£3million for Ola John

[bluerinse]

No way will the club pay £3m for him .Signings will be free, or £1m max even if they sell Gunter, McCleary,,Norwood, Williams and Cooper.

[Winston Smith]

I wouldn't pay £1M for him. for realz.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Can't get a regular starting place in the team under McDermott now so why should we shell out £1m, £2m or £3m?

[BhatMhen]

I hope that big money for Ola John can win in his game. My opinion though.

[Vision]

£3m for a player that's only really contributed sporadically as an impact substitute?

In fact it begs the question that given the contributions of the triumvirate of John, Vydra and Piazon this season would Fosu-Henry, Tanner and Samuel have fared much worse at a fraction of the cost and with a greater long term benefit.?

[Hoop Blah]

Not a cat in hell's chance that we should spend £3m on John, he hasn't even been able to earn a place in the starting line up all season so why we'd want to invest in him long term I don't know.

Wow. Opinion has changed very quickly towards Ola John. We were loving him only a couple of weeks ago.

Remember his best position is out wide. Not sitting at the top of Brian's recent diamond formation. That's why he has turned into Royston all of a sudden, isn't it?

Has opinion changed? I can't remember too much raving about him apart from those saying he has potential but doesn't really use it.

He scored a couple of very useful goals but apart from that he's done very little throughout the season and I find it hard to understand how you can go from proclaiming our whole squad as rubbish one day to supporting the idea that one of our subs is worth spending £3m on.

[Top Flight]

Not a cat in hell's chance that we should spend £3m on John, he hasn't even been able to earn a place in the starting line up all season so why we'd want to invest in him long term I don't know.

Wow. Opinion has changed very quickly towards Ola John. We were loving him only a couple of weeks ago.

Remember his best position is out wide. Not sitting at the top of Brian's recent diamond formation. That's why he has turned into Royston all of a sudden, isn't it?

Has opinion changed? I can't remember too much raving about him apart from those saying he has potential but doesn't really use it.

He scored a couple of very useful goals but apart from that he's done very little throughout the season and I find it hard to understand how you can go from proclaiming our whole squad as rubbish one day to supporting the idea that one of our subs is worth spending £3m on.

You haven't read my posts. I did not support the idea that we should spend £3million on him. If you read carefully, I personally think £500K is the most we should risk on Ola John. The figure of £3million is Charlie Watts making an educated guess based on length of his contract remaining and how much he perceives Benfica would want for him considering they shelled out just under £7million for the guy from FC Twente. Charlie thinks the move would be unwise. I probably agree with that, if £3million is the amount that Benfica would want.

If we could get him for £500K, I would support that idea. But as it looks likely that he would cost more than that, I agree with Charlie, it's not a wise move. He hasn't done enough and God knows how much wages he would demand.

It wasn't that long ago that questions were being asked, who out of our loan players we would want to keep and everyone is asking for Ola John. We were talking about being ready to pay about £3million for his services. But after 4 straight defeats where Ola has recently been played in a more central or free role opinion has changed. Clearly we are all p*ssed off with this group of players. Me especially included which is why I've been perhaps unfairly proclaiming that they are ALL sh*te.

[Gunny Fishcake]

Obscene amount of money , he's not worth £300,000 too inconstant

[Hoop Blah]

You haven't read my posts. I did not support the idea that we should spend £3million on him.

Nah, you're probably right I didn't read them in depth I just skimmed them and saw this bit, and probably gave up on the rest a bit.

I actually don't have a clue whether this would be a good move by us or not. What do you all think?

I think anyone who's watched Reading this season should know exactly the answer, and it's a resounding no.

[Forbury Lion]

If our entire transfer budget is £3m then the answer is no, If our entire transfer budget was £20m then yes.

[bracksroyal10]

Regardless of what happens with Ola John, if we want to be competitive in the Championship next year, this is the type of money we are going to have to spend in order to be competitive.

Yes we will get the odd freebie and 200k player that will be value for money, but the club have to start accepting that the fees are constantly rising in this league to bring in a player capable of performing at the high end of this league. If the club want goals at this level, then they need to be prepared to break their transfer record.

You saw the £8 million bids coming in for Gayle and the £2.5 million loan fee shelled out for Vydra (granted it has backfired), if we can't compete with this then the fans need to prepare for mid table mediocrity or another carbon copy of the last two years. That is what separates us between the likes of Boro, Burnley and Hull.

[Maneki Neko]

If our entire transfer budget is £3m then the answer is no, If our entire transfer budget was £20m then yes.

and it'll probably only be 3million if we sell cooper

[Dr_Hfuhruhurr]

Well he has two big flaws doesn't he?

a) He cant last 90 minutes
b) He can only play one position.

As we'd be responsible for correcting those flaws, 3 million is approximately 3 times too much.

