Summer 2023 Transfer Window Thread

[BigAl]

On 18/04/2023 at 16:47, RicoS321 said:

Disgusting. I'll get back to you in May when this thread should be started.

 

On 20/04/2023 at 15:45, RicoS321 said:

Harsh. Van Veen has a great touch and is fairly skilful. He's just very slow. He's having a purple patch this season, which I'd doubt whether he'd replicate again. His movement seems to have improved this season, which is weird for a guy in his thirties, but it suggests that it could be a one off (think Doidge had similar for Hibs one year as an example). He's one of those guys that we'll consistently tell ourselves that we could do better than but we end up signing jet equivalents that don't do better. But we should at least try to sign better rather than settling for a guy who probably won't repeat a season where he's maybe had a fitness spurt or just everything going right.

 

On 20/04/2023 at 16:26, RicoS321 said:

Hayes signs a one year extension. No brainer really.

 

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

His best position is the one he's currently playing in, wing back as part of a 3/5, he can also play right back too. At best, he's a stop gap for centre mid and centre back, you definitely wouldn't want him playing either for long spells. £2M would be an absolutely fantastic bit of business. We will very much miss his athleticism and ability to run with the ball to get us up the park, but his decision making is poor (he was very lucky to get a free kick at one point yesterday when he turned into trouble instead of just keeping going, and that sort of thing happens quite regularly) and is passing is week. I think he's maybe had a couple of assists all season, and it's rare for his final ball to cause difficulties for the opposition. That said, it's a terrible time to be losing him. We've got such a huge turnover of staff this summer, we're already on a hiding to nothing in terms of recruitment, so a known SPFL quantity is of massive benefit.

Barron is an interesting one too, it looks like offers are beginning to come in for him. I think he's a great player, who'll go on to have a good career, but I also think he could massively benefit from another year here, especially with Clarkson moving on and leaving that number 6 role as Barron's to lose. Ryan Duncan barely featured prior to signing his new contract, and has featured heavily since, and Barron has hardly kicked a ball since not agreeing a new deal. I wonder if this is a new hard line that the club is taking with young players? I'm not sure I agree with it, and I'd love to see Barron spend his final year here and kick on as I think that would be hugely beneficial for the team.

 

 

56 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

We all know that this thread shouldn't have been started until May, but seeing as it has, is it worth including a review of this season's signings to give an idea of what to expect this summer, and also a break down of the squad for next season so far? That was a rhetorical question, of course it is.

Signings

Roos - success

Miovski - success

Duk - success

Ramadani - success

Stewart - failure

Morris - failure

Richardson - failure

Roberts - failure

MacDonald - success

Myslovic - failure (borderline, perhaps, potential to turn it round)

Loanees

Clarkson - success

Coulson - failure (borderline, but he hasn't held down a place and has performed worse than Hayes)

Shinnie - success

Pollock - success

Markanday - failure

Gorter - success (not going to be here next season, and not going to get minutes this one, but clearly a good goalkeeper)

Apologies if I've missed anyone. That's a 50% success rate in terms of signings and a 66% success rate in terms of loanees (Coulson and Gorter both debatable either way). I'd say that's fairly decent, and probably quite indicative of what we can expect in any given season (two windows). Had we not had the exceptional January window of 66% success rate, we'd have been struggling for top 6 in my opinion, but given the tremendous turnover in personnel last summer, that's exactly what we should have expected and also indicative of what will likely happen next season.

 

 

 

 

36 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Continuing on, the squad for next season so far (and apologies again to those missed), and a view on whether we should keep or not (or will be outwith our hands):

Roos - keep

McRorie - leave (outwith our hands probably)

Hayes - keep

MacKenzie - keep

Stewart - leave (fire into the sea)

Richardson - leave (cut our losses)

Ramadani - keep

Barron - leave (outwith our hands probably)

Duncan - keep

Morris - leave (cut our losses)

Roberts - leave (cut our losses)

Besuijen - keep (borderline, would be interesting to see if Robson can get anything out of him)

Duk - keep (outwith our hands perhaps, although the game yesterday will have shown many teams that he's far from the finished article and might not be worth the investment if not playing every week)

Miovski - keep (outwith our hands possibly, but I think we'll get another year, or six months at least, from him despite that header)

That leaves a maximum of 14 signed players for next season, with 4 of those definitely not good enough, another 2 likely to leave, with a further 2 possibly leaving, which gives us a minimum of 6 signed players for next season (two of those being McKenzie and Besuijen who probably aren't quite good enough). Of course, we should have a great chance of signing Shinnie, and hopefully MacDonald can be persuaded too. If we take the middle figure of 10 signed players, of which two are squad players (I think we can rely on Hayes to play a good chunk of games for another season), then we'll need at least another 5 players. At last season's rates then we'd need to sign 10 players at least to replace those guys. That's a mammoth task, and a lot of first teamers.

