Having done some more research it does appear that free agents released before the window closes can be registered with another club if they haven't already registered 25 players. I read three different articles and got three different answers but I now believe clubs with spare slots left can register free agents between windows.
I wonder what game was being played between the backup goalkeepers. If they were going to release Glover on a free and replace him with a much cheaper option in McLaughlin, why did they wait until deadline day. They had McLaughlin training for six weeks and must have already known that he was the one for the third slot. In addition, Glover needs to try and find a first team spot if he wants to make the Australian World Cup team.
I wonder if they wanted to get rid of Dieng - presumably on the highest wages - but couldn’t make it work.
Anyway, it looks to have been a spectacularly successful window.
UTB
Yes I think you’re right given the deal for Dieng to QPR fell through on the last day, Boro wouldn’t have room to register 4 keepers so they must’ve decided to release Glover instead.
An interesting article on the Hellscape that is the EPL: https://observer.co.uk/news/sport/article/dont-stop-the-party-premier-league-spending-breaks-new-ground?utm_campaign=485339_TheObserverDaily_250903&utm_medium=email&utm_source=dotdigital&UID=&dm_i=7EQK,AEHN,2SCAZN,1CB8M,1
@martin-bellamy Thanks for that Martin, an excellent article that just confirms what has been written about on here in the past.
The large gap that we look at each season has turned into an unbridgeable chasm for the of the vast majority of EFL clubs.
Even our near neighbours Sunderland have found the money from somwhere to be the sixth biggest NET spenders. £150 million spent and 37 received.
I wonder how much their wage bill is in terms of turnover. Possibly with the majority of players coming in from Europe, 20/30 grand a week will be sufficient?
@martin-bellamy Very interesting Martin. Somewhere there must be brick, which, if it is pulled out the whole lot will come tumbling down.
UTB, John
None of it makes any sense does it? I really can’t see how it’s sustainable in the long term.
The sooner the self-styled elite clubs bug off and form their European Super League, with no promotion route in and no relegation route out, the better.None of it makes any sense does it? I really can’t see how it’s sustainable in the long term.
@powmillnaemore I still suspect that many fans would then feel excluded and demand the right for their teams to join in.
Members will know my ambivalence to the Nirvana of the EPL for the Boro, but I do understand the desire to see your club perform in the highest league. Whether that is true for all clubs, I’m not so sure - to paraphrase Philip K. Dick, “Do Shrewsbury Town Dream of (electric) EPL?”
The numbers are ridiculous but people tend to ignore the fact that much of the money is going round and round in a closed circle. If Liverpool pay Pds126 million for Isak and Newcastle then spend that within the EPL, there is no real change to the net value of the clubs as a group, just a re-allocation of funds between them. However, what happens when Newcastle only spend Pds55 million within the EPL and Pds70 million in Germany. Is this a net outflow of funds from the EPL that somehow has to be funded? Is this gap filled by sales to the big international clubs and by prize money from European and other competitions.
One only has to look at Chelsea who won Pds90 million in the World Club championship and then, on top of that, broke even on player sales and purchases, with a total of around Pds315 million on each side of the ledger. The accounting impact of all that is even more tricky because the fees are accounted for immediately and the purchases are written off over the life of the contracts or until the players are sold again.
Having access to this huge pool of money is what drives clubs towards promotion along with the sheer exhilaration of seeing ones club take on the best. Clearly, nobody wants to see their club get battered every week but the recent successes of Forest, Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Crystal Palace and Fulham, to name just a few, suggests that the odds can be beaten. The challenge is not so much getting promoted - despite the problems that we have had - but rather being able to get that solid foothold on the EPL ladder.
The three prime options seem to be
1. Spend a fortune and pray that you can get it back - the Notts Forest option and, one feels, the option that the US-funded clubs such as Leeds, Birmingham, Wrexham etc would like to follow.
2. Be smarter with your acquisitions and your academy - the Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Crystal Palace model. I suggest that, based on our success in spotting bargains and our strong academy that this is where Boro would fit in.
3. Be a yo-yo club for a few years and don't spend the money that you accumulate until you can jump to safety. This is the Fulham model and Norwich and maybe Watford have tried and failed.
The success of the smarter mid-range clubs gives just enough hope for me to want to see Boro give it a go. I think that we could become the equivalent of these clubs and I'd like to watch it happen.
UTB
@selwynoz Well said.
Hopefully we will be number two in your three categories. We deserve to be one day in the EPL - especially I hope this for Steve Gibson and for all the work he has done. The club has been in safe hands and never been in danger to go bust.
And just to remind everyone, we are top of the league now and still next week. Probably longer 😉.
Up the Boro!
@selwynoz great post and very well articulated, I agree that we are sitting in the Brentford, Brighton group and it is no quick fix.
I can recall us beating Brentford in the play off semi some years ago and beating Brighton, i believe the season after, to get promoted to the prem in our Karanka years, both them teams were in the early stages of their model when we passed them and both are now, dare I say, established premier league sides.
Can we make that next step in the next few years ?
@presidentjump - Fingers crossed that we can, PJ.
Of course Boro would have to GET to that Nirvana of the Premier League first. But if Boro achieves that long-held aim, the "smart purchase of young and relatively cheap talent, which can be nurtured and improved, and some sold at profit to pay for more young and relatively cheap talent in its place etc" seems the more likely route to Premier League survival and safety than finding a multi-billionaire to fund it all.
