Without knowing the ins and outs regarding Malik Wilks attitude but it seems to me that considering we paid about 1 million for him and gave him a 4 year deal we gave up on him pretty quickly.Surely Struber could have worked with him till the end of the season and backed himself to improve the player which is what a coach is ment to do surely he would offer more than Patrick Schmidt.
I'm not sure I see Struber as one to work with " difficult" players. Maybe that is more in the remit of an older more experienced manager? That is indeed if Wilks is that sort of a player. McCann seems to be able to deal with him though.
I don't remember that being communicated - did I miss it? Or was it not communicated but you have some inside knowledge? Do you know whether Schmidt would've been signed even if Moore had stayed?
Two things. You have to ask why? Suspect its because they only use us as a stepping stone and everyone else pays more money. Wasnt always so though. Secondly, you can control when they leave, which is what I was saying earlier. It's madness to let one of your two top strikers go at the end of a window with no replacement lined up. He was on an upward trajectory, had a good partnership with Cauley and had done ok in a regulation scrap in our last half season in the championship, developing since then. When he leaves is something that could be managed. I dont believe players in Kieffer's situation would sulk either. They are effectively in the shop window for half a season
We were signing Schmidt regardless of what happened with Moore leaving. We failed to get Moore's replacement signed, with Dane saying at a Fans Forum that the player lined up came over and his wage demands were eye-watering (rumoured £25k a week).
All the noises from the club and from journalists are that he would have done exactly this. Denying someone the opportunity to move on and double/treble their wages and extend the years on their contract? Of course there's a huge chance they'll sulk when they have no emotional connection to the club.
Fair enough Loko, I understand your response to the word replacement now. I'll re-word to say that not replacing Moore has been a huge and costly mistake. The failure to land a replacement in the August is worthy of criticism but not to do so in the January window either is negligent in my view. As an aside, how on earth did we not understand that Moore's replacement wanted wages beyond what we could afford until he came over. Did no-one talk to him or his agent? I understand how he might up his demand when he got here but we surely knew the ball-park figure he wanted?
Other clubs don't seem to suffer as much as we are told we do. Look at the failed McBurnie loan, Swansea wouldnt let him move until a replacement was in. How many times have we been told, we're getting a player but can't come until his club finds a replacement. I think he'd have sulked for two weeks then knuckled down. It's his own future he's playing for and a bit more development alongside Cauley, he'd have got a better club than Wigan.
I can see that from the stars but in league 1/ lower league championship you could be cutting your nose off to spite your face. Look Kieffer, we need you till Christmas but then we won't stand in your way and will let you go for less so you can pick up more of a wage.
Wholeheartedly agree mate. I've said in numerous other posts that it was a clanger not signing someone to replace Moore. In terms of your second point we can only guess without knowing for sure, but I believe we thought a deal could be done and invited him over to see everything in person. Only to be hit with the wage demands beyond what we believed would be needed.
Maybe you're right and he would have done. But maybe you're wrong and he would have sulked and dragged the team down. None of us really know, but at that stage surely you've got to trust those who are way, way closer to the reality than we are and stop saying we should have kept him, and focus more on the real issue which is not replacing him.
Why are you asking me? I've just told you all I know, and that might not even be true. You hear stories all the time of wage demands scuppering deals so not sure why we're questioning this one. In any deal you've got to back yourself to negotiate, so purely speculating, maybe we thought we'd get him for £10k a week because we knew that was twice what he was earning at his current club?
Dan James didn't sulk when he was all poised to sign for Leeds and it was cancelked and it ended up working out better for him in the end, I do agree though that we don’t know what goes on behind the scenes but to assume every player will act in the same way and be disruptive seems to be a bit of a cop out to me.
That's a very simplistic view of footballers. I'm just repeating myself now in every reply I get quoted in, but that's in a perfect world and we all know football doesn't behave in a perfect way. If a player knows he's wanted by a club, how he performs in the months between windows won't always scupper a deal. The club know the talent on show when they decide they want him.
I just remember reading Stevie G's autobiography and as captain part of his job was persuading Surez to stay on for longer at Liverpool when he wanted out.
But for every example you're giving there's examples of the opposite. That's just football. There's so many thousands of transfers happen a year globally. Very rarely do supporters of any club, especially when it involves their own, really have a clear idea of what players are thinking when it comes to staying, leaving, etc.
every player at every club other than maybe Real or Barca wants to leave. Agree with the rest though.
I presume that there must be lots of players who don't want to leave their club. If your contract is to run out and you're not on the list for another one, then you're out of a job.