 

 

31 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Alternatively, we double down on the strategy, in the hope that the law of averages will return one good *ayden.

Jesus Rico, for someone that doesn't want to discuss transfer windows until May, you've got a hell of a lot to say on the subject 

[Slim]

You’d think if we were able to get a couple of million for Duk, Benfica would be offering up the next batch of their youngsters on a silver platter. 

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, BigAl said:

Jesus Rico, for someone that doesn't want to discuss transfer windows until May, you've got a hell of a lot to say on the subject 

Once you started the thread, I felt I had no choice. It's a form of entrapment.

[BigAl]

12 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Once you started the thread, I felt I had no choice. It's a form of entrapment.

Aye, I taught Catherine Zeta-Jones all she knows  

[RicoS321]

Wigan offloading Shinnie apparently. Hopefully get that one tied up shortly.

[BigAl]

3 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

Wigan offloading Shinnie apparently. Hopefully get that one tied up shortly.

Cheeky bastards wanting a six figure transfer fee though

[RicoS321]

36 minutes ago, BigAl said:

Cheeky bastards wanting a six figure transfer fee though

If we take him for free, then they can have half of any future transfer fees. Just like Duk. Seems reasonable.

[Reekie_Red]

21 hours ago, BigAl said:

Aye, I taught Catherine Zeta-Jones all she knows  

Including slinking under laser light security in lycra?

[BigAl]

15 minutes ago, Reekie_Red said:

Including slinking under laser light security in lycra?

Hey, dinnae knock it Reekie 

[redordead]

On 24/04/2023 at 10:27, RicoS321 said:

His best position is the one he's currently playing in, wing back as part of a 3/5, he can also play right back too. At best, he's a stop gap for centre mid and centre back, you definitely wouldn't want him playing either for long spells. £2M would be an absolutely fantastic bit of business. We will very much miss his athleticism and ability to run with the ball to get us up the park, but his decision making is poor (he was very lucky to get a free kick at one point yesterday when he turned into trouble instead of just keeping going, and that sort of thing happens quite regularly) and is passing is week. I think he's maybe had a couple of assists all season, and it's rare for his final ball to cause difficulties for the opposition. That said, it's a terrible time to be losing him. We've got such a huge turnover of staff this summer, we're already on a hiding to nothing in terms of recruitment, so a known SPFL quantity is of massive benefit.

Barron is an interesting one too, it looks like offers are beginning to come in for him. I think he's a great player, who'll go on to have a good career, but I also think he could massively benefit from another year here, especially with Clarkson moving on and leaving that number 6 role as Barron's to lose. Ryan Duncan barely featured prior to signing his new contract, and has featured heavily since, and Barron has hardly kicked a ball since not agreeing a new deal. I wonder if this is a new hard line that the club is taking with young players? I'm not sure I agree with it, and I'd love to see Barron spend his final year here and kick on as I think that would be hugely beneficial for the team.

 

Absolutely on the money for me. All these fans insulted at £2m must be watching someone else.

Also disappointed Barron hasn't had more chance to play. Future international for me.

[Panda]

4 hours ago, redordead said:

Absolutely on the money for me. All these fans insulted at £2m must be watching someone else.

Also disappointed Barron hasn't had more chance to play. Future international for me.

Barron has been injured.

As for being "insulted" by the £2m price tag, if McCrorie was injured for the last five games, who would replace him? Kennedy? Richardson? Morris?

One of those players you don't miss until he's gone. Would be hard to replace, even with £2m.

[RicoS321]

8 hours ago, Panda said:

As for being "insulted" by the £2m price tag, if McCrorie was injured for the last five games, who would replace him? Kennedy? Richardson? Morris?

One of those players you don't miss until he's gone. Would be hard to replace, even with £2m.

That has zero bearing on his valuation though. The question is whether he's a £2M player or not, and I'd have to say no, although prices have been a little mad again lately, with Scottish players again being valued highly - similar to the time Hibs sold Brown, Fletcher etc. We will miss him, I agree, but that doesn't mean we can get more money for him. Clubs will look elsewhere fairly quickly, and I'd have thought £2M would be a really big stretch for a guy like McRorie, even if he is an "ex-rangers star". It's an exceptional bit of negotiating it has to be said, and I think we should be congratulating the club on this rather than suggesting we should be getting more. 