@selwynoz Good post. Boro are clearly hoping to use a data-driven model to generate both on-field success and balance the books. I think this has evolved somewhat over the last few windows and we are seeing the theory being tempered with pragmatism in the acquisition of a few seasoned pros for insurance.
One side you didn't mention was Sunderland. I thought they did very well with promotion for a young side, but it looks as though few of that side will get much of a look-in this season as a huge amount of cash has been spent on new players. I hope they stay up but if they come down the repercussions may be painful.
@martin-bellamy - That is an excellent article, Martin. Thanks.
I realise why clubs apportion the transfer fees the way they do. I also realise that it may form part of the negotiations when selling your team's star striker to a desperate but rich club, to agree a price of £125M but paid by £75M up front (because your club NEEDS the money now to satisfy PSR and/or to buy in a £75M replacement) and then, say, receive the £50M balance in four yearly installments thereafter. That might suit your club's needs better than £45M upfront and four subsequent annual payments of £20M. Or better than a HIGHER price paid over a longer period because your club needs money NOW.
But it seems to me a SENSIBLE way to treat the figures would be to treat incoming and outgoings transfers in the same way. How about accounting for the figures actually received or actually paid, when they are paid? So if my team sells a player for £100M (I wish!) and receives £40M up front that £40M should go into THIS year's accounts, and then the £20M received over each of the next three years should go into each year's accounts when received.
Equally, on the purchase of that player's replacement for £120M (forgive my dreams!) Boro would not include that into the club's accounts as equal installments over the length of that player's contract but as figures that match the amounts actually paid in the relevant years (eg £60M this year and £20M for each of the subsequent three years).
That way, the relevant figures would match the actual monies paid out (or received) when they are paid or received. Not over some fictional 8 year period or whatever, when the player will actually be sold on in a few years or whatever.
What we do know is (1) the normal considerations of accounting or business good sense fly out of the window when a football is involved and (2) it can be a cracking way to money-launder eye-watering sums.
"You bought WHICH previously unheralded player from a lower tier club in Colombia for HOW MUCH? And is that the same player who played a few poor games and who quietly returned to another club in Colombia after being sold at a significant loss...?' Choose your club and continent!
Two great previous posts, Selwyn. Many thanks. And thanks too for the courtesy and restraint in your earlier post in not mentioning the fact that I have been spectacularly wrong in just about everything I have contributed to this blog over the Summer months. Greatly appreciated.
@lenmasterman your humility serves as a shining example to everyone. It also gives everything you say absolute credibility.
No time to post anything meaningful, just to add me appreciation of everyone's post in the post-window chat in here.
@martin-bellamy - I suppose if the kick up the backside that Neil Warnock delivered, or that other "doubters" delivered, made Djed Spence more determinerd to prove those people wrong about his future as a top footballer, Spence sholuld thank them for providing the motivation. It appears to have worked. It may have taken some time (just as lifestyle changes tend to do) but Spence had a good season in 2024-25 and if he wants to climb to the very top of his profession, then he will have to continue the good work. Hats off to him for last year
@forever-dormo Agreed. Lots of players have a surfeit of skills, but fewer have the drive, motivation and ambition to make it to the top. Let’s hope DS has seen the light and has matured into a model professional.
@martin-bellamy Djed was my favourite player during his first year. I think it was under Woodgate. There was something in him, especially when he was going forward.
So I am happy for him. I hope Boro receive some bonuses for his possible full England debut. A million or two?
Up the Boro!
@martin-bellamy I was listening to Neil Warnock this morning talking about DJed Spence, when he was at MFC and he let him go on loan. Listening, I think Mr Warnock, thinks he did him a big favour, and he is probably correct.
Talking transfer fees and spending, there was a good article in the Mail on Line a couple of days ago by Oliver Holt.
In essence it said that the “big clubs” (that is in turnover) have now got PSR sussed and are circumventing it, with aplomb.
Chelsea are the current masters, since the take over by the Clearwater Group. The buying of multiple cheap players (for them anyway) on long contracts, selling the majority of them at a big percentage profits producing reinvestment cash.
Then they dream up another cash bonanza, by pushing through PSR and selling their Ladies Team to themselves for around 190 million was it? Joined by others since.
Obviously the EPL had not thought of that one.
So the reality is that the big clubs, American or State Owned, with the business acumen, can really just do what they want.
There are always exceptions of course. Poor old Newcastle, because they do not commercially produce income anywhere near the big six, struggle to compete on (monetary) equal terms, even with a great Coach in Eddie Howe.
North American professional clubs , work in all of their major leagues under a salary cap,
However it is adjusted every so often depending on the state of current trends , inflation etc,
PSR which is restricting in many cases clubs ability to adjust their model ,PSR currently allow a £105 million loss over three years, or you are punished by points deductions etc,
Its time PSR realized the changes around , give some relief to all clubs in the pyramid , the EFL you are allowed smaller losses even ,putting more pressure on sustainability
I think an extra 20% above the current limit , would help especially clubs lower down
COB
Question ,should Hackney declare for Scotland?
Slovakia lead Germany by 2-0.
One goal and one assist from David Strelec.
Slovakia lead Germany by 2-0.
One goal and one assist from David Strelec.
the goal he scored was an absolute beauty. Strelec, Sene and Conway could be quite a front three.
UTB
Apparently Germany's first ever away World Cup qualifier loss ever. Also Nypan scored for the Norway under 21's last night.
that’s a fairly amazing statistic.