BT gone...........

[Sensiblade]

Are we not counting Kitson, Shorey and Sonko? Olofinjana?

Don't forget Sidwell

 

[Bladesman]

Well Sidwell let his contract run out and ran off to Chelsea.

The cheeky ginger tosser.

 

[Foxy]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the whole deal being completed rested on United getting a replacement. This would fit ib with the rumours beat tie agreed a deal on friday.

If they'd agreed a deal on friday, would they have really needed to be at the ground sorting it out tonight? Perhaps we've stalled on rubber stamping the deal due to some activity of our own, but I doubt they'd go to the effort of sorting stuff tonight at Stoke for that reason alone.

It best not be any of cress well ward or any of the other players that are not fit to lick beats boots.

I'd have thought if Cresswell was coming it'd have been part of the deal, or at least announced at the same time. There's no real telling what sort of player Jamie Ward will become, he's got a good few years on Beattie.

 

[chrisyb99]

Are we not counting Kitson, Shorey and Sonko? Olofinjana?

each team has strengthened appropriately with those losses though and made a good bit of money in the mean time whilst doing so.... I know its way too early to call at the moment as we dont know what United have lined up but at the moment its not looking that great!

I will be the first to hold my hands up though and admit im wrong and I hope United prove me wrong but I cannot honestly see us getting promotion or making the 'big' signing/s we desire

 

[Sensiblade]

each team has strengthened appropriately with those losses though and made a good bit of money in the mean time whilst doing so.... I know its way too early to call at the moment as we dont know what United have lined up but at the moment its not looking that great!

I will be the first to hold my hands up though and admit im wrong and I hope United prove me wrong but I cannot honestly see us getting promotion or making the 'big' signing/s we desire

Reading brought in a load of Irish players that no one had heard of for very little money (which financially is excellent for them), if we brought in a load of unknons i don't think our fans would be quite so understanding.

 

[chrisyb99]

We always claim to have a great set up and are geared for the premier league, when was the last time we scouted a random unknown player and brought them to the club and their were a success, the players are their its just a case of finding them, which most clubs seem to do barring united, now is that us been unlucky or a poor scouting network?

I personally wouldnt mind us taking a punt on a random unknown from abroad or something for not alot of money, if their poo then we make a small loss but nothing thats going to ruin the club and if their a great player then its a win win situation.

A player we have never heard of may bring a bit of excitement as they are a unknown quantit and we wouldnt know what to expect

 

[Foxy]

each team has strengthened appropriately with those losses though and made a good bit of money in the mean time whilst doing so.... I know its way too early to call at the moment as we dont know what United have lined up but at the moment its not looking that great!

Reading replaced Kitson, Shorey and Sonko with Noel Hunt and Chris Armstong.... I think even the happiest and most positive of Blades wouldn't have seen that as the ambition you paint it as

Fair enough they aren't exactly struggling off the back of it, but could you call it a strengthening plan?

I will be the first to hold my hands up though and admit im wrong and I hope United prove me wrong but I cannot honestly see us getting promotion or making the 'big' signing/s we desire

I'm not saying you are wrong and I didn't want us to sell Beattie, I just don't think many other teams are quite making the waves people make out. Brum are a slight exception, but are rumoured to be in deep trouble financially if it doesn't come off, possibly even if it does.... I'd rather not risk the club, we need to make a balance, we obviously need players in, but we need to be careful just how much that costs us....

Wages such as Lee Hendrie anyone? high wage players injured for the season? etc etc

All this will have been in their heads when deciding to do the Beattie deal.

We can't just panic and shell out for the first "big name" we can think of.

 

[Bladesman]

They were no names I guess but they still paid a couple of hundred grand for them and at the time Reading were trying to stay up rather than challenge for the top. Fortunatly for them they did better than expected.

Noel Hunt had a pretty decent record at Dundee before he joined Reading. 600k not much of gamble when you consider the team they had when they came down from the prem.

 

[jodman]

I'll chuck in my two penneth.

Take this transfer in isolation and it is the most negative move this club have made since the infamous double sale of Deane and Fjortoft; the goals that James Beatie has scored since his arrival are the only reason that we have managed to maintain a challenge for the play-offs over the past two seasons.
Our form this season leads me to believe that we would fail to be successful in a play-off campaign but when you have a player like James Beattie leading the line there is always a chance.

I think that Kevin Maccabe comes across as a thoroughly decent bloke and he has done a good job improving the fortunes of this club off the pitch but he has yet to see any kind of real success on it. His interview on radio sheffield on Saturday where he claimed there was 'no drama' and suggested that Paul Walker take a look around to see how far the club had come was a bit gauling to me.
I am a football fan, having a nice stadium and revenue streams away from the football pitch is all well and good but i come to BDTBL to watch the football team and when the decision is made to sell the star player then no amount of hotels in the carpark will appease my disappointment.

That said, i can understand from a business point of view why the sale may have been neccessary. There may even be an argument that a couple of powerful and pacey strikers (the type that get you promoted frmo this league) can be brought in thanks the the fee we have received for beattie and the wages that have been freed up. If this does not happen i will be even more disappointed and it will be the biggest indicator yet that the ambitions that we are constantly reminded of are actually more like pipe-dreams and this club will never again be a constant fixture on the premiership calender.

Let's see what happens in the rest of the window before drawing any conclusions on the busniess which has taken place; the next signing is crucial to try and get the fans back on side.

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

£3.5m for a fat, lazy git who only playes for himself, doesn't try and never scores from open play? Sounds like amazing business to me. Also agreeing a fee of £3.5m is also very astute. Everton get 25% of any future PROFIT on their transfers. We sell for less so Everton get nowt.