In terms of replacement, someone like Nicky Devlin or Shaun Rooney would easily plug the hole and would likely get more goals and assists too. They wouldn't provide the utility of course. Those two are just examples of course, not players I'm touting. I'd prefer us to look at options like those two in the summer as I think we need a few known quantities in this window with the massive turnover, and McRorie's position seems as good as any to bring in a tried and tested player. The level to which we miss McRorie will only be determined by the recruitment of his replacement. Whilst there is more to McRorie's game, I think we can get someone who does better than 2 goals and 0 assists in 31 games for a lot less than McRorie's valuation and probable salary. 

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

14 hours ago, Panda said:

One of those players you don't miss until he's gone. Would be hard to replace, even with £2m.

It's a fair point and a very important one.  The longer term strategy worries me.  We've arguably never replaced McKenna, not replaced Ramsay, nor Hedges or Ferguson who were four big players in the team.

I get that times have changed and we may need to sell the odd player to balance the books but we have taken in a shed load in the last few years from transfer fees.  What about trying to actually build a team to challenge for trophies?  I am fed up of fans suggesting how much we will make by selling this player or that.   Duk has only hit form for six months and already some are contemplating how much we will sell him for in the summer.  That kind of stuff may tickle those in the boardroom but not me as a fan.  Offer them a new deal and get a bit of identity back.  If McCrorie and Barron go, we literally have no Scots in our team except Duncan.  We are meant to be a team representing the North East of Scotland, not a World Select.

[RicoS321]

6 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

It's a fair point and a very important one.  The longer term strategy worries me.  We've arguably never replaced McKenna, not replaced Ramsay, nor Hedges or Ferguson who were four big players in the team.

I get that times have changed and we may need to sell the odd player to balance the books but we have taken in a shed load in the last few years from transfer fees.  What about trying to actually build a team to challenge for trophies?  I am fed up of fans suggesting how much we will make by selling this player or that.   Duk has only hit form for six months and already some are contemplating how much we will sell him for in the summer.  That kind of stuff may tickle those in the boardroom but not me as a fan.  Offer them a new deal and get a bit of identity back.  If McCrorie and Barron go, we literally have no Scots in our team except Duncan.  We are meant to be a team representing the North East of Scotland, not a World Select.

I agree about the Scots thing, I think that's important. However, not sure about the rest of your argument. We can clearly see when a player is destined for better things than the Dons, or that it's their intention to move on, as was the case with all those mentioned. We also operate within the constraints of our revenue, unless we're interested in becoming the next sevco. The latter is a fairly important thing to me, I'm not that comfortable even with our current level of expenditure to revenue. I actually don't understand how anyone can be a supporter of a team and not care about these things. 

In terms of McRorie and Barron, I think the former is easily replaceable with the money suggested, and the latter would really benefit from staying another year and making the Clarkson role his own. However, Barron is a classic case of where your logic breaks down. It's clear that (at present) he doesn't want to sign a new deal and sees his future elsewhere. Our (AFC) feelings don't come into it. I don't think you'd find many Dons fans not delighted if he accepted a three year deal. Imagine he did though and next season he plays really well. We'd be in the Ferguson situation where it's blatantly obvious he needs to move on to further his career. We simply couldn't "build a team around him", because to do that would require players of his calibre with salaries to match. In other words, everything we do as a club with regards to players is only ever good while it lasts with every individual, all the while trying to incrementally improve the squad each time we make a transfer. Just the same as every other club in the world that doesn't just go out and buy two squads.

[tlg1903]

Hard to argue with much of that Rico.  I do however think Mcrorie is worth a wee bit more than 2 on the grounds he's under contract for another 3 seasons.  I'm not overly convinced Mcrorie is wanting a move either btw but usually money talks in the end.  

Good luck to him if he does go, he's a cracking pro. I agree he's not irreplaceable in terms of ability in the position, logan at his peak was a better rb you could argue for example, but his leadership on the park will be much harder to replace.

 

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

14 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

The latter is a fairly important thing to me, I'm not that comfortable even with our current level of expenditure to revenue. I actually don't understand how anyone can be a supporter of a team and not care about these things. 

Don't get me wrong Rico, of course I care about the club being in a healthy financial position.  I'm sure all of us do.  My point was really that a lot of supporters seem to be getting more excited when a good player breaks though about how much we can sell him for rather than how good he can actually make the team.  I think we are getting into a situation where we are signing players based on how much we can sell them for rather what they can bring to our team.  I think that was the case with Hernandez and also get the feeling it is the case with Duk and Miovski.