[Top Flight]

What is fair value for Ola John? or should we not sign him at any price?

[Maneki Neko]

Fair value
1 million.
I think we could spend that better elsewhere

[handbags_harris]

I would hope our budget for next season is £3m, we still have our final season parachute payment of £10m and shifted a few of the high earners this season, I'm not saying go crazy but surely there's a bit more flexibility than £3m?

What do we have to compare against? At the end of last season our wages/turnover ratio was 96% which included:-

* Six months of Royston Drenthe's wages
* A season of Pavel Pogrebnyak's wages
* A season of Jem Karacan, Adam Federici, Alex Pearce and Stephen Kelly

On the back of that we also let go of Hope Akpan on a free, and it is possible that the transfer of Danny Caricco for approximately £1.5m would be included (not sure) so we had very little transfer income at the end of 14/15.

However, we still managed to sign players on significant deals, although the business done in summer 2015 smacks very much of short-term gambling so it's basically not clear whether we're spending at a similar level to last season or whether the costs have come down. My hunch is we'll probably be around 75-80% wages/turnover ratio which is still a tad unhealthy but with all of the loan players going,the likes of HRK and Cox unlikely to sign new deals and also with players such as Norwood and Gunter in the spotlight at the Euros and the potential windfall that might head our way should they impress, I'd suggest we are likely to have some flexibility in the budget.

To be honest, not impressed with Charlie-boy's article as it bandies around baseless figures. the premise is fine (I wouldn't sign Ola John either)but it's unhelpful insofar as it gives supporters an arbitrary figure to base their expectations on. long and short of it is very few people know the true value of Ola John, and only the same people will know how much money we'll have to send on rebuilding the squad for next season.

[SCIAG]

Regardless of what happens with Ola John, if we want to be competitive in the Championship next year, this is the type of money we are going to have to spend in order to be competitive.

Yes we will get the odd freebie and 200k player that will be value for money, but the club have to start accepting that the fees are constantly rising in this league to bring in a player capable of performing at the high end of this league. If the club want goals at this level, then they need to be prepared to break their transfer record.

You saw the £8 million bids coming in for Gayle and the £2.5 million loan fee shelled out for Vydra (granted it has backfired), if we can't compete with this then the fans need to prepare for mid table mediocrity or another carbon copy of the last two years. That is what separates us between the likes of Boro, Burnley and Hull.

Boro I'll grant you.

Hull haven't spent much since relegation have they? £6m in, £20m out, that sort of figure?

Same with Burnley. I remember someone at the club coming out and saying they could only afford an £8m striker because they'd made huge sums on Rodriguez, Austin, and Ings over the years.

Fulham have tried to spend their way out of the league and got nowhere. Leicester threw money at the problem for years and got nowhere until they started scouting properly (and signings like Morgan, Vardy and Mahrez were hardly big-money).

[West Stand Man]

Dead simple really. No.

This has been a poor season and only the team can be ultimately held responsible for that. OJ is one of the squad that has underperformed and he, along with the other loanees, has done nothing to suggest that he is worth keeping. We need a good clear out and rebuild, so lets see just that.

On OJ specifically, I have never quite understood the love that is spread for him. He has been an OK impact sub on a couple of occasions. Otherwise he has been a headless chicken who has added next to nothing of any value.

[taipairoyal]

Its a no from me. Starting to resemble Royston Drenthe, rather than Jimmy Kebe.

Don't you think he has been misused a bit in the last couple of games? He is most effective when he is played wide on the left. Brian has played him in a 4-3-3 as one of the forwards or sitting in the pocket behind the front 2. He scored a cracker at Bolton from that position but apart from that, I don't think he is such a threat from that area of the pitch.

If he is played wide left, he can take on the full back, get crosses in or go past everyone and score.

Brian playing him out of position is the reason he has started to look like Royston in the last couple of games isn't it?

Point taken. I suppose watching him at half time during the season with the other subs on the pitch left me with a poor opinion. Looked like he was always trying a bit half arsed.

I have a horrible feeling that before Kebe came good, I used the same about him. If it was £300K and sensible wages, I'd ask to have a think.

However BMcD's comments about all the loanees having to return home first, sounded like he wasn't interested in keeping any of them.

Good on Brian, lets have a good clear out and get some more home grown talent in, Ola John send him packing.

[taipairoyal]

Dead simple really. No.

This has been a poor season and only the team can be ultimately held responsible for that. OJ is one of the squad that has underperformed and he, along with the other loanees, has done nothing to suggest that he is worth keeping. We need a good clear out and rebuild, so lets see just that.

On OJ specifically, I have never quite understood the love that is spread for him. He has been an OK impact sub on a couple of occasions. Otherwise he has been a headless chicken who has added next to nothing of any value.

Good Post.