[Official Site] CLUB STATEMENT | ALEX MOWATT

I don't think it will help at all either. We were always going to lose Mowatt, we just can't compete on wages for top end Championship established players.

 

Or perhaps it was an attempt to communicate to the fans they did everything they could to keep him

 

Don't blame the club making it known how hard they tried to keep him.

 

We've known that for 18 months.

 

And yet there have been repeated posts by people saying we should be making offers, doing everything to keep him etc over the last god knows how many months

 

Disappointed, but not gutted. Next..

 

Murphy mentioned a good while back we were towards the top of what could be offered. As someone else said, if he's offered towards £25k or £30k elsewhere, it's a moot point what we offered. It's going to be nowhere near enough sadly.

 

You are as likely as I am to be right. Whichever it was, if Mowatt was offered more than either of those figures, it does indicate that the club made a great effort to keep him, and I see nothing wrong in their mentioning that Mowatt would have been the highest paid player in the club's history.

 

If the figures being quoted on here are correct, then I suspect he wont be on a great deal more at WBA, and if we'd managed to hold onto Ismael, he might've signed.

 

In a way, neither. I don't believe they wouldn't know how much John Hendrie was on, and I'd be surprised if Mowatt was offered a weekly wage in excess on £12k a week. What might have made it the most lucrative deal ever, is the size of the signing on fee, length of contract, or promotion type bonuses. £12k a week and a signing on fee of say £50k is much less lucrative than say £10k a week, £100k signing on fee and £100k promotion bonus, for example.

 

Alex was the most influential player in the squad for the last three years.

It speaks volumes that Valérien decided that his first signing would be Alex when his career depends on success at West Brom. An in contract player of his standing would command a significant fee.

A shrewd signing and no doubt Alex will now be set for life. Best of Luck and thank you for some great memories.

Time for more new heroes.

 

Jan Aage sharing transfer truths earlier

 

It's an interesting consideration.... if and how we retain information over time. Particularly as we've had multiple owners since Hendrie and is there anyone in the structure who would have been party to that information? Is there some form of historic register of such information (paye records should be long gone by now)? Would be interesting to know, if only for whimsy.

 

Not bad business by West Brom. £2m gets you a head coach and one of the highest rated midfielders in the division.

 

Wages have rocketed since then Helen it's 20 years ago

 

He's gone. He's history

100% agree with that.

 

Also, as I said elsewhere - football is a weak-link sport - you are only as good as your worse player, not your best players, so the impact of one supposed star is always exaggerated.

 

Sad to see him go, he’s been great for us for 3 years now.

I can only wish him well.

 

I think one of the areas the club can improve is how it communicates bad news and I think this is a good start in addressing that. Personally, I don't think it's bad maybe a little clumsly in language as I think the core message - 'we did everything possible to keep him' - could have been stated slightly better but that would be me nitpicking.

Ultimately we move on and I look forward to seeing a new team dynamic evolve under a new head coach and captain - exciting times.

 

It could be that the length of the contract offered to Mowatt was longer than that offered to Hourihane, which would make it more lucrative, or that the bonus or salary increase for promotion to the EPL was better. Or (disingenuous?) that if he’d accepted it he would have been the highest paid player ever, even if Hourihane had been offered more, as Hourihane never accepted his offer and therefore was never paid it.
To me it just shows we tried our best but we weren’t going to break the model. It’s not the end of the world that he, Dane, Valerian have gone. Maybe their replacements will be better.