams can be classed as selling clubs, as it's so hard to convince players to carry on playing for them, rather than playing in the best league in the world, against some of the best players in the world, all that without mentioning the gulf in wages.

As people have already said, it was inevitable that bids would come in for Kyle Naughton this summer, and we'll probably have bids off of Premier League clubs for Kyle Walker this time next year if he continues his development as a player as well as he has been doing recently.

It's extremely difficult to keep hold of your best players nowadays, even if they're at the best clubs in the world, as they have different goals and aspirations that they'd like to achieve. A prime example would be Ronaldo's departure to Madrid. I think, all in all, £5m is a decent deal for us. I think we could have been able to get a little more for him, but not too much so it doesn't matter too much in the long run.

 

[silverfox]

True BM stoke too the gamble and it paid off, we didnt and we are now here, another season in the championship with a manager i dislike in charge. Wippie

I've said before, the information I was given that he demanded a "significant" pay rise to stay. It's already been stated by the club that his wages were 35% of the total budget.

I'm sorry he had to go but surely it was the right decision for the club as a whole.

We did play better without him too!

 

[Gazza1984]

I know that some Blades expected Naughton to remain at the Lane forever, citing Dane Whitehouse as a player who was offered a transfer and didn't take it, but Kyle Naughton has the chance of a move to a team playing in a higher division, and who will be competing in the Europa League next season.
If Dane Whitehouse was playing NOW, with the massive difference in wages there is between the divisions then who is too say he wouldn't have done as Naughton may well do, and leave?

I think the post from SV was spot on. I dont think there ever will be another Dane Whitehouse.

Yes, its disappointing that he might go but how do we know that there is not another academy player waiting for his chance to get into the first team this season?

We all know were a selling club. thats not the issue. Its the broken promises & the 'We dont need to sell press releases' the directors keep putting out.

If they just held up there hands and told it straight down the middle then there would'nt be half as much fuss.

If the club had a press release saying we needed to sell then the teams may not offer as much as we want, so saying we dont need to sell is a good idea.

Every player has a price ie Ronaldo

 

[Foxy]

Yes, its disappointing that he might go but how do we know that there is not another academy player waiting for his chance to get into the first team this season?

Connor Brown and Nathaniel Foster are currently "experiencing first team life" in Malta

 

[matth]

we will have several mill in the bank

Fantastic. I'll be able to cheer when on Soccer Saturday the results of who's got the most money in the bank come in.

I also think that it's not a case of losing money if we don't sell. Say we keep him for another year and he turns out to be shit, and we can't give him away. What have we lost? We didn't pay for him in the first place - academy fees notwithstanding - so any money we're getting is profit, not replacing money that we've laid out (as was kind of the case with Beattie). If we ended up not being able to sell him, we wouldn't have lost money, as we never had it in the first place.

Also, the Ronaldo thing is not analagous, as the player himself had said he wanted to leave.

 

[SwissBlade]

Bang on again Matth!

How Blackie spends the money is largely irrelevant as is the comparison to Ronaldo or even BT, they wanted to go, just like Jacob Mellis did. As far as we're aware Naughton didn't.

The cliches that it was inevitable keep coming up... Why was it? I'll say it again. Blackie right up to McCabe have all said we don't need to sell. And the player didn't slap a transfer request in. So therefore it wasn't inevitable.

Every club is a selling club. Ok in essence yes this is true as every club sells players. But there is a huge difference between selling and selling out. I believe that we've sold out.

Yes we can replace Naughton, Walker looks a great replacement, but its not the point, the point is we want to go up.

Let me remind you that Watford got to the play offs last season and cashed in on players because they're skint. This season they've been awful.

But its ok, if we fail this season (looking more likely now) then us fans will have a go at Blackie, afterall he sold naughton and spent the cash so its his fault right?

Blackie has built a team, ok partly he's been lucky that Naughts and Walker have come through, but he too the gamble. The back 4 was our building block, and who's to say that we won't sell Killa and Walker now. Afterall we could get "very good offers for the club and player" for them too....Then where are we?

History is repeating itself repeatedly

 

[Foxy]

How Blackie spends the money is largely irrelevant as is the comparison to Ronaldo or even BT, they wanted to go, just like Jacob Mellis did. As far as we're aware Naughton didn't.

If he doesn't want to go, he won't. Just wish Jags had injured his voice box instead in that fall

Yes we can replace Naughton, Walker looks a great replacement, but its not the point, the point is we want to go up.

The one player isn't the guarentee to us going up, IF he goes and IF we reinvest, we may be in a stronger position as a team, given that we have a ready made Kyle 2, with a couple of others knocking around who could also step up.

History is repeating itself repeatedly

Which part of history is this one from? The cycle of us selling players will always continue, as it does for every club in football.

 

[SwissBlade]

If he doesn't want to go, he won't. Just wish Jags had injured his voice box instead in that fall




The one player isn't the guarentee to us going up, IF he goes and IF we reinvest, we may be in a stronger position as a team, given that we have a ready made Kyle 2, with a couple of others knocking around who could also step up.




Which part of history is this one from? The cycle of us selling players will always continue, as it does for every club in football.