If you look at the side that played on Sunday, there were only 3 of those players here last season and realistically half of them might only be here next season.  How are you supposed to build a team on that basis if players only stick around for 6-12 months at a time?

14 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

In terms of McRorie and Barron, I think the former is easily replaceable with the money suggested

Absolutely correct on that but Robson is never getting £2M to spend on a right back which is really the issue.  Ramsay brought us in £4M and we spent 350K on Richardson to replace him.

 

[RicoS321]

48 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

Don't get me wrong Rico, of course I care about the club being in a healthy financial position.  I'm sure all of us do.  My point was really that a lot of supporters seem to be getting more excited when a good player breaks though about how much we can sell him for rather than how good he can actually make the team.  I think we are getting into a situation where we are signing players based on how much we can sell them for rather what they can bring to our team.  I think that was the case with Hernandez and also get the feeling it is the case with Duk and Miovski.

If you look at the side that played on Sunday, there were only 3 of those players here last season and realistically half of them might only be here next season.  How are you supposed to build a team on that basis if players only stick around for 6-12 months at a time?

Absolutely correct on that but Robson is never getting £2M to spend on a right back which is really the issue.  Ramsay brought us in £4M and we spent 350K on Richardson to replace him.

 

£350K is a huge amount for a Dons fullback and we should easily be able to replace McRorie with that. Richardson should have been a really good signing in theory, he has so much going for him. He's not very good at football, but he should look to McRorie for inspiration there. His physical attributes, used correctly and with confidence and hard work should have turned him into a much better prospect than McRorie. 

I agree with your point about turnover though, ideally we'd have 7-8 first teamers and a few reliable subs going into each season, with 5-6 going out and coming in. What Cormack failed to understand is that needs to be a continuous process, or it takes years to rebalance. When he failed to back McInnes in his final window, before failing to get Glass a proper recruitment team in time, we were set back a good year or two, and we're still catching up. There's clearly a happy medium there somewhere as McInnes held onto certain players for too long. The club should probably insist that we have a certain volume of turnover every season to force the manager's hand on having players around that are just nice to have around the place, but at the same time ensuring that we have a level of continuity every season so that we can cope with the inevitable offers that come for players who are performing well or are good prospects and don't want to sign deals. At the moment, we don't have that buffer we had under McInnes unfortunately. Guys like Ramadani, Shinnie, Duncan, Roos (MacDonald would be great) can hopefully be continuity players over the next couple of seasons for us to allow us to build up that 7-8 player base. It's not a fast process as we've seen, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear fans lamenting those players and suggesting that they're not good enough over the next season or so.

[Jute]

MacDonald signs 2 year extension. 
 

Been surprised how well he has done since coming in and happy enough with this. 

[RicoS321]

Fantastic signing. Great stuff. Well deserved.

[Panda]

On 26/04/2023 at 08:09, RicoS321 said:

That has zero bearing on his valuation though. The question is whether he's a £2M player or not, and I'd have to say no,

It's not a question of if he's a £2m player, it's his value to Aberdeen.

McDonald signing up is great. But we could still begin pre-season without Pollok, Scales, Clarkson, Shinnie, and with Miovski and Duk being courted by others.

It's not a case of spending £2m on a replacement for McCrorie because we never would spend £2m on a player. We're still in debt too. Maybe £400k plus a bit more for wages goes towards his replacement.

Now, I can't remember what we actually spent on McCrorie, maybe it is possible to get a replacement for £400k, but I think we were also really fortunate to get him. A player telling the Old Firm he wants to leave to get regular football doesn't actually happen too often. James McCarthy - remember him - is still at Celtic. James Forrest and Scott Wright appear happy to be bit-part players than play for an Aberdeen, Hearts or Hibs.

I think McCrorie is an excellent player who has finally been given a role that suits him, and he'll be really hard to replace, and leaves a big hole, especially if all the players mentioned above don't come back or are replaced with similarly talented players.

McCrorie to me is worth more to Aberdeen than £2m in my opinion.

[RicoS321]

26 minutes ago, Panda said:

It's not a question of if he's a £2m player, it's his value to Aberdeen.

McDonald signing up is great. But we could still begin pre-season without Pollok, Scales, Clarkson, Shinnie, and with Miovski and Duk being courted by others.