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

..and even the doziest of builders (now stop it, just stop shouting Keenzy!! ) knows full well if you want to build owt that will last you do it from sound footings and foundations. Try getting all the fancy stuff in first and ignore the boring bits down below and you end with a building looking like L**ds or Forest or the Wendy. Give me builder McCabe over builder Ridsdale anytime, though I'm sure at the time the dirrrties thought he was a god! Think on!

 

[beightonblade]

Reading brought in a load of Irish players that no one had heard of for very little money (which financially is excellent for them), if we brought in a load of unknons i don't think our fans would be quite so understanding.

yer reight.................but reading have got a half decent management team and a decent scouting team.

 

[beightonblade]

Also agreeing a fee of £3.5m is also very astute. Everton get 25% of any future PROFIT on their transfers. We sell for less so Everton get nowt.

:cry:

75% of any profit wud do for me !
if only wobble gob brown wud leave me wi 75% of mi profits i'd be laughing !

 

[keenzy]

Didn't McCabe say that if he were to go he would have replacements lined up?

Bromby as a forward???

 

[Foxy]

Slighty more "details" here, from the Yorkshire Post...

Beattie said the lure of playing again in the Premier League was too hard to resist.

He said: "I'm slightly disappointed to be leaving Sheffield United. I had 18 great months there and really enjoyed it.

"I'm definitely ready to give the Premier League another crack and I'm delighted with the opportunity."

Stoke manager Pulis said: "James is a player who has an absolutely phenomenal goal scoring record and I am delighted to have him here.

"He has averaged more than a goal every other game for Sheffield and he has a proven record of scoring in the top flight. He is someone I have admired for a very, very long time."

 

[keenzy]

Selling BT isn't as bad as Fjortoft and Deane on the same day......

And we still made the playoffs!

 

[happyhippy]

Selling BT isn't as bad as Fjortoft and Deane on the same day......

And we still made the playoffs!

And a Cup semi-final!

 

[Sensiblade]

So long as he never scores against us I wish Beattie well in the future.

 

[TonyAgana]

Good business.

Beattie was on 4x the wages of our next highest earner. Can you imagine earning £20k a year sitting opposite someone who does the same job as you do but just a bit better and earns £80k a year? That'd piss me right off to be honest. What if he wasn't actually better than you were?

I'm sticking with the argument that if you take out his pens and FKs his record this season is pish. He plays every minute of every game so long as he's 70% fit but he's scored, what, 5 from open play? "You've got to score the penalties though" - whatever. People who throw this argument back must have a screw loose. You make out like without Beattie we'd have missed EVERY single penalty.

I do believe Beattie would've rather stayed but then again why wouldn't he? He's not going to play for England again at his age, so why does he need to play in the Premiership for £25k PW (what Stoke FIRST offered him) when he can play in the Championship, be idolised, considered one of the best players to grace our poor little league and rake in £35k PW until he's 32?

Think of it this way. Is Beattie 4x better than ANYONE else in our squad? Does he win 4x more headers than Henderson? Does he put 4x more running in than Danny Webber? Would he score 4x more penalties than Sharp could - he certainly doesn't score 4x as many goals from open play!

Life will go on. He wasn't that good.

 

[Bladesman]

Good business.

Beattie was on 4x the wages of our next highest earner. Can you imagine earning £20k a year sitting opposite someone who does the same job as you do but just a bit better and earns £80k a year? That'd piss me right off to be honest. What if he wasn't actually better than you were?

I'm sticking with the argument that if you take out his pens and FKs his record this season is pish. He plays every minute of every game so long as he's 70% fit but he's scored, what, 5 from open play? "You've got to score the penalties though" - whatever. People who throw this argument back must have a screw loose. You make out like without Beattie we'd have missed EVERY single penalty.

I do believe Beattie would've rather stayed but then again why wouldn't he? He's not going to play for England again at his age, so why does he need to play in the Premiership for £25k PW (what Stoke FIRST offered him) when he can play in the Championship, be idolised, considered one of the best players to grace our poor little league and rake in £35k PW until he's 32?

Think of it this way. Is Beattie 4x better than ANYONE else in our squad? Does he win 4x more headers than Henderson? Does he put 4x more running in than Danny Webber? Would he score 4x more penalties than Sharp could - he certainly doesn't score 4x as many goals from open play!

Life will go on. He wasn't that good.

We normally did miss them though.

Danny Webbers duffer against Chelsea springs to mind.

 

[Come from away]

I think Speed managed to put his in (?)

 

[matth]

Speed against Preston, last year - pen was saved but he netted the follow up.

 

[Bladesman]

Just about is that the one hit the post bounced back out and then he ran in and tapped it in at the lane?

 

[Come from away]

Did he score or is it about style. Lots of folk just blast it down the middle, often works cause the GK moves.

 

[keenzy]

Wasn't BT on radio sheff t'other night saying he didn't really want to go and it was the money men that set it up.

Shame we didn't have a little more dosh!

 

[The One]

Apparently Beattie wanted to see how much they wanted to keep him.

35% of the wage structure is alot though.

 

[keenzy]

Ill take up the 5% if they want.

 

[Foxy]

Coupla "rumours" this weekend regarding Beattie:

1 - Wanted to sign a new contract with the Blades: £50k a week, with a year added extra to make it a 3 year deal. £333k per year signing on bonus.

2 - Stoke fee also has the following clauses: £75k per goal this season up to a maximum £3.5million/A flat £3.5million if they stay up.

 

[matth]

Interesting rumours, but I can't in all honesty believe that Beattie - or any other footballer - would be stupid enough to ask a Championship club for wages of 50k per week. That's more than a lot of Premiership footballers earn.

 

[Samantha]

£75k per GOAL this season?!