Foxy, The club have accepted the offer and said that its a great offer for the club and the player... Would you feel wanted if that was the case. Its like saying "we like you but we like the money better, and we've decided its a good offer for you" Instead of offering him a 5 year deal with major incentives.

True 1 player doesn't guarantee us to go up, but its one player more that we now need to find, it will also mean that we now have to look for another left back and right back cover. Naysmith won't be back until at LEAST Xmas!

Yes others COULD step up and possibly will, but no guarantee.

Yes we will always sell players, but its how and when we sell them. History repeating itself going back at least the last few years we've sold players when what we needed was to push on and add to that squad, not take a step back.

 

[La_Blade]

The thing that concerns me the most is not that we're letting Naughton go, cos losing at least one of the two Kyles or Killa was inevitable. The thing that concerns me is that we are now even more flimsy in terms of back four cover, Jihai gone too so we now have the back four ( albeit with Naysmith out til Xmas ) and Bromby as the only established cover.
Yet despite this and the fact that out keeper could be banned we are STILL being linked with mediocre midfielders, and a striker that we probably won't get.
Whether we get 3-5 million for Naughton is irrelivent as i doubt Blackie will see much of it to re-invest in the team. If he does see any of it however he will probably invest it in 4 or 5 squad players as opposed to 1 or 2 that will really make a difference.

 

[Come from away]

As far as we're aware Naughton didn't.

You could also say (and be equally correct) that "As far as we are aware Naughton does want to leave...." Why are we supposed to accept as gospel "I'm a Blade for Life" and not accept that this is their job for now (playing football) and they have maybe 10 years to make all the cash they can before they have to rely on their high school education to get by. Not all football players are daft, and they aren't playing just for us.

 

[happyhippy]

Also, the Ronaldo thing is not analagous, as the player himself had said he wanted to leave.

Yes it is, because regardless of the player's wishes, he was under contract to Manchester United, and they're not in a position where they have to sell. It would almost certainly be a serious case of nose cutting had they not sold, but they didn't have or need to.

You've been complaining about the board lying about 'not needing to sell", not "the player hasn't handed in a transfer request, or even said that he wants to leave".

The simple fact is that we don't need to sell Kyle, and as yet we haven't, but that by doing so it may be in the better interests of United and Kyle Naughton. It's a complete bugger for us lot though, I grant you.

Equally, I'm pretty certain that before any business with Everton was even considered that Kyle and Kyle's agent would have known about it. I very much doubt that he was being sold from under his feet.

 

[silverfox]

Foxy, The club have accepted the offer and said that its a great offer for the club and the player... Would you feel wanted if that was the case. Its like saying "we like you but we like the money better, and we've decided its a good offer for you" Instead of offering him a 5 year deal with major incentives.

Of course he'll feel wanted.....Blackwell would love to keep him and so do the fans and the board......BUT.....

If any players valuation is met ANY club would sell if the player fancies it.

He still has a contract and could decide to stay.

In the end it's the players decision and they hold more power than they ever have done in the game.

 

[Greg]

Of course he'll feel wanted.....Blackwell would love to keep him and so do the fans and the board......BUT.....

If any players valuation is met ANY club would sell if the player fancies it.

He still has a contract and could decide to stay.

In the end it's the players decision and they hold more power than they ever have done in the game.

I couldn't agree more. Every place has his price-tag, and the club think that Naughton's price-tag has been met, hence why they've accepted a bid for him. I don't think we're in a situation where we need to sell Kyle, it's just that the valuation for him has been met, and an offer has been accepted.

Everyone would love him to stay, but when valuations are met, you'd be silly to decline it.

 

[SwissBlade]

As far as we're aware Naughton didn't.

You could also say (and be equally correct) that "As far as we are aware Naughton does want to leave...." Why are we supposed to accept as gospel "I'm a Blade for Life" and not accept that this is their job for now (playing football) and they have maybe 10 years to make all the cash they can before they have to rely on their high school education to get by. Not all football players are daft, and they aren't playing just for us.

I based that comment on the fact that Naughton has given his all for the club and the fact that he IS a blades fan.

 

[Come from away]

I really don't care whether we are labelled a buying or selling club, the reality is we buy and sell players every year. This time round I wish we'd just get on with it. Some ten days ago we were publically acknowledging the three quality players for whom we'd just had bids accepted. Still not signed. Lord I hope this sorts out next week as new players need time to settle in, if they miss pre-season then the pressure is really on and it will take longer for anybody to settle.

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

ALL players have a price, whoever they are and where ever they are. If this time next year Citeh have secured a CL place, and they go back to Madrid with £200m for Bambi on Ice, they will sell because the player and more importantly his agent will see it as a great deal for the player.

Naughton with one full season under his belt has attracted the interest of clubs in a much better position than United. The club put a valuation on the player and Everton have made an acceptable offer (forget this £5m bollocks, I know that it is more than that on the table). They actually made contact BEFORE the start of the play-offs, and they may not be his final destination, but they are his preferred choice (Yes, he is accepting that this move needs to happen for him and the club).

All clubs are selling clubs, same as all clubs are buying clubs (except the super-skint Strap-on pigs).

My knowledge of this deal is that it is great business for the club!

 

[Foxy]

My knowledge of this deal is that it is great business for the club!

and the potential hijacking from Spurs who would like two-kyles?

Which do we think is the better option for the club?