It's not a case of spending £2m on a replacement for McCrorie because we never would spend £2m on a player. We're still in debt too. Maybe £400k plus a bit more for wages goes towards his replacement.

Now, I can't remember what we actually spent on McCrorie, maybe it is possible to get a replacement for £400k, but I think we were also really fortunate to get him. A player telling the Old Firm he wants to leave to get regular football doesn't actually happen too often. James McCarthy - remember him - is still at Celtic. James Forrest and Scott Wright appear happy to be bit-part players than play for an Aberdeen, Hearts or Hibs.

I think McCrorie is an excellent player who has finally been given a role that suits him, and he'll be really hard to replace, and leaves a big hole, especially if all the players mentioned above don't come back or are replaced with similarly talented players.

McCrorie to me is worth more to Aberdeen than £2m in my opinion.

It's entirely a question of whether he's a £2M player. Quite simply, nobody would pay more and the deal would be off. He's not worth £2M in my opinion, it's a very generous offer, boosted by the reasons you give. He's had zero assists (barely had any completed crosses) and two goals all season and his spells in centre half and midfield have been fairly poor, so his utility isn't really worthwhile either (so we're really just looking at a wing back to replace him rather than a utility). We won't spend the £2M, obviously, but we could likely pay a fee for a couple of players with any money that is made available. He's only worth more than £2M to us if we replace him with another Richardson. Your ignoring the marginal gain you get from having any other player in there. Even Kennedy managed 80% of the McRorie role, whilst being better at crossing. If you got a proper wing back in you'll lose very little. As I mentioned previously, Devlin at Livi would go a long way to plugging the gap, and I'm sure the recruitment team could come up with better. 

This isn't the 16 goals from Lewis Ferguson we're missing, nor the vision and passing of Clarkson or the goals of Duk or Miovski. McRorie doesn't win us games. He's a strong, hard working professional that won't be easily replaced, but there are a lot of players out there that can give you something close and probably better in other areas of their game to make up for it. McRorie himself leaving wouldn't be the problem, rather the total turnover of staff, which his departure compounds. I'd be very happy for him to stay on those grounds. If the Dons feel that there are too many leaving, then it's not a case of asking for more money, it's saying that he isn't for sale at any price. 

[Elgindon]

Great to hear re McDonald 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Elgindon

[scotfree]

13 hours ago, Jute said:

MacDonald signs 2 year extension. 
 

Been surprised how well he has done since coming in and happy enough with this. 

[Reekie_Red]

10 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

It's entirely a question of whether he's a £2M player. Quite simply, nobody would pay more and the deal would be off. He's not worth £2M in my opinion, it's a very generous offer, boosted by the reasons you give. He's had zero assists (barely had any completed crosses) and two goals all season and his spells in centre half and midfield have been fairly poor, so his utility isn't really worthwhile either (so we're really just looking at a wing back to replace him rather than a utility). We won't spend the £2M, obviously, but we could likely pay a fee for a couple of players with any money that is made available. He's only worth more than £2M to us if we replace him with another Richardson. Your ignoring the marginal gain you get from having any other player in there. Even Kennedy managed 80% of the McRorie role, whilst being better at crossing. If you got a proper wing back in you'll lose very little. As I mentioned previously, Devlin at Livi would go a long way to plugging the gap, and I'm sure the recruitment team could come up with better. 

This isn't the 16 goals from Lewis Ferguson we're missing, nor the vision and passing of Clarkson or the goals of Duk or Miovski. McRorie doesn't win us games. He's a strong, hard working professional that won't be easily replaced, but there are a lot of players out there that can give you something close and probably better in other areas of their game to make up for it. McRorie himself leaving wouldn't be the problem, rather the total turnover of staff, which his departure compounds. I'd be very happy for him to stay on those grounds. If the Dons feel that there are too many leaving, then it's not a case of asking for more money, it's saying that he isn't for sale at any price. 

He's like a Cato Guntveit. Difficult to pin down what he does for the team until he is out or underperforms. 

You need the star players like Clarkson, Duk and Miovski who appear for 2 mins very game and do something brilliant. But they are underpinned by the grafters who just do the normal stuff well 

[Panda]

10 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

It's entirely a question of whether he's a £2M player. Quite simply, nobody would pay more and the deal would be off.

I disagree with your first sentence. It's his value to the team and what Aberdeen can make with him being in it.

I agree he's not a utility player, he's a right wing back and now we've a manager who recognises that he's only going to get better.

He also fits perfectly into the type of team Barry Robson is trying to put together.

I'd rather Bristol kept their £2m and we had another two years out of him.